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Richard Wolff, an American economist, on debt - interview by Helen Skopis, Athens International Radio, February 2011 on Youtube "The largest holders of Greek, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian sovereign debt are the biggest banks in Europe, particularly those in France and Germany and so forth. If you permitted the renegotiation of debt [...], then you would put the problem in the hands of the German, ...

Only a Referendum of the People Can Stop Them Now By MICHAEL HUDSON The fight for Europe’s future is being waged in Athens and other Greek cities to resist financial demands that are the 21st century’s version of an outright military attack. The threat of bank overlordship is not the kind of economy-killing policy that affords opportunities for heroism in armed battle, to be sure. Destructive financial poli ...

By Yasmin El-Sharif and Stefan Kaiser Tough times are ahead for the Greeks, with the government raising taxes, cutting social benefits and selling off state enterprises. Berlin has led the European pack in demanding the measures from Athens. But economists say Germany would be overwhelmed if it were forced to implement similar measures. The Germans are always way ahead when it comes to austerity measures -- ...

By Mark Mazower. June 29, 2011 YESTERDAY, the whole world was watching Greece as its Parliament voted to pass a divisive package of austerity measures that could have critical ramifications for the global financial system. It may come as a surprise that this tiny tip of the Balkan Peninsula could command such attention. We usually think of Greece as the home of Plato and Pericles, its real importance lying ...

30 June 2011 – The United Nations independent expert on foreign debt and human rights warned today that the austerity measures and structural reforms proposed to solve Greece’s debt crisis may result in violations of the basic human rights of the country’s people, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported. “The implementation of the second package of austerity measures and struct ...

ALJAZEERA's Listening Post video looks at the Greek protests and how the media covered them. As Greece battles economic collapse, protests in the country have been getting louder, bigger and more heated. Greeks on the streets have been demonstrating against the squeeze on their wages and pensions, but the media covering those protests have found some hostility directed at them as well. The protesters accuse ...

Editorial Instead of postponing the inevitable Greek default, it would be far smarter to prepare for it. Seen from Brussels, Berlin or Frankfurt, the crisis playing out in Athens this month looks almost simple, and linear in its direction. The Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, wins a confidence vote, as he did on Tuesday night. The government gets MPs to approve its package of austerity measures, set ...

By Costas Douzinas and Petros Papaconstantinou The usurious conditions of the Greek bailout reveals Brussels' colonial mindset – but Athens is showing citizens can resist. After months of attacks on the supposedly feckless Greeks, the western media, intellectuals such Amartya Sen and Jürgen Habermas and the United Nations have finally woken up to the fact that the catastrophic austerity imposed on Greece is ...

BERLIN – From the start of the Greek debt crisis in 2010, the major European players should have understood the risks and consequences that it posed for the European Union. They certainly don’t give that impression to onlookers. The crisis was always about much more than Greece: a disorderly insolvency there would threaten to pull other economies on the EU’s southern periphery, including some very big ones, ...