By Hudson. Headlines around the world greeted the election results in Greece and France as a rejection of austerity programs by the electors of those countries. Well, what can Americans learn from the results of these elections and from the crisis in the eurozone?

The same thing is happening in Europe that’s happening here. Left-wing parties, socialist parties, labor parties all say that they’re going to preserve the social contract, and as soon as they get into power, they sell out to their financial backers, they doublecross labor. The socialist party in Greece fell from 44 percent to 14 percent because the last party simply [incompr.] the most vicious anti-labor measures in Europe. Same thing in France now. Hollande of the French socialists, before the election, said he was going to beg, ask Europe, will you please not insist that we roll back our social programs. And just this morning he said, well, I asked and they said no. I’m afraid that in order to preserve Europe, in order to preserve the idea of a political harmony, we’re going to have to go ahead and impose more austerity on the people. I’m terribly sorry. But if you don’t like it, you can vote for another party in four years. But there’s going to be austerity, and we’re going to have to lower wages here, and there’s nothing to do. If you don’t lose our campaign contributors, the banks could lose, and we couldn’t have that, because if the banks lose, they say that that’s intolerable to them.

Video below and full transcripts  here.

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