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Finance as Warfare: the IMF Lent to Greece Knowing It Could Never Pay Back Debt

Peries, Sharmini; Hudson, Michael
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/21/finance-as-warfare-the-imf-lent-to-greece-knowing-it-could-never-pay-back-debt/

Publisher:  Counterpunch
Date Written:  21/02/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

An interview with economist Michael Hudson, who argues that the International Monetary Fund provided loans to Greece with the deliberate intention that the country be forced to go into default and be forced to sell public assets and land.

Abstract: 

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Excerpts:

So, the question is, why does this junk economics continue, decade after decade? The reason is that the loans are made to Greece precisely because Greece couldn't pay. When a country can't pay, the rules at the IMF and EU and the German bankers behind it say, don't worry, we will simply insist that you sell off your public domain. Sell off your land, your transportation, your ports, your electric utilities. This is by now a program that has gone on and on, decade after decade.

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Because when Greece fails, that's a success for the foreign investors that want to buy the Greek railroads. They want to take over the ports. They want to take over the land. They want the tourist sites. But most of all, they want to set an example of Greece, to show that France, the Netherlands or other countries that may think of withdrawing from the euro - withdraw and decide they would rather grow than be impoverished - that the IMF and EU will do to them just what they're doing to Greece.

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