Sunday’s Greek elections had more than one winner. In fact, several winners emerged from the ballot, some completely unexpected.
SYRIZA scored the first victory of a leftist party in Greek history. Next to SYRIZA, the full of contradictions Independent Greeks (ANEL) managed to be part of the coalition government. The Golden Dawn neofascists won 17 parliament seats while in jail. Even Antonis Samaras won, if one considers that despite the fact he was riding on the unpopular austerity measures for two and a half years, he managed to keep New Democracy at 28% of the electorate.
The Alexis Tsipras victory was based on a campaign that promised Greek people the end of austerity and the demand for a big debt write-off. That would certainly lead to a standoff with Greece’s international lenders. The idea of a Grexit shook the European Union and the shock was felt in international markets as well. The euro started plunging. The morning after the election, the euro was at a nine-year low against the dollar, reaching 0.899 and may drop some more.
It is ironic then that the unexpected winner of the Greek election was the U.S. economy. It is ironic because, unknowingly, a radical leftist party with anti-capitalism rhetoric gave the American economy such a tremendous boost by strengthening the U.S. dollar. That should have the party’s far-leftists fuming.
Despite Tsipras’ insistence during the campaign that Greece belongs to the Eurozone and will stay in the Eurozone, other SYRIZA members were stating that a Grexit won’t be a catastrophe if negotiations with Greece’s creditors did not go as hoped. Markets kept being nervous; the common European currency was on a downslope.
Greeks like a good conspiracy theory. The scenario that Tsipras “works” for the Americans has been heard. The theory that he is an agent whose secret mission was to undermine the Eurozone by forcing a Grexit and creating a domino effect that would destroy the common currency has been presented in small TV channels’ late shows.
The theory that hasn’t been heard yet is that when the SYRIZA chief went to the University of Texas in Austin in 2013 to give a lecture on the European economic crisis, he was kidnapped by the CIA. He was then taken to a secret laboratory and was brainwashed to say and do the things he did afterwards. It is a good scenario, taken from a cold war-era b-movie that stands even today.
The fact remains though that, unknowingly, the 40-year-old leftist did the U.S. dollar a big, priceless service. To use the words of the Andrews Sisters song, all this time he was working for the Yankee dollar.
“We congratulate Greece for the successful completion of parliamentary elections and look forward to working closely with the next government,” said the message sent to the new Prime Minister from the White House. President Obama should at least add a big ‘thank you.’
Tsipras has promised to do things about Greece ‘s finances that belong to the sphere of the miraculous. He may or may not manage to boost the ailing Greek economy, but his help to the American economy was huge.
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