Greek "rescue" packages help out financial sector - Greece on the Brink - Teaser
Channel: In Defence of Marxism
Date: 25/02/2014

This is an excerpt of the documentary "Greece on the Brink - The Crisis of Capitalism and the Socialist Solution"
Watch the full documentary on:
http://www.greeceonthebrink.com

The Greek government signed two Memoranda of Understanding with the Troika in order to receive "rescue packages". But this is a euphemism. We are fooled into believing that the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF are helping the Greek people. Well not so! Between March 2010 and June 2013 the Troika transfered a total of 23 instalments comprising 206.9 billion Euros.

28 percent was used for the recapitalisation of Greek banks and about 50 percent went straight to the creditors of the Greek state - which are mainly German, French and other banks - instead of letting the creditors bear the risk for which they had received high interest payments before. 0.43 percent went to the Greek share of the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism.

About 22 percent went into the national budget or couldn't be definitely attributed anymore. But if you look closer, a big part of this particular share - or about 16 percent of the total money - was actually used for the payment of interest. Therefore, only about 6 percent of the tranches made its way into the national budget.

In other words, a total of 94 percent - or 194.8 billion Euros - of the so-called rescue package was used to help out not the Greek people, but the financial sector. And moreover, from the 12 billion Euros that made it into the national budget, 10 billion were put into military spending. Only a really tiny fraction was used for wages and pensions.