As Greek standards of living nose-dive, loans to households and businesses shrink still further, and Troika-imposed PSI discussions continue, there is one segment of the country’s infrastructure that is holding up well, reports FollowTheMoney.
In a story on Zeit Online, the details of the multi-billion Euro new arms contracts are reported. The European and IMF-provided Greek bailout is going full-circle into American Apache helicopters, French frigates, and German U-Boats.
As the article notes (and translated by FollowTheMoney):
If Greece gets paid in March the next tranche of funding (€ 80 billion is expected), there is a real opportunity to conclude new arms contracts.While Greece quickly becomes a third world country, with limited medical care, regular striking workers and poor schooling. The government continues to buy weapons. The Greek government is the largest buyers of German war weapons. And that's how the elitists roll, get the banksters bailed out and get heavily debt burdened governments to buy more weapons.
(htBobEnglish)
Reminds me of a very old Wizard of ID cartoon:
ReplyDeleteCount: Sire in reviewing the budget I see that you have allocated millions for defense but not a single penny for the poor.
King: Correct.
Count: But Sire, the peasants will revolt.
King: Yes, but we'll be ready.
At least they have nice weather and beaches and booze to keep them happy in their misery. Imagine if this political/central bank counterfeit money terror were happening to the Germans....
ReplyDeleteAnon, That's funny. Is their any clips of this on youtube?
ReplyDeleteanon 11:13,
ReplyDeleteHah! Brilliant!
Too many Keynesians support government "spending" as inherently beneficial, so no amount of pleading on where exactly that money should go can ever get a Keynesian to say "This particular increase in spending is on net destructive, even during a depression."
ReplyDeleteSo the bad spending continues, while the Keynesians excuse themselves by saying "Stop straw manning us, we said we "prefer" roads and bridges, not missiles and tanks, but if the spending goes to missiles and tanks, then it's better than nothing, and it did get us out of the Great Depression, so stop calling us out on our hypocrisy! We want the government to spend, we just don't want to be attached as intellectually responsible. Blame the libertarians."
@Core
ReplyDeleteSorry, I looked but I could not find this online. There are extensive Wizard of Id archives online but this strip is decades old. It's sad how some people's jokes become other people's reality.