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Fiscal history part 2 1989 2010
(1989-1993 - Konstantinos Mitsotakis as Prime Minister)
Mitsotakis came in power through the social engineering priorly applied by Papandreou. People saw a financially ruined country where the private sector had to pay for hundreds of thousands of corrupt and counter-productive "workers" of the public sector. Having fed-up with the (masquarading as) socialist policies of PASOK, people thought that Nea Dimokratia would be the solution to their problem.
Having the consensus behind them, Nea Dimokratia and Mitsotakis, instead of limiting the government expenses, initiated the sell-off of state companies at prices way below what they costed - a scandalous move. People indeed wanted the rationalization of the public sector but did not tolerate well the sell-off of state-owned companies, which, solved nothing.
Since both these parties were/are controlled from globalist centers, and are both serving a longer-term agenda, it was probably assumed that after 8 years of "socialism" people would be pretty much ready to sell-off everything to international capital in order to save the economy. However that was not the case, and Mitsotakis fell from office.
Economically, by the end of 1993, the debt-to-GDP ratio had climbed to 110% (from 65% in 1989).
(1993-1995 - Andreas Papandreou as Prime Minister)
Papandreou was re-elected and, aside from the re-nationalization of the public bus transporation system, most policies regarding privatizations were kept, although modified. For example instead of selling the Greek telco (OTE) to other foreign companies (as Mitsotakis had planned), there was a plan to put the company in the stock market, so as to sell slices at a time.
From this, it was quite apparent that the socialist ideology was really non-existant and that there was a larger plan all-along, that would be followed no matter what the government was. It is now discussed widely that "what Nea Dimokratia cant do, PASOK does", which signifies the understanding that PASOK will eventually promote those rightist policies that ND will fail to promote (due to opposition).
By the end of 1995 the debt was a relatively stable 109%.
(1996-2000 - Costas Simits as Prime Minister)
Simitis was a former minister of Papandreou that took over when Papandreou was unable to continue due to health reasons. He then went to elections with a general proclamation to the effect: times are hard and thus I promise nothing. The word promise, in this case, is what people would expect as "the highest bid" in terms of government spending (wages, pensions etc).
Simitis, continued capitalistic, rather than socialist policies, although from that point onward it was just a matter of degree... PASOK was trying to keep a profile that would position it a bit more left than the right Nea Dimokratia.
During the first 4 years, it was a period of significant growth for the economy due to favourable conditions internationally, the use of banking capital to feed investments and consumption as well as the stock market boom that peaked in 1999. A lot of significant infrastrure was made or planned for later during this period, including the Olympics of 2004. Greece also entered the european monetary union (eurozone) during this period of time.
Simitis initiated a period of extensively tampering financial indexes in order to make the country look better than it was.
One known factor is how debts were camouflaged or time-shifted. One less-known, and consequently less reported, factor is how the GDP itself was over-reported. This had positive side effects in showing reduced deficits, debt-to-GDP ratios and increased GDP growth. The way this was achieved was by under-reporting inflation. Since real GDP is the growth of GDP minus inflation, by under-reporting inflation it was possible to show larger growth, larger real GDP, less deficits and debt-to-GDP ratio.
By 2000, debt had fell to 103%, although,
- since 1996, there were many billion euros of influx due to selling of state corporations (entirely, or slices - in the stock market). "Mysteriously", people in Greece had no problem when PASOK was selling profitable state corporations, while they were more opposed to it when Nea Dimokratia did the same.
- the government played with its own funds and pensioners money on the stock market (and lost quite a few) after the peak of 99.
- the government converted its external loans (yen and dollars) to the underpriced euro of that time (0.8 euros for a dollar vs 1.3+ euro for a dolar in 2003). In a sense, the government was betting against the euro rising - and lost, big time. This would lead to a loss of over 10 billion euros (in later years).
(2000-2004 - Costas Simits as Prime Minister)
People marginally re-elected PASOK in 2000, mainly because of fears that the stock market would go worse with Nea Dimokratia. People were betting en mass to the stock market during that period and so it proved a decisive factor.
In general, this period was not much different than the previous one, except, perhaps, widespread corruption and scandals coming to the surface. By 2004, PASOK was generally considered an extremely corrupt party.
Debt-to-GDP was around 99% in 2004, despite more selling of state assets and stocks (especially profitable companies) and sustained growth rates of 4-5%.
During this period, PASOK initiated a tax-cut for corporations (from 45% down to 30-35%) despite the fiscal deficits which did not really allow such budgetary income losses.
(2004-2009 - Kostas Karamanlis as Prime Minister)
Kostas Karamanlis, the nephew of Konstantinos Karamanlis, was elected to "rebuild the state" in the contrast of prior corruption of PASOK governments. Instead of that, he went on to install people of his own party to the payroll of the public sector and public spending was increased heavily as a result. More corruption followed.
Selling of publicly held assets (stocks, state companies, ports, roads) took place in a similar rate to PASOKs government. In this period there were larger tax cuts for corporations (down to 25%) and the church (0%) - despite the deficits. Its estimated that more than 40 bn euros were lost in tax cuts of corporations, church and wealthy people during the decade 2000-2009.
Statistics were continued to be tampered and there was also an attempt to revise the GDP by 25.9% upwards. This would help make debts and deficits seem smaller, however Eurostat rejected the 25.9% claim and allowed a revision which was closer to 10%.
In 2009, seeing that the situation with the deficits was de-railing rapidly and that tough decisions had to be taken, Karamanlis opted for elections (knowing that losing was near certainty).
(2009 - 2010 - George Papandreou as Prime Minister)
George Papandreou, son of Andreas (founder of PASOK), had a pre-election program with a cost of approximately 10 billion euros... Papandreou claimed that, contrary to Karamanlis arguments that there is no money for expenditures, there were indeed a lot of money available!
According to Provopoulos, head of Bank of Greece, both Papandreou and Karamanlis knew that the deficit was approximately 7-8% with a tendency to hit 12% by years end. With hindsight, it was apparent that Papandreou consciously lied in order to be elected, knowing full well that his program was impossible.
He promised taxation fairness, help for the poor, reduction of tax-evasion and implementation of growth-policies that would make Greece pull out of the recession. He claimed that Karamanlis policies of indirect taxation, reduction of funding to public investments etc were catastrophic and that he would do differently.
What people got, was actually a lot more of those which were proclaimed as "catastrophic policies": VAT from 18 to 23%, gas prices from 1.05 euro per liter to 1.60 euro per liter, dramatic reduction in public investment (and theore reduced absorption of european support packages), wage cuts etc.
A more extensive article on Papandreous management of the crisis, will be posted on the following days.
Fiscal history part 2 1989 2010
Mitsotakis came in power through the social engineering priorly applied by Papandreou. People saw a financially ruined country where the private sector had to pay for hundreds of thousands of corrupt and counter-productive "workers" of the public sector. Having fed-up with the (masquarading as) socialist policies of PASOK, people thought that Nea Dimokratia would be the solution to their problem.
Having the consensus behind them, Nea Dimokratia and Mitsotakis, instead of limiting the government expenses, initiated the sell-off of state companies at prices way below what they costed - a scandalous move. People indeed wanted the rationalization of the public sector but did not tolerate well the sell-off of state-owned companies, which, solved nothing.
Since both these parties were/are controlled from globalist centers, and are both serving a longer-term agenda, it was probably assumed that after 8 years of "socialism" people would be pretty much ready to sell-off everything to international capital in order to save the economy. However that was not the case, and Mitsotakis fell from office.
Economically, by the end of 1993, the debt-to-GDP ratio had climbed to 110% (from 65% in 1989).
(1993-1995 - Andreas Papandreou as Prime Minister)
Papandreou was re-elected and, aside from the re-nationalization of the public bus transporation system, most policies regarding privatizations were kept, although modified. For example instead of selling the Greek telco (OTE) to other foreign companies (as Mitsotakis had planned), there was a plan to put the company in the stock market, so as to sell slices at a time.
From this, it was quite apparent that the socialist ideology was really non-existant and that there was a larger plan all-along, that would be followed no matter what the government was. It is now discussed widely that "what Nea Dimokratia cant do, PASOK does", which signifies the understanding that PASOK will eventually promote those rightist policies that ND will fail to promote (due to opposition).
By the end of 1995 the debt was a relatively stable 109%.
(1996-2000 - Costas Simits as Prime Minister)
Simitis was a former minister of Papandreou that took over when Papandreou was unable to continue due to health reasons. He then went to elections with a general proclamation to the effect: times are hard and thus I promise nothing. The word promise, in this case, is what people would expect as "the highest bid" in terms of government spending (wages, pensions etc).
Simitis, continued capitalistic, rather than socialist policies, although from that point onward it was just a matter of degree... PASOK was trying to keep a profile that would position it a bit more left than the right Nea Dimokratia.
During the first 4 years, it was a period of significant growth for the economy due to favourable conditions internationally, the use of banking capital to feed investments and consumption as well as the stock market boom that peaked in 1999. A lot of significant infrastrure was made or planned for later during this period, including the Olympics of 2004. Greece also entered the european monetary union (eurozone) during this period of time.
Simitis initiated a period of extensively tampering financial indexes in order to make the country look better than it was.
One known factor is how debts were camouflaged or time-shifted. One less-known, and consequently less reported, factor is how the GDP itself was over-reported. This had positive side effects in showing reduced deficits, debt-to-GDP ratios and increased GDP growth. The way this was achieved was by under-reporting inflation. Since real GDP is the growth of GDP minus inflation, by under-reporting inflation it was possible to show larger growth, larger real GDP, less deficits and debt-to-GDP ratio.
By 2000, debt had fell to 103%, although,
- since 1996, there were many billion euros of influx due to selling of state corporations (entirely, or slices - in the stock market). "Mysteriously", people in Greece had no problem when PASOK was selling profitable state corporations, while they were more opposed to it when Nea Dimokratia did the same.
- the government played with its own funds and pensioners money on the stock market (and lost quite a few) after the peak of 99.
- the government converted its external loans (yen and dollars) to the underpriced euro of that time (0.8 euros for a dollar vs 1.3+ euro for a dolar in 2003). In a sense, the government was betting against the euro rising - and lost, big time. This would lead to a loss of over 10 billion euros (in later years).
(2000-2004 - Costas Simits as Prime Minister)
People marginally re-elected PASOK in 2000, mainly because of fears that the stock market would go worse with Nea Dimokratia. People were betting en mass to the stock market during that period and so it proved a decisive factor.
In general, this period was not much different than the previous one, except, perhaps, widespread corruption and scandals coming to the surface. By 2004, PASOK was generally considered an extremely corrupt party.
Debt-to-GDP was around 99% in 2004, despite more selling of state assets and stocks (especially profitable companies) and sustained growth rates of 4-5%.
During this period, PASOK initiated a tax-cut for corporations (from 45% down to 30-35%) despite the fiscal deficits which did not really allow such budgetary income losses.
(2004-2009 - Kostas Karamanlis as Prime Minister)
Kostas Karamanlis, the nephew of Konstantinos Karamanlis, was elected to "rebuild the state" in the contrast of prior corruption of PASOK governments. Instead of that, he went on to install people of his own party to the payroll of the public sector and public spending was increased heavily as a result. More corruption followed.
Selling of publicly held assets (stocks, state companies, ports, roads) took place in a similar rate to PASOKs government. In this period there were larger tax cuts for corporations (down to 25%) and the church (0%) - despite the deficits. Its estimated that more than 40 bn euros were lost in tax cuts of corporations, church and wealthy people during the decade 2000-2009.
Statistics were continued to be tampered and there was also an attempt to revise the GDP by 25.9% upwards. This would help make debts and deficits seem smaller, however Eurostat rejected the 25.9% claim and allowed a revision which was closer to 10%.
In 2009, seeing that the situation with the deficits was de-railing rapidly and that tough decisions had to be taken, Karamanlis opted for elections (knowing that losing was near certainty).
(2009 - 2010 - George Papandreou as Prime Minister)
George Papandreou, son of Andreas (founder of PASOK), had a pre-election program with a cost of approximately 10 billion euros... Papandreou claimed that, contrary to Karamanlis arguments that there is no money for expenditures, there were indeed a lot of money available!
According to Provopoulos, head of Bank of Greece, both Papandreou and Karamanlis knew that the deficit was approximately 7-8% with a tendency to hit 12% by years end. With hindsight, it was apparent that Papandreou consciously lied in order to be elected, knowing full well that his program was impossible.
He promised taxation fairness, help for the poor, reduction of tax-evasion and implementation of growth-policies that would make Greece pull out of the recession. He claimed that Karamanlis policies of indirect taxation, reduction of funding to public investments etc were catastrophic and that he would do differently.
What people got, was actually a lot more of those which were proclaimed as "catastrophic policies": VAT from 18 to 23%, gas prices from 1.05 euro per liter to 1.60 euro per liter, dramatic reduction in public investment (and theore reduced absorption of european support packages), wage cuts etc.
A more extensive article on Papandreous management of the crisis, will be posted on the following days.
