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Greek Debt Committee Just Declared All Debt To The Troika "Illegal, Illegitimate, And Odious"
It was in April when we got a stark reminder of a post we first penned in April of 2011, describing Odious Debt, and why we thought sooner or later this legal term would become applicable for Greece, because two months ago Greek Zoi Konstantopoulou, speaker of the Greek parliament and a SYRIZA member, said she had established a new "Truth Committee on Public Debt" whose purposes was to "investigate how much of the debt is “illegal” with a view to writing it off."
Moments ago, this committee released its preliminary findings, and here is the conclusion from the full report presented below:
All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious.
As we predicted over four years ago, Greece has effectively just declared that it will no longer have to default on its IMF (or any other debt - note that the dreaded "Troika" word finally makes an appearance after it was officially banned) simply because that debt was not legal to begin with, i.e. it was "odious."
If so, this has just thrown a very unique wrench in the spokes of not only the Greek debt negotiations, but all other peripheral European nations' Greek negotiations, who will promptly demand that their debt be, likewise, declared odious, and made null and void, thus washing their hands of servicing it again.
And another question: when Greece says the debt was illegal and it no longer has to make the June 30 payment, what will be the Troika's response: confiscate Greek assets a la Argentina, declare involutnary default, sue it in the Hague?
Good luck.
From the full just released report by the Hellenic Parliament commission:
Hellenic Parliament’s Debt Truth Committee Preliminary Findings - Executive Summary of the report
In June 2015 Greece stands at a crossroad of choosing between furthering the failed macroeconomic adjustment programmes imposed by the creditors or making a real change to break the chains of debt. Five years since the economic adjustment programmes began, the country remains deeply cemented in an economic, social, democratic and ecological crisis. The black box of debt has remained closed, and until now no authority, Greek or international, has sought to bring to light the truth about how and why Greece was subjected to the Troika regime. The debt, in whose name nothing has been spared, remains the rule through which neoliberal adjustment is imposed, and the deepest and longest recession experienced in Europe during peacetime.
There is an immediate need and social responsibility to address a range of legal, social and economic issues that demand proper consideration. In response, the Hellenic Parliament established the Truth Committee on Public Debt in April 2015, mandating the investigation into the creation and growth of public debt, the way and reasons for which debt was contracted, and the impact that the conditionalities attached to the loans have had on the economy and the population. The Truth Committee has a mandate to raise awareness of issues pertaining to the Greek debt, both domestically and internationally, and to formulate arguments and options concerning the cancellation of the debt.
The research of the Committee presented in this preliminary report sheds light on the fact that the entire adjustment programme, to which Greece has been subjugated, was and remains a politically orientated programme. The technical exercise surrounding macroeconomic variables and debt projections, figures directly relating to people’s lives and livelihoods, has enabled discussions around the debt to remain at a technical level mainly revolving around the argument that the policies imposed on Greece will improve its capacity to pay the debt back. The facts presented in this report challenge this argument.
All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious.
It has also come to the understanding of the Committee that the unsustainability of the Greek public debt was evident from the outset to the international creditors, the Greek authorities, and the corporate media. Yet, the Greek authorities, together with some other governments in the EU, conspired against the restructuring of public debt in 2010 in order to protect financial institutions. The corporate media hid the truth from the public by depicting a situation in which the bailout was argued to benefit Greece, whilst spinning a narrative intended to portray the population as deservers of their own wrongdoings.
Bailout funds provided in both programmes of 2010 and 2012 have been externally managed through complicated schemes, preventing any fiscal autonomy. The use of the bailout money is strictly dictated by the creditors, and so, it is revealing that less than 10% of these funds have been destined to the government’s current expenditure.
This preliminary report presents a primary mapping out of the key problems and issues associated with the public debt, and notes key legal violations associated with the contracting of the debt; it also traces out the legal foundations, on which unilateral suspension of the debt payments can be based. The findings are presented in nine chapters structured as follows:
Chapter 1, Debt before the Troika, analyses the growth of the Greek public debt since the 1980s. It concludes that the increase in debt was not due to excessive public spending, which in fact remained lower than the public spending of other Eurozone countries, but rather due to the payment of extremely high rates of interest to creditors, excessive and unjustified military spending, loss of tax revenues due to illicit capital outflows, state recapitalization of private banks, and the international imbalances created via the flaws in the design of the Monetary Union itself.
Adopting the euro led to a drastic increase of private debt in Greece to which major European private banks as well as the Greek banks were exposed. A growing banking crisis contributed to the Greek sovereign debt crisis. George Papandreou’s government helped to present the elements of a banking crisis as a sovereign debt crisis in 2009 by emphasizing and boosting the public deficit and debt.
Chapter 2, Evolution of Greek public debt during 2010-2015, concludes that the first loan agreement of 2010, aimed primarily to rescue the Greek and other European private banks, and to allow the banks to reduce their exposure to Greek government bonds.
Chapter 3, Greek public debt by creditor in 2015, presents the contentious nature of Greece’s current debt, delineating the loans’ key characteristics, which are further analysed in Chapter 8.
Chapter 4, Debt System Mechanism in Greece reveals the mechanisms devised by the agreements that were implemented since May 2010. They created a substantial amount of new debt to bilateral creditors and the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), whilst generating abusive costs thus deepening the crisis further. The mechanisms disclose how the majority of borrowed funds were transferred directly to financial institutions. Rather than benefitting Greece, they have accelerated the privatization process, through the use of financial instruments.
Chapter 5, Conditionalities against sustainability, presents how the creditors imposed intrusive conditionalities attached to the loan agreements, which led directly to the economic unviability and unsustainability of debt. These conditionalities, on which the creditors still insist, have not only contributed to lower GDP as well as higher public borrowing, hence a higher public debt/GDP making Greece’s debt more unsustainable, but also engineered dramatic changes in the society, and caused a humanitarian crisis. The Greek public debt can be considered as totally unsustainable at present.
Chapter 6, Impact of the “bailout programmes” on human rights, concludes that the measures implemented under the “bailout programmes” have directly affected living conditions of the people and violated human rights, which Greece and its partners are obliged to respect, protect and promote under domestic, regional and international law. The drastic adjustments, imposed on the Greek economy and society as a whole, have brought about a rapid deterioration of living standards, and remain incompatible with social justice, social cohesion, democracy and human rights.
Chapter 7, Legal issues surrounding the MOU and Loan Agreements, argues there has been a breach of human rights obligations on the part of Greece itself and the lenders, that is the Euro Area (Lender) Member States, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and theInternational Monetary Fund, who imposed these measures on Greece. All these actors failed to assess the human rights violations as an outcome of the policies they obliged Greece to pursue, and also directly violated the Greek constitution by effectively stripping Greece of most of its sovereign rights. The agreements contain abusive clauses, effectively coercing Greece to surrender significant aspects of its sovereignty. This is imprinted in the choice of the English law as governing law for those agreements, which facilitated the circumvention of the Greek Constitution and international human rights obligations. Conflicts with human rights and customary obligations, several indications of contracting parties acting in bad faith, which together with the unconscionable character of the agreements, render these agreements invalid.
Chapter 8, Assessment of the Debts as regards illegtimacy, odiousness, illegality, and unsustainability, provides an assessment of the Greek public debt according to the definitions regarding illegitimate, odious, illegal, and unsustainable debt adopted by the Committee.
Chapter 8 concludes that the Greek public debt as of June 2015 is unsustainable, since Greece is currently unable to service its debt without seriously impairing its capacity to fulfill its basic human rights obligations. Furthermore, for each creditor, the report provides evidence of indicative cases of illegal, illegitimate and odious debts.
Debt to the IMF should be considered illegal since its concession breached the IMF’s own statutes, and its conditions breached the Greek Constitution, international customary law, and treaties to which Greece is a party. It is also illegitimate, since conditions included policy prescriptions that infringed human rights obligations. Finally, it is odious since the IMF knew that the imposed measures were undemocratic, ineffective, and would lead to serious violations of socio-economic rights.
Debts to the ECB should be considered illegal since the ECB over-stepped its mandate by imposing the application of macroeconomic adjustment programs (e.g. labour market deregulation) via its participation in the Troïka. Debts to the ECB are also illegitimate and odious, since the principal raison d’etre of the Securities Market Programme (SMP) was to serve the interests of the financial institutions, allowing the major European and Greek private banks to dispose of their Greek bonds.
The EFSF engages in cash-less loans which should be considered illegal because Article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) was violated, and further they breach several socio-economic rights and civil liberties. Moreover, the EFSF Framework Agreement 2010 and the Master Financial Assistance Agreement of 2012 contain several abusive clauses revealing clear misconduct on the part of the lender. The EFSF also acts against democratic principles, rendering these particular debts illegitimate and odious.
The bilateral loans should be considered illegal since they violate the procedure provided by the Greek constitution. The loans involved clear misconduct by the lenders, and had conditions that contravened law or public policy. Both EU law and international law were breached in order to sideline human rights in the design of the macroeconomic programmes. The bilateral loans are furthermore illegitimate, since they were not used for the benefit of the population, but merely enabled the private creditors of Greece to be bailed out. Finally, the bilateral loans are odious since the lender states and the European Commission knew of potential violations, but in 2010 and 2012 avoided to assess the human rights impacts of the macroeconomic adjustment and fiscal consolidation that were the conditions for the loans.
The debt to private creditors should be considered illegal because private banks conducted themselves irresponsibly before the Troika came into being, failing to observe due diligence, while some private creditors such as hedge funds also acted in bad faith. Parts of the debts to private banks and hedge funds are illegitimate for the same reasons that they are illegal; furthermore, Greek banks were illegitimately recapitalized by tax-payers. Debts to private banks and hedge funds are odious, since major private creditors were aware that these debts were not incurred in the best interests of the population but rather for their own benefit.
The report comes to a close with some practical considerations. Chapter 9, Legal foundations for repudiation and suspension of the Greek sovereign debt, presents the options concerning the cancellation of debt, and especially the conditions under which a sovereign state can exercise the right to unilateral act of repudiation or suspension of the payment of debt under international law.
Several legal arguments permit a State to unilaterally repudiate its illegal, odious, and illegitimate debt. In the Greek case, such a unilateral act may be based on the following arguments: the bad faith of the creditors that pushed Greece to violate national law and international obligations related to human rights; preeminence of human rights over agreements such as those signed by previous governments with creditors or the Troika; coercion; unfair terms flagrantly violating Greek sovereignty and violating the Constitution; and finally, the right recognized in international law for a State to take countermeasures against illegal acts by its creditors , which purposefully damage its fiscal sovereignty, oblige it to assume odious, illegal and illegitimate debt, violate economic self-determination and fundamental human rights. As far as unsustainable debt is concerned, every state is legally entitled to invoke necessity in exceptional situations in order to safeguard those essential interests threatened by a grave and imminent peril. In such a situation, the State may be dispensed from the fulfilment of those international obligations that augment the peril, as is the case with outstanding loan contracts. Finally, states have the right to declare themselves unilaterally insolvent where the servicing of their debt is unsustainable, in which case they commit no wrongful act and hence bear no liability.
People’s dignity is worth more than illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable debt
Having concluded a preliminary investigation, the Committee considers that Greece has been and still is the victim of an attack premeditated and organized by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. This violent, illegal, and immoral mission aimed exclusively at shifting private debt onto the public sector.
Making this preliminary report available to the Greek authorities and the Greek people, the Committee considers to have fulfilled the first part of its mission as defined in the decision of the President of Parliament of 4 April 2015. The Committee hopes that the report will be a useful tool for those who want to exit the destructive logic of austerity and stand up for what is endangered today: human rights, democracy, peoples’ dignity, and the future of generations to come.
In response to those who impose unjust measures, the Greek people might invoke what Thucydides mentioned about the constitution of the Athenian people: "As for the name, it is called a democracy, for the administration is run with a view to the interests of the many, not of the few” (Pericles’ Funeral Oration, in the speech from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War).
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Let this be the template!
The people themselves need to act. File actions against your creditors, no matter where you reside. File fr Debt Relief declaring the debt to be odious.
That will accelerate the collapse of the Banks here domestically.
Thanks for pissing me off Wolferi.
Now I will get even and teach others as well.
Tyler, where is everyone on the illegal methods Goldman used to get Greece into the Euro in the first place, by cooking the books etc? Now that is the excuse the Greeks shouldl use to delcare their debts Odious.
Goldman needs to be brought to task, the whole World is waiting for that day.
Sincerely
Everyone in the World
Yeah, the squids and vampires association should demand a public apology from you sir.
DEFAULT
I have already seen milder war declarations. Dont you all see? Greece has just declared an asimetric war and, hopefully, will wage it ! Where it ends? No ideia.... like some crazy american bitch liked to say: all options are on the table. Now suck it, bitch, like the other one did !
Following this logic, child support is Odious debt. It serves no one but the ex.
Child support is personal debt, you owe it to your kid. Banker debt is odious debt, the debt of others, bought and sold as if it was a commodity itself.
Brainwashed are we?? A parent owes the child money says the state!
Then how come you pay the ex and not the child? And the ex does whatever the ex wants and doesn't have to spend it on the child.
Child support is not about the child.
Bingo.
I've seen many, many cases of good dads paying child supp0ort to an ex-wife, who proceeds to spend it all on herself, and the courts don't care.
I've never known a single case where the ex-wife spent it on the kids.
It's legalized extortion at the point of a gun.
Just think the lawyers can litigate this issue for another 15 years.
Just think the lawyers can litigate this issue for another 15 years.
For clarity....
Seems to fit pretty much ALL government debt.
In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion. In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion.
Sorry to cut the line, but this severs the bloodline called FUNGIBLE. All dollars/euros are not the same: when they were created, where they flowed, matters.
Reminds me of the ING commercial where retirement dollars are orange...
Let it burn, baby! ;-)
Looney
Awesome.
Go little Greece go!
Time for Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy and France to make the same declaration.
The Nobel Prize Winner and his owners, Goldman and the banksters, will not be pleased.
Maybe the EC, ECB, IMF will demand that Greece stay in the EU so that they can sue them and drowned them with paper work.
EU can't let Greece get away with anything as it sets a precedent.
Wonder what EU will Do.
Bail out Deutsche Bank, would be my guess.
After all, you can't spell Deutsche Bank without EU.
Amen for the streets of Greece
We just got our road paved today! Right through town.
I declare the same about the debt of the USSA. You're welcome.
You're going out of order! I have to name you chief commander and truth finder of USSA non-voluntary state monetary obligations first. Without a fancy title your declaration is meaningless.
If he can get a majority of people to believe him and agree that the USSA's debt is null and void no fancy titles will be needed.
Don't forget to add the word odious
Sue your creditors, especially if you are current, and make sure to use that term in the action for Debt Relief.
If a Nation can do this then so can you.
Collapse the Banksters. Get them in Court. Tie them up legally.
Buy! Screaming Deals! Buy!, Buy!, Buy!
Cascade! it ain't just happening in the dishwasher!!!
No one owes the yids a cent anywhere.
Shmitah is a debt cancelation year.
Starting to believe yet?
But only for Members. The Devil is in the detail. .
Haha, the bankster concoction comes back to bite its political scions deep in the ass.
Well said; when ethics kicks Machiavelli's Princes in the nuts for saying : when things get serious we ALL HAVE to lie!
It was then also illegal to accept the money?
The original money yes but subsequent bailouts went to the banks.
They didn't accept 'Money'. They accepted Casino Chits, Casino Currency -- created at a keyboard --- you Schmuck.
What took them so long. I declared all my debt as illegal 7 years ago.
It was then also illegal to accept the money?
Yep, in law, if a loan is "illegal" you have to repay it. That´s what these Syriza braindeads don´t get. But the most important thing is, this declaration is a reason good enough to throw the Greeks out of the EU.
That's what Putin is counting on.
Not if you are bankrupt.
Of course, your kind EU bankers can always give them another bridge loan. so they can repay the last bridge loan.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Previous party in power got them into this. But tough to say if legal definition of "odious debt" applies or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt
In any case all this does is speed up the end game, since even if Greece blinks and borrows more it only makes the inevitible default more likely.
All of this US Pension/Social Security nonsense is illegal too!
The people who strapped us with the burdens have been dead for over 50 years!
The people who wrote all this national debt in our names have been long gone as well. (President Jackson had this great nation out of debt.)
Yeah but the people that have been Raping us for the last 35 years through manipulation of the Federal Coffers & Federal Laws are still with us.
We can go after their legacies, reputations, pensions, wealth.
We have plenty of Targets to go after. Target Rich Environment.
We know they are Bankers, Lawyers, Judges, and Politicians. Why should we allow them to walk around pretending they should have respect & be honored. I say rip their medals from them, take back their awards & honorary degrees & college degrees & License to practice law.
Sure. We wait for the six-month warning. “Pancreatic cancer. You’ve got six months to live, make the best of it.”
You would think individual Military members would approach city, county, state government... to get our leaders to pound on their US COngressmen and even go to DC to pound more and present lists of demands.
I know military are supposed to stay out of civilian politics except for the new Female Senator who was in the Reserves at the time of the last election.
Farmers, Country types, Ranchers, Military, State Elected Officials... they all care about the USA, they are the force that opposes Big TBTF Banks & Federal Corruption.
Maybe everyone just thinks we will go on tomorrow like today.
Maybe a National Guard & Reserve Training Mission to Visit State Capitals and Talk with State Representatives about the Situation revealed to them by the Pentagon, their families, their friends, and the news they get.
There must be power at the State Level to change the DC Two Step, the Corruption of the Land.
Excuse me for pointing out that under the current and recent reigns of Obama and G.W.Bush the 'odious' USSA debt has expanded by a mere $12 TRILLION.
I am only wondering who the dead people are who "strapped us with the burdens"? Whomever you were referring to sure didn't need any help!
Don't waste your time blaming dead people - the villains are perhaps unfortunately alive and still pissing it away.
$12 T that is admitted and foisted onto the "federal deficit"....
How many other Trillions backstopped and paid? Paid by destroying Lehman, Merrill, et al.
How many other Trillions paid using AIG as conduit?
How many Trillions paid and put on our backs to keep the euro bankers functioning and in the game.
It's all their game; we just pay and pay. Like a line from that hustler's anthem "Walk on the Wild Side".
Think our betters aren't doing the same bathroom stall deals?"
The non-federal reserve is just a rest stop glory hole for these scumbuckets.
Odious indeed. Any excuse to pile on more interest. All just their Ponzi scheme to drive US all into ruin and
enable their confiscation of our assets.
Our dead ancestors knew this was a frozen snake that would one day kill their heirs when they didn't revolt
at its creation... Some did sound the warning.
It is about Liberty, Equality & Fraternity.
I think. I haven't read it all yet.
They just mean Greek Government Debt to the Troika, EC, ECB, and IMF... and any EU Countries.
Business & Household & Nonprofit Debts unaffected.
That's fantastic, just don't expect anymore money.
If they do it right they won't have to borrow for a while, Russia can provide assistance in exchange for future favours etc.
Companies default on debt and the same managers end up borrowing again down the road, price subject to ability to repay "new" debt.
Only wild card is what lengths EU will go to to prevent/sabotage Greek recovery efforts and make an example of them for Spain, Italy etc.
Russia riding in as a "white knight" is fantasy. It takes two to tango, and at every turn Greek has made horrible decisions. They don't need any help "sabotaging" their own economy. I've yet to hear any plan on how exactly Greece is going to dig out of this.....It's only give us more money.
Can't argue with that, LGP, except there is a new Sherrif in town since the last elections. This is a whole new team that has been dealing with the EU. Tsipras & Varoufakis have different "game theories", so let's see how this all plays out.
Cool. Do an Iceland.
Just torment the Eurocrats.
Odious Debt?
I am Jack's surpising lack of amazement.
As predicted.
Gold Bitchez!
a big fat Greek F.U. to the banksters
Greek government also just announced they would like to borrow a lot more money -
But this time it better not be illegal, illegitimate, and odious -
They do reserve the right to reclassify it in the future - if they are ask to pay it back.
Here's the synopsis:
"Greece did nothing wrong. Greece is a victim."
Always with the victim bullshit. Every single time. Victims of their own greed and stupidity.
Well, lending money to greedy and stupid people ain't too bright either.
In fact, it might also be equally greedy and stupid to make the loan.
(Doesn't mean there wasn't lots of coin to be made by the players at the time though)
Not unlike making a payday loan or title loan to the a family who is down to a can of great value brand spaghetti-o's in the pantry and the electric is gonna be shut off at the end of the week.
"sure we'll give you a loan on your only vehicle that you need to get back and forth to your job, and as a bonus it will be at a rediculous interest rate. even better we will allow you to kick the can down the road for a month so that the extra fees and interest pile up to where the principal of the loan becomes increasingly impossible to pay off forcing you to kick the can again and again until the $600 loan ends up being $6000. but you have to keep paying to kick the can down the road otherwise you lose your truck and any possibility of getting to your job. so you are forced to make that monthy can kick payment that you can just barely scrape together each month and you still only have one can of great value brand spaghetti-o's in the pantry, and the mailman just dropped a disconnect notice in the mailbox because you cant pay the electric bill because that money is forever going towards kicking the can each month.."
Most people call that predatory lending.
not any different than Greece if you think about it.
fuck the ECB- Greece should default, they can buy another truck later once they get their shit straight- at least the lights will be on and food in the pantry till then.
The only wrong done by the greek people was believing the politicians (Don't know what country you're from, but I'm sure that sounds familiar). The very fact that the political class has been using propaganda and dishonest means to change the beliefs of the greek people in turn means that yes, the greek people are innocent.
The political class is and has always been the criminals here. They are the ones that incurred this debt with with outright lies to make the people who would have to pay it back think it was legitimate.
The banks that run the IMF are in fact the criminals in this case, the first act towards acknowledging this should be to stop letting them steal. 2nd should be to stop taking their money.
Actually, the second act should be prosecute them and sieze their assets like any other bunch of gangsters.
If you are a Murkan, then I hope that you apply the same illogic to yourself when TSHTF.
If all Greek people are to blame for a few greedy Grek oligarchs and EU criminal activities, then you and all Murkans are to blame for the mess which your 0.01% have made of the US and the rest of the World.
Blame yourself and all common people for setting up the Fed and its Ponzi scheme .... or go further back and blame everyone for the Rothschild Patriarch saying, c. 1770, "Give me control of the money supply and I do not care what government is in office."
The current Greek government is seeking some sort of end to the criminal financial system, of which you too are a victim, believe it or not.
Yes. I am an American and I am to blame for allowing this to happen. It is not illogical at all.
I am complicit although I have excised myself from the Satanic Banking System as much as possible and have opted out of all Financial Markets.
Haven't you, yet?
OPT OUT.
DO NOT PARTICIPATE.
DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO CAUSE THE COLLAPSE.
When stepping on the brakes does not work then BY ALL MEANS PRESS THE PEDAL TO THE METAL AND ACCELERATE THE COLLAPSE.
I can only CELEBRATE when TSHTF and the entire FRAUDULENT AND CRRUPTED SYSTEM COMES CRASHING ON TOP OF THE HEADS OF THE PLAYERS AND INVESTORS of the SATANIC SCHEMES.
So what is YOUR PROBLEM? Are you INVESTED? Are you PARTICIPATING? If yu are then you DESERVE ALL OF THE SUFFERING HEADED IN YOUR DIRECTION.
You did not buy Gold and Silver and OPT OUT.
You were seeking PAPER PROFITS. How much promise do those PAPERS hold now? You wanted to profit off of the misery of someone else? ENJOY YOUR MISERY.
Wow. The junk just lets me know that someone enjoys being a dishonest and corrupt thief that revels in the fraud.
I just wonder who that could be?
For the rest of you buy a put against the corrupt Satanic System and buy Gold and Silver. Protect yourselves from the developing nightmare.
Declare you own debts odioius. Greece is no more special than you.
Do not pay. Stop needless spending. Stop participating.
Wipe out your $1 Trillion in Student Loan Debt. Stop paying.
Stop paying on your Credit Cards. Stop paying an Banks rent (fees, Mortgages, etc.) whatsoever.
When everyone stops participating the entire God Damned system implodes.
Collapse this fraud.
You can help.
RESET.
(I can hardly wait until September. There will be nobody chasing you as the Banks will be bankrupt.)
Rewatch the final scene of Fight Club as Tyler destroys all of the Credit Companies' skyscrapers.
You can free yourselves from the chains of your bondage.
All it takes is some BALLS.
Stop being enslaved.
Do not buy into the victim mentality which is being sold above.
WE do not need the Banksters. They have been parasites on our labor for far too long.
STEP ON THE ACCELERATOR. Now is the time.
Agree with every word.
"Victims of their own greed and stupidity."
applies to both sides, it would seem.
+1 When did Zerohedge turn into a bunch of fucking dead beats? No wonder they don't post financial articles here anymore.
Where did all the old hedgers go? I didn't get the memo.
Somebody quick translate that document into Spanish and fax it to Madrid.
Spain, Italy, Portugal et all can just copy the text.
Change the date and some names et voila. the destruction of the euro and EU.
that's why the imf will let greece go, make an example of them, they can't loose Spain.
Coincidence of the Month June 2015
ANDA coincidence indeed.
Since the Greek truth commission announcement, at this point the only realistic way out for them of the mess with debt is that Tsipras already has a done-deal with Putin. The EU announcement on sanctions will not please Putin and he won't take kindly if Greece voted in that. Tsipras may be playing with fire.
Oh, smacker
The EU decision was just a PRELIMINARY agreement and the Greek thing was only The Greek Debt Committee.
Their cards are on the table. Their toes are being dipped into the Rubicon (it's a bit chilly). The horse trading commences. Or enter your favorite metaphor now.
Maybe, but the Truth Commission report will be broadcast across Greece. That would make it even more difficult for Tsipras to use it simply as a negotiating card with the Troika.
.....On the other hand, this is a Greek Drama.
An old Greek drama with new game theory applied.
More like The Dance of the Hours in Fantasia with Noodleman as the prima Hippopotamus crushing her mates.
too too macabre
Right now the only negotiable item is the extension of the Russian sanctions. What happens with the Greek debt (do Moscow and Beijing step in?) is a factor of that.
For some Putinesque reason, isn't it possible Moscow had it's allies in the EU cast their preliminary votes for extension, to be changed in the final vote?
If they had voted against extension now, how susceptible would they be to the intense pressure of Noodleman sitting on their faces, until the date of the final vote?
And when the final vote is taken, it'll be too late for Noodleman to apply pressure. hhhmmm. An interesting theory.
And there's the decompression when she finally hoists her carcass off you.
The Noodleman Bends
Excruciating.
Smacker. It's being reported that the EU is definitely extending the sanctions on Russia until January.
The best case scenario for Russia is that Putin would not have been able to support the Greek default if the extension failed. The Greek default now has the air of someone whistling in the graveyard. The very opposite of Br'er Rabbit and the Briar Patch.
The worst case scenario is if I were Putin. I would recall 35 - 40 Russan Ambassadors from around the world and expell the same number from Moscow.
I would send more cosmonauts up to ISS to disassemble the part of ISS that Russia owns and remove all the astronauts, with the promise that if they don't leave, they'll have to wait for Elon Musk to take them down.
Then I'd have another drink to figure out what to do next.
After they made me they broke the mold :o)
A gov't Truth Committee...this is why I no longer watch comedy, it can't compete with real life.
And now the negotiating starts :)
Is this the Minski Oh-crap-deer-meets-the-headlights moment ?
watch for Bear the end of tunnel
Too bad the position of Tsipras has been to reject any notion that
the debt is odious
and instead to pretend that a practical repayment schedule could be negotiated.
All this time Greece's position has been steadily weakened
by continuing to pay IMF loans, depleting Greek finances,
losing original enthusiasm from SYRIZA supporters,
and thereby further allow the NATO/TROIKA-backed opposition to strengthen.
Instead, Tsipras has wasted time and political capital posturing and "persuading" everyone that the best course of action is to "negotiate a deal".
Portraying bad policy-making as instead just clever expedient politicking is self-defeating.
Such political interpretations (inventions) are simply false excuse-making for bad leadership (e.g. Obama is good, he's just making the 'only' choices possible - OR - Tsipras is just cleverly doing what is expedient).
That's what the propaganda tells us. I'm not so sure that is true anymore. Apparently Tsirpas is saying that he and his team went into this with good faith (I know, right?) and that the creditors constantly moved the goal posts further and further out of reach.
This is by design and the timing is pretty obvious as well. Seems to fit into a greater strategy. Has any other nation's default before made so many headlines and for so long? Has it ever been discussed in such great detail before?
Not sure why you're comment got a down vote... It sounds pretty logical to me. We only get to observe the first few layers of the political game while at any given time the real currents and flows are beneath our view.
Freedom
you believe the actual comment logical?
First it is alleged (merely opinion without offering evidence) "that" (my comment) is "propaganda".
Second, walkure self-contradictorily claims that although unsure what is true,
he nonetheless knows "it" is all "by design", and "seems to fit", "greater strategy", "timing obvious".
In total, a lot of vague generalities without specifying or offering anything except insinuations.
If he disputes that Tsipras has wasted time negotiating, he needs to offer more than just an insinuation that is what "propaganda tells us".
but rwe
don't all the risks and pronouncements that little Greece has taken since January tell you that Athens has the "full faith and credit of Moscow and Beijing' behind it?
Tsipras is hardly from the same school of statecraft as Tubby Poroshenko.
no,
nor should you believe you have been 'told' anything of the kind by the so-called 'evidence' you cited..
Of course I haven't been told anything of the kind.
It is strictly a 'guess' on my part (don't you ever guess when you don't have access to the facts?)
A guess I made because of the immediate meeting between Putin and Tspiras after the latter's election in January. and the many meetings between officials of both countries since.
I doubt very much that you don't have opinions on certain events because you lack info from the horse's mouth.
my "guess"
Although Tspiras may not be cut from the same cloth as Poroshenko,
Tspiras may yet turn out to be cut from the same cloth pattern as Hollande & Obama.
(Continuing with the imaginative analogies, Tspiras is an unlikely Chavez or Castro.)
His efforts to negotiate a deal with the TROIKA likely most indicate his political mindset,
and the talks with Russia merely a negotiating ploy.
Given the financial predilictions of the politicians in Greece, and the Greek membership in NATO (not renounced by Tspiras - contrast with Marine LePen), I doubt Russia & China currently give the current Greek government their "full" backing.
Of course it is odious. The Greek people were lied to by their own government at the time and aided and abetted by Golden Slacks.
From a common man's perspective, the debt should have never been allowed to accumulate. All previous governments are to blame.
This can only be rectified with a proper revolution.
"This can only be rectified with a proper revolution."
what is a 'proper revolution' in your view?
One where the elite that's busy protecting their status quo has gotten too fat and irresponsible to make a move. When there's a cleanse or a purge there will be new cards and maybe a new game.
Extend and pretend has only benefited the elite in Greece. The people there need to get rid of the corruption.
I'm not sure if Tsirpas and his colleagues are trying to keep the Status Quo for real or if they're just playing along but working on a more revolutionary solution beneath the surface.
Revolution doesn't have to be violent, even a "proper" one.
One where people understand what they've done wrong, and try to not do those things anymore.
" It concludes that the increase in debt was not due to excessive public spending...but rather due to the payment of extremely high rates of interest to creditors, excessive and unjustified military spending, loss of tax revenues due to illicit capital outflows, state recapitalization of private banks, and the international imbalances created via the flaws in the design of the Monetary Union itself."
So the debt wasn't due to excessive public spending, but due to high rates of interest (public spending to defray default risk), military spending (which is to say public military spending), loss of revenue due to illicit capital outflows (which is to say public mis-estimation of the tax-base), bank recapitalizatino (which is to say PUBLIC SPENDING on bank recapitalization), and international imbalances (which is to say that Greeks who didn't want to deal with all this shit, simply left).
I translate that as, "The increase in debt wasn't due to excessive Public spending, but due to public spending, public spending, public misestimation of revenue, public spending, and odious public policy."
Did I miss something?
So... Greece's policies are someone else's problem? Someone else's responsibilty? Someone else's agreement? Someone else's policy?
But the Greek Government is not 'IRRESPONSIBLE"????
What exactly is meant by 'Responsible', when all responses can be retro-actively denied and attributed to others?
Give 'em back to Turkey.
Or better yet to Russia.
Russia will militarily and financially exhaust itself trying to make Greece into a Crimea for the Med...because even discounting military opposition, there are a lot of palms to be Greased (pardon the pun) between Sochi and Athens....and it won't work without a land bridge.
"Russia will militarily and financially exhaust itself trying to make Greece into a Crimea for the Med"
Absolutely not. what neocon rags do you get your understanding of foreign policy from? And no, I'm not a Putin fan boy - I just don't believe Russia is led by idiots or madmen.
Why do you?
Because that is the nature of government.
To expect government to be neither idiotic nor mad is to expect a duck that does not waddle, quack, or love water...which is to say a duck which is not a duck.
As to the rest...I did not propose 'the pivot'. I believe it was Russia who did so. If the proposal was in vain, then why do you believe the other things they say?
Not sure if this committee is speaking on behalf of previous governments. The Greeks have a massive cleanout and cleanup of their own affairs ahead of them before they can ever be allowed to any negotiations. The country is basically a political and financial basket case.
Russia's finance minister says they don't have any money in the budget for Greece .. right now
As expected that whole "pivot" thing is just a lot of hot air.
Greece is broke. Golden Slacks lied and helped a wilfull and complicit Greek government to enter the EZ. The former Greek governments swallowed GS propaganda hook, line and sinker. Easy target for the likes of GS.
Draghi is ex GS and knows this. He probably knew when the deals were made that it was all screwy.
The pitchforks need to be directed at GS and furthermore, the gang that owns GS and also owns IMF and World Bank.
That gang knows their culpability and they will either start a war or take a shit licking in order to avoid too much public attention to their own involvement. They can afford to walk away from the debt because they made it up in the first place.
It's just book money. Some of it was washed clean in the process.
Actually, just like in US, there is no "public" involved. It's all a bunch of .gov sociopaths jacking off with each other. The public has no say in the matter and receives none of the the money. Just like helicopter Ben's money all stayed with the bankers. The helicopter never got off the ground.
No one has ever asked me, nor do I agree with 99% of government spending. I do my absolute best to stop the theft and transact every way possible to avoid allowing any money to go to .gov.
Just like in the US....
Yep, where people look the other way during official misdeeds in return for the expectation of receiving a share of other people's money.
Two wrong's don't make a right.
"Did I miss something? "
a lot. lol
Greece may be on the verge of collapsing the Fiat money/Bankster scam-let us cheer them on
You asked "Did I miss something?"
How about due dilligence on the part of the lenders?
Any ideas on how this gets resolved? Does Greece slide into perpetual serfdom?
ELA stop in 3.2.1..
Stranded tourists in 4.3.2....
Wow, good for them.
They're gonna need a bigger military...
[or Russian, Chinese, and/or Brazilian troops]
Tsipras going for a 3 day meeting with Putin.......
(Roysters)
"The first Russian and Chinese aircraft landed at the ex-NATO bases today in Greece.
"A naval contingent is to follow.
"Putin says there is no firm plan to place IRBMs in Greece, but it depends on NATO's actions.
"A vast supply of oil and credit is soon to follow from Russia and the PRC"
Russia's FinMin says no money for Greece in their budget. Tsirpas says he never expected to receiving money. It's about trade prospects. Ok.
Probably a partial truth. Maybe Russia doesn't send actual currency to Greece, but I can see a deal struck where russia / china get access to mnilitary bases in greed in return for providing the country energy and/or food and/or other necessities.
Like any other economic exchange, what do Russia and China have in plenty that Greece needs, and what can greece offer that will benefit Russia / China? It's a win-win for all parties involved unless I'm missing something.
Whatever it may be that the Greeks can bring to the table... the Russians and Chinese will get it cheaper.
Mediterranian Military Bases?
Where is Russia or China going to get another cheaper?
Sicily is not for sale, yet.
The Russo-Sino Alliance will not pay retail for the strategic Greek option. My point is that there won't be a massive cash windfall. Probably why Russia's FinMin says there's no money yet. Sorta jewing the Greeks down a bit more before getting the strategic assets for cents on the Dollar (so to speak).
Greeks are not desperate enough yet to make "cheap" deals.
we have bases surrounding Russia (lol why did they chose to put their country in an area surrounded by our bases? etc etc)
Why should the EU freak out if Russia or China have bases in Greece?
The EU doesn't even care. It's Nuland's NWO ambition and NATO that care. Hence Nuland's "fuck the EU" because the EU doesn't care as much as the neocon bitches of the world think they should.
I have absolutely no problem with Russia. I have a problem with Amerikanskis going behind the EU's back and violating their own sanctions. Now they extended the sanctions. Time for the EU to say "fuck the US".
Lets see who put their names on these deals.
In short, the people of Greece do not owe this money; they did not agree to the terms since the terms were banker to banker, banker to bought politician, thief to thief.
The key phrase here was how the Greek people object to moving private debt into the public sphere, i.e., it’s odious and illegal.
It has begun.
Amazing the minset of these Greeks...took all the easy money first...spread it all around for votes...now they dont want to pay it back...great people....
Are they all complicit then? Because the ordinary Greek had a bank account in Euro, received salaries or pensions in Euro?
Do we need a Nuremberg style process to figure out who the real crooks are?
Golden Sucks
Not at all.
The problem is that people THINK there's figuring out to do.
Why, throw a rock into any of those rooms, ECB, GS, or Greek Government, and you are GUARANTEED to strike a criminal.
The dwelling on the question of whether the goring should go first to this criminal or that, because this one's crimes are, maybe, an iota worse than that one's is idiotic.
They are all criminals.
To the degree the ordinary Greeks went along with criminals intent on committing crime they're on the hook too. It is those who said 'NO!' from the beginning that I sympathize with, and only them.
I would posit that the hook is set in the mouth of the lenders. The country has no money to pay back.
Financial Schemes are often con-games.
The whole banking & finance system is designed to be overly complicated, hard to understand, and require lawyers & bankers both to be hired to explain what is going on.
This is how the FED was designed. To obscure it from the Public and to obscure who directed it and owned it's stocks.
Bankers & Lawyers make whole careers out of destroying simple rules, creating loopholes, corrupting founding documents, and avoiding patriotic duties(like not off-shoring, not supporting free trade, not supporting globalism, not supporting open borders, not supporting dumbing down & confusing the US Citizens)
Financial Schemes, you sign up with us and we win.
Financial schemes, we want you to buy a new house/apartment and cars so you are in debt and loyal to the Organization, no whistleblowers only debtors.
I guess that you failed to read that less than 10% of the bailouts went to the Greek population...
Who borrowed all the money from 1999 to 2012?
And all you fucksticks junking him for calling out the Greeks for being a bunch of deadbeats can suck it.
By all means have sympathy for them, but most of all learn the lesson those poor fools never learned.
Small amounts of debt judiciously taken out, properly invested (think business, education etc) and paid back can really increase the quality of your life.
But too much debt taken on and then squandered on dumb fucking shit like cars, appliances, Apple fuckery and all the rest of the nose candy the Greeks put up their (generously sized) noses will kill you sure as taxes.
Better to just lop off your own dick with a sharp knife and bleed to death in the street. You will die more a man than a debt slave.
Indeed why not the Tulip Mania solution? http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=168816.0
The Tulip Mania finally ended http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania with individuals stuck with the bulbs they held at the end of the crash—no court would enforce payment of a contract, since judges regarded the debts as contracted through gambling, and thus not enforceable by law.
I've read about the mania, but never knew all debts were considered gambling. Thanks for that.
So any guesses as to what malfeasance the US/NATO will engage in? The color revolution gambit is a little played out, no? But an outright invasion is crass. Plane crash - that's an oldie but a goodie...
Plane crash as Greek officials fly to ECB meeting
Mysterious illness kills a few officials, rest fall in line
"Fights On"
If they, the banksters, stole it, you don't owe it.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
And from the Greek people: We don't need no stinkin' bankers.
Term limits for Bankers, Lawyers, Judges & Politicians... no more than 6 years in any one of these occupations. Outlaw Lobbyists. Get money & Gifts out of Politics. Corporations are not Patriots, not people, therefore can't not vote and can't be allows to spend on propaganda or politicians.
There are 3 conditions that must be met for a contract to be legal and binding.
One is that it must be legal activity, and it can't be based on fraud.
You can punish an animal, push it's nose in feces, train it.
But there is no "Evidence" that a whole people will change their culture or character and become as like Germans. Plus we know the JPM or GS work-ups on Greek Finance was fraudulent. Plus we know it is likely impossible for the Greeks to pay off the Recent Corporate Bailout Loans which were falsely represented to be schemes that would work within the Revenue of the Greek state to lower it's Debt Burden.
And one of them is a "meeting of the minds" or agreement. How does this work when one (or both) of these is a fictional corporation? ....... Or is it ????
The answer is ...
Apologies a cut and paste (but I rarely do it)
"The public is led to believe that our government borrows from "the people" through
savings bonds. Actually, only the smallest percentage of the national debt is held by
individuals in this form. Most government bonds, except those owned by the government
itself through its trust funds, are held by vast banking firms known as international banks.
For centuries there has been big money to be made by international bankers in the
financing of governments and kings. Such operators are faced, however, with certain
thorny problems. We know that smaller banking operations protect themselves by taking
collateral, but what kind of collateral can you get from a government or a king? What if
the banker comes to collect and the king says, "Off with his head"? The process through
which one collects a debt from a government or a monarch is not a subject taught in the
business schools of our universities, and most of us-never having been in the business of
financing kings-have not given the problem much thought But there is a king-financing
business and to those who can ensure collection it is lucrative indeed.
Economics Professor Stuart Crane notes that there are two means used to collateralize
loans to governments and kings. Whenever a business firm borrows big money its
creditor obtains a voice in management to protect his investment. Like a business, no
government can borrow big money unless willing to surrender to the creditor some
measure of sovereignty as collateral. Certainly international bankers who have loaned
hundred' of billions of dollars to governments around the work command considerable
influence in the policies of such governments.
But the ultimate advantage the creditor has over the king or president is that if the ruler
gets out of line the banker can finance his enemy or rival. Therefore, if you want to stay
in the lucrative king-financing business, it is wise to have an enemy or rival waiting in
the wings to unseat every king or president to whom you lend. If the king doesn't have an
enemy, you must create one.
Preeminent in playing this game was the famous House of Rothschild. Its founder, Meyer
Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812) of Frankfurt, Germany, kept one of his five sons at
home to run the Frankfurt bank and sent the others to London, Paris, Vienna and Naples.
The Rothschilds became incredibly wealthy during the nineteenth century by financing
governments to fight each other. According to Professor Stuart Crane:
"If you will look back at every war in Europe during the Nineteenth Century, you will see
that they always ended with the establishment of a 'balance of power.' With every reshuffling
there was a balance of power in a new grouping around the House of Rothschild
in England, France, or Austria. They grouped nations so that if any king got out of line a
war would break out and the war would be decided by which way the financing went.
Researching the debt positions of the warring nations will usually indicate who was to be
punished.
In describing the characteristics of the Rothschilds and other major international bankers,
Dr. Quigley tells us that they remained different from ordinary bankers in several ways:
they were cosmopolitan and international; they were close to governments and were
particularly concerned with government debts, including foreign government debts; these
bankers came to be called "international bankers." (Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, p.52)"
from None dare call it conspiracy.
Yeah I have to dig into that some more. I think I'm going to save your cut and paste.
On the Savings Bonds funding the government, Martin Armstrong is talking about the EU, Euro, USD as World Reserve Currency, and that BRICS & Euro can't replace the USD since people park their capital in the USD and Our Debt. Trade is only 10% world wide the rest is debt. US Debt is where people are parking their capital.
Martin Armstrong ; Sovereign Debt Big Bang Scheduled for 2015.75 (Look 10 min - 12 min in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4sr_cbqxiI
Wonder if that language will work on my mortgage holder?
Perhaps on the grounds that they didn't actually loan you any of their assets to begin with and just had the fed create then ecessary money out of thin air? Sounds pretty fraudulent to me...
it would be easier to tell the IRS that taxation is illegal- and was supposed to be a temporary tax to fund WW1-good luck with that
It is funny, every single thing that was laid out in this report is true and very legal and any and all courts in europe awould agree with all of it. So In Around about way Greece had done the iceland way. and will be free from all debt.
It is funny, every single thing that was laid out in this report is true and very legal and any and all courts in europe would agree with all of it. So In Around about way Greece had done the iceland way. and will be free from all debt
How bout a short break from the Greek debacle Tyler? Just an hour or two???
Lovely Blueprint for Portugal, Spain, Italy, France etc.
Amazing that the EUR is still above 1$.
protothema.gr
vote won't enter if italics used....
that's interesting. Too late to edit it now. Thank you for the alert,
easy-use your mouse to select all, then click UNitalicize the text ie select italics again and it will undo it- on -off all of the formats offered are like that
They should invite all interested parties and their representatives in to sit down and talk this over. Then arrest them all, put them on trial and hang them. Other evil people may even take the hint.
the ole sting operation