With its on-going “debt crisis” Greece has emerged as a target for economic “solutions testing.” So far austerity and large-scale privatization seem to be the favored treatment, as prescribed by the putative economic experts–the IMF and the EU banking sector.
In June 2011 Democracy Now hosted a debate with Hara Kouki and Costas Panayotakis, discussing the imposed economic measurements that triggered widespread protest throughout Greece and led to ridiculous new levels of privatization, such as the Greek police force renting out their officers and helicopters to private individuals.
And a related documentary, “Catastroika: privatization goes public,” was recently released, analyzing the transfer of state assets to private hands. It looks at developing countries around the world and uncovers the results of the current sell-off of the Greek public assets, as demanded by the experts in order to face the country’s enormous sovereign debt.
Turning to the examples of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome, Catastroika predicts what will happen, if the model imposed in these areas is imported in a country under international financial tutelage. Among those interviewed in the film are Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein and Dani Rodrik.
