“Comparing double standards with debt-ridden Greece,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, April 24-30, 2015, 25.

Double Standards

Just as banks are tested by standards different from those they apply to their customers, so are countries that owe a great deal of money, like Greece.

How “healthy” are the largest banks? If derivatives are not considered as part of banks’ assets (Fed), then they can withstand another financial crisis without bailouts (with 13% capital); accounting practices of the FDIC claim that they cannot (with only 5%).

While our political leaders and the moneyed elite espouse conservative ideals of small government, you can readily find them courting military contracts (of big government spending, if not waste) and prohibiting the laissez faire market forces of recreational marijuana sales, infusing government control.

What about endorsing the proliferation of houses of ill spirit (if not ill repute) in the center of downtown because of sales revenues, while responding to their dangerous prospects with the surveillance of street cameras (Big Brother).

Pointing out these kind of inconsistencies may seem like sound medicine, but as many scholars remind us, facts seldom change beliefs. So, what does? 

Perhaps a trauma or a crisis, the kind that shakes the very foundation on which such beliefs rest. The imminent threat of a Greek default on its Eurozone debt provides a good case study.

The so-called cradle of democracy, Greece, has a population of 11 million and an annual GDP of about $240 billion. By comparison, Colorado has a population of around 5 million and an annual GDP larger than $270 billion.

With over $300 billion in foreign debt, Greece is rumored to be on the verge of default. All the questions about the adverse repercussion of a default—from creditor-banks and their respective government guarantees to a potential exit from the Eurozone—may miss some moral issues related to this situation.

To begin with, as David Graeber (2014) reminds us, the very notion of debt is bound by two unrelated moral principles. One has to do with the obligation one ought to feel about repaying borrowed money, and the other is that lenders of money are considered inherently evil.

Those who fail to repay what they owe are then considered evil. How do we view individuals who take out mortgages and default on them, or those filing for personal bankruptcy to wipe clean their debts?

But by the same token, we also consider lenders to be evil, whether under the influence of Jesus’ condemnation of the money-changers in the Temple, or more recently the bailout of banks who gambled foolishly and received taxpayers’ help.

In local communities like ours, the very notion of public works of any sort, like the City of Champions, is considered problematic (evil?) because public debt may saddle the community with additional taxes. But what if debt is labeled investment? Will the next mayor go on record in support of such investments?

The Greek case study is much more complex than we are led to believe from sensational headlines that ensure the volatility of the stock-market (where brokerage firms enjoy the ride).

If we remain on the moral level for a minute, we should ask whether or not one country has a moral duty to help another? Though philosophical in nature, the answer is commonly couched in practical, utilitarian terms: yes, as long as it can afford it.

The Greek government, says Frank Jordans (AP), is reminding the German government—its largest creditor—that after WWII Greece was among 22 countries that agreed to halve Germany’s debt (1953).

More concretely, Greece has definite reparation claims against Germany from its WWII occupation of Greece: billions of euros worth of infrastructure destruction, millions of euros as compensation for massacres of resistance groups and Jews, about $7.7 billion of an interest-free loan made in 1942. This isn’t an exhaustive list.

So, who is the debtor and who is the creditor? On balance, who owes whom how much? Is there a moral injunction for aid among nations, even when it’s called debt?

The Germans, leading the Eurozone’s claims against Greece, insist that it’s the moral failings of the Greeks, as individuals and as a society, that have contributed to their current crisis: lazy tax evaders who expect the state to spend more than it can afford.

This systematic irresponsibility has raised the question every parent asks: should I enable bad behavior? If I punish, will I lose my child?

And punishment is expected in the Greek case, from austerity measures that hurt the poor to leaving the European Union, the kind of punishment our local leaders inflict on young entrepreneurs who haven’t made it yet to the top.

Can a small local startup expect the same royal treatment reserved for the military-technological complex? What will the next mayor do?

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

  

   

“Let’s celebrate the right to assemble with equality,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, October 28 – November 3, 2011, 25.

PUBLIC SPACES

Just as October 15^th was an international day of protest against banks, so was October 16^th the day the president dedicated the new Martin Luther King, Jr. statute in the national Mall in DC. They may seem unrelated, but these two dates should remind us of our financial commitments to public spaces as well as to the connection between religious institutions and public life. Justice isn’t reserved only for the afterlife; it must be pursued here and now.

Protests in public spaces remind us that on some level we are all in this together: what ails you may affect me as well. This is an economic as well as a moral insight, a way of looking at our community as a whole, as Adam Smith taught us centuries ago. A good banking system is useful for all of us, as borrowers and depositors, workers and investors, home-owners and car-owners, credit-card holders and businesspeople. Just as much as it needs legislative support from the public, it also needs public oversight.

It’s hypocritical to admire Arab Spring protests while looking down at a rag-tag group of sign-holders at the publicly owned Acacia Park or the privately-owned Zuccotti Park in New York City. Either we believe in our Constitutional right to assemble and protest in public, or we believe that protests should be limited to one’s living room or the Internet.

It’s fascinating that the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London asked the police to leave, while letting protesters stay around his domain. He reminds us that religious leaders are in fact public figures who must care about their congregants and the whole community. As beneficiaries of the public largess (as non-profit organizations that collect donations and are exempt from some taxes) they owe the community something in return: perhaps lending their support, ministering to those protesting injustice, feeding the needy, or simply speaking truth to power.

Without diluting the differences between the protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Tea Party, or Occupy Wall Street, all of them illustrate that it’s more effective to get together to vent frustrations and ask for remedies than to remain frustrated alone. Perhaps the media will take notice and spread the word. It’s the power in numbers; it’s the power of a group, whether as consumers or the disenfranchised (see how much unions helped stop child labor and dangerous working conditions in the past one hundred years).

Just as all protesters are not alike, so religious leaders or bankers. Some stand out because of their integrity and the causes they believe in and fight for; some simply don’t care; some copy what sounds good in one place to echo it in another; and still others simply seek the comfort of group affiliation, protesting, praying, or lending money. It’s the last group we should worry about: do they think critically about the community and the consequences of their actions?

Those of us who tried borrowing money from banks, like my dear friend and partner Perry Sanders, have suffered the humiliation of condescending officers whose attitudes weren’t in line with their chosen vocation of lending money to those who can revive a stalled economy. Was it institutional or personal? Is it ever justified? He finally succeeded in securing funding, but why didn’t banks compete for his business, one of the most successful lawyers in the country, as should be the case in a thriving capitalist system? He is, after all, a “job creator”! The success of banks depends on the public, the spending, consuming, borrowing public, the public whose representatives ensured the bailout of banks and their current low borrowing interest rates. Don’t we live together?

Before closing, my editor, Rob Larimer, reminded me of a story he tells his daughters: There once was an owl who loved to drink tea. One day, in the hollowed-out oak tree, he decided to make some tea to sip by the window. He readied his teapot and went to his cupboard to fetch a bag of his favorite tea. He took the teapot to the sink and placed it under the faucet. And that’s when something terrible happened. When he turned the faucet knob, no water came out. The owl had no water, and he knew he could not make tea without water.

The owl became very sad. He sat down by the window with his teapot still in his hand and began to cry. Tears streamed down his feathered cheeks. He cried and cried. Then, after a while, he looked down and noticed that his teapot was full of water. His tears had filled the teapot. The owl was very happy, and he made a pot of tea. The tea was delicious, but a little salty.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS and believes in the abundance of our blessings. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com