The Greece Bailout’s Legacy of Immiseration
The cynicism and brutality of what happened there is for the whole world to see.
2010 to 2018 will go down in Greek history as an epic period of colonization; of asset stripping and privatization; of unfunded health and education; of bankruptcies, foreclosures, homelessness, and impoverishment; of unemployment, emigration, and suicide. These were the years of the three memoranda, or “financial-assistance programs” accompanied by “structural reforms,” enacted supposedly to promote Greek “recovery” from the slump and credit crunch of 2010. They were, in fact, a fraud perpetrated on Greece and Europe, a jumble of bad policies based on crude morality tales that catered to right-wing politics to cover up unpayable debts.
This was a bailout? The word reeks of indulgence and implied disapproval. As it was
