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.