Al l VI l Li The Truth About the Greek Loan Default Dustin Minna July1,20B The events surrounding Greece's default is the culmination of everything wrong with the world order today: An incorrect view of how modern currency works; a cultish adherence to debt repayment, a political order that puts the interests of international creditors ahead of ordinary workers, and a complete inability for the international power elite to admit they are wrong. Of all the things that are wrong, I think the most perverse is the cultish attitude towards debt repayment. Greece has no ability to pay back its debt. For the last 5 years, it has agreed to almost every cut in government spending the E.U. and IMF have insisted on. It has raised its retirement age by over a decade to 67. It has continually increased taxes. And yet, when none of these worked, the elite demanded more, more, and more. Never considering that its time to declare bankruptcy and start over. Despite 5 years of making things worse, The IMF, E.U. and World Bank continue to hold to their same old prescriptions: Cut government services to the poor, cut health care spending, raise taxes on labor, and cut taxes on capital. That's right, you read that last part correctly. As they insist on raising sales taxes - they call it VAT or Value-added-tax(the most regressive tax in modern democracies), they have insisted on Greece cutting corporate taxes. The elite adhere to the idea of neoliberalism. That if the country quits taxing capital and investment and moves taxes to a sales tax, at the same time they cut welfare then the country will prosper, tax revenues will go up, and the budget will be balanced. Of course that idea has almost never worked. (I can't think of a single instance where it did, but I'll say "almost" just in case there was one). Despite this low success rate, the global elite keep trying to impose these policies on in-debt nations through the IMF, World Bank, and now... the European Centra