Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

In 2008 Greek unemployment had been 8 percent. Four years later it was rising inexorably toward 25 percent. Half of young Greeks were without jobs. In a nation of ten million, a quarter of a million people were fed daily at church-run food banks and soup kitchens. Meanwhile, the Greek parliament had been reduced to a factory for decrees demanded by the troika. In the eighteen months following the May 2010 bailout, the Athens parliament had whipped through 248 laws, one every three days. By 2012 it wasn’t only the trade unionists and the Greek Left who were up in arms. Judges, military officials and civil servants were mounting resistance to the subordination of the Greek state. And there were other ways of expressing dissatisfaction and distrust. In the spring of 2012 the draining of funds from Greek banks accelerated at an alarming rate. As the election now scheduled for May 2012 approached, the euro system was discreetly sluicing billions in cash into Greece to preserve a veneer of normality. In total, 28.5 billion euros were quietly airlifted into Greece to disguise the size of the bank run.14

Good lord