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Stunned Greeks React To Initial Capital Controls And The "Decree To Confiscate Reserves", And They Are Not Happy
Earlier today, following weeks of speculation, Greece finally launched the first shot across the bow of capital controls, when it decreed that due to an "extremely urgent and unforeseen need" (ironically the need was quite foreseen since about 2010, but that is a different story), it would be "obliged" to transfer - as in confiscate - "idle cash reserves" located across the country's local governments (i.e., various cities and municipalities) to the Greek central bank.
Several hours later the decree which was posted in the government gazette has finally percolated among the population, and the response to what even ordinary Greeks realize is now the endgame, is less than exuberant.
Bloomberg reports, that "as Greece struggles to find cash to stay afloat, local authorities say they oppose a government decision to use their reserves for short-term financing."
“The government’s decision to seize our reserves not only raises legal and constitutional issues, but also a moral one,” said George Papanikolaou, mayor of Glyfada, the third-largest municipality in the metropolitan region of Attica after Athens and Piraeus. “We have a responsibility to serve our citizens,” Papanikolaou said by phone on Monday. Glyfada has about 16 million euros in cash reserves, he said.
George is unhappy because as recently as tomorrow, he will find there is precisely zero euros in his public bank account, as all the money has now been forcibly sequestered by the government in order to repay future Troika, pardon, IMF obligations.
Sadly for Greece, this is the only option left as the money has now fully run out: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ordered local governments and central government entities to move their cash balances to the central bank for investment in short-term state debt.
From Bloomberg:
The decree to confiscate reserves held in commercial banks and transfer them to the Bank of Greece could raise as much as 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion), according to two people familiar with the decision. The money is needed to pay salaries and pensions at the end of the month, the people said.
“It is a politically and institutionally unacceptable decision,” Giorgos Patoulis, mayor of the city of Marousi and president of the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece, said in a statement on Monday.“No government to date has dared to touch the money of municipalities.”
It took the radical leftist one all of 2 months since coming to power.
And the punchline is that the use of confiscated proceeds is unclear: the government says it is to pay pensions and wages, but recall that the same government recently confiscated pensions to repay the IMF, so according to the chain of logic, the government first raided pensions, and now municipalities, just to repay the dreaded Troika.
The Athens city council and the union of municipalities and communities in Greece will convene tomorrow to debate the order, a press officer of the mayor’s office said.
And one everyone realizes what just happened, expect the riot cam and the Greek Pay-Per-Riot channel, which has been on hiatus since the summer of 2012, to be fully reactivated.
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Can the local govs choose to defy the decree/ sue the central gov?
To be sure, this reaction is being carefully studied by US Homeland Security, NSA, FBI, etc. Not so much what the people are doing but the effectiveness of the response by the authorities.
It's funny how everyone perceives Greece as being the problem, when the true genesis of their mess is to be found in the massive lending by banking institutions to the Greek government without the requisite due diligence of this nation's capacity to service and repay the debt. When the banks were yield hungry they piled into Greek debt like lemmings and when things went wrong they were saved by the governments of Germany and France who bailed them out.
This of course does not absolve the successive stupid and fraudulent Greek governments but it does highlight the fact that the drug dealer (the banks) is more to blame than the addict (the government)
There is a knock at the door of the unit complex and everyone assumes that it's the debt collectors coming for Greece, but the truth is that first they will come for Greece and then for each one of us in turn.
First they came for the E.Ukies, and I did not protest or fight, because I was not an E.Eukie.
Then they came for the Greeks, and I did not protest or fight, because I was not a Greek.
...
Finally, they came for me, and I could not protest or fight, and no one was able or willing to help, because there was no one left.
Point is... Greece is just "Market Testing" of what will eventually and inevitably come to the US, when the Ponzi Debt Cycle comes to its end. IOW...
"There, but for the grace of Wall St, go we"
I am American... We are invincible gosh darn it!!!
Looks like a STOMP audition.
REVOLT.
This is so, so, so predictable. Coming soon:
1. Bank withdrawal limits;
2. Forced Government Bond Purchases;
3. Bank bail-ins ("Everybody's working for the Weekend! - Loverboy??"); and
4. Wealth tax (uber wealthy exempt).
This is so telegraphed and, in fact, explicitly contemplated by BIS.
How many ounces ya got?
Cancel the old currency and creating a new currency would be easier.
Canceling the banksters and their ponzis and grifts for Zion would be easier.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
The Pitchfork Factor could be increased though. And it might be more difficult to blame it on the Terrorists.
With respect to the BIS items:
1. The ATM withdrawal limits will clearly be the responsibility of the Syrian Electronic Army or the "Russian Gangsters" or the "North Koreans".
2. Forced Government Bond Purchases - hell, that's just downright Patriotic. No other reason required, especially if you name it the MyRA Patriot Bond Program or something like it.
3. Bank Bail-ins: Don't forget, that's to save the "taxpayer"!! Just don't tell the "taxpayers" that they may also be "depositors".
4. "Wealth" Tax - Make the "rich" pay!! Wealth is evil.
Combine (1) - (4) with stealth (or non-stealth) inflation and targeted debt defaults and we have a solid, solid plan with the Pitchfork Factor substantially reduced.
All of the above is theft
We will throw someone behind bars for stealing, but not if they can write a decree saying it is OK.
Just like the authorities in the USA confiscating cash and assets. It is stealing.
That is all politicians know, how to steal more for services most no one uses or knows about.
Why do I need an aircraft carrier in the ME to defend me? I am not being attacked or invaded. Think about all the money they steal from you to keep that thing in the water over there, a sitting duck waiting to be sunk and the radiation from its reactors polluting the ocean there.
“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the pols and crats across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give us a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Pols and Crats! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.
“Because,” the pols and crats replied, “If we try to kill you, then we would die too, for you see we cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”
“This is true,” agreed the pols and crats, “But then we wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”
“Alright then…how do I know you won’t just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.
“Ahh…,” crooned the pols and crats, “Because you see, once you’ve taken us to the other side of this river, we will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”
So the frog agreed to take the pols and crats across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The pols and crats crawled onto the frog’s back, their sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the pols and crats would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the pols and crats remove their stingers from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall all die! Why on earth did you do that?”
The pols and crats shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog’s back.
“We could not help ourselves. It is our nature.”
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
So if there was a run on the bank, they can just say sorry no Money here.. ( at the moment )
how convenient.. i know i know if you keep money in the bank it isn't there anyway..
Greece starts confiscating mattresses in 3, 2, 1
.... "it is to pay pensions and wages" ... of those in power in Brussels.
Enjoy your worm food, Greeks. Once upon a time you were badass Spartans, but today you are Greeks.
Who’s pension gets paid first, in America – UAW or John McCain??? LOL
Summer is coming, all is good*
*greek saying
/s
But they do have some great ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases
"Enjoy your worm food, Greeks. Once upon a time you were badass Spartans, but today you are Greeks."
Their lives are becoming ever more... 'Spartan'. If only they had the warrior mindset and actions to go with the original Spartan lifestyle.
Modern life plus CORRUPTED Christianity has morphed them into Sheep, who will "turn the other cheek", and rejoice in the blessings of being poor and inheriting the earth (or 6 feet below its surface).
A few drummers do not Spartans make. But, at least it's way more than what we do in the USSA.
/sarc + pity
Forget not that the Spartan warrior mindset came about so that they could control the Helots. They were fundamentally badass slavers.
When they say "pay government salaries" they mean cops...and anyone else who is willing to protect their sorry asses.
Don't forget the army, who will be only too happy for an excuse to start shooting anarcho-communists when the cash finally runs out.
It's over. Default in a month, coup d'etat and martial law in three.
Not that I give a damn---on the contrary, when photos of their corpses hit the MSM I'll cheer---but surely Yanis's time would be better applied to getting himself and Danae out of Greece than prolong a game he's obviously already lost.
Mmmm... seed corn.
Its pretty fucking Fascio retarded for a cop to attack somone for playing the drums. That is what the world is dealing with.
Toga!!!
For people like us it is an obvious agression.
It also illustrates what lengths .gov will go to if anyone objects to their 'policy' anywhere, the land of the free included as witness the OWS a few years ago and the thugs they call cops treating people like an invading force.
The best way is to get out and ignore them as there is no winning, unless you consider having your loved ones slaughtered worth the price.
I think he was mad at the table not the drum.
But then again, what will playing the drums accomplish?
I am not advocating violence but battling the police or putting cars of innocent individuals on fire will not accomplish anything. Then this girl that made it into Draghi presco. She could have done some serious damage there to the ECB.
Hypothetically speaking, if you want to start a revolution or change things then beating a drum would not do much effect. I also never understood these people who put themselves on fire. What is the point of that? You're dead or badly burned and no shit was given that day in financial HQs. Only perhaps a good laugh.
"But then again, what will playing the drums accomplish?"
War drums?
I dunno. Some of the drummers (always the stupidest in a band) I played with were so bad I felt like physically attacking them as well.
We won't have that problem in the US thanks to Jade Helm and the DHS.
I would bet that the British thought along similar lines.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
I'm sure all of those Greeks are going to want to stay in the EU after this. If the market priced in when they totally resolved this a couple of weeks ago then we should be expecting a down turn, yes?
If you're trying to convince your electorate to change their mind and demand leaving the EU, this is one way to do it. They might need to put those barricades back in place, however. I still don't understand how the average Greek thinks they are better off under this monetary regime.
The experience of the Greeks highlights why the DC US is so determined to get America's guns.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
"You can have my gold, after you take my guns."
Sorry pal, when i go, the Combination and the treasure map goes with me..
kchris - yes, so far they have tried and failed to get the 2nd Amendment guns. Could an engineered drought to drive the free people off the land in the West be the latest attempt? Easier than storming all those homesteads.
Mr. Panos....the explainer of the unexplainable, the teacher to the unteachable.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvl9N9GdraQ
Smile, George, Syriza's not so bad. What replaces them will be worse. Far, far worse.
"NATO cannot guarantee the safety of anyone in Athens or its suburbs" worse.
"Hey dawg? Whar da white wimmin at, I hear dey like it up de ass round here" worse.
"Only oligarchs and NATO soldiers know where their next meals are coming from" worse.
"Greek without rubber for the price of a square meal at a tourist hotel" worse.
"That'll be 100,000 euro for an exit visa" worse.
"Frankfurt decides, Frankfurt orders" worse.
"Frankfurt tosses your shattered corpse into the Aegean if you can't take a joke" worse.
"Nobody leaves the Fourth Reich alive" worse.
Don't say you weren't warned.
As the citizens all collectively say in unison "I didn't know the socialists were going to take my money!"
Shocked, shocked(!) that the thing they were warned over and over again for six grinding years actually happened!
Shit. You'd better believe that the broke US states of California and Illinois are taking notes right about now...
GREECE ENDGAME
I am still puzzled about the strategy Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis are following if any?
They’ve put themselves in a tough spot since the Germans know that the Greek people don’t like to leave the European monetary zone. And now it seems that, cynically enough, they like the IMF more than the Troika.
Why didn’t Tsipras and Varoufakis play hard ball and put forward some clear perspective? Why kowtow now to the IMF plundering pension funds and now even cash reserves of Greek citizens which, anyone can predict, won’t bode well to the Greek people?
Why, If Germany and the EU are playing hardball on Greece, also play hardball and put forward the clear perspective that if the EU keeps bullying Greece they will:
– Default on the debts to European banks (Blowing up 3.4 to 4 trillion of derivatives on Greece and interest rates on Greek bonds etc)
– Join the BRICS
– Support the Russian pipeline trough Turkey and Greece
– Give Russia a port
– Leave NATO
– Lend money from Russia and/or China
– Make a free tax haven with full anonymity to everyone and every company on the globe (With much better weather and food than London and with nice sunny islands and casino’s)
– btw we keep using the Euro
Or you give us what we want. Simple as that. Why not!?? Or is Germany breaking up the EU via Greece? http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=210616.msg1506971#msg1506971
They want an invite to Bildergerg.
They don't want to wind up like these guys.
http://www.idaholiberty.com/banking-history/ aka dead presidents.
Most whores are pretty stunned when their pimps backhand them and demand the daily snatch tax.
I'm sure fraudulent TEA PARTY ROCK STAR AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Marco Rubio would approve of such fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps Huff-po would be a better venue for the banging of a gong that in the end is just noise.
Trickle down socialism the answer to trickle down capitalism gone mad?
According to a UK NGO, the IMF made 2.5 billion Euro on the money they loaned to Greece since 2010.
http://jubileedebt.org.uk/news/imf-made-e2-5-billion-profit-greece-loans
Pay attention everybody. The game that the IMF -and the creditors they represent- has been playing in Africa, Asia and Latin America for so long (aka lending you enough money to survive 1-2 months while demanding that you implement 'Structural Adjument Programmes -an euphemism for austerity-) is being replicated in Greece. Greece is going to be sacrificed on the altar of rogue capitalism (the one that bails out banks when they make bad investments). Soon coming to a country near you. Or your country.
Greek banksters are such amateurs. Everybody knows you are supposed to announce such things on a Friday at 5 pm and then keep the banks closed up for at least a week. So they announce on a Monday when everybody already has a weekend hangover?
Riot Dog will be back and will wipe the smile off of Dieselboomer's face.
Obey the EU *and* seize assets? Did they just meet with Paul Krugman, or something???
Greece must have been speaking to Paul Krugman on the best Grexit
It's keep the wealth transfer going to the top 1%.
Impoverish the rest.
It used to be that stuffing a mattress with paper bills was security. Perhaps not anymore.
Where are my cigarettes and flip-flops?
Commie see, commie do.
Corzine School of Asset Management
LOL.
You mean Management of Fraudulent Paper Fiat currencies.
Real assets are taken away with Fraudulent Worthless Paper and then this Fiat Paper is removed from you.
New cycle starts with real ssets with them and you/us with not even paper.
lazy days of easy money in greece are now gone
welcome to debtors prison bitches
Natzis, the Natzis are coming!
Stupid Goy, your "government" has to pay the Jews that printed and "lent" it "money". Now get back to work and quit whining or you'll see just how bad it really can get.
Maybe Zerohedger's are willing to help Greece out?
The Greek govt is not Greece.
The Greek govt needs to die along with its debt.
As long as the Greeks refuse to help themselves, I'm not kicking anything in
+10000000000000000000. hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Let me say this, I oppose your taking our non-backed money that can be printed to infinity, and further, I will do nothing about it because I am a giant chicken shit Goy that will instead pretend not to understand the simple scam. Take that!
The EU/IMF shake down rackets end game; after stealing all their money and forcing the municipalities to go bankrupt the troika will kick them out of the EU.
Maybe YV should have played game theory. Jeesh.
He has ....................................AGAINST GREECE.
So local commercial banks holding deposits from various municipalities will be obliged to digitally transfer reserve funds to the Greek central bank to be used as collataral for issuing bonds in order to repay Troika loans.
Next will be transfer of reserve funds from the Greek Orthodox Church deposits held by local commercial banks. Then private Corporations, followed by Utilities, and finally individuals. Problem is bank runs will occur on a massive scale since local banks will essentially be insolvent when it becomes obvious the Euro is in short supply
Hard assets would be better
Only as long as the mail service holds up. Maybe some retailer will move into bitcoins but as of now there are not too many.
The next elected party will promise unicorns.
"In Greece, anti-Semitic viewpoints are aired frequently, particularly the notions that Jews control the global economy and politics. In 2012, when the Golden Dawn’s Kasidiaris read in Parliament from the anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the reading drew no condemnation from the other lawmakers present.
Nor was there public condemnation when Golden Dawn slammed the recent visit by the American Jewish Committee’s executive director, David Harris, as a trip to ensure further “Jewish influence over Greek political issues” and safeguard the interests of “international loan sharks.” "
- http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.591841
"Last year American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris visited the country and was accused by Golden Dawn members of attempting to ensure "Jewish influence over Greek political issues." More recently, ADL National Director Abe Foxman met with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaris urging him to take the issue of anti-Semitism more seriously."
- http://www.bjf.org/daily-updates/1119-daniel-odrezin-greece-israel-fun-t...
Well look, if the head of the AJC and the ADL are getting an audience with the leaders of Greece during horrific economic times and {this was last year} trouble on the streets, it is not because a few of Greece's 5,000 Jews felt harrassed.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Greek-Jews-laud-Golden-Dawn-arrests-3...
It's because GD is resisting the banks, and the plan to flood Greece with African immigrants - even as Israel puts such immigrants in detention centers and injects them with birth control - before deporting them.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-video-israeli-rac...
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/01/plight-african-m...
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177697/racism-israel
I COULD FIND NO EVIDENCE THAT AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERS WERE HEADED TO ISRAEL TO SPEAK WITH ISRAELI POLITICIANS ABOUT ANTI-IMMIGRANT SENTIMENT. Nor any evidence that they sought to reduce Israeli violence against Palestinian women and children, or to stop the building of Jew-only settlements in occupied Palestinian territory in contravention of international law and in fact Israel's admission to the UN.
Can anyone find that?
Judaism, above all faiths, is about justice for all human beings as equals, after all.
So much equality. So little time. 'Co's I don't exactly see Jew banking execs and Hollywood professionals quitting to create a more diversified workforce.
Jews must be too busy with 'gods work' to worry about some petty inequalities. The Jew is just better at banking and movies. Don cha know?
Maybe Judaism is, bit the people who practice it, not so much.
Watching this trainwreck unfold over the last few years has given me a permanent nervous tic on my face.
Would you rather have irritable bowel syndrome?
Guten Abend Sheeples you are now entering the EU Twilight Zone or Twelfth Night as the Bard saw it.
Surely Syriza knew it had to come to this? Can they really have been this cynical with their election promises? Stupid question I suppose.
That is exactly what you are supposee to think - they had it coming, it's not our problem. The shit wall will hit us at a thousand miles per hour and rip coast to coast so fast that nothing will be left in its wake. Nothing.
One would think, at this late stage of the game, that those who have a half a brain would have removed any or all of their money from the banks and purchased food, guns, PM, ammo and more guns. We, in America, have our day of reckoning a few ticks away, but come on...GOLD, GUNS and GROCERIES....yesterday!
Heh. I like Greeks because they're so stupid!
I'm losing sympathy with the Greeks. They were loan-sharked by corrupt politicians and the gangster banks and are perfectly entitled to default and put the criminals in jail where they belong but they won't do it. They just sit there letting the EU and the gangster banks rip their country apart.
Something in the water? The baklava?
they are drinking their flouride, sending their kids to public schools and taking all their vaccines for enough generations to lose all sense of what is happening.
that picture says it all...
how can you kick a Tin Drum ?
it's like kicking "the Tin Drum" by Günter Grass...
pure fascism.
WR;)
THIS IS SPARTAAA!!1111
The Greek people have been hosed at every turn. The full specrum BS laid on thick. Presented with false choices only. Sound familar? It aint no different where you live either.
Wake up cuz you are in for the same shit. Unless we?
That's right, you can die starving or you can die fighting!...
either way you're TOAST! may as well fight...Right?
no NUTS in the u.s.a.
The need was "UNFORSEEN".
And of course the news in the US is "Greece default won't be a big deal" today. All the while our fuck fest of what we called a market is trying its hardest, and getting dangerously close, to breaking out to new highs. I suspect Greece over the edge will be just the boost the DOW needs.
Oh and btw, the stooge kicking that guys drum over doesn't look that tough. I would beat that motherfuckers ass raw.
But at least the Greeks will be able to look at their bank statements and know that whatever pittance the government lets them keep will be in Euros!
What's the matter? Your government workers are sucking you economy dry? Fuck you pay me!
What? Your government workers are going to strike if you don't pay them even though they are the reason why you're broke? Fuck you pay me!
What? Youre raiding the pensions of your government workers and they're pissed off at you? Thanks for the payment.
You know what to do next month right?
what's an 'idle cash reserve"? isn't that kind of an oxymoron?
It's any money the Govt. wants to get it's hands on to pay back so they can get more loans.
Stealing money to give it away so they can get more money?
I dunno, It's Greece.
Maybe it makes sense over there.
sounds like it's not much different than tarp.
i used to like those junior bank accounts called Christmas Clubs. they actually paid interest -- even to children.
A stack of IOUs waiting to be exchanged for something else deemed necessary by the current corrupt administration of dull-ly elected demagogues (as in democracy).
So what ever happened to the promise of increasing wages and restoring pension payments?
What good are elections if the people can't vote more free shit for themselves.
BTW - How bad are conditions in Libya if you have people risking their lives to leave there and go to Greece?
I listened to the report on the radio, about the ship capsizing.
My thoughts were, exactly " how bad is Libya if Libyans are risking their lives to get to Greece"
Then my mind wandered to how relatively tranquil the area was with Qadaffi at the helm. And while a first Order prick, Saddam knew exactly what it took to keep these 4th century motherfuckers in line.
Now it is a clusterfuck.
Gee, looks like the practiced predators-that-be are setting up the dynamic duo for a quick trip to the guillotine. Why? To send a message to voters worldwide... don't even think about electing anyone who tells the truth, not even some of the time.
Dynamic Duo: Spend less. Lots less.
What's so difficult to understand about that?
Oh, and then, 100% DEFAULT.
Don't pay the predators who created the fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve debt-notes they "lent you". You have zero obligation to repay, because what they lent you had precisely ZERO value then, and precisely ZERO value today.
Dynamic Duo: Hang around with regular folks. The longer you hang around with other human predators, the more insane and corrupt you guys become. Give it up. You're not one of them. Or if you are not, just kill yourselves as you deserve.
Don't pay the predators who created the fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve debt-notes they "lent you"....
Wasn't it George Papandreou that entered into some kind of deal w/Gd Sachs? Does he still have the cash?
Seriously, you read about Greek school kids picking through lunch bin trash. You'd think the Greek people would have some questions for georgie P.
Oh wait, Corzine effect. Nevermind.
Just don't pay the fucking debt to IMF. People comes first than those MF banksters.
Only the most dumbass Greeks would still have thier money in a Greek bank. They have had a heads up for the past 3 years.
This opens a window to a scene that few Americans know exist.
And it also is a testing ground for what we have to look forward to.
For the last… who knows how many years, American cities and counties, special districts and state governments have been collecting taxes far in excess of their annual needs. These surpluses are held as cash and bonds, real estate and stocks, domestic and international; they represent taxes over-collected. When I did my research on this (about 2000), such surpluses for California divided out to $20,000 for every man, woman and child in the state; when I factored in amounts hidden in footnotes, the “dividend” ballooned to over $40,000 for each individual. See, for example, “Who Owns City Hall?“ and Of Lords and Cattle.
These surpluses lead to a couple of questions, at least, ‘Who owns them?’ and ‘When do I get my dividend?’
It seems to me that recovering this booty – that is, returning it to those from whom it was wrongly taken – would be more sensible than turning it over to a federal bankrupt.
Forget Greece… we need to focus on tomorrow, and here.
If so it truly does. This opens up an whole other Pandora box full of cans of worms.
Then one discourse that may need to be addressed at any second constitutional convention as initiated by Article V is this.
When a citizen gets a loan they must pledge collateral, an inanimate thing such as land, a building, a diamond ring, or any species of commodity. When the government gets a loan it pledges its citizens. When this began to happen then we the people ceased to be citizens and became slaves.
The principle to be introduced by a Convention of States is that the income of persons is not to be pledged as collateral by anyone other than the one who earns the income.
Agreed.
However, why employ Article v? It requires initiation by Congress; an institution totally dominated by criminal and useless classes.
Instead we should rely on First-Amendment assemblies, as American Founders did. We have the same powers they had, only most Americans don’t know it. Please see my article ‘Pawn of Fool?’
are you talking about CAFRs? Comprihensive Annual Financial Report (a need to know secret budget that supposedly has billions stored up)
CAFR’s? Yes.
“billions”? No, I examined about half a dozen state reports and estimated the total surpluses for all states was $3-$6 trillions.
The realisation of how screwed up the world is financially, isn't taken seriously until governments start seizing assets. It suddenly hits home very hard.
only one way I see for the Greek muppets to make this right. Go to thier mayor tell him to place the municpal cops at the command of the craziest town citizens or else(pitchfork up the ass)..the small town citizens take cops to big cities and do the same.....then go to the central bank in athens and start arresting people with the peoples cops until the money is sent back.
only one way I see for the Greek muppets to make this right. Go to thier mayor tell him to place the municpal cops at the command of the craziest town citizens or else(pitchfork up the ass)..the small town citizens take cops to big cities and do the same.....then go to the central bank in athens and start arresting people with the peoples cops until the money is sent back.
They won't find any money. They'll have to settle for the bankers' heads.
Any government with a Central bank, is a Piece of Shit! Politicians serve two masters. It's time to end central banking and kill their owners!
...does North Korea, Cuba or Afghanistan have a central bank? Everytime I try to google which countries have central banks, and which ones don't, I get stupid NWO/Rothschilds shit. That's not gonna fly. I want real answers without alexjonestown conspiritainment crap.
Drummers of the World unite in condemnation of right winged authoritarian riot squad Greek Police that kick drums and drummers.
FUCK Greece and their drum kicking POLICE.
United breaks guitars, Greek police break drums. Life, what a bummer sometimes...
In 'Murica, the feds will raid your guitar shop. just ask Gibson.
I think the majority of ZH readers would have advised the mayor to get the cash out of those accounts weeks ago, and buy PM or something they could exchange when they needed it: what were those guys thinking??
To be "stunned" by this "revelation" you would have to be "retarded".
This is an issue with legs politicaly speaking. Ask Hillery about this and watch her gag on it.
So the bankers are taking peoples pensions, jobs and future.. Oh well you should be lucky they have stopped taking everyone's lives since WWII. See there is always a positive, cheer up Greece.
Trust me, the banksters have never stopped killing people. Debt-peonage doesn't enforce itself.
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
why don't you go to Greece
you might get what you want there.
it could change your life!
I don't know how loud Syriza has to say it.
I mean FFS, how long so far, they have not said one word, not a single word about nor taken a single action regarding cleaning bank accounts out, yet still half the deposits are still there.
Syriza WANTS them to get their cash out, so it gets replaced by the fuck wits at the ECB, but some morons just don't listen.
Perhaps this will wake them up, I will be interested to see just how much cash leaves the banks this week.
For Fucks sake you dumb Greeks with cash in the bank, get it out tomorrow so they can crash the system and bring the drachma on or you fucking lose it. Just how many hints, nods and winks do you need
Yep they are talking about taking the operating capitol out of local government. Think about it.
Checkmate in two moves?
I play checkers only, can you explain?
Have you ever run a small buisness?
It is a clever move on the part of the Syriza government. When the money is transferred to the pensioners they will either withdraw it as cash or transfer it to a non-Greek bank. Either way, when the eventual exit from the Euro happens, these will remain euros because they would have left the Greek banks. All the euros remainining in Greek banks will have to be converted to Drachma when Greece leaves the Euro because the ECB would no longer provide liquidity to Greek banks.
I doubt the Greek people will get another shot.
At what?
Ditching the EU and the euro.
Perhaps I need to clarify my earlier post.
When Greece exits the Euro shortly and reintroduces Drachma, all the deposits in the Greek banks will hve to be converted to the Drachma. However, euro cash held by Greek citizens (even if issued by Greek banks before the exit) and Euros in non-Greek banks held by Greek persons and entities remain as euros. While Greece will conduct its national commerce in Drachma, it is very likely to need currency like EUR/USD/JPY/GBP to pay for its imports. So retaining as much of the existing currency as Euros as possible will help Greece after the transition, especially since Greece is a net-importer of goods and services (a situation that will have to change rapidly after exit from the Euro).
I don't think Greece will reenter the Euro nor should they ever want to if they know what is good for them.
Greece's membership of the EU is not linked to its membership of the EZ.
Thinking,
Why convert euros to drachma?
No choice. Euro is the registered trade mark of the ECB. They can be issued only by the ECB or those authorised by the ECB and acting under its guidance and rules. Greece exiting the EZ is Greek banks severing their responsibilities to the ECB. Once that happens, they lose their right to issue euros as well. The only euros they will have a right to is the reserves with the ECB which is currently negative (witness the emergency liquidity being provided by the ECB to Greek banks). Since they can't issue euros and don't have any euros to draw on, they have to either fold or convert the accounts into a currency they can issue, Drachma.
There will be different problem, all the Euros they borrowed from the ECB. I don't think the Greek banks can repay the ECB the euros, so they will end up surrendering the collateral, the Greek government bonds they are holding. So the ECB would have "purchased" more euro denominated Greek government debt that would be defaulted on.
Ya lost me. How is it that the money that people have been paid is not theirs? The money in my pocket is mine. Just because the Greek government is going to stop printing euros does not mean the pricks get to take back anyones pay. It sure sounds like some crackhead logic to justify more theft.
If the Greek gov. wants to print drachma thats one thing. But I fail to see any reason to swipe the euros from people that earned them.
The only reason to do that would be if the intent was to devalue the crap out of the new drachma madly right after its first issue. Like was done in the US when we went off the gold standard.
'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'
Hemingway
Tyler was right. We all have a timeline and no one has ever escaped.
We read about economics and events on this blog to see how our timeline may or may not be effected.
However, it appears most of us do not want all of us to end our timelines at the same time for some reason. Do you think we are scared Heaven's computers will crash from all the simultaneous applications and we all float around in limbo waiting to see what will happen?
On the other hand, we would have lots of company. Do you think they have neocons, republicans or democrats in the aterlife?
What if Adolf and Stalin are up there somewhere waiting for spirit labor to shove around?
This is so confusing. :)
this is all about minted and printed euros. the rest is 1's& 0's which can be deleted in a nanosecond.
AND ITS GONE BITCHEZ!!!!!
Why are they doing this to themselves? Why doesn't this president just state the obvious? We are not paying because we can't possibly pay. That would be representing his people. The banks would lose and anyone else who actually bought a Greek bond would lose as well. Greece would no longer be able to borrow money but is that really such a bad thing? How do you fix a debt problem with more debt? Kind of like helping a drowning person by shoving them into deeper water.
I doubt any town in Greece has much idle cash sitting around.
I know what they can't confiscate, if you hide it well enough.
Russia, the Patrimonial State, and Its Future
Stephen Blank April 20, 2015
Western scholars habitually view Putin’s Russia as an authoritarian state. While this is true; it reflects political science’s methodological urge to compare phenomena and validate theories rather than to grasp the Russian state’s real nature. Russia today remains, as it was under Tsars and Communist rulers, a patrimonial state, much as Max Weber defined the term a century ago. The state and property belong to the Tsar as his personal property and he or his subordinates can expropriate anything they want to. There are no property rights, the historic basis for all human and civil rights, and there is neither the rule of law nor the accountability of any government official to anyone except his immediate superior. State service is obligatory for those who want to hold property (or in extremis for everyone) and its popularity among the young as a path to riches is growing since they fully grasp this dynamic. In many respects this model goes far beyond the authoritarian model, though it overlaps with it, not least because the patrimonial state can freely borrow elements from Fascism and Socialism or Communism just as Stalin and now Putin have done.
Indeed many attributes of prior Russian formations are easily discernible in Putin’s Russia. In the last few years decrees and “legislation” have actually curtailed the rights of several categories of the population to travel and increased the parameters of compulsory service to the state in one form or another. Much as in Tsarist times, businesses are often compelled to remit resources back to the government, ostensibly in the name of charitable or social projects much as Tsarist officials commandeered funds centuries ago ostensibly for similar purposes or the Communist regime forced unpaid labor on people. Psychiatric prisons have come back, dissent has been criminalized, and the unity of the church and state, or rather the full subordination of the church to the state and its continuing infiltration by the regime’s police agencies, has reappeared.
Similarly the tentacles of many, often shadowy, internal military and police formations which encompass several hundreds of thousands of men in a vast expansion of the Tsarist and Soviet practice have mushroomed. As Luke Harding has suggested, Putin may also have been inspired by the STASI’s through penetration of East Germany for the resemblance to that regime is also telling. Indeed, before 2009 these formations actually received more funding than the Russian Army signifying the regime’s perception that the main threat is internal dissent.
Although the Army has eclipsed these services in funding since then; they nonetheless continue to batten off the state budget, reflecting the enduring threat perception of the internal threat. Like the Communist regime, Putin’s has embraced a Leninist threat paradigm, namely that Russia is threatened on all sides from without, and from within by people who dissent and who are paid by those outside enemies. Therefore they are “national traitors’ rather than lackeys of imperialism or capitalist elements. The class ideology is gone but the mentality of unremitting political war has again become engraved in the minds of contemporary Russians.
As long as Putin remains in power these trends can only persist. He and his regime, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “is so steeped in blood that to go o’er would be as tiresome as going back.” The legislation giving the state ever more control over property, enlarging the restrictions on citizens right to travel, and expanding the parameters of compulsory service and the assault on civil liberties through the state’s takeover of the Internet continue to grow.
Naturally along Putin’s system has restored the traditional pathologies of patrimonialism: pervasive lawlessness, corruption, and endemic backwardness. In view of the present trend that predated the invasion of Ukraine to isolate Russia from the global economy and culture, not least scientific progress, we are seeing a relapse into phenomena of the late Stalin or Brezhnev periods that displayed similar tendencies. Consequently Russia is consigning itself to long-term backwardness and inability to compete. The government, as in classic Tsarist and Soviet style, is divided into warring factions that reproduce feudal patronage networks of patron-client relationships all the way down the line and has an inertia towards nepotism to ensure that the elite’s children retain their parents’ privileges.
In its foreign policies we see not only the traditional insistence on a status that is neither deserved nor sustainable as well as the resort toward war as the rationale of the regime. Putin clearly sees himself as a gatherer of Russian lands or at least wishes to pose as such. Since his regime has instituted a state of siege at home against dissenters and can only justify itself by imperial policies in its peripheries this is increasingly a state optimized for war. The ensuing burdens that Russia is accruing are already unsustainable and the crises engendered by the war in Ukraine only make things worse as Crimea can only be sustained at the cost of old age pensions and curtailed infrastructure projects at home. Moreover, defense spending, as in previous regimes, now has an apparent absolute priority as its defenders will not relax their hold on Russia’s resources.
This is not to say that Russia is a medieval or early modern country and society. But it does have a state that incarnates the vital aspects of that Muscovite Tsarist and patrimonial paradigm that reproduces traditional pathologies in ways that almost certainly ensure that Putin’s successor, if not Putin himself, will face a major and quite traditional form of Russian crisis that could well lead to an explosion. Professor Daniel Orlovsky of Southern Methodist University once remarked to me that Russia is what the great French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss called a frozen culture. In many ways that is an apt analogy for Russia. But in an era of accelerating political and climate change that frost is not sustainable for a long time in historical terms. And when it thaws, it might either melt or, if enough heat is applied, it could become incendiary. Then Putin’s legacy and his sneer of cold command will be like that of Shelley’s Ozymandias, “Look on my works ye mortals and despair.”
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Take your biggotted shit-for-brains posts some other place. Damn article is about Greece!!
Thank you for your wearying dissertation, sphincter.
Honestly you must think people here are idiots, or you are the most clueluss person I've ever seen wrt Russian politics, or you are being paid by the word. Actually "all of the above" seems to fit best. Navalny?????? The guy who registered ZERO on a RPORC poll last year asking the question: “Which politicians would you vote for, if presidential election were held next Sunday?”
www.wciom.com/index.php?id=150
Yes he polled zero as in less than 1% and not much has changed. Please go away before you embarrass yourself further. As others have said blockhead, this article is about Greece.
Do you actually believe this shit?