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There has been no serious effort to manage a debt crisis. The policies imposed on Greece by the troika sharply exacerbated the crisis by undermining the economy and blocking hopeful chances for growth. The debt-to-GDP ratio is now far higher than it was before these policies were instituted, and there’s been a terrible toll on the people of Greece — though the German and French banks that bear a large part of responsibility for the crisis are doing fine.

The so-called “bailouts” for Greece mostly went into the pockets of the creditors, as much as 90 percent by some estimates. Former Bundesbank chief Karl Otto Pöhl observed very plausibly that the whole affair “was about protecting German banks, but especially the French banks, from debt write-offs.”

Commenting in the leading US establishment journal Foreign Affairs, Mark Blyth, one of the most cogent critics of the destructive austerity-under-depression programs, writes, “We’ve never understood Greece because we have refused to see the crisis for what it was — a continuation of a series of bailouts for the financial sector that started in 2008 and that rumbles on today.”

It is recognized on all sides that the debt cannot be paid. It should have been radically restructured long ago, when the crisis could have easily been managed, or simply declared “odious” and cancelled.

The ugly face of contemporary Europe is presented by German Finance Minister Schäuble, apparently the most popular political figure in Germany. As reported by Reuters news service, he explained that “a write-off of some of Europe’s loans to Greece might be needed to get the country’s debt to a manageable level,” while he “in the same breath ruled out such a step.” In brief, we’ve milked you about as dry as we can, so get lost. And much of the population is literally getting lost, with hopes for decent survival smashed.

Actually Greeks are not yet quite milked dry. The shameful settlement imposed by the banks and bureaucracy includes measures to ensure that Greek assets will be taken over by the right greedy hands.

Germany’s role is particularly shameful, not just because Nazi Germany devastated Greece, but also because, as Thomas Piketty pointed out in Die Zeit, “Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War.”

The London Agreement of 1953 wiped out over half of Germany’s debt, laying the basis for its economic recovery, and currently, Piketty added, far from being “generous,” these days “Germany is profiting from Greece as it extends loans at comparatively high interest rates.” The whole business is sordid.

The policies of austerity that have been imposed on Greece (and on Europe generally) were always absurd from an economic point of view, and have been a complete disaster for Greece. As weapons of class war, however, they have been rather effective in undermining welfare systems, enriching the northern banks and the investor class, and driving democracy to the margins.

The behavior of the troika today is a disgrace. One can scarcely doubt that their goal is to establish firmly the principle that the masters must be obeyed: defiance of the northern banks and the Brussels bureaucracy will not be tolerated, and thoughts of democracy and popular will in Europe must be abandoned.