This is how a high ranking Greek state official describes his own country.And also one more proof that most central bankers in Europe form a real unelected corpus of power, obeying to ECB and its (Goldman Sachs!) director.
Dear Friends of the Forum,
I have not posted here for a while because it is mostly pointless. By now, I am sure that we all understand that this is not really just a financial crisis but a great existential challenge to the Greek state and its citizens. In a typical crisis, a recession in the economy is usually followed by a recovery. This is not the case for Greece, nor is it ever likely to be. Greece has been weakened to a point that a recovery would not be possible for decades.
Of course, we have discussed before how the latest agreements with the Eurozone have turned Greece into a mandated territory of the EU with very limited rights. It is also, by all means, a failed state, a state in which the Rule of Law no longer applies. This is not a rhetorical device, it is absolutely true as the facts indicate.
That Greece is no longer a functioning state has been clearly illustrated by the recent interview of Stournaras, the governor of the Bank of Greece in Skai TV (a TV network in Greece). In case you have not read (or heard) the interview, here is a summary of it:
In sort, in that interview, Stournaras claimed that in consultations with the President of the Republic, he had built defenses (?) to prohibit the issuing of a parallel currency in Greece. If you recollect, the then Finance Minister, Varoufakis, had floated the idea of issuing IOUs (just like those in California a decade ago) as a way of introducing a parallel currency and escaping the liquidity crisis that had enveloped the country in late June 2015. As we know now, the PM, Alexis Tsipras, did not seriously consider this option but Stournaras was there to prohibit it, had it been approved by the government!!!
This is amazing in so many ways!! Here is the governor of the central bank, an appointee of the government, who professes clearly that he was (and is) ready to defy the government if its policies are contrary to the maintenance of the Euro!!! He is conspiring on this with the President of the Republic!!! The Rule of Law been damned!! It is obvious from the above that Stournaras did not believe that the then government (or even the present one) has any authority over him. He is absolutely right. The Euromasters are the real government, not the coterie of idiots that does their bidding. Despite his statements that he had conspired with the President of the Republic (who has zero legislative authority) to defy the government, he remains still the governor of the Bank of Greece. In fact, the government is groveling at his feet. The President of the Republic has not been indicted. Is anybody really surprised? Do these things happen in sovereign states that function even minimally?
Just to illustrate that the Rule of Law no longer applies in Greece, the fate of the decisions of the Council of State (Symvoulion Epikratias) is quite illustrative. The Council of State is the supreme constitutional authority in Greece, according to the Constitution. But now, both the Constitution and the Council of State are just jokes in crisis Greece. The government immediately throws into the trash heap any decision of the Court it does not like. For example, when the government of Antonis Samaras disbanded ERT and dismissed all its personnel, the Court issued a restraining order and asked the government to retain the employees until a new broadcasting authority was constituted (ERT had been created by an act of Parliament and the government could really disband it by executive action…but these are mere details). The government simply tore up the Court decision, and police forcibly evicted the employees from the ERT building. Recently, the Court issued a decision that it is not constitutional to affect general reductions in pensions of actual pensioners (this is a basic principle in every decent country of the world). The various governments, including the present one, simply trashed the Court decision. Greek pensions have been slashed 11 times!!! More is coming!!!
So much for the Rule of Law in Greece. But what can a colony, ruled by ruthless bankers in Frankfurt and idiots in Brussels, really expect? On top of all this, it has a witless collaborationist government that is a joke in so many ways!!!
The current state of affairs is so bad that I do not think that it is recoverable without a major societal upheaval. It is not an exaggeration to say that local administration in Greece during the Ottoman Empire enjoyed greater freedom than the current one, which is humiliated daily by its European masters.
And all of that is treated by the population by absolute inertia and total resignation.
Best regards,
Anastassios Retzios, PhD
San Ramon, California
