There are disconcerting parallels between Argentina's catastrophic decade, 1991-2001, which ended in massive default, and Greece's recent and impending difficulties. In both cases, international credit organisations were to blame and both countries were beset by widespread protests and riots over austerity measures imposed by the IMF. Argentinian economist Adrian Salbuchi offers a hard-hitting analysis of this engineered crisis which knows no boundaries. ... When Argentinians watch the news today and see the terrible things that are happening in Greece, we cannot but say, "Hey!! This is EXACTLY like Argentina in December 2001 and beginning of 2002...!". Then too, Argentina underwent its worst systemic banking, public debt and monetary collapse ... Half of all Argentinians fell below the poverty line (most were never to make it back to the traditional Argentina middle class), private banks were allowed to legally retain everybody's savings, US dollar deposits were arbitrarily changed into Pesos at whatever rate of exchange the government and bankers decided (the dollar was devalued 300% from one peso to the dollar, to 4 pesos the dollar in just weeks) and yet.... Not one bank fell!!! Indeed, since then they're all back in "business as usual", however the poor and impoverished are today totally out of business. – Voltaire Net

Dominant Social Theme: And now we grieve for the impoverished Mediterranean.

Free-Market Analysis: This article appearing on Voltaire Net also appeared elsewhere on the Internet and encapsulates, potentially, the future of austerity measures now taking hold throughout the EU, at least the Southern half. It's not a good story, and it is spelled out clearly and specifically – the intention being to warn the Greek people and other PIG citizens about what is to happen.

Basically, what Salbuchi explains is that Argentina's government overspent in the 1990s and when the IMF entered the picture, the Argentinean people were told that they would pay back domestic and foreign banks for the aggregate profligacy of their leaders. (Sound familiar?) What the article also tells us is that even though the IMF's plans were not fully implemented, the havoc they caused is something Argentina is still recovering from – and that those that suffered the most were the poor, the middle class, small business owners and entrepreneurs.

It was not merely a process of passive economic decay. Salbuchi explains that Argentina, "underwent its worst systemic banking, public debt and monetary collapse which led to social turmoil, mad violence, rioting, and social war. The turmoil was so bad, that it forced then president Fernando de la Rúa's government to resign, especially because of his notorious pro-banker cartel economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, generating a political vacuum that led to Argentina having 5 (five!!) presidents in that terrible last week of December 2001."

From a Western perspective, at the time, the Argentinean collapse was not perhaps taken very seriously. Argentina, though perhaps the most Westernized of South American countries, was still seen through the lens of the failed Falklands campaign. Deserved or not, Argentina's reputation had been damaged and its leaders made to look both bullying and foolish. Argentina was a good country for Western bankers to attack because of the lack of international sympathy. Here's more from the article:

Today, we look at Greece and see the same tell-tale signs: the IMF imposing strict austerity measures as a condition for the banks to lend more money to them (as if a country collapsing under the burden of debt can overcome that by getting into even more debt!!), the mainstream media speaking vociferously on the need for "Greece to do things correctly and responsibly" (as if the US FED, the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs and the US Treasury, Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Brown, Geithner, Blankfein, Greenberg were examples of responsible accountability), local caretaker governments doing all they can on behalf of banking interests (George Papandreou is a regular at the Bilderberg and Trilateral Commission meetings, as was Fernando de la Rúa, a founding member of the local chapter of the Council on Foreign Relations in Argentina called CARI), major banks such as Goldman Sachs trying to collect their pound of flesh in the midst of all the turmoil and hardship; all of this against a backdrop of desperate citizens taking to the streets to express what is obvious to all: that international bankers and local caretaker government form a complex association of thieves and robbers.

The inevitable then occurs: the Government sends the police out to the streets to protect the bankers, themselves and New World Order power elite interests... Then violence flares up, people get hurt and die.... The poor (police) battle against the poor (population), whilst the rich look on from a safe distance with a chuckle...

Make no mistake: this is a Global Model. Make no mistake: there is NO democracy, not even in Athens, its birthplace.... So, who's next? Spain?, Italy? Portugal? Will the European Monetary System just blow up to pieces? A 750 Billion Euro Bail-out will send the recently born (still in diapers) Euro into a tailspin... Will the European Monetary Mechanism fall apart? Will Germany be the first to revert to the gold old Deutsch-Mark?

Will the collapsing Euro and the technically hyper-inflated US Dollar (Shhh! Don't say that aloud!!) pave the way for a new, essentially private Global Currency to be managed on a planetary scale by the private money cartel of the Goldman Sach's, HSBC's, CitCorp's, Deutsche Bank's of this world? Stay tuned... There is much, much more to come...

Salbuchi's point is obviously that the EU sovereign debt crisis being used as a pretext for more centralization and perhaps the creation of a new world currency. Is there anyone (who is a close observer of the current scene) who is not thinking such things today? And this has been our point all along – that eventually a tipping point is reached (thanks to the truth-telling of the Internet) and that these sorts of promotions simply don't work so well any more.

The power elite needs its dominant social themes. But what happens when people stop believing? What happens when the tribes of Europe begin to ask why their belts are being tightened while money center banks are being bailed out with billions. Argentineans asked these questions and didn't like the answers. Will the citizens of the PIGS like them any better?

The EU program, like many power elite programs, is clumsy and full of contradictions. The power elite has used the same mechanisms in Europe that it has used in South America and elsewhere. Banks lent PIGS money above and beyond what was supportable; now the IMF (along with Northern European countries) has been called in for the bail out – and to impose "austerity measures." But these are indeed looting techniques, and in the case of Europe, the power elite wants to build and centralize while continuing to loot. These are opposite goals and the result may well be – as in Argentina's case – a decision on the part of the working class and middle class simply not to go along with what is being planned for them.

Conclusion: Above and beyond the contradiction between its strategies and goals, the elite is struggling with two other factors in Europe. First, the downturn is likely far worse than expected and is causing considerable tension between elite players themselves (Sarkozy, Merkel, etc.) Second, the Internet has exposed quite clearly the actual manipulations that are utilized by the elite for purposes of domination and control. And as we have pointed out on many occasions, the Internet is not some emergency to be dealt with but a process of revelation and education. Like Salbuchi, we think there is much, much more to come before the EU story is fully told. We are not so sure the current crisis has been entirely averted.

Latest Daily Bell Articles