Tag Archives: debt crisis

The debt crisis spreading around the world

Posted on July 17, 2022 | 2 comments

A recent news post blames pandemic spending, a rising dollar and poor leadership for the debt crises in Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Ghana, El Salvador, Zambia, and Pakistan, but while those may be the proximate causes of the crises, there is a more fundamental underlying cause.

The real cause of debt crises in those countries, as well as worsening crises even in “developed” countries, is the flawed, dysfunctional, and destructive global interest-based, debt-money system, which is designed to extract wealth and accumulate it into the hands of a small global power elite. The system has been doing that for a very long time but now the adverse effects are becoming acute and spilling over beyond the financial and economic realms and into the political and social realms as well.

Total Global Debt as percentage of GDP

These problems will not be solved by ever greater amounts of poisonous debt. Any real cure must include massive amounts of debt forgiveness and the deployment of new systems of money, credit and exchange that are decentralized and interest-free. Such systems are described in my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

2 Comments

Posted in Debt, Finance and Economics, Geo-politics, Global Economy

Tagged , , ,

Upcoming webinar: Transcending the present political money system–the urgent need and the way to do it.

Posted on November 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Jefferson_EndOfDemocracy2
This Wednesday, Nov 24, 2021, I will be presenting one of the most important webinars I’ve ever done. It is being organized by Prof. Lubo Jankovic of the Centre for Future Societies Research at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK.

Here is the description and link.
Transcending the present political money system-the urgent need and the way to do it, by Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

Date and Time: Nov 24, 2021
at 4:00 PM London [11:00 AM New York, 09:00 AM Arizona, 08:00 AM Pacific time]
Join Zoom Meeting
https://herts-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/96844432493?pwd=VXZZN0dSblVxUDJMZXdlNU4zcDR2Zz09

Meeting ID: 968 4443 2493
Passcode: 099266

Abstract
This presentation describes the fundamental role of the global system of money, banking and finance in generating social injustice, economic inequity, environmental despoliation and violent conflict.  It outlines the collusive arrangement that exists between finance and politics that has created the global central banking regime to centralize power and concentrate wealth in ever fewer hands and explains how the creation of money by banks as interest-bearing debt causes a growth imperative that is destructive to the environment, democratic government, and the social fabric. But more importantly, it describes the positive developments that are emerging to create a new “butterfly economy” and a civilization in which everyone can live a dignified life.

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is a preeminent scholar, author, educator, and community economist. He is widely regarded as a leading authority on moneyless exchange systems, community currencies, and financial innovation, and is a sought after speaker internationally. He has conducted workshops and lectured in 15 countries on five continents and has been an advisor to currency and reciprocal exchange projects around the world. He has authored numerous articles and books including, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (https://beyondmoney.net/the-end-of-money-and-the-future-of-civilization/).

Leave a comment

Posted in Basic Concepts, Debt, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Geo-politics, My activities

Tagged , , , , ,

An important new book

Posted on April 5, 2019 | Leave a comment

Rebuilding after Collapse: Political Structures for Creative Response to the Ecological Crisis

Edited by John Culp

As society grapples with the reality of climate change, many believe that technology will somehow save the planet. As this book argues, that is not enough: larger-scale collaboration, coordination, and funding is needed. Individuals and groups, even with significant personal resources, will not be able to reverse the present course of ecological disaster. What our endangered planet needs is broadly supported community action, which is what happens when people come together and organize for the common good. What we need, in short, is political structures and actions. The essays in this book examine the political structures that have led to our present crisis and offer concrete lessons from the U.S., Japan, Brazil, and Greece, that can, if heeded, bring us back from the brink and toward an ecological civilization.

This book of essays emerged out of some of the presentations that were given at a major conference, Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization. that was organized by Center for Process Studies and held at Pomona College (CA) in June 2015 and attended by more than 1500 people. It includes two of my own essays, Greece and the Global Debt Crisis, and How Private Currencies and Credit Clearing Exchanges Can Help Save Civilization, as well as essays by John Cobb, Ellen Brown, Gayle McLaughlin and several others.

The full list of contents and order form can be found here. The book can also be ordered on Amazon.com

Leave a comment

Posted in Developing Alternatives, Economics, Emerging paradigm, Environment, Exchange Design, Geo-politics, Implementation Strategies, Politics

Tagged , , , , , ,

Our new feudal world order

Posted on September 21, 2017 | 3 comments

Charles Hugh Smith’s article, Loving Our Debt-Serfdom: Our Neofeudal Status Quo, exposes the stark reality and brilliantly explains our current predicament.

Smith begins by defining the terms, Neoliberal, Neocolonial, and Neofeudal, then goes on to explain how they operate in today’s world. He says,
“Neofeudalism is a subtle control structure that is invisible to those who buy into the Mainstream Media portrayal of our society and economy. This portrayal includes an apparent contradiction: America is a meritocracy–the best and brightest rise to the top, if they have pluck and work hard– and America is all about identity politics: whomever doesn’t make it is a victim of bias.
Both narratives neatly ignore the neofeudal structure which disempowers the workforce in the public sphere and limits the opportunities to build capital outside the control of the state-corporate duopoly.”

He goes on to describe the control mechanisms that characterized historical feudalism and outlines their present neofeudal manifestation, saying, “Our system is Neofeudal because the non-elites have no real voice in the public sphere, and ownership of productive capital is indirectly suppressed by the state-corporate duopoly,” and backs it up with numbers that show the growing income and wealth inequality and crushing debt burden of the lower classes.

Read the complete article here. Highly recommended!

# # #

3 Comments

Posted in Geo-politics, Global Economy

Tagged , ,

WHERE DID THE GREEK BAILOUT MONEY GO?

Posted on May 9, 2016 | 2 comments

An academic study from the European School of Management and Technology highlights the utter futility of the bailout programs in pulling Greece out of the quagmire of debt bondage and economic depression.The report concludes:

“This paper provides a descriptive analysis of where the Greek bailout money went since 2010 and finds that, contrary to widely held beliefs, less than €10 billion or a fraction of less than 5% of the overall programme went to the Greek fiscal budget. In contrast, the vast majority of the money went to existing creditors in the form of debt  repayments and interest payments. The resulting risk transfer from the private to  the public sector  and the subsequent risk transfer within the public sector from international organizations such  as the ECB and the IMF to European  rescue mechanisms such as the  ESM still constitute the most important challenge for the goal to achieve a sustainable fiscal situation in Greece.”

See Rocholl *, J., and A. Stahmer(2016). Where did the Greek bailout money go? ESMT White Paper No. WP–16–02. http://static.esmt.org/publications/whitepapers/WP-16-02.pdf

2 Comments

Posted in Debt, Finance and Economics, Geo-politics, The Debt Imperative

Tagged , , ,

50 ways to leave the Euro: Greece and the global crisis

Posted on November 8, 2015 | 3 comments

My two month visit to Greece last summer prompted me to develop some proposals that might be applied in Greece and other countries where the government has become insolvent. I’ve written these up in an article that was recently published in the online journal, Common Dreams.  You can read it there or here below. It was also republished on Resilience and can be found there.

50 ways to leave the Euro: Greece and the global crisis
By Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

The problem is all inside your head, I told the Greeks
The answer is easy, you need only stop the leaks
The power is yours to claim the freedom that you seek
There must be fifty ways to leave the Euro
(Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Following the resounding “NO” vote by the Greek people on the bailout conditions in the July referendum, the negotiations between the Greek government and “the institutions” resumed with the expectation that a better deal for Greece would ensue. The outcome was quite the contrary. Greek negotiators ended up agreeing to a bailout deal that was far more onerous than the one the voters had rejected. Why?

The harsh reality is that the Greek government is insolvent. Having been lured into the debt-trap and the shared euro currency by western oligarchs using a combination of measures, including outright fraud, Greece was forced to accept the onerous conditions attached to the first two bailouts. Now it has been bludgeoned into accepting a third. The weapon of choice is the euro currency itself which is being wielded by the European Central Bank (ECB). By throttling the flow of euro currency into the country, the ECB last summer created near chaos in the Greek economy. This, and the threat of even more severe punishment in the future, was enough to bring the Greek government to heel.

With sovereign debt up around 180% of GDP, there is no way that the Greek government will ever be able to grow its way out of the current mess. The draconian measures demanded by the creditor institutions will just make it worse. Even the IMF has acknowledged (with apparent reluctance) that some debt relief is necessary for the Greek economy to recover. The new agreement forces the Greek government to yield even more sovereignty and to open its economy and its people more fully to exploitation by corporate interests and transnational banking institutions. Read the entire article…

3 Comments

Posted in Debt, Developing Alternatives, Finance and Economics, Prescriptions

Tagged , , ,

Greek government surrenders; now it’s up to the people to save themselves.

Posted on July 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

After almost six months of “negotiations,” the Greek government has surrendered to the demands of the powers-that-be. In an interview that was conducted shortly after his resignation but prior to the deal just concluded between the Greek government and the European “institutions,” former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, indicated that the outcome was determined from the very beginning. Pointing to a “complete lack of any democratic scruples, on behalf of the supposed defenders of Europe’s democracy,” he said, “At some point it was put to me very unequivocally: ‘This is a horse and either you get on it or it is dead.’”

Regarding contingency plans, Varoufakis commented that “if they dared shut our banks down,” strong action would need to be taken “..but without crossing the point of no return.” He said, “We should issue our own IOUs, or even at least announce that we’re going to issue our own euro-denominated liquidity; we should haircut the Greek 2012 bonds that the ECB held, or announce we were going to do it; and we should take control of the Bank of Greece. This was the triptych, the three things, which I thought we should respond with if the ECB shut down our banks.” But his recommendations were voted down by his colleagues.

Some further excerpts:

“Nothing shocks me these days – our Eurozone is a very inhospitable place for decent people. It wouldn’t shock me either [for Prime Minister Tsipras] to stay on and accept a very bad deal. Because I can understand he feels he has an obligation to the people that support him, support us, not to let this country become a failed state.

But I’m not going to betray my own view, that I honed back in 2010, that this country must stop extending and pretending, we must stop taking on new loans pretending that we’ve solved the problem, when we haven’t; when we have made our debt even less sustainable on condition of further austerity that even further shrinks the economy; and shifts the burden further onto the have-nots, creating a humanitarian crisis. It’s something I’m not going to accept. I’m not going to be party to.”

You can read the full interview here.

Leave a comment

Posted in Geo-politics, Global Economy, The state of democracy

Tagged , ,

The Truth Behind the Greek Crisis

Posted on July 5, 2015 | 4 comments

Sunday, July 05, 2015. Somewhere in Greece.

As we await the outcome of the referendum vote, the atmosphere here is one of calm expectancy. In my view, the Greek crisis is shaping up to be a major battle with the forces of banking and corporate power that are intent on imposing a neo-feudal New World Order, arrayed against those who are hoping to preserve some hope of social justice, economic equity, self-determination, and democratic government. It is a Goliath vs. David situation.

With mostly propaganda coming from the mainstream media, people’s beliefs are shaped to conform to the picture that serves the Goliath agenda. Be not deceived. This article referred to below is very important and offers a deeper insight into the Greek situation.-t.h.g.

Behind the Greek Crisis

July 2, 2015

Exclusive: The usual narrative of the Greek economic tragedy is that the country is paying for its past profligacy, but there is deeper back story of political repression fueled by major powers intervening in Greece and contributing to a dysfunctional political system, recalls ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk.

By William R. Polk

Read it here: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/02/behind-the-greek-crisis/

And, here is another pertinent article, this enough to make one cry: How Europe Played Greece: “We would rather Deal with Corrupt but Obedient Leaders, than Honest ones with Ideas of Sovereignty”  By Alex Andreou, Global Research, July 04, 2015

4 Comments

Posted in Geo-politics, The Political Money System

Tagged , ,

How did Iceland recover? Report from Davos

Posted on January 30, 2013 | 8 comments

In this three-minute interview, Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimson explains that their recovery from the economic crisis was based on actions that went against the orthodox prescriptions–Let the banks fail, introduce currency controls, provide support for the poor, don’t push austerity measures. Why are banks the “holy churches of the economy?”

8 Comments

Posted in Banking, Finance and Economics, Geo-politics, Prescriptions, The Political Money System

Tagged , ,

Greek economy running backwards, a WSJ video report

Posted on November 22, 2012 | 1 comment

The Greek economy has been crippled by the austerity demanded by international financial institutions. This Wall Street Journal video report shows how some Greeks are coping by going back to the land.

Every country is caught in the usury trap that is inherent in the global debt-money system, and all will follow the same course in turn. Those who happen to have land to go back to are the lucky ones.–t.h.g.

1 Comment

Posted in Geo-politics, Global Economy, The Political Money System

Tagged , ,