You hear it everywhere: Spain's industry is recovering, the industry in Greece is growing again, Ireland and Spain leave the Eurozone bailout fund, and the financial crisis does not exist in the coalition contract of the newly formed German government. Quiet and recovery, we should not worry.
Growth with salaries cut in half
Back to "normal". But we have arrived in another completely different society. In a normality, with youth unemployment around 58% in Greece, Spain and Portugal. The mass exodus of young, well qualified people even somewhat embellishes these numbers. An entire generation is being sacrificed. It is true that the economy is growing again, but now with salaries divided in half and temporary employment and reduced and privatized welfare systems. We have reached a new level of the neoliberal society. The crisis made the rich on the average even richer. And it made the middle class and the poor radically poorer.
Also Germany has changed
This result of the crisis management might not be so obvious in Germany. But if 40 to 60 year olds compare the start of their professional career with the current job starters, they will notice the drastic changes. While in the old days, the security of permanent employment contracts with standard wages were the rule, nowadays job starters are brachiating from internship to internship and from one temporary contract to the next, despite excellent qualifications. Even rich multinationals like Airbus only keep a limited number of permanent employees. At least one third of the employees are on fixed-term contracts or on service contracts. On top of this, there is the outsourcing of work to sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors, where often the wage agreements are not binding. Especially emerging industries such as Amazon are setting standards. There, the fixed-term contract of the cheapest low-wage business is chosen. As a rule, new employees get temporary contracts only. Only "established employees" reach the next level. The gap between employees living on their salaries and those living on their fortune has widened also in Germany during the last five years.
Good-bye financial crisis?
Before the latest crisis of 2007/2008, only the FED believed that it was possible to revive the struggling US economy with a capital infusion of central bank billions at almost zero interest. The result was mainly a massive support of the so-called financial industry. It turned the practically freely available bonds securized financial products with about 8% interest – a great deal which contributed to the bubble of 2007 to a big extent. Today, not only the FED, but also the European as well as the Japanese Central Banks follow a (almost)-zero interest policy in the same financial distress. They borrow hundreds of billions from the ECB with an interest rate of 0,25%. With this money, they buy Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese federal bonds. Those bring between 5 and 8% interest. An enormous bank subsidy.
European citizens with bank books, life insurances and so on are losing their money due to the minimal interest payments in combination with the inflation to the same extent as the banks are being stuffed! Here again the same mechanism: redistribution from the bottom to the top.
Regulations of the banks: a paper tiger
"Proper trading of the banks is rigorously limited", announce all the media. Too good to be true, because without this, the banking crisis of 2008 would not have happened. After the limiting definition of what proper trading really means, it would appear that the Deutsche Bank does not do any proper trading, according to EU-regulations! And having been pressured by the big banks, the EU stepped back from the planned separation between investment banking and said big banks.
Further measures to dispossess people in order to save the banks are planned ...
In early November 2013, the IMF stated that the debt of the Western nations has doubled compared to before the crises. Thus, they would not be able to save banks without collapsing themselves. The next crisis would certainly come, in one or in three years, and one would need to provide for a risk. This is why the IMF suggested adding on top of the zero interest policy a compulsory levy of 10% on all savings!
... and already decided!
The new EU-bank savings funds should allegedly avoid that countries are again required to bail out the bank in case of a new crisis. Financed only by bank, it should provide a security of 45 to 65 milliards of €. But saving the banks in the most recent crisis required over 1,6 billion € which increased national debt. Since the savings funds will certainly not be sufficient, a postscript was added where it was stated what would happen then: First the investors and trusters will be asked to bring the money. The trusters are of course the depositors! Savings up to 100.000€ will not be touched. But that is not certain.
But if that is not sufficient, then the European Stability Mechanism will have to pitch in- which means again the tax payers! This and all its consequences may go beyond the scope of the German federal government budget. Thus, there is a threat that something might happen like what happened recently to insolvent states like Argentina: First the pensions are taken, and then whatever is left of social security.
The title of the film says it clearly
Based on experiences during the shooting we modified the title of the film. It is now called: "Who is saving whom? – The crisis as business model at the expense of democracy and social security". It was certain that there was something to save in 2008/9. But what has been saved, and how this strategy has been continued up to now clearly shows that the rich people of this world have managed- and are getting better in this – to dump their losses onto the general public, and to reduce the democratic social rights of those who need to pay the bill.
Organisations are holding back
Already, just about 2.000 committed citizens from seven countries collected 117.000 € for this film project. These are double the people as with "Water Makes Money". However, organizations like unions did not contribute one tenth to "Who is saving whom" compared to the last project. On top of it, no TV station has had the courage to take part in the project. Therefore, many members of the team from "Who is saving whom" need to work to some extent in an honorary capacity. In fact, it is not acceptable that especially the committed people need to work without a reasonable remuneration.
This is why we are asking you to:
- Talk to your neighbors, colleagues, friends.
- If you have media contacts, start a report about the project.