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Greece's Scams, Extortion, and “Suicidal” Possibility
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
On June 17, when Greeks try once again to choose their next government, they may decide their country’s fate—or not. One thing is for sure, whichever parties will be able to form a coalition government, they will push for more bailout billions, but this time, forget the conditions, the structural reforms, the austerity. Just give us the money. And however much we want. They’d watched how Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had asked for a bailout ... after reassuring everyone with utmost sincerity and for the longest time that neither Spain nor its banks would need one.
Not a detail escaped the Greeks when, after the bailout meeting on Saturday, Rajoy proclaimed victory, saying he’d been offered €100 billion, no strings attached. That’s what Greek politicians wanted to hear—and they jubilated; the yoke of German-imposed structural reforms and austerity had been broken. It didn’t matter to them how much German, Finnish, and EU officials protested that that’s not how they understood the agreement; there were, in fact, lots of strings attached, they said, which makes you wonder if there was even an agreement.
But that sliver of hope, false as it may prove to be, hasn’t stopped the ongoing run on Greek banks. Companies and individuals have long been transferring practically every euro that wasn’t nailed down into foreign countries, and they have been stashing emergency funds under mattress or in boxes—for fear that euro accounts would be converted to drachmas over some weekend in the near future. And the few euros that still remain behind might be pulled out right after the election, if push came to shove. Greece is effectively being bled dry by its own people.
So the bailout Troika has put the Greek banking system on a transfusion. Lifeblood in the amount of €18 billion arrived last week. More money is available through the ECB’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance, which lends money via national central banks to local banks. However, the ECB has shrouded in mystery for how long and to what extent it would be willing to keep the transfusions going, worried apparently about throwing good money after bad.
And scams are cropping up to take advantage of the desperate need for funds that banks can no longer provide. On Tuesday, police arrested three men and a woman, part of a gang whose members—posing as ministry employees, civil engineers, and architects—offered individuals and businesses access to large amounts of EU money to fund business projects, equipment purchases, or solar-voltaic installations, all logical hot-buttons in the EU realm of subsidies. For a fee. The racket had been going on for two years, and police estimated that they’d been able to con over €350,000 out of some gullible victims. Because, even in chaos, people seek opportunity.
And so Greece’s election may not decide the country's future in the Eurozone, but may simply prolong the extortion racket to keep the money flowing, freely this time, and in liberal quantities—efforts that the Troika may consider distasteful and brush off with disdain. But it’s not even certain that the winning party will have enough votes to form a governing coalition or that any parties could agree to form one. In which case, a third election would be required, a possibility that Antonis Samaras, leader of the conservative New Democracy, called “suicidal.”
Tourism, Greece’s second largest industry after the shipping industry, took another hit as tour-bus drivers went on strike; owners demanded that drivers take a 50% cut in pay on top of the 20% cut they’ve already suffered! And Greece is the model for Spain and Italy. Read.... Everything is Getting Gummed up in Greece.
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awwww, SNAP! sara eye-sin is lettin janus into her neckline.
sara, you are not safe! as so often happens, i suspect young sara will suffer like so many before her; it's called the janus complex. basically, the panties and bra fall from the form, seemingly of their own accord. it can be blush-making for its victim...but no worries, cutie-pie, janus is prepared for all such emergencies.
pink becomes you, my dear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V430M59Yn8
i...can't...help...,
janus
How true. But f*ck it, no worries. Everyone is waiting for this
http://www.weforum.org/news/over-us-100-trillion-additional-credit-neede...
ya know, wolf, you're a skilled writer...good stuff.
also, janus loves your name -- wolf was the nickname janus earned in sales...and i still favor it.
BTW, where the fuck is banzai? it's my birthday and i'm waiting patiently...patiently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc
i sit here on the stairs/
cause i'd rather be alone,
janus
Hi Janus, thanks! You must have been a great salesman. And happy birthday!
Yeah, where is banzai. Maybe he took off tonight.... I should tweet him to find out what he's up to.
i suspect he's ponderin my offer...it's a big deal -- but, as you've keenly observed, janus can sling a pitch like none other...in case you're unaware, banzai and i are gonna radicalize the world of journalizm.
anyway, yup, janus was always atop the ole leader board -- and he never stops negociating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCf46yHIzSo&feature=fvwrel
but, wolf, i wanted to share something with you...something i think you'll get --
one never knows when one will stub one's toe up against prophesy. it can smart; and i reckon, if it doesn't, "prophesy" it ain't. and so it was. ever read p.g. wodehouse? well, if you're curious about the future of central banks and what sort of 'man' is steering this hulking and unweildy craft, look no further than the saga of stanley featherstonehaugh ukridge.
mr ukridge was not unlike your run-of-the-mill statist -- a schemer, really. some may say a two-bit, flim-flam man...a bernakster, if you will. one stanley featherstonehaugh ukridge found his back up against it one fine morning (just like the bernak), and so he crafted himself a plan. brilliant, by his figuring. for those so disposed to frivolities like 'ethics' and 'disipline' and 'industry', stan's plan was, in a word, anathema.
it was predicated on several conditions: first, he must secure a loan -- the standard fiver from his bureacrat buddy. said buddy was a soft touch, and stanley felt certain that step one was in the bag already. and so it was. next, it was only a matter of fate conducting its inscrutable ways according to his particular tastes...meaning, a can't-lose horse must do better than all its rivals at ascot (paying ten to one); and then another indominable philly must likewise prevail at 40 to one. natch! says ukridge.
but what self-respectin central-banker or compulsive gambler (like there's a difference) would settle for such? not the bernak and certainly not stanley featherstonehaugh ukridge.
step three was a bit more byzantine...lots of movin parts, wolf. it was to go like this: stanley would take his winnings, buy a cat-ranch here in america. using basic math-skills, he extrapolated, 'i need only begin with a few hundred cats, which i can salvage from any major industrial area benefiting from a rat infestation. and since these lusty felines will populate at a propitious rate, i'll soon find myself swimmin in kitty-cats...no doubt.' and by extention, he reasons thusly, 'at the going rate, i can get X number of shillings per cat skin. a cat, i should think, requires no more than four rats as a ration...and since rats populate at a rate four times faster than the average cat, i shall open a rat-ranch across the way. in essence, i will create a self-sustaining dynamo. for you see, the rats will feed off the otherwise useless cat carcasses. the symmetry of it all is sublime!' says ukridge to himself.
and so here we are; the stanley featherstonehaugh ukridges of the world have limped their way through life and landed in our central banks. great fuckin job, academia. best and brightest, my goddam ass! rejects and derelicts to a man, i say.
i guess it would be funny if it weren't so horrifically true. yes, turbo-tax is befuddling; but, all the same, you'd think even an academic could hack it.
as to prophesy, i suspect this is our mene mene tinkle moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1enyZTf3Ig
john the revelator, tell me who's that rider/
...i saw guns, tanks, CANNON,
janus
PG Woodhouse was hilarious in portraying the rage and despair that incurred in the hearts of intrepid men, the royal game; where you live in hope for ten years, in despair for the next ten and in resignation for the final decade of your active life. Going round a golf course with PG was worth its weight in oriental spice!
The statist shill whose experience you portrary looks to me like an every-day paper pusher who gets the irrational urge of exuberance to make a quick buck like a latter-day bucaneer or capitalist entrepreneur. Its as much a parody of capitalistic greed as it is of bureaucratic despair. You have hit the nail on the head on both counts.
Its not just a prophesy of statist corruption; more so of human folly. When is the next tee-time coming up?
ASAP, mi amigo! and i mean it...if you live up this way, let us hit the links!
also, i must caution you, i can talk about wodehouse endlessly...i must here boast (it is, however, an uncomfortable posture for ole janus...insofar as i'm probably the most humble person in the world): wodehouse and i belonged to the same golf club -- the palmetto, in aiken, south carolina. where, if you'll recall, he moved through a swath of corpulent business men like a devouring flame to win the club championship. wodehouse...matchless -- and for all time! THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER PELHAM.
janus likes summertime in new england...no fuckin bugs up here!
anyway, i reckon my round will go somethin like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbQTXFJL8lo
or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND91tD9kZV8&feature=related
hopefully not this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzYZOr8boh0&feature=related
fore,
janus
In a nutshell. The ECB and Brussels fucked themselves royally over the weekend when they pushed Spain to agree to the bailout process.
And in many more ways than we can even begin to understand.
The whole Spain bailout dilemma opened the eyes of everyone that is now realizing that the bailout for Greece is supposed to be paid for with money from Spain when Spain is unable to bail out its own banks.
Major, major clusterfuck. From the botched PR event, the timeline of the releases, the contradictions, the corrections and last but not least the market's reaction Sunday (Asia) and Monday (Europe and the US).
Yeah but the guy on news told me tonight "whatever you do don't mess with Albanians."
No question, Albania, the worst country in Europe. have been there three times!
i think it's a kneck-and-kneck race with Romania
sounds like the Greeks have been taking lessons from the Nigerians
regarding the 419 advance fee scam!
It makes good sense that the Greeks would request as much money as possible, and then some, in an attempt to defeat the globalists and their puppet politicians.
In the case of Greece she has burnt too many of the lottery tickets she was lucky enough to be given at least since the war. Immigrants sending money back had it poured into real estate and good times, money made by workers in shipping similarly squandered. EU subsidies and grants squandered with half baked projects where contractors ripped off government often knowingly. EU subsidies to farmers spent on Porsche Cayennes. Tourism butchered by a rip off attitude. Entry into the Euro squandered by above average wage increases and more public service jobs without any real productivity increases. No changes to its systems of tax collection, land registration etc until recently and a set of politicians that you wouldn't wish on a leper colony.
In short, things will get worse beore they get worse and then something ugly is bound to happen which will take the whole situation to a whole new level.
One thing is for sure. Between a Turkish neighbour constantly threatening her borders and a self interested Europe that was only interested in selling its arms, Greece finds itself hanging by a thread at best given the exodus of its youth, its failing demographic and its large illegal immigrant population.
Maybe Greece should be allowed to host the next two Olympic Games and get wealthy again?
yes the Olympics, another money spinner
London should be as broke as Greece real soon
Reminds me of my uncle who could never hold a job. He would drop in on family from hundreds of miles away and leach off of them until they got good and tired of it and rudely (he wouldn't listen to hints) threw him out.
We need socialism on a larger scale. The world has never been more prepared. A well molded Muppet class coupled with a transnational elite educated, ready to rule.....er....lead ....us to...um...to...Skittles and rainbows.
Same bullshit another day. Just burn the motherfucker to the ground already.
so Greece is in chaos (again) and totally stone cold broke (again)
socialism works its wonders on another nation
democratic Govt strikes again
lessons learnt anyone?
Socialism is government owning means of production. I don't think you can have socialism when pretty much nothing is being produced in the first place. Nice climate, nice lifestyle. Work? Nope. Good for them but can't expect others to keep giving them handouts forever absent Turkish/Iranian armies threatening to take over Europe.
socialism works its wonders on another nation
Strictly speaking, 'socialism' is the state owning the means of production. As Sowell writes here:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2012/06/socialist-or-fascist/718366
that's not really the problem now. What we have is more akin to fascism.... but that's not quite right, either, because we still have elections. We need some kind of deprecatory word... 'corporatism' and 'crony capitalism' don't sum it up either because a lot of our problems now are because of democracy's ability to enable the mob to vote themselves the products of other people's productivity.
I suspect in the future, 'majoritarianism' will become a dirty word a la socialism and fascism.
...Or... "fasciALISM" ?
This 1948 cartoon goes through all the ism's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY
Another interesting short video about an ism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbTb6hscxPE
Too bad they had School House Rock when I was growing up.
Someone with an evil sense of humor put this up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6uKDfe7mw
Punch line is after 2min mark. Kinda Sum's it up.
How a Bill Becomes a Law (should do a new version with 1400 page bailout bill character and professional lobbists instead of 'folks back home')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxT7QjlvDqM
Most people will vote for fascism if you dress it up in pretty words and apply the right spin. I know it's the extreme case, but people did vote for Hitler.
Hitler offered Hope and Change. I'd say he delivered.
And how ! Witness the images of the Reichstag with the flag of USSR over its ruins on May 9, 1945....awesome legacy to leave a beaten, ragged nation who decreed fascism as collective ecstasy at Nuremberg. It was, until Stalingrad!
Compassion rhymes with passion but it also rhymes with concupiscence, which is lust when it bites the dust. And so it did.
This has nothing to do with socialism. In fact, socialism was stronger until the 70s and that's when things went wrong. Bottom line : capitalism ALWAYS creates crisis and this one is simply stronger because of Peak Oil and falling EROI. Anything else is libertarian propaganda.
Balz - this has everything to do with socialism. It's missed your memory Greece has had a socialist Govt the past 14 years who've meddled with every facet of the real economy and now destroyed it
check out any 14 year (3 term) Labour Govt in Britain.. they always leave the country completely broke and a trainwreck (everytime).
Check Communist China going totally broke in the 80's or the USSR going totally broke same time. Check North Korea now on its last legs or pretty much any socialist State across Europe, or any Democrat area in the US (Detroit, Chicago, California et al)
there's more evidence socialism is destructive to the fabric of the eocnomy and society than there's planets in the Universe... and no evidence socialism does any good whatsoever
socialism is 2nd only to the biggest parasite, Govt, in the destruction of economies and nations.. both have failed miserably throughout history, both are ticking time bombs for any nations economic health and civil society
suck on some reality mate, and for fucks sake wake up from your dreamworld
It is possibly because Peak Oil is being proved as great a bag of nonsense as AGW. The rulers cannot let those two nonsensical theories expire. They both have been used in combination to gather further control over populations.
Human existance and society creates Crisis. Capitalism allows for better methods of resolving them. Socialism, as practiced by European countries and their banks, is much more ineffective in preventing the crisis from becomming a catastrophe.
ha, ha, ha; your avatar refers to the greatest Statist that the Roman Empire produced. And here you are bad mouthing state controls as "statism" and lauding capitalism; whereas its those very capitalistic overlords, aka WS kings, who created this runaway ponzi, becoming a veritable crisis of civilization, like in Roman times. And as icing on this phony, baloney cake you decree that Peak Oil and Global warming are scams, which is contrary to all scientific and empirical evidence available; especially for global warming which is a grey area of science but well documented empirically.
So the wheel comes a full circle in your rant. Its all nonsense from start to finish, your label, your logic and your head in the sand state of factual denial. Have a glass of bubbly chardonnay. It'll cure your acute acidity. It may add clarity to your decadent mindset.
Greece: 60% parasite gubmint "jobs" subsisting on taxes and debt, 40% real-world wealth creating jobs. The wolves have outvoted and eaten the sheep. Now - absent endless bailouts from the already bankrupt - the socialist wolves will starve as well. Good riddance.
I'm sure that there is a least one fool capitalist in Greece. He's probably on vacation and doesn't know what he walked into.