Medtem ko države upnice, ECB in IMF novo grško vlado stiskajo v kotu mišnice, iz katere ni izhoda, pa se finančni minister Yanis Varoufakis še naprej trudi na mednarodnem podiju prepričevati o nujnosti drugačne rešitve za Grčijo. Varoufakis ima iz makroekonomskega vidika nedvomno prav, toda prepričuje napačne ljudi, medtem ko prave ciljne publike njegova izvajanja niti malo ne zanimajo. Schäuble, Draghi in Lagardova z vidnim odporom gledajo skozi njega … in po vsakem razgovoru še dodatno privijajo pipice oziroma ne popuščajo niti za milimeter. Čakajo, da grški vladi, potem ko bo izsrkala vse likvidnostne rezerve pokojninskih skladov, javnih ustanov in državnih podjetij, zmanjka denarja za kruh in pripravljena sprejeti vse pogoje začne beračiti za odmerek infuzije finančne pomoči. Pomoč pod takšnimi pogoji seveda ni rešitev za Grčijo, toda pogajalska taktika mednarodnih inštitucij deluje. In grški konec prihaja točno kot smrt.

Medtem ko je Varoufakis pred enim tednom na obisku v ZDA na Brookings Institution predaval o “new dealu” za Grčijo, je njegov grški kolega na istem Brookingsu, Theodore Pelagidis (sicer z univerze v Pireju), napisal ubijalski komentar o Grčiji “Greece’s big nowhere“. V komentarju ob naslajanju nad dramo nove grške vlade, ki naj bi uničila krhko gospodarsko okrevanje, Pelagidis obravnava dva scenarija, enega hujšega od drugega:

1. “The deep dark before the dawn” scenario. I still believe this is the baseline scenario. The government, in a dramatic weekend either by the end of April or during May, being very close running out of money, meaning that they can’t pay back both IMF loans or refinance T-bills (May obligations: 746 million euros to the IMF and 2.8 billion euros in T-bills; June obligations: 1.5 billion euros to the IMF and 2 billion euros in T-bills), it has to urgently make a final decision. Tsipras then takes the initiative to announce to the public a painful yet indispensable agreement. No matter the details and efforts to mask the real thing, reforms will be fully implemented and a bill has to be passed by the parliament, or creditors will not pour the necessary money into the suffering economy, because the government’s erratic behavior has destroyed its credibility with the creditors. The agreement comes with a new European loan with a low interest rate. The “national populist” government embraces in substance a “neo-liberal populism,” which means a supposedly left/nationalistic rhetoric together with a policy of market deregulation and a huge wave of privatizations. One important detail: the government is fully incapable of preparing anything at all except for aggressively begging for money. The creditors will, in this case, have to provide in time the new conditionality rules with the detailed technicalities included. I still believe that this is the most possible scenario; I give it a 75 percent chance of occurring. But make no mistake, this is only one episode of the drama. Sooner or later the government will collapse—not because of the austerity, but from the incompetence, the inexperience, and the lack of diligent, hard-working people (rather than media personas). And because of this vacuum, the government can not serve its clientele voter that is hungry for money, positions, exchange of favors, and of course jobs. By destroying the weak recovery, the government has undermined its future.

2. The “domestic implosion” scenario. I use this term instead of “Grexident.” Driven by a hard-to-believe domestic inertia and increasing incompetence, the government finds itself trapped in a zero-sum game, where, in the end, it similarly takes no money from the creditors and at the same time, it takes the huge domestic political cost from the collapse of the economy. The initial Syriza idea of a “home alone,” isolated country based on a state driven capitalism a la Chavez/Maduro or Putin, presupposes a strong state apparatus and a well-organized party mechanism dictating society, both of which are nonexistent in the Greek case. In this scenario, a bankruptcy within the eurozone means that the government finds itself in a desperate situation and either surrenders to the creditors or calls for elections in an environment of panic and capital controls.

V obeh scenarijih je problem v tem, da zaradi nesposobnosti in neizkušenosti vladne ekipe ter pomanjkanja pravih garačev in delujočega državnega aparata Grčiji ne more uspeti noben alternativni scenarij samostojnega izhoda iz krize. Vsi poskusi se končajo v globoki temi ali imploziji. Pelagidis predlaga, da bi morale evropske inštitucije prevzeti neposredno kontrolo nad grškimi inštitucijami. Ali po domače povedano, v Grčijo bi morale posleti prisilno upravo, ki bi nato delila denar po svoji presoji in bolj učinkovito reformirala, privatizirala in pobirala davke.

Hm, najbrž bi bila komu ta rešitev še najbolj všeč, vendar pa v demokratični Evropi še ni mogoča. Kar pomeni, da bo treba še bolj privijati demokratično izbrano grško vlado, da bo počela stvari, ki bi jih počela prisilna uprava.

No, v vmesnem času je Varoufakis včeraj napisal nov članek za Project Syndicate, kjer – spet v prepričevanju napačne publike – pristaja na nekaj koncesij. Denimo na pokojninsko reformo, kjer bi dvignil upokojitveno starost, na neodvisno davčno upravo in delno privatizacijo. Še vedno pa nasprotuje vsem predlogom glede zahtevanega primarnega presežka v proračunu, ki bi po njegovem vodil v “varčevalno past” (austerity trap):

Our government is eager to rationalize the pension system (for example, by limiting early retirement), proceed with partial privatization of public assets, address the non-performing loans that are clogging the economy’s credit circuits, create a fully independent tax commission, and boost entrepreneurship. The differences that remain concern how we understand the relationships between the various reforms and the macro environment.

…

First, we must concur on how to approach Greece’s fiscal consolidation. Second, we need a comprehensive, commonly agreed reform agenda that will underpin that consolidation path and inspire the confidence of Greek society.
Beginning with fiscal consolidation, the issue at hand concerns the method. The “troika” institutions (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) have, over the years, relied on a process of backward induction: They set a date (say, the year 2020) and a target for the ratio of nominal debt to national income (say, 120%) that must be achieved before money markets are deemed ready to lend to Greece at reasonable rates. Then, under arbitrary assumptions regarding growth rates, inflation, privatization receipts, and so forth, they compute what primary surpluses are necessary in every year, working backward to the present.

The result of this method, in our government’s opinion, is an “austerity trap.” When fiscal consolidation turns on a predetermined debt ratio to be achieved at a predetermined point in the future, the primary surpluses needed to hit those targets are such that the effect on the private sector undermines the assumed growth rates and thus derails the planned fiscal path. Indeed, this is precisely why previous fiscal-consolidation plans for Greece missed their targets so spectacularly.

Our government’s position is that backward induction should be ditched. Instead, we should map out a forward-looking plan based on reasonable assumptions about the primary surpluses consistent with the rates of output growth, net investment, and export expansion that can stabilize Greece’s economy and debt ratio. If this means that the debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than 120% in 2020, we devise smart ways to rationalize, re-profile, or restructure the debt – keeping in mind the aim of maximizing the effective present value that will be returned to Greece’s creditors.

Varoufakis konča s stavki, ki so sicer primerni za akademsko ali literarno diskusijo, toda ugotovitve o “nenepromostljivh razlikah” v luči izkazane mišolovske taktike trojke zvenijo povsem v prazno. Nova grška vlada izkazano ne more prepričati starih mačkov, ki jih zanima zgolj povrnitev njihovega denarja ne glede na ceno, ki jo bo Grčija za to morala plačati:

The current disagreements with our partners are not unbridgeable. … None of this means that common ground cannot be achieved immediately. The Greek government wants a fiscal-consolidation path that makes sense, and we want reforms that all sides believe are important. Our task is to convince our partners that our undertakings are strategic, rather than tactical, and that our logic is sound. Their task is to let go of an approach that has failed.