Dexia bailout makes Belgians debt slaves

The Belgian state plans to take over the Belgian part of Dexia bank for four billion euros and guarantee a further 54 billion euros, the country's caretaker government announced on Sunday. This plan of action entails a huge risk, warns the left-leaning daily De Morgen: "As always in this rampant debt crisis the usual formula is being applied: the profits have been expertly privatised in the past decade but the costs for the clean-up action will naturally be collectivised. ... For some strange reason commercial banks are supposed to be immune to the laws of the free market: they're 'too big to fail' and therefore the state, which has to cut its spending by eight billion euros this year, sees itself once again obliged to increase its debt and the interest it pays on that debt. ... If the Dexia bailout still goes wrong this government will turn the next generation into a slave of debt like in Greece and Ireland."

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