Who is responsible for the eurozone crisis? Can Germany fix it? Is a Grexit inevitable? What will happen after the election? You asked the questions and Greek economist Costas Lapavitsas responded

Why is Greece in such a catastrophic state? Who, between Brussels, the bankers, the politicians and the people, is really responsible? What’s the least worst option: staying in the euro, or Grexiting?

For three years now, Greece’s plight – and the international response to it – has dominated headlines. An estimated one-third of the Greek population now lives below the poverty line. Plummeting salaries and pensions, never-ending tax hikes and ever-deeper spending cuts have pushed the country to the brink of economic and social collapse.

Queues for the soup kitchens are lengthening; the numbers of homeless people are mounting daily; critical medicines are in increasingly short supply. Many Greek people are suffering as they have not suffered outside of wartime. Yet how much do we really understand of the reasons for this crisis – and the possible solutions to it?

As Greece heads into an election that could determine not just its own future but that of Europe’s single currency and prospects for recovery, we asked you to send your questions to Costas Lapavitsas, professor of economics at Soas, radical and well-known media commentator, and author of Crisis in the Eurozone. He makes no bones about the fact that he believes Greece should cut its losses and withdraw from the euro, and also argues that broader European austerity is counterproductive and likely to lead to a longer and deeper recession and the end of the monetary union. Ultimately, he feels the people of Europe must gain democratic control over their financial institutions, and ensure they are restructured in the best interests of the people, not the banks.

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La Plataforma per la Solidaritat en Temps de Crisi, en la que participan distintas entidades de la Isla como Caritas o el Fons Menorquí de Cooperació, inicia hoy en el Centre de Convencions de Es Mercadal un ciclo de conferencias basado en la proyección de la película “Interferencias”, realizada por el Observatorio de Deuda Global.

El primer pase contará con una charla a cargo de Francisco Ferrer Borrego, miembro del Seminario de Economía Crítica Taifa de Barcelona, colectivo fuertemente implicado en el análisis de la economía capitalista, las desigualdades que genera y los pormenores de la crisis. La cita para desmenuzar el colapso capitalista y las opciones de cambio es a las 20 horas.

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Federico Garcia Lorka’s 1932 play The Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre) focused on a wedding that, in the end, never took place. It symbolised the long shadow cast by a hidden crime upon the nation’s dallying with the prospect of deliverance. It also foreshadowed the tragic events that consumed, not just the playwright, but the whole nation, only a few short years later (as captured in Picasso’s Guernica better than by any historian’s pen). Today, we have another Bodas de Sangre in the making. A postmodern version. All of the tragedy’s elements are here, except for the splendid prose and poetry of a Lorka. Instead, we have inanities from Mr Rajoy, from Brussels and from Frankfurt. Meanwhile, a stunned audience in Madrid, in Dublin, in Barcelona, in Cork, in Paris, Athens and Rome are watching, listening, eager for some ray of hope. To no avail. For there is none.

Spain treading on Ireland’s shaky footsteps

Spain’s pain is not novel. It is a carbon copy of Ireland’s. A period of ponzi growth was occasioned by money-capital fleeing the metropoles of financialised capitalism, toward places like Spain and Ireland, in search of higher returns. It found its lucrative returns in a bubble created in the real estate business, aided and abetted by local banks, developers, politicians. Then, Wall Street came crashing down, capital fled (as is its wont at times of financial implosion) and the losses of the banks were passed on to states (the Spanish and Irish governments) which had been, interestingly, running a very tight ship for some time before the Crash. The change in political personnel made little difference. No state, however tightly or austerely is run, can survive (a) once mountains of losses are deposited on it, and (b) when it has no Central Bank of its own to help it remain afloat.

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