Going Default

In the face of malfeasance and predation on a global scale, Matt Taibbi is interested in the modest proposal by Max 'Goldman and Sachs are scum' Kaiser of declaring certain debts marked by criminality on a gigantic scale simply invalid and unenforceable and walking away from them.

Often also called an activist, Mr. Keiser created quite a stir a few days ago when, on an Al Jazeera program, he claimed that Greece, for the past decade, has fallen victim to the “economic terrorists” of the Wall Street banking systems and the IMF. In the interview which followed, he claimed “if the Greeks want to be protected from the IMF, then they should nationalize their banks thus establishing government owned institutions so as to revive the banking system”, while at the same time “ceasing to pay back the loans which were issued illegally” via “cooking the books” of the Greek economy by Goldman Sachs. He proposed the expulsion from the country of American banks as well as the IMF. The consequence will be “two or three years of heavy recession”, during which time Greece will be able “to rebuild its economy”, ensuring its economic independence.

Presumably this would also apply to Iceland, considering the murky roll international hedge funds had in profiting from the economic warfare against Iceland's banks they are accused of. True, Icelandic bankers greedily and credulously followed the high finance pirate barons down the garden path but that doesn't stop the average Icelander on the street from asking, "What's that got to do with me and why the hell should I be the one to pay for it?"

Why should a starving Haitian fisherman who's country has been looted by other government's and his own, by dictators supported by the west and trade regimes designed to profit American rice farming corporations while destroying local agriculture - Even Bill Clinton came to regret that - why should the average Haitian who has never had any control over any of these forces be paying in reduced services from his state and perpetual national impoverishment for these debts?

Debt has been wielded against Haiti like a club since the very beginning when they were forced to agree to pay the debt for theft of property from Imperial France. The stolen property in question including the human livestock France lost when the Haitians rebelled and ended slavery.

That debt wasn't fully paid off until 1947. Haiti labored under a crushing debt, the blood price for their own flesh and blood and freedom for decades. Then pompous tiny dick little shits like David Brooks claim the reason they've never quite managed to pull themselves out of poverty is because they don't have that strong Anglo-Saxon Protestant work ethic.

Iceland's citizens should see their government services slashed and the standard of living plummet because of the actions of a few in the banking class, Greeks should do the same and the rest of us all over the world should brace ourselves for austerity and belt tightening and ever more tax cuts for the rich paid for by abandoning the poor.

Because the banks have to be paid.

Or not?