Translated "Avante!" article by Jorge Cadima, member of the International Department
The capitalism world centres’ crisis worsens fastly. The disaster which is expected, and the imperialism incapacity to avoid it, incites all the contradictions and rivalries, in a passing the buck, of unpredictable consequences.
The Euro zone is at the edge of collapse, the great Anglo-Saxon finance lurking. The Greek economy sinks, upon a year of the Troika pillage and Greece detains, currently , the lowest level among the rating agencies amid any country throughout the world (Bloomberg, in19-06.11). The British banks avoid the Euro zone ( Telegraph, 18-06-11). The Greek people’s notable contest , grows in the streets. At the beginning of June, the German Minister of Finance addressed the Troika “ adverting for a possible bankruptcy in Greece and admitting that the current bailout plan had failed.
As an alternative, he called for a real restructuring” (in Der Spiegel,8-06-11). Schauble’s proposal would involve a small sacrifice for the private banking: the “investors” would be “asked to exchange all the Greek debt’s titles in their possession for others which terms would be lenghtened for seven years“. The investors would receive their money later on, but in total“. In return, privatizations would be intensified, as for example, the Greek energetic company DEI “ which had 950 million Euro profits in 2010“ (in Der Spiegel, 7-06-11). The Irish Minister of Finance profited to “ renew a request, so that the main shareholders [ of the Irish debt] should accept losses, in order to diminish the Irish banks bailout costs” (in Financial Times, 16-06-11) , in which the government has already injected 34.7 thousand million Euro (in Bloomberg 16-06-11). These proposals have unleashed a wild tempest.
Jean-Claude Junker, the Euro-zone leader has stated that “to impose prejudice unto investors, could give place to an European version of the Lehman Brothers banking collapse […]. The German proposal is dangerous” (in The Guardian, 17-06-11).
And showing who really is in command, he added: “ if one does any move which might be rejected by the ECB, the rating agencies and therefore by the financial markets, we risk to set fire to the Euro zone” (in Bloomberg, 19-06-11) Lagarde, the French Minister of Finance agreed. Zapatero” expects the investors to make their volunteer contribution” (in Bloomberg, 19-06-11). Vitor Constâncio, the current ECB vice.president, while the Bank of Portugal’s Governor, earned 250 thousand Euro per year, more than the double of his USA peer (ionline,21-05-11) , repeated: “ we are against any type of non-fulfilment with a “haircut” (in Der Spiegel,16-06-11), which means, in ordinary language, that not a unique Euro can be demanded to bankers. For Constâncio, the acceptable haircuts are the workers’, to whom he always wanted to cut on their salaries. The new North-American IMF leader (Lipsky) threatened to cut on financing (in The Guardian, 17-06-11). Sarkozy went further, threatening “ that without the Euro there is no Europe and without Europe peace and security are not possible” (in BBC, 17-06-11).
Germany drew back. One lacks seeing how much will the rope between the capitalist Europe colossal and its direct competitors, within the Euro zone, is able to stretch. The Anglo- Saxon press repeats appeals in order to Germany leave from the Euro zone (in The Telegraph, 18-06-11). But the USA is a huger clock-bomb than the Euro zone.
The Der Spiegel (8-06-11) draws the veil on such resistance: “ if the private
sector is to be obliged to defray part of the bailouts, that must occur soon […]. Sooner
or later, the private investors will be totally deprived from their high risk investments
in Greece“. This is the Troika’s real purpose /objective on the “bail-out plans”.
Bailout for the banks, peoples and countries sinking. This is to where the money of our salaries and pensions goes. The great financial capital is safeguarding itself, before the inevitable collapse it generated. Currently, to struggle is the only alternative unto disaster, to which the “triumphant” capitalism drove us. Financial capitalism or the peoples. There are less and less compromise alternatives.
