The transcript of Dialogos Radio’s interview with best-selling author and investigative journalist Greg Palast, on the economic situation in Greece and the policies of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), follows below. This interview aired on June 6-7, 2013. Find the podcast of this interview here.

MN: Joining us today on Dialogos Radio and the Dialogos Interview Series for the second time is Greg Palast. Greg is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “Billionaires and Ballot Bandits,” “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” “Armed Madhouse,” and the highly-acclaimed “Vultures’ Picnic.” Palast is an investigative journalist, he writes a weekly column for Vice Magazine, and also reports for the BBC and The Guardian, among others. He’s best known in the United States for uncovering Katherine Harris’ purge of black voters from Florida’s voter rolls in the year 2000. His reports are available at gregpalast.com.  Greg, welcome to our program. Recently, we’ve been hearing talk about how countries like Greece which have been suffering through an unprecedented economic crisis over the past two years, are finally on the road to recovery, thanks to the austerity measures and the policies that have been implemented all this time…

GP: That’s bull****, that’s complete bull****. I disagree with that. They haven’t been on the road to recovery. Greece is dying, Greece is dying, and austerity is one of the things that killed it. What are you talking about? That’s complete nonsense. Austerity has destroyed Greece, the Euro has destroyed Greece. Austerity is nonsense. Read Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics. I have a degree in economics from the University of Chicago. Austerity in the middle of a recession is a death sentence. You have 26% unemployment in Greece. It is a death zone. If they don’t get out of the Euro, if they don’t cut this crap of going along with the German invasion, demanding austerity, it’s death for Greece. Greece will not be alive. It will be a suburb of Turkey within six months unless you get rid of the Euro and get off this austerity kick.

MN: Greg, how does the case of Greece and what has been happening over the past few years with the IMF policies that have been implemented, how does it differ from what the IMF has done in other countries that it has gotten involved in?

GP: It’s the same but it’s worse, that’s all. Look, I saw the IMF…as an economist, I worked with Joe Stiglitz, who got the Nobel Prize in economics, but more importantly he was the World Bank’s chief economist. He saw the World Bank take countries apart, destroy them, brick by brick, by demanding that they privatize their industries. He called privatization “briberization” because, let’s face it, when we talk about privatization, we talk about a couple of guys who are close to the government in Greece, who are close to the German government, and they pick up the properties for next to nothing. You sell off your water system, you keep drinking water, you’re going to have to buy that back. You don’t save any money, you don’t get anything for selling your water system or electric system. It just means your electric bill and your water bill will be higher. What’s happened in Greece is that you see the kind of brutal practices which were first tested on Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil are brought to Greece with more severe consequences. However, the difference between Greece and Argentina is that the Greek people are gutless. Greek people are cowards are nature, whereas the Argentines are tough, and they told the IMF to go to hell, and they disconnected from the dollar. Greece is connected to the German deutsche mark…we call it the Euro, but it’s really the deutsche mark. The Argentines were connected to the dollar, they disconnected from the dollar, they told the creditors to go to hell, and they are a booming economy.

MN: And since you mentioned privatization, we’ve seen efforts now to privatize Greece’s water and electric utilities, and I am sure you have heard about what has been happening with the gold mining operations in Northern Greece by a Canadian company, Eldorado Gold. From your experience having covered similar privatizations that have taken place in other countries, what was the end result of all these instances elsewhere where they have been applied?

GP: You get ripped off. First of all, the Canadians control the gold-mining market…Barrick Gold, Eldorado, they’re all Canadian companies, and what they do is, they wait for the moment where a nation is really weak and on its back, and has to give away its gold. To give away the gold mines, literally, not even metaphorically, you’re talking about giving away the gold mines for nothing. Tanzania sold its gold mines for nothing under IMF pressure to Barrick Gold. They’ve made billions and billions and billions. When Argentina sold off its state oil company to a Spanish company, the result was that Argentina lost all its oil revenues. It’s like if you sell your house tomorrow, you seem to make a lot of money, but you still have to live in your house. Suddenly you have to pay lots of high rent to someone else. You still need water, you still need electricity. You privatize these things, you’re still going to have to buy water and electricity, but now you’ll pay a fortune to German and American and Canadian companies. Same with the gold mines. Argentina’s been smart enough to basically tax the hell out of the oil company, to basically renationalize it. There’s no question, say no to privatizations. It’s what Joe Stiglitz has called “briberization.” You know and I know, let’s not kid ourselves, nobody gets a gold mine without making a payoff to the powers that be. That’s just how it is, it’s not even a question. No one gets a gold mine without making a payout. That’s how it happens. They’re not privatizing, they’re stealing your gold. If Greece kept its gold, if Greece got off the Euro, and kept its water companies, it would be like Turkey. Right now, Turkey is eating your lunch. Turkey lucked out, it wasn’t allowed into the EU, because the racists in Europe didn’t want Muslims in Europe. So Turkey is eating your lunch, and it’s a terrible shame. But if Greece gets off the Euro and says we’re keeping our assets, Turkey’s in trouble. They stole all your tourism and you would get your tourism back, and that would save Greece.

MN: You recently had the opportunity to interview Theodoros Pangalos, who was a prominent former member of the PASOK government in Greece. What was your encounter with him like and what were his comments for those who oppose the government’s austerity program in Greece?

GP: I was in Kazakhstan of all places and I ran into Pangalos, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to interview him. He weighs about 300 lbs., he has a stomach that’s about three feet ahead of him when he walks into a room. I never mention people’s weight—someone’s overweight, that is usually a personal issue, but in his case, it isn’t, because you have people in Greece that are literally starving. Middle-class people for the first time can’t feed their children. That’s tragic. And here’s this guy, he’s eating so much that his stomach is two feet ahead of him, and he’s saying that if you complain about austerity measures, you’re a communist or you’re an anarchist. You’re not a communist or an anarchist, you’re just someone that’s trying to feed their kids. And what I was very disappointed in, he said that everyone knew that we were playing games—remember that he was a finance minister under PASOK. And by the way, how to distinguish between your parties, they’re pretty much the same thing. After all, Papandreou and Samaras were roommates, they went to school together, they’re best friends, there’s really no difference between your parties.

MN: And now they’re governing together.

GP: Together selling Greece to the Germans, who knows what they’re getting, but I don’t know. But all I’m saying, Pangalos, when I met him, said that anyone that complains about austerity is a communist or an anarchist. No, anyone that is complaining is starving, and something has to be done. I was very concerned because, as you know, if you go to gregpalast.com, if you read my book “Vulture’s Picnic,” to me, Greece is a crime scene. Back in the 80s and 90s, Goldman Sachs and a couple of other banks had a secret deal with the government to hide Greece’s deficit. It was a fraud, and they charged almost a half a billion dollar fee to the Greek government to help the Greek government hide its deficits. Why would you hide your deficits? For a single reason: only to stay within the Euro. We’re going to lie to the markets, lie to our bondholders, lie to the public, we’re going to pay Goldman Sachs a big fee, for what purpose? To stay in the Eurozone, which is like saying we want to stay in the Leper Colony. The Euro is a monstrous creation. When are people going to wake up and stop saying, “oh my god, if we don’t have 25% unemployment and more austerity, we’ll be thrown out of the Eurozone.” That’s like saying we’ll be thrown out of the Leper Colony. It’s crazy. So, to me, Greece is a crime scene. The people of Greece are not at fault. Pangalos has a phrase, we ate it all together. No we didn’t. He’s fat, and other people are starving. And because the rulers did very well, but the average person really, really suffered, and I think we have to start thinking about the average Greek citizen who is deeply suffering from this crisis, and the German solution is to suffer more. Well, they tried that in World War II, and I keep saying that the Germans want to change the name of the Euro to the Panzer. They’re accomplishing, through austerity requirements, the Germans are buying up Greece, and they’re accomplishing through economic manipulation what they tried to do with tanks during World War II. You’re going to become a German colony unless you get out of their currency.

MN: The interview you had with Pangalos ended up being published in Vice Magazine, where you have a weekly column, and you had some very harsh words for him. Was there any further response from him after the article was published?

GP: I actually said, aren’t you a criminal? The president of Iceland, who hid the fact that he knew all about the crisis in the banks, he’s been charged criminally with lying to the public. He faced jail time. Now in the end they let him off, but they put him on trial, they arrested him for the criminal charge of lying to the public, knowing that the banks of Iceland were on the verge of collapse, leading to the collapse of the economy. Now Pangalos, and Papandreou and Samaras and the whole crew, knew that Goldman Sachs was helping them hide the Greek deficit. It’s a fraud. So the people of Greece are victims of a fraud, and I felt he was one of the perpetrators, so I asked him, “if the president of Iceland is facing criminal charges, shouldn’t you face criminal charges for hiding the deficit through a fraud involving Goldman Sachs?” And he said “well we have laws, and our laws say I’m not a criminal.” Well that may be true, I don’t know all of the laws of Greece, he might be correct that he’s not criminally liable. But morally, your leadership of both main parties are equally responsible for lying to the people and causing massive, massive harm to the public, and I think that they should be held accountable. I used to be a criminal investigator for the United States Justice Department, and believe me, if this happened in the United States, we’d put handcuffs on these people.  Unfortunately for Greece, you’re in an economic competition with Turkey, because the main source of income in both countries is tourism, so as Greece declines, Turkey is rising…but Turkey is making its profits off of the suffering of Greece, and this has got to come to an end.

MN: In recent days and weeks, we’ve seen people take to the streets in very large numbers in Turkey, and with some less media attention, in Germany and other European countries. We’ve even seen the Occupy Wall Street movement return to the streets in New York City. What does this return signify for you?

GP: People are rising up. There’s some people who are saying “wait a minute, we’re all suffering under these austerity programs, we’re all getting killed by these things, our kids can’t go to school, we’re losing our businesses.” Starvation in Greece? That’s insane, who ever thought of such a thing? For the first time we’re seeing actual starvation in Greece, kids going to school hungry. Now why is that? I think people are beginning to wise up. They may not know all the details, but people understand that some rich people are getting rich off of the suffering of others. It’s not equal. The 1% is doing well in this crisis. People like Pangalos are doing very well in this crisis. The big banks are doing very well in this crisis. So it’s not shared suffering at all. I think people are getting very resentful that a few people are making a fortune off of the suffering of others. And so we see protesting, they may not know all the details but they’re protesting. And in Turkey—I was just in Istanbul a couple of weeks ago, in the very square where people are protesting. The country has been seized by a bunch of businessmen who have painted themselves green—not green for ecology but green for Islam—and they claim to be great Islamists, but they’re just a bunch of greedy grabbers. The very last park, there’s only one in the center, they want to pave over it to put up a mall. Why? Because it’s the one place where people can go to protest. So they’re not only taking away green space, they’re taking away the free speech place. So Turkey is returning to a dictatorship, but not like the old dictatorships that were run by the military, it’s now a dictatorship of islamo-fascistic business interests. Worldwide, I believe people are wising up, in Turkey, in Greece, in New York, in London, and in South America, people have gotten really smart and have taken control of the government and told the banks to go to hell, and of course, South America is doing incredibly well economically. And I would hope that Greece would disconnect from Germany on its currency.

MN: A few moments ago you called out the Greek people for not coming out and protesting this continued austerity. My sense is that there’s a fatigue that has set in, that people came out in 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and they were tear gassed, arrested, and beat up, and nothing has really changed, the same parties are still in government. What would your response be to this sort of thinking?

GP: One of the things you need is a voice for the people. One of the problems that the Greeks face—I’m very, very sympathetic, when I say that Greeks are cowards, I’m trying to push people to not give up yet, look across to Turkey, where people are acting out. I think that people shouldn’t give up, but you don’t have a voice, because PASOK and ND are basically indistinguishable, and they’re not defending the public against the austerity measures which are punishing people to pay banks and to pay Germans. There’s no one standing up against the Euro. You had one independent party which completely caved in, they lost their guts. You do need that third voice. In Brazil, the worker’s party, under Lula…the third parties which say no to the IMF and the World Bank, no to austerity, they have been successful, they were successful in Brazil, in Argentina, in Peru, in Bolivia, in Venezuela, in Nicaragua, and all these economies now, when these third parties that were considered very very marginal, spoke up and people joined them and they took over, those economies are doing exceptionally well. And so I think people should not be afraid to say we need a voice, and at some point, a politician will say “that’s a good idea.” You had a third party in Greece, and they lost their principles, and that’s a shame, they were told “oh my god, if you don’t give in to the austerity nonsense, we’ll be thrown out of the Euro.” That’s like being thrown out of a Leper Colony. You don’t want to be in the Euro, take my word for it. I knew Bob Mandell, the guy who invented the Euro and who got the Nobel Prize for it. The Euro is not about having a happy trade zone. It’s about imposing the elimination of the progressive state. If you don’t get out of the Euro, you’re doomed, you’ve signed your own death warrant. The Euro is the fourth reich and it’s absolutely dangerous and it’s absolutely poisonous, and you have to give it up. You need a party that will do it. I understand why people are fatigued and tired, because there’s no political party standing up for rational action, reason and discourse. I’m an economist, I’m not Che Guevara, I’m not a revolutionary, I just see economic madness, and I talk about me and Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman and the rest of us who are trying to use our brains in the world of economics. Why are the Greek people agreeing to their own destruction? It’s crazy! And I know that some people are tired and exhausted and some people are literally hungry and lost their jobs and feel helpless and hopeless. But this is when you have to act. You cannot give up now.

MN: In closing, do you have a final message that you would like to share with the Greek people?

GP: I would like the people of Greece to contact me, in English or Greek—we’ll translate it—at gregpalast.com or “Greg Palast” on Facebook. My book, Vulture’s Picnic, which includes the destruction of Greece, will be out in Greece in September, in Greek. And I would like people to contact me and give me their stories, their ideas, their information, and when I come to Greece, I want to meet you and speak with you. I need to learn what people are thinking and what’s going on, and I want to know why people are not resisting the German-European takeover of your economy. It’s tragic, it’s sad, and I would like to get the ideas of the people of Greece before I come there in September and release my book. I would like to really speak with people about what the people of Greece think are the best solutions. Let’s work this out together, and I will bring the best minds in the field of economics to your side, to discuss how movements are formed. I’ve seen successful movements formed around the world by people who thought their situation was hopeless. I was in Brazil when people are starving and now Brazil rules the Western hemisphere. And I think there’s a lot to learn from Brazil and Argentina and to learn from their experience, and to bring that to Greece. But I don’t want to have arrogance about what I know about Greece, I want people to tell me and educate me.

Please excuse any typos or errors which may exist within this transcript.