From economist Michael Hudson, in a German newspaper interview posted at his website:
The bailout is not saving the banks. The banks could function very well the next day after a debt cancellation. You are saving the bank stockholders and the bondholders and the rich counterparties to the banks. You are saving the gamblers who have accounts with the banks, not saving the banks.
But there is something even worse. The slogan “saving the banks” means a program for the governments to be financially responsible, which means financially self-destructive. The bailout is forcing Greece to sell its public domain, its water and sewer systems, its land, its real estate, its buildings, to sell to private buyers who are going to borrow money at interest from the bank to buy these public assets, and to treat them like a toll road.
So in the broadest sense of the term, saving the banks means to achieve by financial terms what it took an army militarily to counter a thousand years ago. Saving the banks thus is destroying society. Is that worth the payment?
