The present crisis, which is largely the result of excessive credit expansion and poor risk management by EU banks, is being used by the European Commission and the ECB to establish a euro-wide ”banking union” and to impose savage cuts to social programs, health care, and pensions. The response by EU policymakers is a social counterrevolution designed to transform the 17-member monetary union into a permanent ”austerity zone” ruled by corporate elites and big finance.
The eurozone’s permanent bailout fund, the ESM, has not yet been ratified by all 17 members and already the European Commission wants to change its mandate to include direct bailouts to banks. The direct funding of underwater banks is a blatant power-grab, an attempt to establish the primacy of banks in the same way that the TARP was used to create Too Big To Fail in the US. TBTF means that the banks have merged with the state and that taxpayers provide blanket guarantees for their survival. Europe is moving fast towards this same model.
Read more: Europe Moves Closer to Banktatorship » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
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