Portside

Detroit's bankruptcy wasn't inevitable. Neither is Chicago's. But the austerity hawks don't want you to know that...When cities and states borrow money by issuing bonds, the lenders are typically high-wealth individuals, who purchase the bonds to get a tax break. It is a perverse system through which, rather than paying their fair share in taxes, the wealthy are instead able to lend that money to us, charge us interest for it, and then claim a further tax break on it.

The Hellenic Parliament established the Truth Committee on Public Debt mandating the investigation into the creation and growth of public debt, and the impact the conditionalities attached to the loans have had on the economy and the population. All the evidence we present shows Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt because the debt is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece

26 top world economists say austerity is not working, won't and can't. The future of the EU is at stake in the negotiations between Greece and its creditor institutions, now close to a climax. To avoid failure, concessions will be needed from both sides. From the EU, forbearance and finance to promote structural reform and economic recovery, and to preserve the integrity of the Eurozone.

What is at stake in Greece goes very far beyond merely financial questions. It goes beyond the question of the fate of a small and historically very badly governed country with weak institutions that has suffered abominably in the wake of the crisis over the last five years...It goes even beyond that very grave situation...It goes beyond that to the future of Europe and beyond that, to the meaning of the word democracy in our time.

In Ireland, with a population of 5 million, upwards of one hundred thousand took to the streets to protest the new charges for water. The Irish government's austerity measure has sparked widespread public anger, with Saturday's street protest the fourth since October.

So Greece will be receiving the tranche it had initially refused, but on the condition of sticking to the commitments of its predecessors. What we have then is a reaffirmation of the typical German stance of imposing — as a precondition for any agreement and any future disbursement of funding — completion of the “assessment” procedure by the tripartite mechanism (whether this is called “troika” or “institutions”) for supervision of every past and future agreement.

Syriza will not easily sweep the policies of austerity aside, but there is a palpable feeling on the continent that a tide is turning. The victory of Greece's left-wing Syriza Party was, on one hand, a beacon for indebted countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. It is also a gauntlet for Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and the "troika" - the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund.

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The European bankers who imposed austerity on Greece chose to believe in the confidence fairy — that is, that the job-destroying effects of spending cuts would be more than made up for by a surge in private-sector optimism. While pretending to be hardheaded and realistic, they were peddling an economic fantasy. And the Greek people have been paying the price for those elite delusions.