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A First-Hand Account Of The Greek Bank Run
Submitted by Tom Winnifrith of Share Prophets
Witnessing the great bank run first hand as I deposit money in Greece
Jim Mellon says that the Greeks should build a statue in my honour as on Friday I opened a bank account in Greece and made a deposit. Okay it was only 10 Euro, I need to put in another 3,990 Euro to get my residency papers so I can buy a car, a bike and a gun, but it was a start. But the scenes at the National Bank in Kalamata were of chaos, you could smell the panic and they were being replicated at banks across Greece.
For tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here and if you are going to default on your debts/ switch from Euros to New Drachmas a bank holiday weekend is the best time to do it. And with debt repayments that cannot be met due on June 5 (next Friday) Greece is clearly in the merde. If it defaults all its banks go bust.
But I had to open an account and make a deposit. Outside the bank in the main street of Kalamata there are two ATMs. The lines at both were ten deep when I arrived and when I left an hour later. Inside I was directed to the two desks marked "Deposit". You go there to put in money, to open an account or if you are so senile that you cannot do basic admin of your account without assistance. As such it was me depositing cash and four octogenerians who had not got a clue about anything. Actually I lie. These folks may have been gaga but they were not so gaga that they were actually going to deposit cash, I was the sole depositer.
Friday was also the day when pensions are paid into bank accounts. On the Wednesday and Thursday it was reported that Greeks withdrew 800 million Euro from checking accounts. Friday's number will dwarf that. Whe you go to a Greek bank you pull off a ticket and wait for your number to be called. The hall in my bank contains about 60 seats all of which were filled. There were folks standing behind the seats and in fact throughout the hall, all wanting to get their cash out before the bank closed at 2 PM.
At the side of the room, shielded by a glass screen sat a man behind a big desk. He tapped away at his screen and made phone calls. Ocassionally folks wandered over, shook papers in his face and harangued him having got no joy elsewhere. So I guess he was the bank manager. I rather expected him to end one phone call and stand up to say "That was Athens - all the money has gone, its game over folks." But he didn't. He may well do so at some stage soon.
Eventually I got the the front of my five person queue of the senile and opened my account. Passport, tax number, phone number all in order. I handed over a 10 Euro note and the polite - if somewhat stressed - young man gave me about ten pieces of paper to sign and stamped my passbook. I have done my bit for Greece and have given it 10 Euro which I will lose one way or another in due course. So Jim - time to lobby for that statue.
The Government did not put up a default notice on Friday as I half expected. The can kicking goes on. The ATMs will be emptied this weekend and on Tuesday and in the run up to a potential default day next Friday the banks will be packed again with folks taking out whatever money they can.
It is not just the bank coffers that are being emptied. To get to The Greek Hovel where I sit now from my local village of Kambos is a two mile drive. On my side of the valley there is some concrete track but it is mainly a mud road. On the other side of the valley there is a deserted monastery so to honour the Church - even if there are no actual monks there - a concrete road was built in the good times. By last summer it was more pothole than road.
By law, since I have water and electricity, I can demand that the road be mended and so last summer I went to the Kambos town hall (4 full time staff serving a population of 536) and did just that. They said "the steam roller is broken and we have no money but will try to do it in the Autumn." They did not.
But last week a gang of men appeared and the road is now pothole free, indeed in some places we have a whole new concrete surface. And as I head towards Kalamta there are extensive road mending programmes. At Kitries, the village has found money to renovate its beach front. It is a hive of activity across the Mani.
Quite simply each little municipality is spending every cent it has as fast as it can. The Greek State asked all the town halls to hand over spare cash a few weeks ago to help with the debt repayment. The town halls know that next time it will not be a request but an order. But by then all the money they had hoarded will have been spent. That is Greekeconomics for you.
Everyone knows that something has to give and that it will probanly happen this summer. The signs are everywhere
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Welcome to Brokebank Mountain, where every depositor gets a dick in the ass.
#Engineered
Time to greece the rails on this doomed experiment.
Well Tsiprias isn't doing nathan to help his State. He could have told the IMF to fuck off from day one, gone back to the drachma and backed it with gold and silver and become a country of prominence. Imagine if the coins were partly made of silver, now that would hold value.
Yet he meddles and plays along just as all the other lame countries who whine that the EU is looting the system. Talk is cheap. Silver is king.
Greeks don't run, they prance
You are at the bank to make a DEPOSIT while everybody else is withdrawing money? Who is the greater fool?
Run bank run.
The very idea of a bank running is such an oxymoron! Anyways, this sounds more like a Bank Amble.
Or is it a bank stroll?
Runs, fractally look and feel exactly like the aftermath of a handfull of laxatives or a bad night at the local HOT chillie cook-off....
Stay bank, stay!
Notes, not the banking kind ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk1TSBW_368
"If it defaults all its banks go bust."
other way round
if greece defaults, the banks can potentially remain solvent a while longer
if greece makes payments, those payments are raked from other sources and its banks go bust
The guy who wrote this is a jerkoff.
Money is created out of thin air. Except in Greece. Welcome to a dick in your ass...
And it's gone...
When will the Greeks wisen up and go back to the Drachma? I'm tired of waiting.
Throw those pathetic Greeks out of Europe already.
I have wonderful news. There be a leprechaun up in the tree. Peace.
It seems as if the American society for the most part has forgotten the dangers of keeping their money in the banking system.
The greeks were once among the mightiest groups of people. Intellectually, physically, and financially. /yawn
Timing is everything and only fools rush in.
fools, schmools.. What kind of gun did you buy..
I bet it was made very clear to him by someone with an American accent that life could be bittersweet and short if he did not do as instructed by the IMF. It is after all a department of the US Treasury currently financing a war in Ukraine which is a breach of its charter but the American accent tells complainers to notice something else instead
If Greece defaults and joins the BRIICS and AIIB, I'd open (remotely) a Greek bank account, with a small deposit ($100), as a show of support.
Multiply that by a Million or more people, and you got something to add to AIIB.
The 101st and 82nd Airbornes will forward that money to Blankface and Demon.
Eventually but they've gonna have to blow up some Panzers first.
As long as you remain below Uncle Sam's really-po'-serf-like-reporting-thresholds, you can avoid FATCA reporting requirements.
In the end.... everyone dies. The rich die, the poor die, and the people channelling Jesus and Mohammed die. If someone has 5 billion dollars, a gold mine, a diamond mine, Traci Lords, a REALLY nice wine cellar, and then they die, they are still dead and people fight over the scraps. Perception is everything.
Mmm, Traci Lords!
+1 traci lords reference.
I always thought the popularity of middleweight actress rene zelleweger was the subconscious realisation of millions of guys that she had a very similar face to traci lords
A heathly addition to any preps.
so, while this article is pretty much as things are, one quick comment about bank runs- the guy went to the 'national bank of greece' , (the former central bank, ousted by the current totally foriegn-controlled CB in 1927) which is still essentially state-owned and is notoriously the absolutely shittitest bank for customer service in greece. Additionally an overwhelming percentage of very old people who indeed need step by step help understanding the paperwork, all seem to have accounts there (old sentimentality or something) and that bank also still is the only place one can pay some kinds of taxes and fees to the state... on any day of the week any time of the year any year of the decade, you go into the national bank, and youll wait an hour in line, while any other bank (e.g. alpha, peiraios, etc) you'll get much better customer service and youll wait 1/10th the time... so, that fellow's observation described a _typical_ day :) (the line at the ATM is atypical, but, i havent seen such things the past days) almost all the deposits left in gr banks are businesses who are basically forced to keep money there for payroll, taxes, paying suppliers, etc. nobody i know has more than a couple hundred bucks left in the bank (and most people in gr havent got enough money left for it to even make a difference, the vast majority of the draw-down the past few years has NOT been a run on the banks, it has been people drawing down savings to live, because income has not sufficed. that is also why it has been gradual and not all at once (i will not ever argue that it made sense for them to have kept the money in the bank to begin with, thats another story))
a dick in the ass you say? sounds quite painful.
what about the SHANGHAI market holy hell ==> HERE THE CHINA CHART
people getting long that market, might be about to get gangraped, but still there are people who keep chasing, the EUROPE and the ASIAN markets, caues they are doing QE to infintity and beyond!!!....and we all know where that took the US market, up up and AWAYYYYY! like superman! LOL
S. Korea's exports plunge 10.9 pct on-year in May
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2015/06/01/0200000000AEN20150601001751320.html
then they're in recession this quarter
The entire world has been in recession for some time, only TPTB are too busy playing 3-card-monty to tell the general public... Something to do with keeping their heads attached when the peasants roll out the guillotines...
Ouch. Perhaps that's why EWY was unable to bounce up off the 50-day moving average.
People just got their first "summer" electric bill (for the air conditioner) and had cut back on their purchases of electronics and cars?
Great slice of spam, shithead.
People still do not understand the huge difference that exists between money and currency.
Yes, and why would the bank "run out of money" when it can be created out of the ether, and printed for next to nothing?
For the same reason that Africans were herded onto slave ships and forced to pick cotton.
Same idea and effect - just a different century and dressed up with: suits, ties and "laws".
Greece can't (legally) print Euros.
In a fiat money system with fractional reserve banking, everytime a bank makes "a loan", it is in effect printing new money. Creating new money out of nothing and getting paid interest on what they conjured up. Money for nothing. Nice gig for some people who are into that sort of thing.
Maybe not legally, but why not? They got the printing presses and plates.
Let them pay their creditors with printed money, that's what the US and other countries do.
What are they going to do, throw Greece in jail? The don't throw Yellen or Goldman in jail.
As a matter of fact, a little counterfitting doesn't sound like a bad idea. And if you don't get greedy you probably won't get caught and live qute nicely.
"Counterfeit" money is only a problem if the bank gets a hold of it and takes it away from the person who has it, or when people get greedy. Otherwise, it is just as viable and useful as the stuff printed by the feds. Learned this in Econ 101 UCBerkeley 1967 and still true.
Says WHO ??? I thought that too, but 2 minutes of i-searching told me something different. Seems like the could and likely do en masse.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes
section
Issuance and printing
The ECB has the exclusive right to authorise the issue of notes within the Eurozone, but most notes are actually issued by the National Central Banks (NCBs) of the Eurozone.[1] As of 2004, 8% of banknotes were issued by the European Central Bank and 92% were issued by Eurozone NCBs.[1] The issuing central bank can be seen from the serial number. Each NCB is now responsible for the production of certain denominations, as assigned by the ECB.[1]
That's right, and Ireland printed euros a couple of years ago. Exceptions have been made before.
and you forgot to mention that National Central Banks (NCBs) are not national at all - they are part of ECB and ruled from ECB
Many people do not have access to competing currencies. I believe that, if they became able to walk into a store and make a purchase in either dollars, rubles, euros, or soles, they would come to understand the difference between money and currencies very quickly.
Also, I believe that people who regularly make purchases and sales in a variety of currencies quickly come to understand the difference, and that this understanding gives them a considerable advantage in business.
i know e.g. that people in ukrain keep their savings in dollars for many years
Thanks. Yes. THOSE people understand.
Bravo
Thank you so so much. It's time for us to take another sabbatical. When we hit certain peaks we know it's time to focus on other things. We will be hovering in the background, watching. Tyler, keep the fight. This is the greatest website. Brothers and sisters, this is your time to shine, let nothing stand in your way. See you when Jade Helm starts (ha). When the going gets tough....
A Greek bank run. With the amount of money those folks are left with now a bank run is a power walk with a cane at best, man.
EU, how do i quit you?
Get caught sleeping with the Russians?
1) Greece will likely default by June 18.
2) Greek bank runs, which are already forming, will intensify.
3) The European Central Bank will block Greece from gaining any increase in their Emergency Liquidity Assistance (the lifeline that is keeping Greek banks solvent). They will do this under the pretense of pressuring the Greeks to come to terms with the Troika by the end of the month, but their real purpose is to intentionally topple the Greek banking system.
4) There will be a Greek “bank holiday” and a general economic convulsion.
5) The searingly painful economic convulsion will prompt the Greeks to recoil from the source of the burn (the Troika and Syriza). This will trigger the reflexive jump towards Kammenos and the BRICS.
- http://redefininggod.com/2015/05/globalist-agenda-watch-2015-update-24-g...
That sucks.
What really sucks is that there WAS really only about EUR 62 billion in customer deposits available for withdrawal at the beginning of the May, not the EUR 134 billion reported (73 billion includes time deposits and repos, and such utter psycadellic lunacy as the several billion EUR of the Hellenic Deposit and Investment Guarantee Fund).
The Greeks have been averaging over 100M a day in withdrawals
Last week was back to 300M a day
And now someone is tossing around 800M a day
At this rate it doesn't matter if they "bundle" with the IMF, there won't be a Greek Central Bank to make a payment to the IMF at the end of the month.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-29/greece-slides-back-recession-de...
Why they aren't buying the crap out of gold is a mystery to me. When they fail to meet their financial obligation, how much do they think the value of the Euro goes up?
Retail demand for gold in Greece has increased 123% or more from Q4/14 to Q1/15.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-16/greeks-are-running-towards-gold...
Nice link
If the system goes totally bonkos, gold will have some value - certainly more than pieces of paper with dead presidents on them - but far more valuable will be cigarettes, clean water, toilet paper, and ammunition.
Buy gold only when you have all the silver you can carry. Silver is far easier to barter in the amounts for day to day life.
A 90% silver US quarter or dime (i.e. minted pre-1965) is today worth about 13 times face value.
Two 90% silver US dimes will buy you a gallon of gasoline, and that is true now and was also true in the 1950s.
In the short run. In the long run gold and silver will have its day in the sun.
Why? Suspension of disbelief. Of course, I don't recall Max Rockatansky having much use for gold either. Lead, water, and the juice, on the other hand, were far more fungible.
You have to have money or extra assets to buy gold. I think the average Greek is barely hanging on.
But in Germany you can't get a safe deposit box for love or money.
(I wonder what those Germans are putting in there anyway?)
The problem with gold and silver is that it mostly commes in coins and in most people’s minds, coins are worthless.
the biggest coin in europe is’2 euro’s, but there’s nothing you can get for 2 euro’s.
It’s a mind thing.
And people are lazy as hell, they think: first I have to buy it and then I have to sell it?
How will I do that without any effort at all?
And that’s a question you can’t answer for those fools so, they might go bitcoin which will be worthless soon, they might just keep all in the bank for that 1% longshot that in the end it will all just blow over.
Most of them won’t even protest when they lose it all by cry in a corner and blame everybody they know.
More total bullshit,. I bet you don't live in Europe. You clowns know nothing.
We have 'Euro stores'' like you have dollar stores.
Pure idiocy
That´s the problem with most US posters here on ZH. They know next to nothing about Europe, but they hate it.
I would not say most, but yes, there is a faction of "Europe brought us all evils". a lot of it has to do with ancient propaganda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_euro_coin
"there are estimated to be 6.4 billion one euro coins in circulation"
I have no clue why Sudden Debt has never seen a one euro coin. perhaps he never pays with cash?
Funny responses.
As I remember, Sudden Debt lives in Europe. He also referred to the BIGGEST coin, not the smallest. So what is Ghordie talking about?
BTW, you can buy a coffee for 1 Euro in Italy. The same will cost you 4-6 Francs in Switzerland.
LOL, you are right, his focus on "what can I buy with the biggest coin" led me to a funny conclusion. my bad
He said the most valuable coin was a 2 Euro coin, now last time I remember that was the most valuable coin in the Eurozone! (Besides maybe some memorial editions). He didn't say there weren't any other coins in circulation.
But it most definitely isn't the most valuable coin in Europe, you have the 2 pound coin and the 5 francs coin standing above that.
All I know is we stomped the shit out of the Krauts a couple of times! It's actually funny when you think about it... Of course, only if you have a sense of humour...
OBTW, probably the only big Kraut town I haven't been to is Ausfahrt, never really had the time...
http://auto-1a-muenchen.de/service/a96-ausfahrt-102_print.jpg
Actually, I love Europe. I take a group of kids to the European capitals almost every year for the last two decades. This summer will be my last student tour. Most everyone I have met from the bar maids to the cab drivers have been ever so kind and courteous. Each trip has been a treasure.
That's because we have to come over and stomp on some Krauts again, frankly we're bored with it.
The guy is Belgian/lives in Belgium.
He clearly lives in a bubble though if he thinks you cannot buy anything with a 2 euro coin.
( tip : have a look in Aldi or Lidl )
But, your neighbor has your money. And it's tied up in a derivative ponzi scheme. Next!
Reminds me to go to the bank tomorrow....
The money printing for Greece will start this week if not already. Kick the can man...
This "article" is BS propaganda.
End of month, Ethniki bank, happening since the start of time: Pensioners make huge lines, to get their pensions. (Or "octogenerians" and "senile", as he so friendlily describes them.)
As for the requested statue for your 10 euros: Out of shit, sure. I'll plaster it all over you, to make an exact copy.
Thanks, Tom!...I've got one more piece to add to my notes...What to look forward to here!
keep us informed..."boots on the ground"
Except for 22lr, ammo is stacked on the shelves these days. Buy now.
They still keep the "good stuff" behind the counter, if at all.
I didn't think the EU countries allowed private ownership of firearms. I guess they do in Greece...?
You can own a gun in Europe. But it must be registered. Where do you get these myths from??????
What took the Greeks so long to get this motivated? 5 days prior to D-Day? The big rush should have been on 1-2 years ago.
I bet the only people with money left in the banks are people drawing a wage or pension, or the businesses paying those out. The only reason to have money in the bank is to pay bills, buy goods short-term, etc. I'm sure these folks were in that crew. Perhaps they are just trying to take out the last payment in full.
In any case, if this is true, there could be no money overnight. If the pensions and wages are pulled, there will be no savings, nothing. The banks will crater.
Banks don't crater anymore. They will just make themselves a loan and be back in business.
Back in the day, the charter, negotiated with The Crown, called for the BoE to be capitalized with £1M from the founders. So they deposited £200K and then made themselves fractional reserved loans based on the initial deposit to make up the difference and Voila! the bank has £1M in capital.
All this talk about "greek" "in the ass" "hosed" got me all excited. I want my own Greek! Been awaiting for a few years now..l.
Can someone tell me what pussy going for these days over there. The young Greek girls flock to the Americans, can I buy a few have shipped over ...someone, tell me please.
Keep watchin those porn sites-thats about as close you'll get to a greek girl! Greek girls actually have morals and ethics unlike the decadent and sickly western women who lay with anything that moves!
You all people aro blind? It says "before bank close at 2PM". Banks in Canada close at 8PM so this really shows how lazy people are in Greece
2pm in Greece is 7am in Toronto, Canada - and banks are closed.
Why are my CAD dollars going Zimbabwe when the Canadian banks and govt are far more stable than our group of shitbirds?
Banks close at 3 pm, sometimes 4 pm on Fridays, in lots of cities in the USA. The fact that banks close at 2 pm in Greece has nothing to do with being lazy.
20 years ago. Now they close at 3pm on Saturday.
So they want paper money which can be declared invalid on a whim any time. Good luck with that.
A Euro (or dollar) in your hand is worth more than one in "your" bank account. In every country today, worldwide.
A Euro or dollar that looses its purchasing power day by day BY DESIGN.
Given the low interest rates these days, sometimes negative, you lose the same purchasing power in a bank or under the bed. You might think gold is the answer, but I doubt there's a lot of gold on the local market in a poor country--and availability, or perceived availability, is going to affect demand.
Hence silver. Is India a poor country?
Good point, but let's not play gotcha. India has a cultural affinity to the point that some guy is walking around in a suit made of pure gold.
Rather than ordering coins in advance, most people will do the least effort to feel safe. If gold and paper were on the same table and they had a choice, maybe gold; since gold is harder to get, they just choose the easier path.
Just returned from S America. It depends on the country. Native people in S America love gold and buy it regularly as jewelry. Countries like Argentina with severe monetary repression have no access to gold or even dollars for that matter. Spent years in Fiji and they love gold there. Mexican mints still produce gold and silver coins. In summary I think that "poorer" countries generally are more attracted to hard money than rich ones.
I just looked at kitco for the monday am open in Asia. I haven't looked for a year or so but it's the same story. Vertical spike of a few dollars and then down. How many times has that not happened in the last seven or eight years?
Gold must be suppressed to try and keep the sheep from buying it but in the end it will prove to be a central banker mistake since it is much more attractive to exchange your fiat at a lower buy in price. Hard money rules!!!
When this spreads across the EU (maybe it already has), this will be the end of central banker control.
Someone needs a history lesson.
When was the last time entire Europe had a single monetary unit based on paper that ran into trouble?
Strangely very arrogant view, but in essence I saw it myself too.
Bitcoin last price $231
I lost all my bitcoin when Mt Gox made off with it.
Sorry for your loss. No, it isn't spam!
The Greeks' song for while waiting in a bank withdrawal line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICqY2t7OGEI
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny s submission.
Damn, that was good !
This is why governments want to ban cash...
Here is my question... where are all the physical banknotes, coming from? If $800 million in USD was pulled out of the banks and did not go back into the banks, it would cause a massive headache (at the least) for the Federal Reserve Bank system.
Good point.
Also, I wonder if there are currency control laws in Greece, like in the US, e.g. about not being able to withdraw more than $10,000 in cash in a single day. Those laws existed prior to the Patriot Act so despite not having had 9/11, I would think there might be some kind of limit in Greece too. Maybe enforcement is more casual there? IDK..
There is no such law in the US. If you have a positive balance in a demand deposit account, you can withdraw it in its entirety. Might need to give the branch manager advance notice because they may not have the funds available at that particular branch.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-31/first-hand-account-greek-bank-r...
There is plenty to go around (twice as much as last time):
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/VAULT
http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircvolume.htm
Contempt Level: 11/10
On the flip side, Finansbank (Turkey) and Vojvodanska Banka (Serbia), both acquired by NBG in 2006, might be in the news soon too.
Checking accounts? We haven't had checks here in Europe for 20 years.
The term is ''current account''. Used all over the world EXCEPT in the USA which still lives in the dark ages.
We still have cheque accounts in NZ, Australia,UK, and I would imagine a lot more countries as well. Have you ever asked your Dr if you might have Tourettes.
Fuck you LOL
for what? for pointing out to you that it's the european continent that has a (more "advanced") retail banking system that uses more bank transfers, while the use of cheques (often in the mail) is the hallmark of the English-speaking countries?
the whole reason why English-speaking countries have still issues with bank transfers is way more... wierd then that, from a continental perspective
and it's called identity theft, a crime we continentals generally don't even understand because we are nearly 100% unexposed to it
Living in the U.S., most people seem to write many checks per month. They run their personal finances the same way my parents did 50 years ago. Get a bill, write a check, put it in the mail, never get a receipt or acknowledgement that it was received and credited to your account.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a government exec who is responsible for a relatively large budget, and I had to explain to him what a payment confirmation number is and why it is useful when making a payment on-line. He apparently had never made an on-line payment, he only wrote checks, and that seems to be the usual situation for the average person here.
This also seems to be true for the IRS. I have never received an account balance showing how much I have paid over the year in estimated taxes or other payments, and they expect me to report to them whether I owe money or should get a refund. No reputable financial institution runs things that way. Every bank, credit card, electric company, etc. will provide you a monthly balance.
Primitive.
The amount of myths being spewed here by idiots who don't have a clue is mindboggling.
Most have never been outside of their COUNTY much less COUNTRY and think they know all about Europe.
Sad thing is that most European think they understand Europe but they don't. Let's first critizice ourselves before lashing out at Americans. How many prejudice do you hear day in day out about Germans and Belgians? Oh yeah and about the 'lazy' Greek, we have that one even in this very forum.
The number of stupid comments coming out of your mouth is mind-boggling.
My ancestry basically reads like a Who's Who list of pre-1600s Europe. Name whichever western/northern European country you like, and I've got a least one royal ancestor from that country.....yours included, peon.
Between 1600-1750 my ancestors must have been quite familiar with Europe. They knew Europe so well they decided to emigrate here to a hostile wilderness, and start over from scratch rather than remain living there.
Personally, I've traveled the world, made my own observations, and in my short life have read 1,000x more literature on every subject imaginable than the typical person will ever read about anything. I do know a few things about a few things.
Are YOU personally the best and brightest the Netherlands have to offer? If so, it's a pity. In either case, would you refrain from constantly spewing hatred against Americans? You do know not all of us are bad people, right?. Do we really need to break out the Dutch jokes and start maligning your whole country and people too?
Don't ALL people need our love, even and especially if they've been misled by corruption and wickedness?
We will ALL be destroyed and undone by our own doings, no doubt, but like a phoenix, you will also see us rise from the ashes. Does that thought piss you off even more?
That is great! If there were public works that needed to be completed and the municipalities had funds, that is what they should have been doing in the first place: using the money to get the public works done. That puts money in the hands of workers, businesses etc and gives a slight push to the economy, howsoever small.
Broken record playing for the last four years.
I bet everything will be OK as before as Merkel steps in on Friday and opens her big account.
Preorchestrated drama.
Welcome to Greece Tom,you just stumbled on to pension and public wage payment day.
No bankrun,it happens every ending or starting month as long i can remember living in Greece for the last 36 years(i lived in Germany before that).
To Wolferl,go seek for some professional help and shut down your tv for starters you are an ignorant .
Grrek govt has been giving the population plenty of time to take their money out.
If they didn't get the hint then too bad.
Thank you. You will recieve gratitude card from the EU for your 10EU charity donation.
Peak madness.
Why is the sheep so fucking stupid?
Greece joining BRIC Banks & Russian sphere in 3...2...1...
By law, since I have water and electricity, I can demand that the road be mended
and so last summer (not this winter) I went to the Kambos town hall.
The next day they turned off my water and the electricity, repossessed my car and all the Petrol I had stashed away, my Gold and silver,
my beach house, my beautiful wife and even my guard dog. Then they asked me to go to the bank and deposit my last 10 Euros.
Not impressed !
dear IMF, can I please have my dog and my 10 Euros back ?
kind regards,
Yanis Varoufakis
Pics and verified translated interviews or it didn't happen.
Of interest is the spend it all or the govt might take it next...Why does that sound somewhat almost similar to spend before money loses buying power.
It seems it's Greece that won't pull out, so who's screwing who? I blame the victim.
On the other hand, I think there might be a different economy emerging. Even with massive US unenployment, one can drive through large parts of the US, other than urban, and see signs that people are doing things, building things, repairing things, grosing things, and so on--all this without the burden of corporate control, government "oversight", and ... without certain taxes. It seeme evident in this story that the same is true of Greece, except that the reason offered is some form of spend it or lose it stimulus--but perhaps there is more than that to it.
We most often think of this as a survivalist economy, or barter economy. But the implications of these labels seems too restrictive. It might instead simply be thought of as "cooperative," "grassroots," "localized," "protest," etc., Economy.
You might visit Catherine Austin Fitts at solari.com and search on economies, and on her anecdotal reports on her extensive travels across the US.
Makaka