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Throw Your Grandma Under The Bus
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Before we get news in a few hours on the new proposals Greece is required to hand to its slavemasters today, Monday Feb 23, it seems relevant to point out one more time that what is happening to Greece is the result of political, not economic, decisions and points of view. One could argue that Greece is being thrown under the bus because it’s not – yet – deeply enough entangled and enmeshed in the global financial matrix. Just think back to a point Gordon Kerr of Cobden Partners made a few days ago on Bloomberg:
They [Greece] don’t have systemically important financial institutions dragging down their economy ..
In other words, Greek banks are not too big to fail. They could therefore be restructured – by the Greek government itself – without global contagion, certainly theoretically (it’s hard to pinpoint how this would turn out in practice, there are too many variables involved). And that is a major potential threat to other – European -banks, who A) could then also face calls for restructuring, and B) still have money invested in Greece. Just not that much anymore…
Bloomberg’s Mark Whitehouse showed in a piece over the weekend to what extent Germany’s banks pulled out of Greece since 2010. Thanks to the same bailouts that are now being used to try and force Greece into ever more austerity, budget cuts, depleted services and shy high unemployment.
I said it before: the decision to not restructure banks is purely political. It’s not an economic decision, though you will see everyone pretend it is, and claim the banking system(s) would collapse in case of debt restructuring and defaults on wagers. It was decided early on, 2007, that bank debts would, instead of being restructured, be transferred to public coffers. But that’s just a choice, not a necessity.
Moreover, it’s the by far worst choice, if only because it rewards gambling addicts for their behavior, at the cost of everyday people simply trying to make ends meet – and failing -. And this is self-reinforcing: the world today is firmly ruled by gambling addicts and their enablers, because they have managed to get their hands in the till. And they’re not just not planning to let go, they want more.
Here’s what happened to German bank debt in Greece:
Why Germany Might Not Be Bluffing in Greece
As Europe’s high-stakes debt negotiations with Greece reach an impasse, Germany has appeared surprisingly willing to drive the country out of the euro, regardless of the potentially dire repercussions for Italy, Portugal, Spain and the entire currency union. One possible explanation for Germany’s brinkmanship: Its banks have a lot less to lose than they once did. When the European debt crisis first flared up in 2010, Germany’s finances were closely linked to those of the euro area’s more economically fragile members. Its banks’ claims on Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – including money lent to governments and companies – amounted to more than €350 billion, about equal to all the capital in the German banking system.
If the periphery countries had forced losses on private creditors, which they arguably should have done, Germany would have had to recapitalize its banks or face an immediate meltdown.
The picture is very different now. The ECB, the IMF and other taxpayer-backed creditors have pumped hundreds of billions of euros of loans into the periphery countries, making it possible for German banks to extract themselves with minimal damage.
Thanks in part to this back-door rescue, the banks have also been able to raise some capital. As a result, they are in much better shape to withstand a Greek disaster. As of September 2014, their claims on Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain had declined to about €216 billion, or 46% of capital. The upshot: Greece is left with more debt than it can pay, and Germany – with its banks effectively bailed out – has one less pressing reason to give Greece a break. Hardly the right incentives for a happy ending.
Merkel and Schäuble decided to save Wall Street mogul and derivatives behemoth Deutsche Bank at the cost of the Greek people. Not for economic reasons, but because Deutsche has much more political power inside the European Union than the entire Greek nation. Now you know what’s so inherently wrong in that union. Same story for France, where BNP, SocGen and Crédit Agricole had humongous amounts of debt outstanding in Athens. Where’s all that debt now, where’s it gone? Well, check your wallet.
When the decision came to throw either their own biggest banks, or the grandmas of a co-member nation of the currency union under the bus, I don’t think they even hesitated; they probably only went looking for the most efficient way to do it. And they have control over the perfect vehicle for such tasks: the ECB. A allegedly neutral institution that in reality peddles political influence in a way that guarantees the poorer countries will always wind up footing the bill.
And now that the systemic risk that Greece still might have been is effectively gone, and the debt has been transferred to the union’s bottom dwellers, Merkel and Schäuble can talk tough to Greece. Even if it wasn’t the Greeks that created this mess, it was Merkel and the Frankfurt bank CEO’s she confers with on a daily basis.
Banks are more important than people, certainly grandmas. That’s true on Wall Street, and it‘s true all over Europe. But it’s still just a political decision. And one that could be reversed as easily as it was taken. Which it what the paymasters find so scary about Syriza.
For those of you who don’t want to wake up one day to find their own grandmas crushed under the same bus the Greek yiayia’s are under as we speak, it would be beneficial to ponder how perverse this all is, not just the isolated events but the entire underlying system that produces them. And you support this perversity. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that the system won’t come for your grandma too. If you think that, you simply don’t understand how it works.
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Well, isn't that special
(In my best SNL Church Lady voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmwqnqL3Hbg)
my co-worker's ex-wife makes $80 hourly on the computer . She has been out of work for 10 months but last month her paycheck was $12310 just working on the computer for a few hours. look at this now... www.globe-report.com
you throw my grammammy under the bus and you better have a Big bus.
no mi abuela!
Coming soon... Euthanasia Centers (owned and operated by the Soylent Corporation)
One place it's in is the Pimco PTTAX fund. I would imagine other bond funds also have this junk.
Fuck grandma. Fuck everybody over the age of 40, fuck them right in the ass. There should be public stockades where we can throw tomatoes at the generation that sold the prosperity of the United States to the Chi-Coms in return for a $12 Wal-Mart toaster that works for six fucking months before it burns out and has to be replaced. Fuck you for your lies about getting an education. Fuck you for sticking the Gulf War on our credit card. Fuck you for your Ronald Reagan who turned all the mentally ill out into the streets so he could pretend he was a Jedi with Star Wars. You are the worst generation human beings to ever live.
Sorry you got turned out of the institution. Your anger issues seem unresolved.
well he or she got 16 down clicks so far, i was thinking it was just bait.. but then these are hard times for many people, myself included...
here's a short list of breadcrumbs for those unfamiliar with the past 100 yrs. Am. History... it wasn't your parents kiddos.. i'm pushing 50 and most of my gen got it right in the ass, whilste the ones in front of me are still hooked on CNN - go figure??
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-century-of-american-presidents-marching-t...
Czarangelus, I can't even call you a cunt. Really, you have no balls and you don't even have a cunt.
"fuck everybody over the age of 40".
Indeed.
Well, nooz flash all I see in 30 year olds are whining bitchez who couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag. You SSRI popping vid gaming newfags don't know a screwdriver from a gummy bear.
But hey, you got your game on, roll with it.
Disclaimer here: gen X'r. We got fucked just as bad as you, we just don't bleed all over our underwear about it. We fly under the RADAR and get shit done. You sucked way too much government dick and now you're all butt hurt about it. Your generations biggest fucking failure is you went to college to "learn" how to work for someone else and suck their dick. Well, do you spit or swallow bitch? Stop being such a fucking eunuch and learn, mmmmmmkay?
Agreed. That is some petty stuff.
When I was 13, I felt the same way as you.
It wasn't your parents, or your parents' parents' parents' who fucked you over, it was bankers and their minions- the politicians, aided and abetted by mainstream media.
Please try to keep up.
And speaking of the mentally ill.........
Tylers, med check on isle two....!
I'm kind of guessing that Reagan throwing out the mentally challenged is your main point?
Did you figure this out after your parents raised you and paid for your education, and after you moved out of their house or before? Have you paid them back yet? And have you told them you don't want to inherit any of their dirty money, you want them to spend it all on themselves?
Or are you a king size douchenozzle and hypocrite?
ALWAYS side with a banker. ALWAYS side with a government (bought and paid for by a banker). Why?
Because they ALWAYS look out for the common folks.
Ha.
So basically, the rescue of the banks is going as planned.
TBTF banks will buy up the serf banks after the great bail-ins at .001 cents per dollar.
This is just a phase they have to go through....
None of this is news to me. i was thrown under the bus years ago, left for dead by the gov't that i paid taxes to & my stockpile stolen by my own adult children. that's what a good person gets for being too nice.
ZIRP, NIRP = starvation for the elderly. & that's the plan.
Pensioners have always been the ones who suffer in economic crises.
First they cannot react to inflation. They must watch as their once adequate monthly check eventually only buys a stamp.
They cannot resume work.
They are the easiest group for the government to abuse. Benefits shrink as the need for funds is always greater elsewhere.
The cruelest thing is the modern Social Security system. They are forced to contribute to the very system that is structured to fail them. When they are done paying into it there is little left for private savings.
Conveniently they die off.
.....usually quietly...
Who bothered about the poor people in Cyprus who had their life savings stolen?
Why did you not care?... Because you thanked your lucky stars that it did not happen to you in your world.
Get some empathy people and work together.
The only way to defeat this small number of corrupt, faceless morons who are ruining our world is to educate people and stand together!
WHAT ARE WE LEAVING OUR NEXT GENERATION?
LET US GET RID OF THOSE MONSTERS WHO FEED ON FEAR, GREED AND CONTROL. LET US RID OURSELVES OF THEIR BANKS, GOVERNMENTS AND JUSTICE SYSTEMS ONCE AND FOR ALL AND MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN, PLEASE....