Give the Banks What they Want, or there Will be “Tanks In The Streets, Mass Suicides”
This via Zero-Hedge
With just days left until the crucial vote on passing the Greek mid-term austerity package, the assured destruction rhetoric used by the Greek status quo has hit fever pitch. Just to make sure the message is not lost on the broader population that Europe’s banks will not admit defeat in a vote that could end the kleptocratic cartel’s hegemony for ever, Greece’s Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos has blasted suggestions that it would be better for his country to abandon the euro and return to the drachma as an “immense stupidity”. He didn’t stop there. For dramatic impact, the Greek vice PM also said that the country would devolve into complete anarchy, with tanks roaming the streets, a population on the verge of civil war, with mass suicides, just for dramatic impact, should bankers not get their way. More or less in line with the Hank Paulson script that is regurgitated every few years when the Ponzi system is on the verge of imploding yet again.
“Those who say this are extremely stupid. While they may be analysts, university professors or economists, saying that is an immense stupidity,” Pangalos told daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo in an interview published Sunday.
Debt-wracked Greece has been told by European peers that it cannot hope to continue receiving aid from a 110-billion-euro rescue package agreed with the EU and the IMF last year without biting budget reforms and privatisations.
The Greek parliament will vote on an austerity package this week but some economists have argued that Athens needs to restructure its debt and leave the euro to become economically competitive again.
“Returning to the drachma would mean that on the following day banks would be surrounded by terrified people trying to withdraw their money, the army would have to protect them with tanks because there would not be enough police,” said Pangalos.
“There would be riots everywhere, shops would be empty, some people would throw themselves out the window … And it would also be a disaster for the entire European economy.”
And since we continue to live in bizarro world, the inverse truth is that this is likely a far more accurate description of reality should the mid-term package be voted through in just a few day, although with the country on a general 2 day strike beginning Tuesday, everyone will be able to celebrate with the bankers right in front of the Athens parliament once again.
As for austerity, something tells us Pangalos will be the first casualty should Greece finally truly implement some “leaner” policy measures.