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Greece Just Blew Up The Empire's Death Star Of Debt
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The Greek Elites and kleptocrats are terrified of the discipline that leaving the euro will impose, but the general public should welcome the transition to an economy and society that has been freed from the shackles of Imperial debt and the kleptocracy that has bled the nation dry.
Although the financial media is blathering about negotiations and gamesmanship, the truth is Greece just blew up the Empire's Death Star of debt. There's nothing left to negotiate except the official admission that the Imperial Death Star of debt, the most fearsome threat in the galaxy, has been blown to smithereens.
There are three fundamental points that need to be emphasized, mostly because they've been lost in handwringing, fearmongering and the ceaseless chatter of propaganda shills.
1. Impaired debt and defaults result from imprudent underwriting and lender incompetence/ greed. Since when did it become accepted policy to reward imprudent lending, incompetence and greed?
Classical Capitalism is very clear on what should happen to lenders who ignored risk management; they get destroyed. As imprudently issued loans default, the losses pile up and the lender become insolvent. At that point, Capitalism kicks in and the management is fired, the stock goes to zero, the lender's assets are auctioned off and the creditors are issued whatever remains after wages, taxes, accounts payable, etc. are paid.
There's nothing complicated about it: Capitalism requires the discipline of losses being taken by those responsible, the firing of incompetents and the destruction of imprudent lenders.
Yet somehow the dominant narrative has reversed this essential core of Capitalism into blaming the borrower for the losses.
Look, if someone offers to loan me a billion dollars with no collateral and no assessment of the risks that I might not be able to pay the interest or principal, then who's the fool? The idiot who wants to give me $1 billion without any risk assessment, or the borrower who takes the "free money" being offered?
Yes, no one should borrow money that they can't pay back, blah blah blah, but the primary fiduciary responsibility is on the lender to not offer loans to marginal borrowers and those at high risk of defaulting on their debts.
Yet the official line on debt is "the lenders are blameless, the borrowers are at fault and should pay." The borrowers were imprudent to take on debt they couldn't service, but it is the lenders who made the bad loans who are ultimately are at fault and who should suck all the losses.
Let's set aside the propaganda for a moment and get real: anyone with the slightest knowledge of Greek finances and the power structure of the Greek economy/society knew it was insanely risky to loan Greece billions of euros. No one can deny this, yet somehow the lenders deserve to be paid for their avarice, stupidity, incompetence and total disregard for the standards of prudent lending? No, they deserve to be destroyed--closed down and their assets auctioned off.
2. Greece will not be wiped out by leaving the euro currency--it will be freed to rebuilt itself with prudent fiscal management and policies that reward investment and penalize risky borrowing, speculation and corruption.
Here's the thing about Greece issuing its own fiat currency--it will force fiscal discipline in a way that the euro did not and could not. This is why the Greek Status Quo is quivering with fear--the gravy train of irresponsibility enabled by the euro is ending, and they are terrified of living within their means and having to face the discipline that the market will impose on the Greek fiat currency.
If there's one thing Greece needs more than anything, it's the discipline and the rewards of the market. Any nation that issues its own fiat currency has a choice: it can exercise fiscal prudence and enforce policies that reward entrepreneurism, prudent lending, savings, wise investments, fair taxation, etc., or it can try to prop up its bloated, corrupt kleptocracy by printing rivers of fiat money.
If it chooses the Dark Side and prints money in excess, it will soon drive the value of that currency to near-zero. The kleptocracy that hoped to benefit from money-printing is impoverished or forced to move their capital elsewhere.
In other words, Greece returning to being responsible for its own currency is a good thing. The new currency will be valued cheaply relative to other currencies at first, and this is also a good thing, as imports will be unaffordable for all but the wealthy (kiss BMW sales in Greece good-bye) and everything produced in Greece becomes a bargain globally.
This will attract capital seeking places where it can make a profit and is treated fairly, and it will enable Greece to rebuild its export sector and boost its substantial tourist trade.
The promise that marginal borrowers would be transformed into sterling-credit borrowers by adopting the euro was always a fantasy--and a painfully visible fantasy at that. Anyone with their eyes even partially open could see that the vast differences in productivity, credit, risk and culture between the eurozone nations made the euro unworkable from the start.
It was equally visible that the eurozone's inept policies and loose lending standards would obscure these fundamental differences until the damage would be too great to hide--which is exactly what transpired.
3. The hundreds of billions of euros in so-called bailouts did not help Greece--all they did was bail out imprudent lenders and Euroland Elites. Virtually none of these vast sums helped the Greek nation or its people; what little did stay in Greece flowed to the kleptocrats that continued to rule Greece.
The harsh reality of misrule and corruption was recently spelled out in Misrule of the Few: How the Oligarchs Ruined Greece:
"Greece has failed to address (rising wealth/income inequality) because the country’s elites have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. Since the early 1990s, a handful of wealthy families -- an oligarchy in all but name -- has dominated Greek politics. These elites have preserved their positions through control of the media and through old-fashioned favoritism, sharing the spoils of power with the country’s politicians. Greek legislators, in turn, have held on to power by rewarding a small number of professional associations and public-sector unions that support the status quo. Even as European lenders have put the country’s finances under a microscope, this arrangement has held."
Greece just blew up the Death Star of debt, and now the threat has been lifted from other debtor nations suffering from the yoke of Imperial misrule. The Greek Elites and kleptocrats are terrified of the discipline that leaving the euro will impose, but the general public should welcome the transition to an economy and society that has been freed from the shackles of Imperial debt and the kleptocracy that has bled the nation dry.
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This shit makes my dick hard!!
keep up the good news BITCHEZ
The Thieves will not go quitely into the night. The Battle Royal has just begun.
GET YOUR POPCORN!
Spain and Italy. Observing, taking notes, having all sorts of new ideas.
lets leave that for 'empire strikes back' episode.
All paper money is created as credit, NOT DEBT, because it is a tax on existing money, the act of printing money itself negates the need for any other taxes. All other taxes are class warfare. Paper money is either used to enrich the wealthy or it is used to enrich those impoverished. Good Socialism or Evil Socialism. Transfer of wealth to the elite or transfer of wealth to those in need. Class warfare on the common man or class warfare n the 1%. However, the enslaved class has only itself to blame for letting their children grow up to be cops and soldiers that protect and serve the 1%. Self enslavement if you will.
Greece can print it's own currency, maintain employment at 100%, and keep wages increasing faster than inflation. Bankers are the only ones whose "earnings" currently exceed the rate of inflation, but they don't actually work and "earn" anything. They're all parasites. And deserve to be dealt with as such.
COPS AND SOLDIERS TAKE NOTE: YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LAW FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS. Take note of the cops on the right side of the law in this video - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KtEkRpGpHE8
As an exercise, please copy the text from this article into a text editor, then do a search for the word Greece and replace that word with the name of your country. Now reread the article and see how many sentences still make sense to you.
Are you retarded or something?
I'm probably more sigmas away from being retarded than you are. But if you need your hand held on this, the point I was making is that what Greece is going through right now is likely to be occurring to other countries like Spain, France, Portugal, etc, and not at too distant a point in the future.
CHS has got it wrong. As a general rule, if a debtor can't pay back a loan, it's the debtor's fault, not the lender's.
However... there is no single individual 'debtor' who agreed to take the loan in this case. It was signed for by a bunch of grasping politicians.
Yes, they did it in 'the name' of Greece. But the fact is, many of those who voted for the spending that the debt enabled (ie, the poor) pay less tax then the people who would wind up being on the hook for it (the productive middle classes) and would vote against such spending.
The idea that the mafiosi current running the kleptocracy I live in can somehow make me liable for debts I never signed for is laughable. But no, governments keep up the fiction that 'Greece' must pay.
So let's examine that. If 'Greece' must pay 'its' debts, that means Greek citizens are liable. If they are genuinely liable for the debt, then they should be forbidden to leave the country as i) that would be default on their part, and ii) would make the other Greek 'debtors' liable for an even greater amount pro rata. And That Would Be Wrong.
Statism leads to some truly absurd positions.
CHS.. I like your perspective, but it seem as if you thinking there is real money involved here, not false credit created from nothing ijn order to enslave folks.
And oh.. BJ.. if I give a stupid kid ten bucks, tell him to go by a lot of candy and then wonder why he can’t pay me back, then I am the idiotic lender that does not deserve to be repaid..
geez.. a lot of you folks should attempt to understand the mirage that has been created for you.
Self enslavement .... That is the social credit approach to money creation. It will provide dramatic results initially replacing debt money. The problem becomes one of long term sustainability. It is not the role of the gov't treasury to maintain constant growth and full employment.
With those lofty goals in mind, it won't take but a few years to see the respective populations robbed of their labour and savings by inflation. There must be a safeguard in place that restricts the governments from over creation of the fiat.
Still, social credit is light years beyond fractional reserve banking/credit based money.
Lots of 18-25 year olds with nothing to do and no future to look forward too.
Kindling for revolution.
The EU will start up the debt drugs again. They fear cutting off their drug customers more than the drug customers fear getting off the drug.
This is just poker bluffing.
Exactly. NOTHING has happened yet, except for a bunch of big-talking socialists getting elected. Pretty much 100% of the time, when politicians say one thing, they do something else. Sometimes exactly the opposite of what they said. Leftists are notorious for doing precisely the opposite of what they said; when Woodrow Wilson "kept us out of the war", he actually was plotting how to get us into it. And when FDR swore he would not devalue the dollar, what was the first thing he did when assuming office? Declare a bank holiday, and devalue the dollar.
Keep your eyes on these shifty little fucks, and don't believe a single word they say, for it is all lies.
Yep just like "If you like your insurance you can keep it...Period!!"
one of the first acts was to close guantanamo, still up and running all these years later.
most open & transparent government, blah, blah, blah vote for me and i'll make everything better
look at the actions not the words, remember when things get serious they have to lie if not before.
IMHO they'll be bought like all politicians, the personal rewards will be too much to turn down and the people will get shafted again whatever they say.
Agreed. Let's see what they actually do instead of the talk they do in public. However, socialists aren't the only slimy scumbags playing such games. capitalist, and conservatives all do it just as well if not better. scumbags are scumbags, regardless of their political ideology.
No politician is immune to self enrichment. They're all greedy fucks...every last one of them.
I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
BB all true, but I'm going to be optimistic about this situation. Hope and change! Hope and change!
Wait a second, last time I heard that things didn't turn out that well. Except for the free phone.
Reminds me of a Kyle Bass presentation, commenting on the '86 Mexico default:
"Mexico: we won't devalue, we won't devalue. The *very* next day- they announce they're devaluing the Peso."
Moral of the story: all is as they say, until it isn't. Hedge accordingly.
We will defend the peso like a dog, was the famous quote of the Mexican President at the time, the peso was devalued the next day!
"Leftists are notorious for doing precisely the opposite of what they said"
Correction - Leftists and Rightists are .....
they are all as bad as each other, left vs right is just to make us think we control the government.
in reality the same group of oligarchs continue to run the show and enrich themselves.
And when FDR confiscated citizen's gold, the redemption promise wasn't kept.
I believe the Greek FinMin.
The thieves have been fighting to hold on for a number of years, nations have been well aware of it for some time and it appears China and Russia are leading the way for smaller nations. I do agree the battle will now get more interesting with greater levels of transparency. Perkins, in Confessions of an Economic Hitman, shows many nations were tired of being bullied but couldn't do much to shake loose of the thieves.
herein "lies" the problem, a strawman villan; the devilish system, class envy, ect., instead of confronting the banking cartel. i think people are plain and simple afraid of reality(or too fucking stupid-as the banking game is too complicated for most dim witts to understand, also i've noticed severe attention deficit behavior-how the fuck could that person grasp anything?) and what that beholds. they luv their warm fuzzy matrix, until the matrix consumes them and it is too late to unlock the chains of debt servatude backed by force. who will be the next evil leader to bring the world to the dark age of war? is it just happening in lock step currency struggle to an ouburst of extreme violence that spreads from pent up bully killing? thinking sooner than later...
the pen is becoming moot...
"The Thieves will not go quietly into the night. The Battle Royal has just begun."
And THAT is why in eras past and in more basic cultures, the conquerors completely wiped out the entire conquered regime and their families. Otherwise their descendants would take up the subterfuge and the battle years later.
Just as a corporation cannot have a hidden culture within its own corporate culture, that has purposes and values counter to the corporate culture, so too a nation cannot have a foreign sub-culture that will not assimilate. This lesson has been lost on modern Western cultures, where "anything goes" is promoted from the top down, not from the bottom up.
I'd love to get popcorn and watch this unfold. Problem is, I've seen the movie and know the ending.
Points 1 and 3 are valid. Point 2 is comically wrong.
Love it when people who have no fucking clue what they're writing about take it upon themselves to create flashy headlines.
You need to find Obama fast as to not waste that hard on.
Consider it done! Its my understanding that I won't even need lube to corn hole ol Barry... his crinkle tart is well worn in due to his life in politics.
You must be on Viagrafakis.
Be careful, sooner or later all magic potions disappoint.
There is no solution that is painless.
Too bad it just might be a giant head fake.
they, like all CBs, loan the worthless paper they call money or bonds to insolvent borrowers just so they can later asset-strip them for payment. this is vulturism at its ugliest and should not be rewarded. indeed, the greedy lender should take the loss and STFU.
We Blew Up Some Folks.
Its not that easy bichezzz.
Remember what happened in Egypt. Same thing will happen in Grease.
Why are their Autos going to implode? I ask because you said Grease...
"You can't just walk out of a drive-in." - Danny (Grease, 1978)
...word!
Another good reason that it should be illegal to repackage and resell debt - the 'other' bankster loophole for responsible lending.
The reselling is OK it's the explicit and implicit insurance that this shit is papered with that's the problem. Having a worthless POS like AIG insure you risk on a tranche of sub=prime credit and then claiming it's AAA credit is the problem.
That a rating agency would assign a AAA to AIG was fraud.
Fiat is fraud.
No need for further details.
Sure, but the documentation of the loans from the banks was fraudulant as well. The ratings are control fraud, the documentation is just plain fraud.
I am certain that there is documentation on every one of those loans. However the question is where is it?
These loans were packaged and sold, resold, re-packaged and resold....... Finding the actual signed paperwork is the problem, not that the paperwork doesn't exist. Shitty administration doesn't necessarily mean fraud. It's incompetence.
The frauds were committed by Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie AIG, S&P, et al.
"Impaired debt and defaults result from imprudent underwriting and lender incompetence/ greed."
In other words, it is the fault of the crack dealer for turning a person into a crackhead? Seems like a ridiculous notion... crack dealers do what crack dealers do. No mystery or ulterior motives there.
Crack dealers don't ask for more crack in return for your purchase.
IMO, nothing much has happened, yet.
Cheers! to Greece!
oblig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F1d3QWsyk0
I paraphrase: "so who's gonna give Greece a loan, ya jackhole?"
Pfffffffft! Let's Eat!
The only problem for Greece is that they won't move to a Capitalist economy.
Such as?????
"ALL SOCIETIES ARE CAPITALISTIC. The ONLY difference is who owns/controls the Capital. You don’t really think Communists are trying to get rid of capital do you? You're either going to live under a Monopolistic Capitalistic Oligarchy, or a Competitive Capitalistic Republic. There aren’t any others" - Sui Juris
the general public should welcome the transition to an economy and society that has been freed from the shackles of Imperial debt and the kleptocracy
viva la hiperinflation!
So then is austerity a good thing or a bad thing?
Because if this transition happens it is going to be a butt load of austerity.
Didn't the Greek people just vote in new leadership that promised an end to austerity?
Better in the long run and politically possible are never the same thing.
What you fear most is the thng you bring upon yourself.
The Greeks haven't experienced austerity yet. But they will.
The fuck are you reading?
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/09/25/6-3-million-greeks-threatened...
Bullshit! 26% overall unemployment with 55% youth unemployment is Great Depression territory. Their future has been austered away.
That tin foil hat fits you just fine.
The "austerity" is the government imposed kind where they trim the social welfare/entitlement systema nd force Greeks to wit until they are 55 to collect v. age 50.
What sort of austerity measures has Greece actually instituted? They've agreed to austerity measures but which ones have happened? They're all promises to spend less in the future.
What exactly are you on? Are you even on the same planet? Have you not seen any footage from Greece? Have you ever been anywhere outside of East Jesus, Texas?
"Here's the thing about Greece issuing its own fiat currency--it will force fiscal discipline in a way that the euro did not and could not. This is why the Greek Status Quo is quivering with fear--the gravy train of irresponsibility enabled by the euro is ending, and they are terrified of living within their means and having to face the discipline that the market will impose on the Greek fiat currency."
Bullshit! They will do as they have always done, spend, tax, spend and print until they blow up their currency. Greece, like all sovereigns, has defaulted many times before and they will again.
The newly elected Socialists need to wipe that old debt off thebooks because they can't steal the wealth of the citizens that has already been stolen.
Well...right and wrong. Don't forget the people are voting repeatedly for thie socialist handouts. It's not like they aren't participating in their own false reality of free shit for everyone.
and if the slate gets cleared, the new liars will be long gone by the time the shit hits the fan again. they will have lived the life of o'rielly. just a pendulum swinging back and forth. happening everywhere, because if something is offered for "free" every living organism will take it as a basic survival mechanism...
gaming humans for personel gain.
yea, decitfull fuckers, but
just the way it is, ha...
In relative terms the people that constitute the Syriakis govt. are all relatively wealthy, beiong educated professional people - not something you could accuse most US politicians of - Tsipris' family are millionaires. What happens on here reflects the psche of the average Amerikan, easily summed up by WC Fields stocj phrase "Never give a sucker an even break". This is yet one more example of the cog. diss. that exists between most Amerikans and pretty much the rest of the world. Varoufakis tonight indicated on Ch 4 News that he expects a deal will be agreed when he finally meets Mario Draghi later this week. Such a deal is essential, not because the Greeks will face a total bank run, but because if Draghi doesn't reach an accomodation, it's game over for the entire European project, never mind the euro currency.
"They will do as they have always done, spend, tax, spend and print until they blow up their currency. Greece, like all sovereigns, has defaulted many times before and they will again."
If so, so be it. At least future investors will walk in voluntarily, with eyes open, and no 'Squid Games' of "Systemic asset stripping of a nation via 1 Degree of Separation": GS cooks the books, creams the profits and dumps the junk onto other banks, who in turn dump it onto the taxpayer of a foreign nation.
The discipline that will be imposed by leaving the Euro will not only affect the elite and kleptocrats but also the general populace. I cannot repeat my mantra often enough and can only say that Greece and every other nation including the USA will have to start living within their means and to consume more they must produce more. The time bomb of unfunded liabilities worsened by demographic trends can only be swept under the carpet at the cost of an even bigger explosion and an even bigger millstone around the neck of the future generations. My eyesight may be getting better with age because I can see more and more black swans on the horizon than ever before.
the problem is prying the assets and channels away from the 0.1% in order for the rest of the world to produce and consume
the top 0.1% now control all the "chokepoints" in finance, shipping, realestate/landlord, courts, utilites, regulation and taxation, insurance etc.
they have become too stupidly greedy for anyone to deal with them-and any one who does-and does so successfully so as to become percieved as "beating" them financially, why they get a dose of FREEDOM! courtesy of the anglo-american military enforcement arm.
+100 to both you guys.
Doc, the only thing I would say is that the "chokepoints" depend upon us being stupid and irresponsible. They can be "choked" back you know.
When the greedy and incompetent gained control.
Since when did it become accepted policy to reward imprudent lending, incompetence and greed?
Wish that were true. But courage and honesty is always missing in politicians:
Tsipras rushes to reassure EU, banks on Greek debt
By Robert Stevens2 February 2015
Greek Prime Minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras reassured Greece’s creditors Saturday that his government would do nothing to jeopardise the country’s euro zone membership. He insisted Greece would not default and would not make unilateral demands in talks over its €323 billion debt.
In an e-mailed statement to the Bloomberg news agency, he said: “Despite the fact that there are differences in perspective, I am absolutely confident that we will soon manage to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, both for Greece and for Europe as a whole.”
“No side is seeking conflict and it has never been our intention to act unilaterally on the Greek debt,” he added.
He stressed that any declaration by his government so far—such as its refusal to negotiate with the “troika,” consisting of the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—“in no way entails that we will not fulfil our loan obligations to the ECB or the IMF.”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/02/gree-f02.html
Good for you and the 8 upvotes. At least someone is looking into this a bit more deeply.
A bit sick and tired of the moronic "fuck this and fuck that" comments.
...some Greek men stopped bending over ;-)
Greece Fuck the EU, back your currcny with Gold and Silver and trade internally. Grow your own and produce your own...
Capitalism requires the discipline of losses being taken by those responsible, the firing of incompetents and the destruction of imprudent lenders
So much wisdom in so few words. Amazing.
This article saved my day. Thanks
Geopolitics of North and South
As each day passes, so does the transparency of fraud within.
Smart Move ..People Of Greece . . . You Come First. . . .
Philosophically, this article is spot-on-correct. In the real world however, things will most likely not work out. Greece will be punished hard for leaving the herd. Investors will be "scared"...(that is to say heavily discouraged by TBTB)....to invest in Greece. The Greek populace will be euphoric that the debt is removed....but much less enthused over the decades of work required to rebuild. As with most human herds, the needs/wants of today tend to overshadow what is best for them in the long run. Russia may swoop in to help Greece (in exchange for ports and pipeline rights), and can make a difference for a while, but until the Russians get this "energy bottom" to go away, their ability to raise cash for such causes is limited. Last but most certainly not least....the Greek people have to, as a group, rethink decades of assumptions about how their lives will play out.
None of this is impossible, but given historical precedent, it is unlikely to end well for them.
It is a beginning versus death.
"If there's one thing Greece needs more than anything, it's the discipline and the rewards of the market." Does anyone think that Syriza has any intention of doing ths?
Banker rules:
1) We have gone bankrupt and need unconditional bailouts (2008)
2) You are in trouble, you must pay it all back, you need to borrow more with onerous conditions attached.
Heads we win, tails you lose.
We forclose on your house and do a short sale (we should have never lent you the money). We made money on the fees for the sale in the first place and when we sold the loan into the market packaged as Bundled MBS. When you don't pay, we write off the loss using the inflated original price. We get reimbursed from a government program designed to help us with these write downs. We get to have a judgement against the owner we forclosed on so we can garnish their future earnings. The owner must claim the write down on their taxes as money they earned, and then they must pay the taxes on it.
Good times.
If it can work for Iceland, it can work for Greece.
In Iceland, the people surrounded the homes of the pols/banksters and banged pots and pans through the night.
Put the worst of the banksters on a 'striped sunlight' regimen.
Sent a strong message.
We need that idea to go global.
Smarten the smug fucks up real quick if it does
the way it works now the banks recklessly lend to whatever country then it is up to the imf to figure out how to collect. that shit has got to stop bitchez.
Whiplash: Move suddenly and forcefully, like a whip being cracked.
We must realise that in all probability all these SYRIZA and Podemos parties have either been formed, nurtured or infiltrated by the elite many years in advance in order to manipulate future outcomes while making the populace feel hopeful and in control.
One only has to read how PASOK's establishment was also funded by the USA with the net result that Greece embarked a course of debt binging and corrupt government like never before.
I know it's quite a novel idea, but do, please do try to get your facts straight. There is no home-grown CIA in Greece, though almost certainly the diseased US version is skulking in the shadows., The last govt in Greece were too busy shovelling bail out money into their own and their friends pockets, to actually notice what was happening under their noses.
I was not talking about a home grown Greek CIA. The funding came direct from the USA.
The corrupt elites borrowed money they could not pay back and took most of it for themselves.
The bailout conditions imposed austerity on the poor and left the corrupt elites untouched.
And now the elites are "negotiating" how they "will get the poor to pay"
The situation is so stupid that only an idiot thinks these debts are legitimate instruments to be enforced.
Been saying this from the get-go when Greece joined the EU that it would end like this.
You can see the model was doomed to fail from the get - go.
It was all about getting a small country to "borrow" money into existance and to take the liability on their books while insiders robbed and pillaged the assets of the country + got to spend the money that was just loaned into creation.
The ECB and countries like Germany were simply using small countries like Greece and Spain for example to launder the newly printed money back into their own pockets.
Because in order for them to print money, someone has to "demand" and "borrow" it first before they can hit "print", and since they themselves did not have the ability to pay back the money they wanted to borrow and steal, they had to get some smaller country to doit for them (Greece/Spain/Iceland) etc the later Iceland wised up and kicked the scam artists out, now its Greece/Spains turn to kick the Euro Kleptocrats out.
None of the money "borrowed by Greece" actually . . . went to Greece.... most of it was instantly borrowed by greece and then handed over to corrupt bankers and politicians who were all insiders/part of the kleptocratic cabal running the Euro.
The euro is just a tool, the ecb is a tool, a tool used to endebt nations and enrich individual insiders, thats all it is, its not a "real currency" system.... thats just a marketing ploy.
Get out of the Euro while you can, its probably about to blow at any moment.
As for what to buy, I don't know, but certainly don't buy or hold "euros".
Personally I can't wait for the Drachma I plan to buy a truck load of them before the Greek economy recovers because its a ground floor investment in my eyes, I understand the risks and the tendency of small countries to inflate their currency... but a modest position is easily affordable on a newly printed currency.
As for paying back the euros loaned to Greece . . . why would you when in reality Greece was borrower only in title and name . . . not in actuallity...
Let the true recipients of all the money loaned be on the hook. . . track down where every Euro went and go after individuals, prosecute them take their assets and sell them off in public auctions for drachmas.
All assets in greece owned by foreigners that were purchased between the years 2001 and 2015 by foreigners worth over 5 million dollars should come into question and be put under scrutenty... its a small list . . . probably less than 1000 people, its a place to start...
Anyone who fits that persona and works for the ECB or one of its affiliats or bank members should instantly be put into holding and have their assets frozen.
Macro money laundering is a very good way of putting it.
Greece dumping the Euro will not give them freedom. As far as I am aware the Overlords (through the EU) has full control over Greece (its land and its seas). In return for bail-outs, Greece agreed austerity measures and agreed binding laws and licences, for example oil and gas www.globalresearch.ca/the-new-mediterranean-oil-and-gas-bonanza/29609
This was also the case with Cyprus
http://www.kpmg.com/CY/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesAndPublications/Documents/Publication/Cyprus-oil-and-gas-current-developments-and-opportunities.pdf
The IMF are the looters and this appears to be how the Overlords Corporations reap a nations natural resources before sending all the money Offshore via non-resident dummy companies and trusts. I doubt much tax is paid and I doubt the host nation gets any benefit.
Can Greece quash these existing arrangements even if they leave the entire EU?
Surely Greece needs to get back full control of their own Country and their own natural resources to be in any position to go forward with their own currency?
I sincerely hope Greece has the courage to do this and I hope the Greek people find strength in numbers through the support of other Nations.
Laws were written by man, they can certainly also be un-written by man.
The only laws that can not be violated are those created by god, namely the physical limitations of our supposed finite environment.
There is no universal law that states a contract is unbreakable.
All you need is a reason to break it, the very act of simply saying "NO" to the terms you signed does this unless some foreign army invades Greece to enforce the fraudulent debt . . . (good luck with that) there is nothing you can do.
If Greece simply shredded all agreements and left the Euro, it would force the rest of Europe to make the decision ... leave Greece alone, or invade with an army and take over.
How would the EU look if it invaded a country on the grounds of counterfeit loan enforcement???? Russia would instantly swoop in and crush Europe just because of the opportunity it presents to rid itself of an idiotic cabal of fools who think they have real power and influence.
The EU is nothing but a pest, a nuisance to Russia, as is the U.S. whos global power and influence has long-past.
Simply saying NO is the answer.
And don't put it past Greece to doit, we Greeks have an entire holiday about saying "NO" to foreign powers, its called OXI DAY the day where we all just fucking say NO to bullshit.
Defiance is in the blood of all Greeks.....
Putin Orders Special Forces To Protect Greek Leaders Life “At All Costs”....
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1834.htm
The death of the bankster empire has yet to be confirmed.
http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2015/01/30/is-the-new-greek-government...
Syriza appears "radical" only relatively, compared to the recent draconian domestic policies of the global bankster empire.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/30/greece-the-us-and-the-neo-liberal...
Oh so the lenders couldn't figure that out? lol. Yeah just keep bailing them out and imposing austerity on the Greeks. Stupidity at its finest.
Correct, but as long as the current system acts to support such rulers we will all have problems.
So let the Greeks go, and allow them the space to take care of this themselves. First, to SEE the problems instead of using financial alchemy to enable the politicians to HIDE what they are doing from their people...Second, to decide as a nation just what they're gonna DO about it.
The world needs to back the fuck off and give Greece some air.
I wish I could give you more than one upvote.
Tyler Durden (or, better, the collective behind this lame nickname) is enjoying pageviews made by conspiracy crackpots who crowd this website, frustrated folks who are looking for that always-looming black swan or for someone who cracks "the system". Well, even if that was genuinely a good hope, please beware that this time it is utterly misallocated: it was Greek citizens who sank Greece, not the EU. We, the rest of the EU, just suggested Greece not to spend money they don't have. It was up to them to decide what to cut and where to invest: they decided to cut healthcare and welfare and invest in never-to-be-completed infrastructure and salaries for public servants who weren't actually needed. Well done geniuses, now please come again for another spoonful of debt so you can keep on wasting money....
So CHS says thats all it takes to BLOW the Empire's debt death star !
Yanis Varoufakis said "f*** u Troika" and the USD Debt Supernova was born !
Well CHS is as keen on game theory software games as Yanis.
But I have a kind of hunch he is on to something there!
After all, so have Janet Yellen and ole Ben been playing financial games based on "we are king of the heap" type theories. They were using the opposite game theory for their bosses, than that which is now panning out as boomerang effect according to CHS : saving the 1%.
As someone very aptly said : Why are we getting so hyped up about the deflation cycle now imminent ?
When we were so hunky dorey about the Reaganomics WS inflation cycle all doped, like a Lance Armstrong, on steroids !
Why o why do people forget cause and effect ?
That's the question I asked myself in 1984 when the oil price slid and Reaganomics went ballistic !
"There is only one rule from now on : there are no rules on WS!" -- Said Ronnie and Maggie then.
After that, its just been a question of linking the dots for thirty long years.
A near lifetime.
Now even CHS has joined the band wagon like a lot of market lovers of that past, seemingly golden age.
Ron and Maggie certainly have a lot to answer for.
Thatcher was responsible for most of the destruction of Britain's manufacturing.
The miner's strike was more about her destroying communities and increasing govermnent's control than anything else.
Hope she's sitting real close to the fire, if there is a hell.
Finally, someone on here who understands the question 'Que bono' and the injunctiion: 'Follow the money' I absoluterly cringed when that union shill and third rate Hollywood actor was invited by Mrs Handbag to address our parliament. In a properly regulated society opeople like Reagan weould not even be allowed tomind the door, much lessd enter it. And you fuckers voited for him! What dfoes that make you?
but how will Greece pay back what they do not have?
the empire of squids, all around the globe, wants your money and/or your life, slavery is the word that comes to mind.
i don't hold out much hope for Greece, nor the world, as all of it has gone full retard!
Brother Charles never fails to add something worth reading, but there's a core reality about the moment we're in that he just doesn't get. If he did he might not be so cheerful.
The banks that are about to get blown apart by the property of the Overlords of the Empire, the multi-billionaires with the great banking houses at their core, who for all of their little wars with each other (using us) together make up the world's ruling class. They now face the sudden and rapid destruction of their most essential tool of financial control and exploitation, and the evaporation of most of their (paper) wealth. I'm sure we all share his feeling of good riddance to bad rubbish, but he seems to imagine the Overlords at some point, very soon, soon just accepting this outcome as inevitable, submitting to the discipline of the marketplace, picking up the pieces and getting back in the game, this time to play by the rules.
What is at stake for them now is not just some banks and a lot of money. For them the stakes are their position in the world and their power. And when - according to the rules - they lose their banks and corporations, they still have their webs of clients, agents, spies and toadies, their media machine and their armies, at least until they can't pay their soldiers anymore.
And no ruling class has ever given up its power without a fight.
I agree. Does not mean that clearing the bad debt is not the right thing to do. Let them fight it. It will be horrible, but it was always going to be horrible. No where to run to, nowhere to hide. That is all of us. Does not matter if we caused it, or were simply born into it. It is ours to deal with as it falls about our ears.
Ministry - Useless
Guidance on accounting for expected credit losses - consultative document
https://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/d311.htm
Fuck off ECL and IASB. Telling the serf about [Bank for International Settlements unless a respondent specifically requests confidential treatment.]
April 15, 2015 is tax day in the states, April 30, 2015 is a plan based on above.
Nobody is in jail. No public audits. No big spending cuts. No help for Greek small business. No selling off of millitary hardwhare thats not needed. No siezing of assets from the crooks that sold out the Greek people.
Same ol same ol. Sorry no change.
http://www.turkishnews.com/en/content/2010/07/12/the-submarine-deals-tha...
"Classical Capitalism is very clear on what should happen to lenders who ignored risk management; they get destroyed."
Unless you are dealing with the mafia...oh wait.
Look familar? Basel III
https://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/d311.pdf
"Basel Committee on Banking Supervision" also known as proposed amendments to the banksters' organized crime code.
Unfortunately, Greece leaving the Euro cannot guarantee fiscal discipline and its living within its means in the future. The current government of Greece may be right about its inability to pay down the debt burden the country has accumulated. This does not mean that its announced policies of additional government spending are going to set it on the road to stability. The new Keynesian-obsessed government has one clearly announced policy: debt default unless generous new terms are created that include debt forgiveness. This is not the coming of capitalism, nor is it the road to fiscal responsibility. Instead, it seems more like the path the government of Argentina has taken. Default, and take one's chances with central banks awash in easy money. It woks for awhile, but Argentina is finding it difficult to sustain this policy over time.
http://www.economic-undertow.com/2015/01/29/voting-with-empty-wallets/
Voting With Empty Wallets"Greece doesn’t offer hope, it offers the latest flavor of fashionable ‘delusional thinking'; that the new government can somehow turn back the clock, to the bring back “the mainstream policies of mid-20th century industrial societies” … Austerity cannot be wished away any more than winter can. The Greeks and the rest of us are reaping the consequence of our own vast waste over the course of centuries."
Greece has no sufficient ways to continue to participate in the globalized systems of strip-mining the planet's natural resources, because everyone is running out of room to be able to continue to do that at the always exponentially increasing rate that they were used to!
The establish political economy is based on being able to make "money" out of nothing as debts, in order to "pay" for turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible. After we have high-graded ourselves to hell doing that so much, for so long, then, for any area to adapt to whatever might have been otherwise more sustainable has become politically impossible.
The established systems were built on the successive increments of social successes based on backing up lies with violence, in order to maximize the strip-mining of the planet. First and foremost, the real limits of diminishing returns from being able to continue to do that show up in the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems built on that basis having problems!
There is nothing that any country could do to continue to grow on the basis of endless exponential growth. Theoretically, they would have to develop radically different ways to integrate human, industrial and natural ecologies, however, all the dominate systems are based on being able to continue to lie about that as much as possible, while the vast majority of people want to continue to believe in those lies.
OMG Charles...Greece would not handle a new Greek currency any better than it did the Drachma. They will yield to poltical pressure and will hyperinflate that sucker in a year. They need the discipline of the Euro. It is a bitch to have to have finances balance but in the long run it must happen. We have been living in a fantasy world for 44 years. Time is up.
Whatever the flaws of the Euro and the bailouts (any they are many) the Greek people really, really want to stay in the Euro. If Syriza does something to result in an exit, they will lose their mandate very quickly.
Perhaps the desire to stay in the Euro is simplywishful thinking. No Goldman derivatives to paper over the gaps this time around.
The Greek tragedy of the Euro.
As usual, the poor stiffs down on the street will pay the highest price. And there is no way to avoid the pain. Unfortunately the pain suffered during the past 6 years was designed to feather some Euro elites nest.
Heywood: Give me your personal bank account number. I will decide how to allocate your money within the European Union debt crisis, How do you feel about that? That’s the downfall of EU. Nothing more than a slush fund galore.
Here's the thing about Greece issuing its own fiat currency--it will force fiscal discipline in a way that the euro did not and could not. - say huh?
Show me a communist form of government with fiscal purity. I am all for the end of the EU experiment and those garbage loans being tossed, but read the new gov proposal, its massive spending. Debt in another currency.
The big plan is bail ins. But I do like that laid back no tie shtick thing. It looks so cool.
If Syriza keeps moving forward with record speed, the only way to stop it is coup d'etat.
Obama has lost institutional control of the Presidency, so don't be surprised if he greenlights a coup. Kerry can call it in from his yacht on the Mediterranean and watch the fireworks safely off shore
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/05/state-department-admits-...
that may be true
but will the people receive it
seems the US is losing contol
getting desperate
the more we mess with things
the more things get messed up
Great article. This is the way forward for Greece. It will be brutal but probably no more brutal than what they are now going through and there is a future.
Outstanding take on the Euro and Greece! Lets just remember that Spain is "on deck" for elections, and the people are starting to realize that 1 trillion Euro debt that European Banks intend to collect from the people is not going to happen. Spain's debt bomb is 3 times the megatonage to Greece, and an explosion that the EU can never withstand.
My self I have a dream. It is to see the European Parliament open it's door for the last day as this army of political whores empty their offices and walk through the doors for the last time. Powerless and unemployed, with no Parliament seat, they have no power to act for bribes and jobs for their kids, without power, the 1% will no longer shower Parliament members with corrupt payouts and family connected corporate jobs. The mighty rulers and whores for the 1% will have no jobs, and I would thank god to live to see it!
The Greeks have blown up shit. The same process is continuing as before, negociating for better terms is simply a part of the extend and pretend process. The game being played is called brinksmanship. If all parties on both sides have brains, a questionable theory, they'll have no illusions of what going over the brink means. The Greek economy would flush down the toilet like nothing the Greeks have yet experienced and the European union would break up most likely. The Greeks can print their own currency afterwards but who's going to want any of it ? The game is won by which ever side has the most credible threatening posture over the nuclear button. The European union, Germany that is, can either agree to support the Greeks, along with all the other basket case countries in perpetuity or push the nuclear button themselves and leave the union. Which long term is the only real option the Germans have. Germany is the only country with real leverage, they can say fuck it and leave and they'd not suffer so much. The others, like Greece, would be pole-axed. But Germany won't break up while the elites are in charge, the musical chairs will go on until everyone in Europe has been taken to the cleaners. Only then will the collapse be allowed to happen.
maybe the collapse is not in the hands of the elite.
after all, thou he thinks so, man is not God.
but the collapse will come.
it will be well deserved.
"Yet somehow the dominant narrative has reversed this essential core of Capitalism into blaming the borrower for the losses."
Slave morality.
New Greek President Says '???? The Banks!' And Pays Off IMF Debt With 240 Billion Drachma 'Wonder' Note
http://thestuffing-it-to-empost.blogspot.co.uk/
Funny stuff
the last paragraph
Financial specialists are currently trying to workout what is actually wrong with Mr Tsiriras's economic philosophy. The clever money seems to be saying that it is perfectly sound though Robert Peston, chief BBC economics expert, claims the Greek 'wonder' note is worthless as it is not covered with enough Satanic symbols like 'proper money'
If only Greece could mint a few coins... but unfortunately all is not fair in love and war (or the Banksters all-seeing illuminati eyes).
Apologies for the length of this post. I downloaded the info 2014.
Paul Krugman, one of the most widely read and respected "economists" in the country wrote about this incredibly naïve and ridiculous solution in a January 7th, 2013 New York Times column. He said: "There's a legal loophole allowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination the secretary chooses. Yes, it was intended to allow commemorative collector's items – but that's not what the letter of the law says. And by minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling – while doing no economic harm at all." This is why they can easily manipulate their figures.
According to even the most conservative calculations (again, using numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office) a debt default by the U.S. government would be inevitable – were it not for one simple anomaly...the one thing that has saved the United States so far. The country's unique ability to simply print more money. The U.S. government has one very important weapon to use in this crisis so far: They are the only debtor in the world who can legally print U.S. dollars. And the U.S. dollar is what's known as "the world's reserve currency.
The dollar forms the basis of the world's financial system. It is what banks around the world hold in reserve against their loans.
Again, that's a secret most politicians don't understand:As things stand now, the U.S. government can't go broke because it can simply print dollars to pay for its bad debts. (It's been doing so since March of 2009.) Since they can always just print more money, what is there to worry about...? America is the only country in the world that doesn't have to pay for its imports in a foreign currency. Let's say you're a German and you want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. You can't just pay for your oil in German marks (or the new euro currency), because the oil is priced in dollars. So you have to buy dollars first, then buy your oil. And that means the value of the German currency is of great importance to the German government. To maintain the value of its currency, Germans must produce at least as much as they consume from around the world...otherwise the value of its currency will begin to fall, causing prices to rise and its standard of living to decline.
But in America...? They have been able to consume as much as they want without worrying about acquiring the money to pay for it, because dollars are accepted everywhere around the world. In short, for decades now, USA haven't had to produce anything or export anything to get all the dollars needed to buy all the oil (and other goods) the country required.
All they do is borrow and print more money. Trouble is everyone else (creditors) has figured out what's happening, and the USA are beginning to have very, very big problems. The US dollar is getting perilously close to losing its status as the world's reserve currency. Should it cross the line, the 2008 financial crisis could look like a summer storm. As the USA print more money, the price of the world's most essential commodities have soared. This is NOT a coincidence.The USA can NOT stop printing money because there is no possible way to actually afford their existing debts. Despite the obvious inflation going on all around the world, the Fed continues to say there's no inflation at all. Just like in a Third World country, the government is radically devaluing the dollar and simply lying to everyone about what is really happening.
Whether you realize it or not, there is already a "run" on the dollar. Many creditors, like the Chinese, are getting out of the dollar as fast as they can via strategic commodities, like copper, gold, and oil. As demand for U.S. dollars around the globe decreases, interest rates will skyrocket. If the currency collapses, everything else goes with it... stocks, bonds, commodities, derivatives and other investments are all priced in a nation's currency. If you destroy the currency, you destroy all markets and the nation (and many others). This is why countries like Germany are taking nearly all their gold stored around the world, and bringing it back home. They are worried. And they have every right to be. In the financial world, they refer to this as "capital flight." And what it means is, when people figure out that their savings in U.S. dollars are in jeopardy, they look for better and safer alternatives.
Here is the heat - On March 1, statistician and economist Dr. Jim Willie announced that London banks are currently confiscating and selling off Saudi Arabian gold reserves which diplomatically puts an end to the 40 year Petro-Dollar relationship between the West and the oil rich Arab kingdom. http://www.examiner.com/article/u-s-and-u-k-looting-saudi-gold-as-west-unofficially-ends-petro-dollar-pact As far as I am aware Saudi Arabia is currently the largest Oil producer in the world.
Several analysts this year have gone public declaring that 2014 will be the year that the world rejects the Petro-Dollar, and begins trading in a new gold backed currency. And with the U.S. and Britain throwing the Saudi's under the bus by confiscating their property and gold reserves to pay off an even bigger threat, the West is unofficially ending the Petro-Dollar agreement, and preparing for a new global monetary system that they hope will come from the IMF, and not from China or the BRICs financial partnership - Russia, China, India and Brazil who want their own currency.
Discipline is a necessary foundation of survivability...he who has the most discipline, generally survives...
Have any of you guys ever been to Greece? Before it joined the EU is was similar to rural India. Women in black burka-type outfits, motor rickshaws, dust everywhere, and a few olive trees - a peasant lifestyle for a lot of the population. How do you figure the EU has been bad for Greece? There's absolutely no way they'll voluntarily leave.
You say that like it is a bad thing.
<<- a peasant lifestyle for a lot of the population.>>
I would gladly take a peaceful and stable lifestyle over anything else. A peasant lifestyle living off the land may offer both.
Try it.
Yeah, it's romantic an' all that shit, but, well, not all that great.
Choices! Choices! So many choices!
HAHAHAHAHA
Yeah Greece issuing its' own fiat will make it more responsible.
Where do I buy my unicorn?
But I thought unicorns were free?
http://rt.com/uk/228727-greeks-global-economy-risk/?utm_source=browser&u...
The banks create loans out of thin air using electronic transfers or worthless paper contracts, against real asset securities they know they can auction later...
This is so they can earn fees, interest for a while, and later get their grubby hands on dirt cheap privatised assets for their connected friends, or on default, 'repossess' secured assets, which they then auction off dirt cheap to their other connected friends.
This is why they are so keen to keep the debt scams going for Greece and any other borrower on the planet. Lend recklessly, the more risky the better, as it gives a higher rate of default and thus more opportunity to grab real assets for themselves and their mates. Sub-prime is great, bankrupt and insolvent borrowers even better. They also like to help inflate bubbles to lend even more money with rising prices, in the hope they’ll pop within a few years and create a flood of defaults and some lovely hard asset repossessions.
Banks create nothing, but numbers in bank accounts, or worthless paper contracts, to create scary legal obligations on borrowers - simply a covert method of printing money. In the process, they accumulate hard assets at pennies on the dollar, having started with nothing, but a position of hollow institution and false reputation.
It's a great scam and always has been. National bailouts are more lucrative because of the dirt cheap privatisations that are a prerequisite for the bailout. Austerity allows the cash flow to run to the banks a little longer than otherwise, 5 years in the case of Greece. Without austerity, the scam would grind to a halt in half the time.
Net result – constant flow of wealth upwards.
Silly Greece.
Greece and the Greek people got the money from the loans, why shouldn't they have to pay it back?
And even if the people saw the dough appropriated by a bunch of incompetent bums, I am unaware of any rule that says if bums misuse borrowed money, the next bunch of bums doesn't have to pay it back.
Nevertheless, love it to see the ass kissing EU and the bankers get it up the wazoo because of improvident risk taking.
Great thesis, but unfortunately wrong. The Greek people received very little of that money. The con in Greece is like the con here in the US. Socialize private debt, claim the now burgeoning public debt is unsustainable and proceed to privatize public assets.
For the average Greek, those were odious debts.
Last time I was in Athens on a job I did not see average Greeks driving caddies or beamers.
Just sayin'
The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
That's really going to cut down on page hits at ZH.
Apart from that, I have no objection to using them as slaves for the rest of their lives if that would be more cost effective.
"Here's the thing about Greece issuing its own fiat currency--it will force fiscal discipline in a way that the euro did not and could not."
Like the US is under fiscal discipline???
Let me restate my oft repeated prediction:
Greece changes nothing and accepts yet more "bail out" money from the Troika. The Troika cannot allow the loaners to default, as you recommend, and with which I heartily agree,