Skip to main content

IMF lunacy: Lagarde admitted to Varoufakis in private that the program imposed on Greece doesn't work!


As Yanis Varoufakis describes in his book Adults in the Room:

Less than a month after my election, on 11 February 2015, in one of those spirit-numbing, windowless, neon-lit meeting rooms that litter the EU’s Brussels buildings, I found myself sitting opposite Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, France’s ex-finance minister and a former Washington-based high-flying lawyer. She had waltzed into the building earlier that day a glamorous leather jacket, making me look drab and conventionally attired. This being our first encounter, we chatted amicably in the corridor before moving into the meeting room for the serious discussion.

Behind closed doors, with a couple of aides on each side, the conversation turned serious but remained just as friendly. She afforded me the opportunity to present my basic analysis of the causes and nature of the Greek situation as well as my proposals for dealing with it, and nodded in agreement for much of the time. We seemed to share a common language and were both keen to establish a good rapport. At the meeting's end, walking towards the door, we got a chance for a short, relaxed but telling tete-a-tete.

Taking her cue from the points I had made, Christine seconded my appeals for debt relief and lower tax rates as prerequisites for a Greek recovery. Then she addressed me with calm and gentle honesty: You are of course right, Yanis. These targets that they insist on can't work. But, you must understand that we have put too much into this programme. We cannot go back on it. Your credibility depends on accepting and working within this programme.

So, there I had it. The head of the IMF was telling the finance minister of a bankrupt government that the policies imposed upon his country couldn't work. Not that it would be hard to make them work. Not that the probability of them working was low. No, she was acknowledging that, come hell or high water, they couldn't work.


Recall that in a released archive of 13 million pages by CIA, we found quite an impressive report concerning the IMF changing strategies on debtor countries. The report dates back to 1985, but what is even more impressive, is that, it was predicting an increase of instability in those countries, as well as, methods of reducing potential popular anger! Specifically, the report was monitoring IMF's changing policy to enforce strict conditions and austerity on indebted countries that could cause political unrest.

Concerning the policies imposed by the IMF, the report clearly refers to the complete control of money flow through the central bank:

           Standby arrangements almost always include performance criteria expressed in terms of quantitative targets, which usually are reviewed on a quarterly basis. The criteria normally take three general forms: A ceiling on central bank lending and the subceiling on lending to the central government [...] Limits on the assets of the central bank, which are designed to limit the expansion of money supply ...

Do you need more proof of the IMF's dirty mission?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The wounded US imperialist beast becomes more dangerous than ever as desperately seeks to start a WWIII

globinfo freexchange   It seems that the declining Western superpower is losing ground and tries hardly to avoid the inevitable.    The US imperialist beast, despite all the destruction that causes, is failing to fulfill its utter objectives. Which in short, are the dissolution of Russia and China, looting their vast resources, as well as the full expansion of the destructive neoliberal model throughout these areas and other countries allied with the Sino-Russian bloc.   Most importantly, the wounded beast is loosing much of its strength due to the rapid de-dollarization that has started approximately ten years ago, as dollar had become the front line of the US imperialist sweeping force since the early 70s.   As if nothing has changed, the beast insists on using the same tools to prevail in the global geopolitical field, ignoring the unprecedented changes and complexities under current circumstances.    In a move (as it seems) of desperation, the United States House of Representative

Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Democracy Now!   As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments.    One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City.    Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members.    Democracy Now! spoke with two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. Also with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeat

Indiana University Brings In SNIPERS & Then LIES About It

Katie Halper   Katie Halper talks to Aidan Khamis and Bryce Greene, who was arrested at Indiana University where snipers have been brought in. Bryce Greene is a student, writer, organizer and media critic based in Indianapolis. He is a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. He was arrested and banned from Indiana University's campus for participating in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Indiana University. Aidan Khamis is an organizer for Palestine Solidarity Committee IU and IU divestment coalition.  

"Student Intifada": Stanford, University of Michigan, Indiana University, & more

The Real News Network   Seven months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, a student-led grassroots movement is spreading across the US and beyond, hearkening back to the student protests of the ‘60s that played a pivotal role in ending the US war in Vietnam.    In what is being called the “student intifada,” with over 100 encampments going up at different college and university campuses, students, faculty, grad students, and other campus community members are exercising civil disobedience, occupying space on campuses, defying brutal repression from administrators and police, combatting skewed and wildly lopsided narratives in corporate media, and pressuring their universities to “disclose and divest” their investments in companies and financial institutions connected to Israel.    TRNN speaks with encampment organizers/participants from the University of Michigan, the Indiana University, and Stanford University, and gets updates from encampments from New York to California. 

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

Democracy Now!   As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, Democracy Now! spoke with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke.    Germany's Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta.    " This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It's all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice, " says Varoufakis.    Varoufakis speaks also about freeing Julian Assange and his new book Technofeudalism .      Related: Germany again on a dark path towards fascism

Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale

Democracy Now!   Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University.    Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night.    Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. "In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university," says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. "The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and pro

'Make no mistake, the full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe': Guterres

Al Jazeera English   United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza. He says the Middle East is at risk of explosion if the fighting continues. In his speech, Guterres urged Israel’s allies to press its leadership to stop the war on Gaza.  “ I appeal to all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to help avert even more tragedy. The international community has a shared responsibility to promote a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and a massive surge in life-saving aid, ” he said. “ It is time for the parties to seize the opportunity and secure a deal for the sake of their own people. ”

Biden PANICS Over Israel's Genocide

Owen Jones   Biden's latest move tells us one thing: they're panicking. 

Day 1846: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

Day 1859: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is