Greece must nationalize its banking system: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at St. Marys College and also author of "Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges," and Bill Still, an economy expert and filmmaker of "The Money Masters," to discuss demands by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from Greece to carry out labor reforms in order to secure a third bailout.

Rasmus believes Greece should nationalize its banking system in order to have some leverage in negotiations with the European Commission but Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Syriza Party have never played that card.

“So you would have to nationalize the banking system because that is how ECB (European Central Bank) and the Germans and the Troika put the screws to Greece every time there is negotiations. They bring their economy to a halt by manipulating the banking system,” he said Wednesday night.  

Rasmus said as long as Greece remains within the eurozone, there is no end in sight to the “austerity and economic depression” which characterizes the Greek situation economically today.

Rasmus ruled out the notion of an exit by Greece from the EU similar to that by the UK. 

Greece’s exit, he said, would give even more “stimulus” to a breakup of the eurozone.

"Therefore the bankers in Europe will do everything they can to prevent it from doing so and they will try to punish it (Greece as much as they can."

Rasmus further said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is maneuvering to get out of the three-way deal to “refinance” Greek debt.

He said labor reforms are part of the “ongoing austerity measures” that have been imposed on Greece since 2010 to generate enough income to pay the interest on over 400 billion dollars of debt that the Troika has imposed on Greece.

“This whole labor market restructuring, cutting wages and eliminating unions and bargaining is a development throughout Europe going on right now … it is a product of a failed eurozone, a failed banking union, a failed currency union where countries that are weaker within the union end up with large amounts of debt and inability to finance and pay for that debt,” he said.  

Still said the only way out for Greece is to escape the EU and the “dead money” economic system that prevails in the European bloc.  

It is in the interest of the EU and IMF to keep Greece essentially a “dead slave,” he said, adding the Greek government needs to stop importing and start manufacturing all the basic necessities of life that it needs internally to the greatest degree possible.

Greece one way or another has to declare some form of bankruptcy, renounce its debts, and regain its monetary sovereignty, Still said, adding the only way to do that is to get out of the euro and re-introduce the drachma.

"There is no alternative. At some point they are going to have to do it and the sooner they do it the better off they are going to be."

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