{"id":192440,"date":"2019-08-01T06:21:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T06:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192440"},"modified":"2019-08-05T07:27:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T07:27:27","slug":"greece-suicide-or-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192440","title":{"rendered":"Greece \u2013 Suicide or Murder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Koenig \u2013 Information Clearing House July 30, 2019<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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An elderly woman begs outside the Bank of Greece headquarters in Athens. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Pundits from the left, from the right and from the center cannot stop reporting about Greece\u2019s misery. And rightly so. Because Greece, the vast majority of her people live in deep economic hardship. No hope. Unemployment is officially at 18%, with the real figure closer to 25% or 30%; pensions have been reduced about ten times since Syriza \u2013 the Socialist Party \u2013 took power in 2015 and loaded the country with debt and austerity. In the domain of public services, everything that has any value has been privatized and sold to foreign corporations, oligarchs, or, naturally \u2013 banks. Hospitals, schools, public transportation \u2013 even some beaches \u2013 have been privatized and made unaffordable for the common people.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

While the pundits \u2013 always more or less the same \u2013 keep lamenting about the Greek conditions in one form or another, none of them dares offer the only solution that could have rescued Greece (and still could) \u2013 exiting the euro zone; return to their local currency and start rebuilding Greece with a local economy, built on local currency with local public banking and with a sovereign Greek central bank deciding the monetary policy that best suits Greece, and especially Greece\u2019s recovery program. \u2013 Why not? Why do they not talk about this obvious solution? Would they be censured in Greece, because the Greek oligarchy controls the media \u2013 as oligarchs do around the (western part of the) globe?<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, foreign imposed (troika: IMF, European Central Bank \u2013 ECB \u2013 and European Commission \u2013 EC; the latter mainly pushed by German and French banks \u2013 and the Rothschild clan) austerity programs have literally put a halt on imports of affordable medication, like for cancer treatments and other potentially lethal illnesses. So, common people get no longer treatment. They die like flies; a horrible expression to be used for human beings. But that\u2019s what it comes down to for people who simply do not get the treatment they humanely deserve and would have gotten under the rights of the Greek Constitution, but do simply not get treated because they can no longer afford medication and services from privatized health services. That is the sad but true story.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a consequence, the suicide rate is up, due to foreign imposed (but Greek government accepted) debt and austerity, annihilating hope for terminally ill patients, as well as for pensioners whose pensions do no longer allow them to live a decent life \u2013 and especially there is no light at the end of the tunnel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, these same pundits add a little air of optimism to their reporting, as the rightwing New Democracy Party (ND Party) won with what they call a \u2018landslide\u2019 victory on the 7 July 2019 elections; gathering 39.6% of the votes, against only 31.53 for Syriza, the so-called socialist party, led by outgoing<\/em> Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras,<\/strong> who represents a tragedy that has allowed Greece to be plunged into this hopeless desolation. The ND won an absolute majority with 158 seats in the 300-member Greek parliament. Therefore, no coalition needed, no concessions required.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The new Prime Minister, <\/em>Kyriakos Mitsotakis<\/strong> (51), son of a former PM of the same party, in his victory speech on the evening of 7 July,\u00a0vowed that Gree<\/em>ce will \u201cproudly\u201d enter a post-bailout era of \u201cjobs, security and growth\u201d. He added that \u201ca painful cycle has closed\u201d and that Greece would \u201cproudly raise its head again\u201d on his watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what this means for the average Greek citizen living a life of despair. What the \u201cleft\u201d was unable to do \u2013 stopping the foreign imposed (but Greek accepted) bleeding of Greece; the strangulation of their country \u2013 will the right be able to reverse that trend? Does the right want\u00a0<\/em>to reverse that trend? \u2013 Does the ND want to reverse privatization, buy back airports from Germany, water supply from the EU managed \u201cSuperfund\u201d, and repurchase the roads from foreign concessionaires, or nationalize hospitals that were sold for a pittance and \u2013 especially \u2013 get out from austerity to allow importing crucial medication to salvage the sick and dying Greek, those who currently cannot afford treatment of their cancers and other potentially deadly diseases?<\/span><\/p>\n

That would indeed be a step towards PM Mitsotakis\u2019 promise to end the \u201cpainful cycle\u201d of austerity, with import of crucial medication made affordable to those in dire need, with job creation and job security \u2013 and much more \u2013 with eventually a renewed Greek pride \u2013 and Greek sovereignty. The latter would mean \u2013 finally \u2013 it\u2019s never too late \u2013 exit the euro zone. But, that\u2019s an illusion \u2013 a pipe-dream. Albeit \u2013 it could become a vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the ND is the party of the oligarchs, the Greek oligarchs that is, those Greek who have placed literally billons of euros outside their country in (still) secret bank accounts in Switzerland, France, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg and elsewhere, including the Cayman islands and other Caribbean tax havens \u2013 hidden not only from the Greek fiscal authorities, but also impeding that these funds could, crucially, be used for investments at home, for job creation, for creation of added value in Greece \u2013 if the ND is the party of the oligarchs, they are unlikely to make the dream of the vast majority of Greek people come true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Worse even, these Greek oligarch-billionaires call the shots in Greece \u2013 not the people, not those who according to Greek tradition and according to the Greek invention, called \u201cdemocracy\u201d (Delphi, some 2500 years ago) have democratically elected Syriza and have democratically voted against the austerity packages in July 2015. Now, that they are officially in power, they are unlikely to change their greed-driven behavior and act in favor of the Greek people. \u2013 Or will they?<\/span><\/p>\n

Because, if they do, it may eventually also benefit them, the ND Party and its adherents \u2013 a Greece that functions like a country, with happy, healthy and content people, is a Greece that retains the worldwide esteem and respect she deserves \u2013 and will by association develop an economy that can and will compete and trade around the world, a Greece that is an equal to others, as a sovereign nation. \u2013 A dream can become a reality \u2013 it just takes visionaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to today\u2019s reality. The Greek Bailout Referendum of July 5, 2015, was overwhelmingly rejected with 61% \u2018no\u2019 against 39% \u2018yes\u2019, meaning that almost two thirds of the Greek people would have preferred the consequences of rejecting the bailout, euphemistically called \u201crescue packages\u201d, namely exiting the euro zone, and possible, but not necessarily, the European Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the overwhelming, democratic rejection by the people, the Tsipras government reached an agreement on 13 July 2015 \u2013 only 8 days after the vote against the bailout \u2013 with the European authorities for a three-year bailout with even harsher austerity conditions\u00a0than the ones rejected by voters. What went on is anybody\u2019s guess. It looks pretty obvious, though, that \u201cfoul play\u201d was the name of the game \u2013 which could mean anything from outright and serious (life) threats to blackmail, if Tsipras would not play the game \u2013 and this to the detriment of the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Tsipras\u2019 betrayal of the people resulted in three bailout packages since 2010 and up to end 2018, in the amount of about \u20ac310 billion (US$ 360 billion). Compare this to Hong Kong\u2019s economy of US$ 340 billion in 2017. In that same period the Greek GDP has declined from about US$ 300 billion (\u20ac 270 billion) in 2010 to US$ 218 billion (\u20ac 196 billion), a reduction of 27%, hitting the middle- and lower-class people by far the hardest. This is called a rescue.<\/span><\/p>\n

The democracy fiasco of July 2015 prompted Tsipras to call for snap elections in September 2015, h\u00e9las \u2013 he won, with a narrow margin and one of the lowest election turnouts ever in Greek postwar history; but, yes, he \u2018won\u2019. How much of it was manipulated \u2013 by now Cambridge Analytica has become a household word \u2013 so he could finish the job for the troika and the German and French banks, is pure speculation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the ND has an absolute majority in Parliament, plus the ND could ally with a number of smaller and conservative parties to pursue a \u201cpeople\u2019s dream\u201d line policy. But they may do the opposite. Question: How much more juice is there to be sucked out of broken Greece? Of a Greece that cannot care for her people, for her desperate poor and sick, cannot provide her children with a decent education, of a Greece that belongs into the category of bankruptcy? \u2013 Yes, bankruptcy, still today, after the IMF and the gnomes of the EU and the ECB predict a moderate growth rate of some 2%? \u2013 But 2% that go to whom? \u2013 Not to the people, to be sure, but to the creditors of the \u20ac310 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already in 2011, the British Lancet stated \u201cthe Greek Ministry of Health reported that the annual suicide rate has increased by 40%\u201d, presumably since the (imposed) crisis that started in 2008. From this date forward the suicide rate must have skyrocketed, as the overall living conditions worsened exponentially. However, precise figures can no longer be easily found.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question remains: Is the Greek population dying increasingly from diseases that could be cured, but aren\u2019t due to austerity- and privatization-related lack of medication and health services \u2013 and of suicide from desperation? \u2013 Is Greece committing suicide by continuing accepting austerity and privatization of vital services, instead of liberating herself from the handcuffs of the euro and very likely the stranglehold of the EU? \u2013 Or is Greece the victim of sheer murder inflicted by a greed-driven construct of money institutions and oligarchs, who are beyond morals, beyond ethics and beyond any values of humanity? You be the judge.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion \u2013 An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed \u2013 fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

First published by the New Eastern Outlook<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greece on its knees with unemployment near 30% and everything from schools to hospitals and even beaches being privatised and made unaffordable to common Greeks <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Economics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192440"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192588,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192440\/revisions\/192588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}