GREECE:
It's payback time - don't expect sympathy
The eurozone's laggards, most of all Greece, just as the EU commissioners, received some urgently needed moral compass over the weekend from the chief of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. Her words of blistering criticism and the moral aspects of the impertinence of Greece to expect $500 billion bailouts, hand-outs and various economic concessions, came... to a head when the IMF boss had some straight-forward, honest words. No wonder the commissioners and culprits of the crisis flood Lagarde's facebook site now with obscenities and fake bewilderment.
The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after Christine Lagarde said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens. So do I.
Lagarde insists it is payback time for Greece and makes it clear that the IMF has no intention of softening the terms of the country's austerity package. Using blunt language, she says Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts. "Parents have to pay their tax," she says.
Greece, which has seen its economy shrink by a fifth since the recession began, has been told to cut wages, pensions and public spending in return for financial help from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.
Asked whether she is able to block out of her mind the mothers unable to get access to midwives or patients unable to obtain life-saving drugs, Lagarde replies: "I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens."
And that's exactly where my moral compass stands.
Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to dodge tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." She says she thinks "equally" about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax. "I think they should also help themselves collectively." Asked how, she replies: "By all paying their tax."
Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: "That's right."
That's right!The eurozone's laggards, most of all Greece, just as the EU commissioners, received some urgently needed moral compass over the weekend from the chief of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. Her words of blistering criticism and the moral aspects of the impertinence of Greece to expect $500 billion bailouts, hand-outs and various economic concessions, came... to a head when the IMF boss had some straight-forward, honest words. No wonder the commissioners and culprits of the crisis flood Lagarde's facebook site now with obscenities and fake bewilderment.
The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after Christine Lagarde said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens. So do I.
Lagarde insists it is payback time for Greece and makes it clear that the IMF has no intention of softening the terms of the country's austerity package. Using blunt language, she says Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts. "Parents have to pay their tax," she says.
Greece, which has seen its economy shrink by a fifth since the recession began, has been told to cut wages, pensions and public spending in return for financial help from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.
Asked whether she is able to block out of her mind the mothers unable to get access to midwives or patients unable to obtain life-saving drugs, Lagarde replies: "I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens."
And that's exactly where my moral compass stands.
Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to dodge tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." She says she thinks "equally" about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax. "I think they should also help themselves collectively." Asked how, she replies: "By all paying their tax."
Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: "That's right."
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