Austerity: Destroying the Social Contract Here and in the Euro

Is there any question that both Europe and the US governing powers side with the 1%? Corporate and bankster welfare queens abound! Socialism for the wealthy is alive and well, while the rest of us are subject to increasing austerity measures totally unnecessary considering the US government has well over $100 TRILLION in its CAFRS. That alone should tell you that the concept of austerity is not economic, but one of political control.

As Hugh says responding to the naked capitalism article:

Breaking the social contract is what kleptocracy is all about. Or rather it is about breaking one side of it. The 99% are supposed to honor all the duties of the contract, which largely means paying off the debts the 1% have incurred, supporting public institutions which the 1% control, and obeying the laws which the 1% write. But as regards the benefits for the 99% that flow from the social contract: personal and political rights, jobs, housing, healthcare, education, and retirements, these are being trashed, tossed, and looted by the same 1%.

In this sense, we are all Greece. Look at America’s decaying infrastructure, high unemployment, housing disaster, declining system of public education, student debt, overpriced healthcare that leaves tens of millions un- and under insured, pensions that no longer exist, are underfunded, or gutted by Wall Street gambling, and the multiple attempts by both parties to slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. How are we any different from Greece? How is the rest of Europe? East Asia, China, and Japan? Kleptocracy dominates them all. It plays out different ways in different countries. But the social contract is being destroyed, to the benefit of the 1% and the detriment of the 99%, in them all.

Links:

Greece has been ordered to reduce health care from its current 10% of GDP to below 6%.