We are in their hands.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany visited Greece for the first time yesterday Predictably she was greeted with massive protesters and depicted as a Nazi. Demonstrators carried Nazi flags and portraits of Merkel with the typical Hitler moustache painted on. Merkel was born in communist East Germany and probably saw a lot of hardship around her even if her own family was not poor. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and she is said to believe in a simple life without ostentation, a balanced budget and to atone for your mistakes. If Spain and Greece have no money because of their own profligacy then it is their responsibility to put things right even if they have to suffer in the process. Trouble is that the Greeks and the Spanish people do not see why they have to suffer for the sins of their politicians who are rich and insulated from economic problems while the people are feeling real pain. The Greek economy was growing since 1960 although growth was only 0.70% between 1981 and 1990. From 1991 to 2000 it was growing at 2.36% and from 2001 to 2007 growth rate was 4.11%, higher than most Eurozone countries. Since 2008 it has contracted over 20%. The trouble was that corruption was rampant, the rich did not pay any tax and politicians spent money on programs to win votes creating a huge fiscal deficit which they hid with false accounting. Spain, on the other hand, was running a budget surplus but here too there was corruption and politicians allowed property prices to rise unchecked leading to a frenzy of construction. Private debt rose and the crisis of 2008 suddenly exposed Spanish banks to huge amounts of bad debts. The government capitalised the banks but that just transferred the bad debts from private hands to the government. In the US the previous Fed Chariman, Alan Greenspan kept interest too low and did not regulate banks, leading to the sub prime crisis, based on the extreme right wing ideas of Ayn Rand that all government is bad and private business should be completely uncontrolled. On top of that George Bush gave away 2 unnecessary tax cuts and embarked on 2 wars creating a huge public debt. Lehman Brothers collapsed, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, AIG and General Motors had to be rescued and a lot of people lost their homes to foreclosure. The bankers who were responsible are still raking in millions in bonuses. In India property prices have risen 1000% since 2001, all politicians and civil servants are crooks, the rich do not pay tax, preferring to hide their black money in property or in accounts abroad, and inflation is over 10%. Politicians all over the world are without talent, having grabbed power through a combination of cunning, sycophancy and ruthless betrayal of their people. We are ghosts reduced to casting a vote every few years to decide which idiot is going to screw us next.