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This Is Why The Euro Is Finished
Submitted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer of The Automatic Earth
This Is Why The Euro Is Finished
The IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis report on Greece that came out this week has caused a big stir. We now know that the Fund’s analysts confirm what Syriza has been saying ever since they came to power 5 months ago: Greece needs debt relief, lots of it, and fast.
We also know that Europe tried to silence the report. But what’s most interesting is that this has been going on for months, as per Reuters. Ergo, the IMF has known about the -preliminary- analysis for months, and kept silent, while at the same time ‘negotiating’ with Greece on austerity and bailouts.
And if you dig a bit deeper still, there’s no avoiding the fact that the IMF hasn’t merely known this for months, it’s known it for years. The Greek Parliamentary Debt Committee reported three weeks ago that it has in its possession an IMF document from 2010(!) that confirms the Fund knew even at that point in time.
That is to say, it already knew back then that the bailout executed in 2010 would push Greece even further into debt. Which is the exact opposite of what the bailout was supposed to do.
The 2010 bailout was the one that allowed private French, Dutch and German banks to transfer their liabilities to the Greek public sector, and indirectly to the entire eurozone‘s public sector. There was no debt restructuring in that deal.
Reuters yesterday reported that “Publication of the draft Debt Sustainability Analysis laid bare a dispute between Brussels and [the IMF] that has been simmering behind closed doors for months.
But that’s not the whole story. Evidently, there was a major dispute inside the IMF as well. The decision to release the report was apparently taken without even a vote, because it was obvious the Fund’s board members wanted the release. The US played a substantial role in that decision. Why the timing? Hard to tell.
The big question that arises from this is: what has been Christine Lagarde’s role in this charade? If she has been instrumental is keeping the analysis under wraps, she has done the IMF a lot of reputational damage, and it’s getting hard to see how she could possibly stay on as IMF chief. She has seen to it that the Fund has lost an immense amount of trust in the world. And without trust, the IMF is useless.
And while we’re at it, ECB chief Mario Draghi, who is also a major Troika negotiator, made a huge mistake this week in -all but- shutting down the Greek banking system, a decision that remains hard to believe to this day. The function of a central bank is to make sure banks are liquid, not to consciously and willingly strangle them.
How Draghi, after this, could stay on as ECB head is as hard to see as it is to do that for Lagarde’s position. And we should also question the actions and motives of people like Jean-Claude Juncker and Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
They must also have known about the IMF’s assessment, and still have insisted there be no debt relief on the negotiating table, although the analysis says there cannot be a viable deal without it.
One can only imagine Varoufakis’ frustration at finding the door shut in his face every single time he has brought up the subject. Because you don’t really need an IMF analysis to see what’s obvious.
Which is exactly why there is a referendum tomorrow: Alexis Tsipras refused to sign a deal that did not include debt restructuring. It would be comedy if it weren’t so tragic, most of all for the people of Greece. Here’s from Reuters yesterday:
Europeans Tried To Block IMF Debt Report On Greece
Euro zone countries tried in vain to stop the IMF publishing a gloomy analysis of Greece’s debt burden which the leftist government says vindicates its call to voters to reject bailout terms, sources familiar with the situation said on Friday. The document released in Washington on Thursday said Greece’s public finances will not be sustainable without substantial debt relief, possibly including write-offs by European partners of loans guaranteed by taxpayers. It also said Greece will need at least €50 billion in additional aid over the next three years to keep itself afloat. Publication of the draft Debt Sustainability Analysis laid bare a dispute between Brussels and the IMF that has been simmering behind closed doors for months.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras cited the report in a televised appeal to voters on Friday to say ‘No’ to the proposed austerity terms, which have anyway expired since talks broke down and Athens defaulted on an IMF loan this week. It was not clear whether an arcane IMF document would influence a cliffhanger poll in which Greece’s future in the euro zone is at stake with banks closed, cash withdrawals rationed and commerce seizing up. “Yesterday an event of major political importance happened,” Tsipras said. “The IMF published a report on Greece’s economy which is a great vindication for the Greek government as it confirms the obvious – that Greek debt is not sustainable.”
At a meeting on the IMF’s board on Wednesday, European members questioned the timing of the report which IMF management proposed at short notice releasing three days before Sunday’s crucial referendum that may determine the country’s future in the euro zone, the sources said. There was no vote but the Europeans were heavily outnumbered and the United States, the strongest voice in the IMF, was in favor of publication, the sources said.
The reason why all Troika negotiators should face very serious scrutiny is that they have willingly kept information behind that should have been crucial in any negotiation with Greece. The reason is obvious: it would have cost Europe’s taxpayers many billions of euros.
But that should never be a reason to cheat and lie. Because once you do that, you’re tarnished for life. So in an even slightly ideal world, they should all resign. Everybody who’s been at that table for the Troika side.
And I can’t see how Angela Merkel would escape the hatchet either. She, too, must have known what the IMF analysts knew. And decided to waterboard the Greek population rather than be forced to explain at home that her earlier decisions (2010) failed so dramatically that her voters would now have to pay the price for them. No, Angela likes to be in power. More than she likes for the Greeks to have proper healthcare.
Understandable, perhaps, but unforgivable as well. Someone should take this entire circus of liars and cheaters and schemers to court. They’re very close to killing the entire EU with their machinations. Not that I mind, the sooner it dies the better, but the people involved should still be held accountable. It’s not even the EU itself which is at fault, or which is a bad idea, it’s these people.
But fear not, there’s no tragedy that doesn’t also have a humorous side. And I don’t mean that to take anything away from the Greek people’s suffering.
Brett Arends at MarketWatch wrote a great analysis of his own, and get this, also based on IMF numbers. Turns out, the biggest mistake for Greece and Syriza is to want to stay inside the eurozone. The euro has been such a financial and economic disaster, it’s hard to fathom that nobody has pointed this out before. Stay inside, and there’s no way you can win.
I find this a hilarious read in face of what I see going on here in Greece. It makes everything even more tragic.
Stop Lying To The Greeks — Life Without The Euro Is Great
Will the euro-fanatics please stop lying to the people of Greece? And while they’re at it, will they please stop lying to the rest of us as well? Can they stop pretending that life outside the euro — for the Greeks or any other European country — would be a fate worse than death? Can they stop claiming that if the Greeks go back to the drachma, they will be condemned to a miserable existence on the dark backwaters of European life, a small, forgotten and isolated country with no factories, no inward investment and no hope? Those dishonest threats are being leveled this week at the people of Greece, as they gear up for the weekend’s big referendum on more austerity.
The bully boys of Brussels, Frankfurt and elsewhere are warning the Greek people that if they don’t do as they’re told, and submit to yet more economic leeches, they may end up outside the euro … at which point, of course, life would stop. Bah.
Take a look at the chart. It compares the economic performance of Greece inside the euro with European rivals that don’t use the euro. Those other countries cover a wide range of situations, of course – from rich and stable Denmark, to former Soviet Union countries, to Greece’s neighbor Turkey, which isn’t even in the EU. But they all have one thing in common.
During the past 15 years, while Greece has been enjoying the “benefits” of having Brussels run their monetary policies, those poor suckers have all been stuck running their own affairs and managing their own currencies (if you can imagine). And you can see just how badly they’ve suffered as a result.
They’ve crushed it. Romania, Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Croatia — you name it, they’ve all posted vastly better growth rates than Greece. The data come from the IMF itself. It measures growth in gross domestic product, per person, in constant prices (in other words, with price inflation stripped out). Greece adopted the euro in 2001.
And after 14 years in the same club as the big boys, they are back right where they started. Real per-person economic growth over that time: Zero. Meanwhile Romania, with the leu, has only … er … doubled. Everyone else is up. The Icelanders, who suffered the worst financial catastrophe on the planet in 2008, have nonetheless managed to grow.
Yes, all data points have caveats. Each country has its own story and its own advantages and disadvantages. But the overall picture is clear: The euro has either caused Greece’s disastrous economic performance, or at least failed to prevent it.
What I find amazing about the euro-fanatics is that they just don’t seem to care about facts at all. They carry on repeating the same claims about the alleged miracle cure of their currency, no matter what happens. You can hit them over the head with the latest IMF World Economic Outlook and they carry on droning, unfazed.
I was in England during the 1990s when those people were warning that if the Brits didn’t give up the pound sterling and join the euro, they were doomed as well. For a laugh, I just went through news archives on Factiva and refreshed my memory.
Britain without the euro would be an “orphan country,” petted, humored but ignored, warned one leading figure. Britain would lose all influence and status. It would become a marginal country outside the mainstream of Europe. It would lose “a million jobs.” Factories would close. The car industry would collapse. Foreign investors would walk away because of Britain’s isolation.
Exports would plummet because of exchange-rate fluctuations. The City of London, Britain’s financial district, would lose out to Frankfurt. The London Stock Exchange would be reduced to a local backwater. Tumbleweeds would blow in the streets. (OK, I made that one up.)
And here we are today. Since 1992, when the single currency project began taxiing for takeoff, the countries on board have seen total economic growth of 40%, says the IMF. Poor old Great Britain, stuck back at the departure lounge with its miserable pound sterling? Just 67%. Bah.
This currency that Greece is fighting so hard to be part of is in fact strangling it. The reason for this lies in the structure of the EMU. Which makes it impossible for individual countries to adapt to changing circumstances. And circumstances always change. As a country, you need flexibility, you need to be able to adapt to world events.
You need to be able to devalue, you need a central bank to be your lender of last resort. Mario Draghi has refused to be Greece’s lender of last resort. That can’t be, that’s impossible. there is no valid economic reason for such an action, it’s criminal behavior. But the eurozone structure allows for such behavior.
In ‘real life’, where a country has its own central bank, the only reason for it to refuse to be lender of last resort would be political. And it is the same thing here. It’s about power. That’s why Greece’s grandmas can’t get to their meagre pensions. There is no economic reason for that.
In the eurozone, there’s only one nation that counts in the end: Germany. The eurozone has effectively made it possible for Angela Merkel to save her domestic banks from losses by unloading them upon the Greeks. This would not have been possible had Greece not been a member of the eurozone.
That this took, and still takes, scheming and cheating, is obvious. But that is at the same time the reason why either all Troika negotiators must be replaced, and by people who don’t stoop to these levels, or, and I think that’s the much wiser move, countries should leave the eurozone.
Look, it’s simple, the euro is finished. It won’t survive the unmitigated scandal that Greece has become. Greece is not the victim of its own profligacy, it’s the victim of a structure that makes it possible to unload the losses of the big countries’ failing financial systems onto the shoulders of the smaller. There’s no way Greece could win.
The damned lies and liars and statistics that come with all this are merely the cherry on the euro cake. It’s done. Stick a fork in it.
The smaller, poorer, countries in the eurozone need to get out while they can, and as fast as they can, or they will find themselves saddled with ever more losses of the richer nations as the euro falls apart. The structure guarantees it.
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no one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself http://www.philiacband.com/propaganda.html
Laggard is a lying whore. The IMF has lost credibility and has been weakened, just like the USSA wanted
The IMF is a blood sucking devilfish.
I came across two interesting reads last few days:
https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/beyond-greek-impasse suggesting major problems for Germany;
http://redefininggod.com/2015/07/globalist-agenda-watch-2015-update-51-g... suggesting IMF (and other elite orgs) are running the new BRICS bank.
dont's know...not what it seems, no?
What fucking kind of "analysis" is needed to determine a bankrupt, starving Country needs debt relief, versus more debt? Yea, this was a big secret hidden away at the top levels of the IMF...it took double doctorates months to come to conclusions...
Or even some efforts to boost its real GDP by developing industries there instead predatory lending to boost those of Germany.
That's the real truth of what happened to Greece.
Pump the Greek banks full of ECB liquidity so the Germans can sell them moar cars.
The NWO Zionist Usurer Cabal has always had as its ultimate goal a global currency completely under their control. One has to wonder whether this failure of the Euro system is a herald of the impossibility of such a diabolical idea. I've always believed that Nature's Laws cannot be overcome in the long run. Their tampering with basic economic laws as well as the misunderstanding of innate differences between races & cultures will be the undoing of the controllers. Not all humans are square pegs. They cannot all be squeezed into one common hole. Greeks and Germans are intrisically different. Thus, their economic and productive propensities will never mesh. The concept of joining two such peoples under one common currency is ludicrous and unnatural. This petri dish would be more fascinating to watch were it not for the fact that so many have to suffer needlessly at the behest of a few Satanist "elite" micro-managers.
it's the 4th Reich: Germany's monetary conquest of Europe rather than Germany's previous failed attempt to take over Europe.
Still painful, full of death and destruction...but cities don't get as blowed up as they did before. ;-)
yet
YOU WILL FINALLY BE LIBERATED FROM ATHENS ITSELF MIGHTY GREECE!
YOU ARE FREEEEEEEE!!!!!
But that should never be a reason to cheat and lie. Because once you do that, you’re tarnished for life.
Really? Are you sure? To me it seems the sociopathic criminal murderer hermetic luciferians selfproclaimed "statesmen" would have been "tarnished" by now.
Time to replace the Euro with the Ruble.
Replace it with another failing FIAT Currency?
All fiat currencies fail...all of them.
The system, including Russia's Banking System, will fail.
Even the Ruble has been failing for quite some time.
Now you may attempt to blame that on the Americans, or whatever...
But the truth is that Russia's Central Bank has never recovered from the 1998 Meltdown and Russian DEFAULT. It is INTERNALLY just as flawed as any other Central Bank as it is relliant on the failed Debt and Death paradigm.
You can junk this post but it will not change the truth.
Instead you may wish to spend your time bringing about your Nation's collapse so that the paradigm is forever abandoned. That will be ideal. I have no hatred for Russians, or any more hate than I have for America...or Europe, or anybody else.
Your Banking system is flawed...no matter where you reside.
Your nationalism is showing...
Very few people understand/grasp the FUNDAMENTAL point: Banks with loans to Greece WANT a bailout, and will get one, whichever way the vote goes.
The banksters are Satan's representatives on earth. May they be tortured and slated wherever they slither.
Greece will not easily escape the bank chains. The IMF, BIS, EU, etc., did not carry Greece along all this time just to see it say FU and walk away. This will be a really nasty fight no matter which way it goes.
I'm with you. Greece ain't going nowhere. The powers-that-be have them tightly secured.
Will never ever happen - as they are the sugar daddies of our (so-called) "leaders".
Side-note: I'm tired of this Automatic Earth trotskist "institutions want what is best for the people" publication being featured on ZH. What's the deal, Tyler?
Yes I know, I don't have to read them, which I usually don't. This one was rated 4.1 though, and the title seemed interesting. My mistake. But what about neophytes roaming by who might get turned away?
Agree with you Jefferson. Raul doesn't even understand the underlying reasons why the IMF does what it does. How about an article that explains that the IMF is the creation of and the puppet of the US. We use it to try and control Europe and other debtor nations. This author is very nearsighted or has a hidden agenda for his propaganda. Some truth and a few big lies does not make a good article.
I down voted you for using the US term too loosely ---- sorry but thats a very troll like tactic----
His intent was clear, he's questioning the author's perspective. We don't need endless qualifications of every statement.
"That is to say, it already knew back then that the bailout executed in 2010 would push Greece even further into debt. Which is the exact opposite of what the bailout was supposed to do. The 2010 bailout was the one that allowed private French, Dutch and German banks to transfer their liabilities to the Greek public sector, and indirectly to the entire eurozone‘s public sector."
What is this guy talking about? In reality:
"The Greek debt restructuring of 2012 stands out in the history of sovereign defaults. It achieved very large debt relief – over 50 per cent of 2012 GDP – with minimal financial disruption, using a combination of new legal techniques, exceptionally large cash incentives, and official sector pressure on key creditors."(http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5343&context...)
Keep on spreading random information, maybe somebody some day will believe it.
And from the pages 2-3 of the very document you cite:
"...the buyback of December 12 did result in some debt relief for Greece...However, the debt relief effects for Greece was (sic) small both due to the voluntary approach that was chosen and the small scale of the operation."
So, what are YOU talking about?
I am talking about this:
"The Greek debt exchange can claim historic significance in more than one respect. It set a new world record in terms of restructured debt volume and aggregate creditor losses, easily surpassing previous high water marks such as the default and restructuring of Argentina 2001".
Your quotation, instead, refers only to the end-2012 buybacks, while you seem to voluntarily neglect the main debt exchange sustained in 2012. Read the whole paper please, not just the parts that fit with your narrative.
to any discerning individual the "statesmen" have been tarnished for centuries
Indeed.
"We had to destroy Greece to save ourselves. BUT WE HAD A PLAN TO DO JUST THAT TOO AND THAT MAKES IT OKAY!" seems to be the "takeaway."
Drafhma's could actually be quite valuable ironically given this context.
"Out of a sense of National Pride" (let alone identity.)
Even today Confederate Currency is considered of great value to collectors of such things...
Greece MUST just tell the IMF, ECB, EU and USSA to just FUCK OFF !!! And then join the Eastern Economic Union.
Why dont the financial whores talk about Japanese, German or terrorist USSA debt. A debt neither can ever pay.
Germany and the EU are vassal states, occupied and blackmailed by US international bankers and Tel Aviv oligarchs.
We're all using different labels to refer to different groups in an attempt to clarify a profound crisis: DEBT IS SOMETHING TO BE MINIMIZED, REPUDIATED AND AVOIDED, NOT EMBRACED, "SOCIALIZED" AND SANCTIFIED. WE'RE WITNESSING AN ATTEMPT TO NORMALISE DEBT ENSLAVEMENT. THAT MUST END.
The issue which has swept down the centuries and will have to be fought sooner or later is The PEOPLE vs The BANKS. - Lord Acton 1875
It's not meant to work, it's meant to break, to bring on the next phase...
The very idea that the entire Continent could be controlled by a unified currency system is funamentally stupid. The illegitimate ruling snots arrogantly factored out the completely different cultures, languages, and various histories as irrelevant.
Excellent article, JS Bach, and this phrase of yours says it all:
This is brought home with a breaking story this morning in San Francisco: diversity as a deliberate displacement policy kills, as a beautiful girl was murdered on a San Francisco pier and the suspect is a five-time deported Hispanic. He was picked up by the police after the killing and promptly released. Reason: San Francisco has a policy of not holding suspects that have illegal immigration issues unless there is an active warrant against them.
Immigration authorities who know the history of this man and his long rap sheet immediately requested the sheriff in San Francisco to hold the suspect until they could come to pick him up for charges. But he was gone, released because of the tragic police policy in San Francisco – a policy put in place because the “Hispanic community is uncomfortable” with undocumented Mexicans being held as suspects before formal charges are filed.
And there you have the Independence Day in America, the celebration of the fall of a great country.
Last week’s Supreme Court decision on gay marriage was the crowning multicultural death blow to sanity in America, to the smashing of the keystone of the Founder’s culture. With no Protestants on the Supreme Court and four Jews, the central tie of the American Christian family – marriage – was torn out by the roots to make America “safe” for Jewish power (in their own documented words).
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/07/random_killing_trumps_san_franciscos_sanctuary_city_policy.html
Excerpt from article:
Freya Horne, counsel for the sheriff's office, said Friday that federal detention orders are not a legal basis to hold someone, so Sanchez was released April 15. San Francisco is a sanctuary city, and local money cannot be spent to cooperate with federal immigration law.
The city does not turn over people who are in the country illegally unless there's an active warrant for their arrest, she said. Horne said they checked and found none. ICE could have issued an active warrant if they wanted the city to keep him, she said.
"It's not legal to hold someone on a request to detain. This is not just us. This is a widely adopted position," Horne said.
He was picked up by the police after the killing and promptly released
Incorrect. Sanchez had been arrested before the murder on drug charges. ICE requested that he be held after those charges were resolved but SF refuses to do so as a matter of policy. Then Sanchez killed the woman. Now he is in custody.
He was released from federal prison in March after serving several years for felony re-entry after deportation.
Lopez-Sanchez is in San Francisco County Jail and faces a homicide charge. ICE has requested another immigration detainer.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/03/us/san-francisco-killing-suspect-immigrant...
#Ican'tbreath
Which is what obese people say having a heart attack.
Thanks for the correction; the sequence was incorrect and I regret the error.
You're welcome. The headlines were misleading for this story. They did make it sound like he had been released after the shooting.
+1000 credibility points JR.
You made an error, recognized it, and promptly took correction.
WE need more of that. And yes I am also looking in the mirror.
>> released from federal prison in March after serving several years for felony re-entry after deportation <<
Released back onto American territory. Not taken to the border?
If Obama's America were an individual person it'd be someone with some kind of creepy neurotic obsession. Can we get our country back from that freak?
San Francisco is a beautiful city. But it is ruled by reckless, irresponsible nuts. Any decent person who lives there should either move, or be prepard to respond when confronted by criminals who have been made comfortable by the city's rulers. The law is not on the side of the citizenry, it lives in the halls of liberal academia and the bistros frequented by the rulers. In other words, YOYO--you're on your own. San Francisco is essentially lawless.
How can there be no Protestants in the SCOTUS? Any other people group so clearly in represented in such an important way would be screaming to high heaven (at least).
The Blue Team has loaded up on Jews (3) and lent a hand (1) to the Red Team which has loaded up on Catholics (5). Not particularly representative or even diverse.
Sotomayor is marketed as "Hispanic" but is also a Jew - although you will have a lot of difficulty discovering that from MSM or wikipedia sources. So the OP was correct. The SC is 5 Catholics & 4 Jews - no protestants. The footsoldiers of the American Revolution were overwhelmingly protestant. Yes, Hamilton was jewish, and many of the oligarchs of the revolution were freemasons, but at the grassroots level, the revolution was a protestant project. For DARs, there is nothing to celebrate today.
Well stated Werner. Catholics and Jews are collectivists by nature, for different reasons. People love America for its indepedent streak, which is a direct result of its Protestant morality, now sadly bastardized and dead. They will keep pumping up the "freedom" thing up as long as it keeps sticking.
>> misunderstanding of innate differences between races & cultures <<
If only it were a misunderstanding. The reigning corksoakers know damn well what insidious, destructive differences there are and, with malice aforethought, intend to jam them down the throats of whites in every Western country. And have been doing so since 1965 (in the case of the US).
And submarines.
Anyone can buy a Mercedes but you really are pimping when you have your own German U-Boats.
Like Sinatra in Assault on a Queen.
Well when I can eat Claymores and shit out Hand Grenades then who needs a God damned submarine?
(Now that was fuckin' funny. My brother pointed out that response of yours to one of my posts, a response which I had not read until last night. Thanks for the laugh.)
And, no, I do not watch TeeVee.
The EU started off in the twisted mind of a maladjusted elitist called Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. In 1922 he founded the Pan-European project, which sought to dilute European identity by eliminating borders so that the continent would be regional groups instead of nations. This one social misfit came up with the unnatural EU idea, which immediately attracted like-minded psychos. It accelerated after WW2 when everything was up for grabs and various populations were reduced to political pawns.
In 1925 Coudenhove-Kalergi published his book, "Practical Idealism" which is the EU blueprint. It's stated goals are astonishingly similar to the current social systems being imposed on Europe, with no regard for the chaos that follows.
The EU was only set up so that a small group of psychopaths could control the continent, its people, reasources, and destiny. The EU is a fake, sick, decaying ponzi.
+1 for the Kalergi reveal. People need to know that all these Bad Ideas have a pedigree.
well laid out statement about debt slavery. where are all the idiots with their one line comments about how this is all the greek citizens fault and let them eat garbage posts. is it just me or do others see those types of posts show a complete lack of empathy and compassion for their fellow human beings? just waiting for the reports to be released that show how the past greek leaders knew all this and sold their people out!
greek pensioners equals U.S. soc. sec. just have to love the media and how they always use greek pensioners like they were over paid goverment workers on pensions....like maybe in the U.S. if they used soc. sec. the american people would have a shit fit in a heart beat.
All we need now is Jim Jones passing out free Kool-aid. It can't go on and yet it must because they all refuse to admit the emperor is buck naked......
But the Greeks were impeccably socialist, and that's compassionate. They must try socialism harder now.
All of us who have criticized the commie cowards in charge have stated that Greece should repudiate the odious debt and be done with it. But these red bastards don't have the kahones to do it. And you know why they don't? Because as soon as they left the Euro they'd need to start CUTTING PENSIONS and FIRING GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES. No matter what the outcome, these things have to happen. But what they really want is to have the debt forgiven and then go back to spending more than they take in again. THAT is the REAL ISSUE.
Excellent point and exactly why the Ds are as worthless as the Rs in changing anything in the US. We need a people's liberty party - and that will be the fight after the collapse.
That German newspaper was entirely correct.
Tzipass with a gun to his head.
"Give me the money or I shoot myself."
Really?
So the Greeks are totally devoid of any and all responsibility?
They were just 5 year old kids lured by candy and promises of Disney movies to the back bedroom where mean ole Uncle Heinz molested them and left them bewildered?
Sorry, as my ole pappy used to say, it takes two to tango.
Nobody held a gun to the Greeks proverbial head and forced them to take the money and spend it like drunken sailors.
How do you go hundreds of billions of Euros into debt then turn around like a little girl and say, not my fault, Uncle Heinz made me do it.
Or as Flip Wilson liked to say, the devil made me do it.
Funny how I feel very little responsibility for and have received scant benefit from my own country's misallocation of $17T USD.
Ding ding ding we have a winner. Riddle me this: why are Greek debts all of a sudden due and payable in full, whereas the US debt (equally unpayable) and Chinese debt (equally unpayable) and Japanese debt (equally unpayable) are just supposed to be rolled over?
These people (Troika, Obomba, all of them) are a powerful combination of evil and stupid. I do not believe there is some cabal wanting a GWO, I think it's just utterly corrupt actors being marionetted by their paymasters: global private banks, the MIC, the SIC (Surveillance-Industrial Complex). The Obomba "foreign policy" is so obviously stupid and counterproductive there's no other way to explain it. Throw in a giant dose of "Israel First" (Feith, Wolfowitz, it's all there in black and white) and you have all you need to explain it.
They have TMC (Total Media Control) and a massive police state the Stasi or the Cheka would envy so sheeple everywhere don't get the information they need and when they do get it they get crushed (see Occupy, 243 arrests for loitering while a block away the biggest financial crimes in history go unprosecuted).
It ends in war, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
OpenThePodBayDoorHAL wrote:
Riddle me this: why are Greek debts all of a sudden due and payable in full, whereas the US debt (equally unpayable) and Chinese debt (equally unpayable) and Japanese debt (equally unpayable) are just supposed to be rolled over?
Heh, dumbass. There has been no demand for repayment in full. Just for scheduled repayments. And. it the Greeks make those repayments, they get additional loans. The requirement is that they begin a reform of the economy that will not continue to require more IMF funding.
I know you could not answer a knock knock joke.
Tony you obviously havent been getting enough msm in order to swallow the narrative, its all the peoples fault for expecting things like pensions dontcha know. Don't worry, i expect at some point some sort of re-education programme may be made available (obligatory) for people like yourself
You've got the problem very correctly identified.
I once thought this author was reasonably sane. The Greek situation has shoved him out and exposed how worthless he is. Why his articles continue to appear on ZH is an amazement to me. Distorted history is his preferred avenue of recounting events.
The Greeks politicians lied about finances and accepted bribes to become members of the EZ. That is history but did not cause today's problem. Greeks have benefited from billions per year in EZ subsidies for their economy. They came out far ahead in that regard.
From the article:
The reason why all Troika negotiators should face very serious scrutiny is that they have willingly kept information behind that should have been crucial in any negotiation with Greece. The reason is obvious: it would have cost Europe’s taxpayers many billions of euros.
The negotiators did not lie. The Greeks lied. They have done it for 20 years. The EZ taxpayers allowed their representatives to believe the Greek lies.
This currency that Greece is fighting so hard to be part of is in fact strangling it. The reason for this lies in the structure of the EMU. Which makes it impossible for individual countries to adapt to changing circumstances. And circumstances always change. As a country, you need flexibility, you need to be able to adapt to world events.
Interesting that "flexibility" is used as a euphanism for currency devaluation / crash. And that all of the gold bugs who recommed currencies be tied to gold applaud this. The depreciating Euro is not weak enough but Greece shoud tie the New Drachma to some physical asset standard to solve their problems. What a bunch of ZH clueless dumb F**KS.
And if you dig a bit deeper still, there’s no avoiding the fact that the IMF hasn’t merely known this for months, it’s known it for years. The Greek Parliamentary Debt Committee reported three weeks ago that it has in its possession an IMF document from 2010(!) that confirms the Fund knew even at that point in time.
The Greeks gave all banks and private investers about a 30% haircut in 2012. That became about a 75% haircut as the reissued bonds dropped in value because of the terms of the debt. After wiping out the EZ banks and private lenders, the only ones left were the ECB and IMF. Both continued to accept Greek debt at face value, allowing Greece to issue new bonds in 2014. Lying Greece will now want to screw those buyers into taking haircuts two years later. However, note that the complaints from Greece do not mention any studies of their own economists that should have been available when the bonds were issued. Were the Greek "economists" so stupid that they were unable to compute cebt repayments in 2012? Were the members of Parliment uable to add and subtract? Or were they the same as the current scam artists who simply want someone to send them more money to fund their payouts?
So, you "caaaaaaaaaare."
Well f*ck that, f*ck the Greeks and f*ck you.
It's MOSTLY the fault of the greedy, lazy and corrupt citizens.
Enjoying retirement at 58 after getting paid 14 months for a year's work.
So, F*CK YOU, gg.
Take THAT "sympathy" and SHOVE IT.
These corrupt citizens voted in a corrupt government.
They too are to blame.
Heads should roll.
Bankers?
Yes, yes, they are not "innocent".
But the "bankster!" bleating here comes off as an adolescent Witch-Burning-crowd Wannabe.
Too many Jacobin Leftists.
Like YOU.
hiccup
SAME GOES for the
DOLLAR and the USSA
Happy 4th Sheeple
it's finished because trying to backdoor fiscal and political union on the back of monetary union is futile... although I have to admit, they got further with it than most thought they would...
seems awful brittle, however... having some loan trouble with a member country that only accounts for 2% of Euro GDP shouldn't be having the impact it's having on the oh so mighty Euro... it'd be like Vermont threatening to default on its loans and everyone expecting the death of the USD and NAFTA as a result...
It's not Greece that threatens the Euro Union, it's the rest of the PIIS, minus the G that threatens to bring the whole house of cards crashing down.
this is true, like I say it all seems awfully brittle
hey, downvoter brigade, you'll notice that no one is talking about debts in Puerto Rico being the end of the USD... there's some pretty big differences there, you just refuse to see them...
Destruction of all European peoples and nations is the ultimate aim of the yid banksters. You're on their list.
Proof positive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rVmg37snifI
and not only just the banking ones
So let's return the effort in kind:
http://www.facebook.com/openbordersforisrael
Destruction of everything. Remember we're dealing with Luciferians here.
Wait til they get to the "reconstruction" part...
Destruction, I think not. Perpetual indentured servitude more likely. Loan sharks are reluctant to destroy their "clients" because there is no vig to be had; likewise they would prefer their "clients" never pay off the debt. Much like a tick does not want the dog
to die, nor does it want to be scratched off, rather the tick wants to liesurly feed while the dog (oft times anemic) scrounges for scraps.
That's right; they don't shoot you in the head for non-payment. In the kneecaps.
And if you still can't pay, there are things you can do to work off at least some of the interest...
Having your kneecaps shot off is a one time warning. Afterwards, you either pay, or your dead.. If a hit is ordered, money may be lost, but when the word gets out on the street what happens when debts are not paid, the default rate tends to be very low. I'm surprised nothing is being said about the derivatives linked to Greek debt. Bill Holter has been screaming from the rooftops that this is where the true danger lies...and he is right. You can only play games for so.long, and sooner or later, a default will be a default. Once those derivatives are triggered, the banking system fails. The Great Reset will then be upon us, and it will be a worldwide event.
Just enough goy for agriculture and other varieties of manual labor. Dont forget the need for attractive boys and girls.
...and their blood! Ha! I'm just yidding, folks!
Speaking of Blood - O/T Forced embalming
"Finnish nuclear scientist and whistleblower Arto Lauri demonstrates how nuclear power plants are using not only pig, but also human blood, to transport poisonous gases from nuclear reactors into the atmosphere."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21iFi7fo0hU
Always has been. Every European war and other wars have ended up killing tens of millions of Christians. The EU, Euro, IMF banksters and other banksters and weapons companies support slavery and genocide.
There have been opportunists and criminals in every age and from every race. The chosenites just make up one main flavor, and really only .01%. I mean 67 billionaires control half the US GDP and they're from every race...
The $ based WW fiat monster is simply the effect of very dark minds in NY and London.
"she has done the IMF a lot of reputational damage"
What reputation ?
You mean the one described in John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" over 10 years ago ?
Otherwise , good article , considering it was written too "politically correct" .. and too polite.
The Euro was a failed idea from the start.
Cooking the books (thanks to the boyz at Goldman) to admit financially reckless countries.
The end result is a bankrupt EU.
The Greek state was financially compassionate. "Wreckless" or "profligate" makes it sound like the Greeks are responsible in some way, not victimized.
Because Central planning and Central Banking Twits think monetizing debt thru subsidizing products creates GDP growth using Photoshop graphs.
Holding the National Debt for 16 weeks begs the question of the Treasury - Jack Jew cuntlick.
You guys are making it easy to purge corruption.
Gotta laugh at the International Monetary Fund and Bank of International Settlements issuing reports and analysis on sustainability, stability and integrity of the financial system when they and their members are directly responsible for this fucking gong show.
Directly responsible, but will they be held accountable? I have a siver eagle that says no.
Zerohedge: EURO crash, US crash, RUB is the best thing ever!
Reality: RUB has crashed and nothing else.
lol suck it downvoters... suck it long and suck it hard...
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Linear&...
The IMF, EU, and ECB refuse to accept they simply made a bad investment in Greece. That probably goes for their investments in several other countries in the Eurozone too.
It’s interesting how their obstinance contrasts with private investors in Greek bonds who have already acknowledged and eaten their loss. The only exception are those speculators hoping to ride the coattails of central bank bailouts and malfeasance to a quick profit off some greater fool.
The IMF, EU and ECB made a fantastic investment in Greece. They've been extracting the entire wealth of the nation for over 5 years now. They've passed any losses along to taxpayers, while keeping all the proceeds. Private investors and the Greek people themselves have been the losers. The Central banks are making out like, well, gangbusters. Or Banksters.
Because its value has no intrinsic worth? Or because it is controlled by banks that have no interest in anything other than making money. Either way!
:)
"But that should never be a reason to cheat and lie. Because once you do that, you’re tarnished for life."
Is that so? Is the corollary that: all banksters get duly punished for their crimes?
Interesting news and analysis. I find it very interesting how clever the EuroBankster propaganda has been. Even here on ZH, where hatred of Central Bankers serves the same function as the old Captcha math problems, on every story about Greece I see the same mindles Margaret Thatcher quote ("The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money.").
The point, which is amazingly lost on these boards, is that Greece is being systematically farmed for payments. There is not just no effort to solve the crisis; the crisis is being managed to last as long as possible. This is an exercise in unending, unlimited capital extraction.
Greece always had a flabby and inefficient economy, with a lot of debt. People didn't work that much and retired early. They had a currency that wasn't worth very much. They had a history of not paying their taxes, due to deals made between the middle class and the Fascist Dictatorship of 1967-1973; if the middle class kept quiet while the Fascists tortured and killed their personal enemies, the Fascists wouldn't make the middle and upper classes pay their taxes. So, yes, Greek public finance was a fussy accountant's nightmare. But it worked, more or less, and the weak currency was great for tourists.
The Euro pitchmeisters did a great job. They convinced lower and middle class Greeks that they could basically use Deutschmarks, at no cost to themselves. The Greek Elites wanted to use a strong currency to buy property in Paris and elsewhere, instead of Drachmae. Only problem was, no way the Greeks could qualify to get into the Euro under the Maastricht Treaty, with their crappy finances. Oh, but the Eurocrats had a solution for that, too. Greece could let Goldman Sachs set up a web of derivatives, putting all their debts off the balance sheet and counting debts as assets and all the stuff that doomed Lehman, AIG, Bear Sterns, Jefferson County Alabama, and the list goes on and on. The counterparties are a bit mysterious, but clearly they were the central banks of Germany, France, and others.
So what happened? In 2007-2008, all that flim-flammery went up in smoke. At least one default occured, and the Greeks have been paying off huge costs on some busted derivative ever since. Leverage and compound interest are a bitch.
And, obviously, the Troika and whomever they are actually representing, has done what such people always do; they've dumped the bad debt onto taxpayers, reimbursed themselves lavishly for all their losses, and they keep the debtor on the hook with fees and penalty rates to extract ever more and more without touching (or even discussing) the principal.
The only way out is bankruptcy. That's the only way out for an individual or a corporation in such a situation. And the EU is doing everything they can to eliminate that possibility, to extract more and more, endlessly.
Sure the Greeks have a crap economy. They have for a couple thousand years. To collaborate with the Banksters by repeating irrelevant tropes about "Socialism" is to be the patsy, the "useful idiot." Save your quips for when the same process become too obvious to ignore here in the US. And don't think it isn't already happening right now in the US. Look at the fees and conditions on the back of your credit card or bank statement. If you have the money to keep your cash-flow right, you can ignore them. But the second you don't, you'll never get out. Look at your utility bills. Where I live, we barely use utilities in the summer. We easily pay more in fees than energy.
All it's going to take is a lengthy power outage to put most of us automatic-payment / web-dependent types into the sub-prime jungle. And then we'll all be Greeks. And we'll deserve everything the Banksters do to us because Margaret Thatcher once said something cute?
You're being played, and you're falling for it.
It was never about money. Money is just a tool of force, debt is just a mental construct backed by the gun. Compliance was always the goal.
Debt underwritten by money is the exchange of full value for full value interrupted by a time delay.
Debt underwritten by counterfeit is the exchange of no value for full value interrupted by a time delay.
You are O so correct that it was never about money!
volunteerism
"I have this problem. People keep wanting to lend me money, even though we both know damn well that I can not afford to pay them back" ...
Funny you'd say that. I have a very similar problem. Whenever I buy a house or a car, lenders want to lend me vastly more money than I really want. The difference is, I can pay them back. I just don't want to pay them back as much money, for as long a time, as they would prefer. I solve that problem by living at the level I want to, which many people consider to be far below my means. I refuse their "generous" offers of gilded handcuffs, and buy the thing that costs the amount I feel like paying back.
So, why am I able to make decisions differently from the people of Greece? Because I get to make my own decisions. The Greek citizens weren't allowed to see all the information and make their own decisions. Their Elites did that for them. And the Elites have a very different agenda and set of priorities.
While we're thinking of that, consider whether or not our homegrown US Elites need to rely on pensions and Social Security. Hmm. I bet they don't. Interesting how those are the things our Elites are telling us are unsustainable, lazy, greedy, unaffordable. Not extremely low Capital Gains tax rates. That's absolutely necessary, of course. And Welfare payments, at around $100 Billion per year, are unaffordable. But not military spending, at a total including all Departments of about $1 Trillion per year. Hmm. Who benefits from which flow of money? Or, more accurately, which flow of money benefits the Elites more?
Some patterns begin to emerge...
SWMNGUY....well said!!! look at all those down votes. must be employee of goldman sucks, imf, ecb and any banker near you. empathy...compassion? ? ? psychotic?
I upvoted for efficient use of "flim-flammery."
Hey, man, in America any noun can grow up to be a verb. Then, once properly verbed, it can become a noun again. Even made-up slang words.
At the risk of stating the most disgusting imaginable truth of this world, amongst a load of finance heads and whiners of all stripes, for a nation to prosper it must do labor, the more efficiently the better (for which it needs well directed capital investment into better means of production). But the nation must be laborious too. Greece fails both tests, with the result you'd expect. The work less, get more approach is a popular sales point of sociopathic demagogues of the socialist brand name. Sorry.
I don't think it's ever been in the cards for Greece to "Prosper," particular not considering the definition I think you're using. By the way, that would be my definition too; I do not disagree with you.
But there's a lot of distance between, on the right-hand end of the scale, "Prosperity," the traditional Greek sloppy mess somewhere in the middle of the scale, and the flaming dumpster at the left-hand end of the scale where Greece now resides. Greece has always been OK with "Work Less, Get Less," when presented with the alternatives.
Sure. They'll need their own currency if they ever want to get back to that.
Sadly the biggest crimes and attack on individual rights were made on behalf of "empathy and compassion for other fellow humans" . Ask politicians , that's their business secret.
What that treasonous aristocratic boot-locker Thatcher should have said, was: "The problem with Feudalism is that the Few get to live like gods at the expense of the Many."
Currency-as-Debt and the stock market side-bets called Derivatives, are being used to expand the Web of Debt over people, companies and entire nations.
It is being used to bring back Feudalism, but on a Global scale: Feudalism 2.0
But have they even really paid any payments - or any interest or fees?
It looks to me like they just keep rolling the principal, fees and interest into new loans -
Say I charge $10K on a credit card - max it out - I have no income to pay --
So I apply for a second card and use it to get cash to pay the minimum payment on the first card PLUS I also use the second card to buy food, travel, whatever --
When the second card is maxed out - I just get a 3RD credit card and use it to get cash to pay the minimum payments on card 1 &2 and also use it to buy other stuff I want - some for food and medicine - but I also take a vacation.
///////// repeat a few more times ////
This massive debt and fees and interest do not mean shit to the average Greek - because
JUST LIKE THE credit card guy in my example - they have not really paid ONE FUCKING Euro of it back.
At this point it was all gain and no pain --
How does it hurt to use borrowed money that you know you will never pay back to buy stuff you want?
How is the guy using multiple credit cards to pay the minimum balance and also keep charging more to buy stuff being HURT?
He is living on borrowed money that he knows he will never pay back and doesn't give a fuck about anything except where will he borrow the money to keep living.
That's an interesting point. I have no first-hand knowlege, of course. I believe they have. And that's where "Austerity" comes in. That's when the debt-farming becomes institutionalized.
But here's the really scary part. The additional borrowed money creates new debt, which in our system is "money" and has value. That new rolled-over debt has been sold already, and with the magic of derivatives has been sold many times over, at leverage. Who's holding that bag? (That's not a rhetorical question; I really don't know and I think the answer is crucial.)
So the "Troika" has an interesting in continuing the debt-farming, whether any payments are ever made or not. Just like the US Housing crisis; the debt and the market for it are far more lucrative than the lending and getting paid back ever was. US Housing lenders kept making absurd loans for the same reason the Troika keeps lending to Greece. The debt is more valuable than the money.
I totally hate the term - austerity - it is IMHO being misused.
What we really have - in Greece and many other places including the USA - is not austerity -
If you have been run a 10% budget deficit and now you only run a budget deficit of 7% - is that really austerity?
Maybe in some technical definition it could be - but it is not how I look at it.
You get use to spending your whole income + and extra $10K on the MasterCard and you get use to it - then MC cuts you off and you have to live on your salary only - so you feel all butt hurt that you are being cheated by the greedy bankers - because they will not keep giving you more loans so you can buy more stuff.
The rate of falling off the Cliff has been reduced.. Hooray.. we are saved..
"all-priced-in": Analogies between personal and State finance can help illuminate some things, but not all. If I fuck up my credit card accounts, I did it myself, and I bought the stuff for which I now have to pay. I may have already eaten it, or broken it, or lost it, but at least I had it when I bought it, and nobody bought it but me.
The money the Greek taxpayers are being asked/forced to pay now is the handling costs, fees, interest, and of course, principal, on a set of loans meant to facilitate balance-sheet shifts to paint the books to get Greece into the Euro. This brought Greece higher prices, and made every Greek all-in fully-invested in the Euro, like it or not. The benefits flowed to the corporate sector and the Elites, and only minimally to the everyday person. The Greek government did not borrow the money because they were bankrupt due to overly-generous pensions etc. They borrowed the money because they couldn't pay off the derivatives that went bust, that they had accepted in the Goldman Sachs scheme to get into the Euro.
Consider a retiree, who worked for a total compensation package that included a very generous pension, or at least an OK pension that started really early. Now they're going to be forced to take a huge retroactive pay cut over their entire career. They never earned enough cash to have any savings, and they weren't going to have to because all that would be taken care of. Now the deal is off, so the bankers in foreign countries don't have to lose a penny on what were, even at the time, outrageously speculative bets.
The Greeks would be just fine on the economy they had before they got into the Euro in the first place. Yes, their government would run a deficit, they'd have a very weak currency, they'd have pretty high interest on government bonds; all the traits we'd expect from an inefficient economy. But they wouldn't be in this mess. The mess wasn't caused by their inefficient economy; that's the Revisionist History meme being pushed by the Banksters. The mess was caused by the derivatives blowup in 2008. The derivatives only existed due to the scam pulled by the Greek Elites, working hand in hand with the banksters, to sneak into the Euro, skim the benefits off the the Elites only, and put the lower orders on the hook for all the risk. Well, unsurprisingly, the poor people who were poor now can't pay off the busted bets of the rich. No amount of reducing the income of the poor ("Austerity") is going to give them the wherewithal to pay off the debts of the rich.
My point was that the Greek people have not felt any pain YET because they have not really paid anything back.
As a result -
To say they are suffering because of the outstanding debt doesn't add up to me.
They have in fact been running large deficits for years - and that borrowed cash was used (at least in part) to pay salaries and pensions.
Do I feel bad for people that worked years and were promised a pension and then when they get old the money is not there to pay for it?
Sometimes maybe - but in many cases the people knew - or should have known that it was a house of cards -
As a citizen of the great state of Illinois, I can empathize with the decent hard working Greeks.
The broke-ass state of Illinois will probably have to declare bankruptcy because of an insanely generous pension sysytem which cannot be changed apparently except through an act of God Almighty delivered to us through a ressurected Moses.
Will our debts be forgiven? Fuck no!
Will the pensioners get/take a haircut? Fuck no!
Will the full faith and credit of the great state of Illinois be restored? Fuck yeah it will...right after they tax every hardworking man, woman, and child into oblivion. seeing as how WE are the basis of this 'full faith and credit' scam.
I know it's going to happen, and I've done all within my power as a citizen to burn the damned house of cards down. It isn't going to change the fact that I'm gonna get fisted...fisted but good in the end.
Tonight, I imagine there are a lot of decent hard working Greeks out there who are feeling the same way, and I pity their sorry asses.
I'm still waiting for Ghordius to return from his self-imposed exile on Elba.
"Mario Draghi has refused to be Greece’s lender of last resort. That can’t be, that’s impossible. There is no valid economic reason for such an action, it’s criminal behavior."
Sorry, but that's BS! The eurozone structure does not allow for monetizing a member state's deficit for good reasons. It's the same reason why the FED does not bail-out California or Illinois - even inside the US. The author avoided to discuss the feedback implications if the ECB had acted as a "lender of the last resort". Did Meijer ever hear about the game theoretical scenario of the "Tragedy of the Commons"? The eurozone is a monetary union of sovereign states. If the ECB would indeed act as a "lender of the last resort" in the case of Greece, then it would eventually force each other member state to act financially as profligate as the Greeks did in order to avoid footing the bill and being the loser in the end. That's the logic of the dynamics of the "Tragedy of the Commons" and, in particular, the dilemma of all currency unions of sovereign nation states. And that's exactly why none of these have ever worked in the long term.
Maybe even Ghordius has meanwhile come to this conclusion.
"...every story about Greece I see the same mindles Margaret Thatcher quote ("The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money.")."
You may ridicule her comment but she was absolutely right.
You need only look at past Greek political elites Papa and Venalzelos. They borrowed and spent till the cows came home, IE: "other peoples' money". Now it's run out and the day of reckoning has arrived. She said it because socialists in Britain always did the same thing and she warned the Brit voter. Gordoom Brown did it and Denis Healey before him did it. Socialism has a long history of taxing/borrowing and spending till the river runs dry. Then B-O-O-M.
Yes, and this behavior differs from governments organized under Fascism, Feudalism, various other forms of Monarchism, Democracy, Republicanism, etc., etc., in what way?
Was Ms. Thatcher so unaware of British History that she didn't know of the historical debts of English monarchs? No, of course whe wasn't. She was making a half-assed snotty joke, for which she richly deserves ridicule. And I note which expenditures she considered unsustainable and which indispensable. It's all, as others have commented, a matter of whose ox is being gored. And Ms. Thatcher was a perfectly reliable hand-servant of the 1%, throwing everyone else to the wolves with cute little quips.
"Yes, and this behavior differs from governments organized under Fascism, Feudalism, various other forms of Monarchism, Democracy, Republicanism, etc., etc., in what way?"
Please bear in mind that her comment was made about the British Labour Party, not the world in general and they do have a long track record of taxing/borrowing and spending more than the other lot.
As for historical English monarchs, they existed when left/right didn't even exist and mostly taxed to fund their wars and build their palaces.
I don't share your view on her allegiance, although she did attempt to please Ronnie by passing the anti-money laundering laws.
The biggest borrower and spenders were right wing: Karamanlis and Samaras.
There are not really any right wing people in Greek politics - it's been a lefty country for many years - nor most other countries for that matter. The party name means nothing any longer. Consider John McCain.
Was Gordon Brown singlehandedly responsible for the global fiancial crisis of 08 ? Thats what went B-O-O-M and thats what ruined the UK balance sheet, not socialism.
As for Margaret Thatcher, that bitch took away free glasses of milk for infants at school whilst enriching the very top of society, thats all you need to know about how 'right' she was
"on every story about Greece I see the same mindles Margaret Thatcher quote ("The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money."
Bollocks. I have said from the very moment they elected those commie cowards that they don't have the kahones to declare the debt odious and tell the Troika to go take a long walk off a short pier. And that it is precisely the reason Thatcher stated that they won't: other people's money. They want to keep living beyond their means and still have their debt forgiven. American's having no way out? What are you talking about? Credit card debt is unsecured and you can stop paying it any time you want if you are willing to face the consequences, which is no more credit. You don't need to preach to us about what's coming to America as many of us have been warning about it and preparing for it for upwards of 15 years; piling into silver, gold, preps, cash in the mattress, Bitcoin, and anything else these crooks don't control. Let social security disappear tomorrow and the federal government be declared bankrupt and disappear and we would shed nary a tear. Spending "other people's money" is exactly what put us into this mess in the first place, so speak for yourself.
You're right about the spinelessness of the Greek government. They need to repudiate the debt and walk away right now. Of course, that does probably mean the Army or some group suddenly flush with money of mysterious origin will stage a coup d'etat and the members of the current government will be rounded up and killed. That's what happened in Greece in 1967.
If you don't understand how all global capital extraction schemes are fundamentally the same, and the rhetorical wrappers aide only the extractors, that's fine. You will.
Maybe most Americans will be surprised, but people who have prepared won't, and that's what you don't understand. Do you think any Greeks who have been wisely prepping for years for this inevitable crapstorm, and have stacked gold, silver, cash, preps and Bitcoin give two whits what happens to that corrupt regime? Austerity only has meaning to people who are relying on promises of "other people's money". We are supposed to feel sorry for people who were warned a thousand times about building in the flood zone and then get swept away. That's what charity is for. If you want to give to the foolish that's up to you. But keep your socialist mitts off of my money TYVM. If you are relying on government promises to give you other people's money, you are a sucker and tantamount to a thief. When the day of reckoning comes, as it inevitably will, you will get what is coming to you: zero, zip, nada.
Easy, big fella. Nobody's coming after your stash personally. At least I'm not. I'm not worried about myself. I'm almost 49 years old; Watergate and the Vietnam War were pretty key to the formation of my attitudes and understandings about government. I've done what I can with what I have to prepare wisely for the future. And not just a collapse; my preps will stand me and mine in pretty good stead even if events confound me and turn out just peachy.
Let's take Social Securiity/Medicare/Medicaid. I'll never see a penny of it. I've been paying in my share since I was about 9; for the past 12 years, I've been forking over the full 15.3%. I'd love to have that money back; I'd make pretty good use of it toward all such considerations of retirement, healthcare, disability, etc. As I have to do anyway.
The point is, we instituted those programs because the state of poverty among the elderly, the infirm, and those who just can't get their shit together had become a national disgrace we just couldn't live with. If we cut them off without a cent, they wouldn't go away. It's a lot cheaper to pay for what they need than it is to keep them at arm's length. Maybe not as moralistically satisfying, but we all make compromises to get along.
I'm a bit perplexed at your implied insistence that the Greek Government has a greater obligation to the cabal of Central Banks and their collaborators than to their own people. I'm surprised you seem not to realize that US public debt has far more to do with military spending than Social Security or anything of actual tangible aid to human beings.
Surprised that the Banksters are coming for us? Me? Hah! I've been living it my entire life.
Sorry, but it is socialism...
Big gov't control and planning will take you the down the can every time.
Are you saying that the Goldman Sachs package to sneak Greece past Maastricht was also socialism? That's an interesting thought, that hadn't occured to me. But now our definition of "Socialism" is getting pretty darned stretchy. Are we of the mind that anything and everything that leads to running out of money is "Socialism?"
Man, it's hard to converse in American English now that Frank Luntz and his ilk have had their way with us for so long.
Predatory bankers invented socialism to put everyone in debt. Socialist math never worked but the private corporate central banks insisted, and keep funding the bottomless pits because they can debase the currency and use politicians to collect rents for them.
1. You could've saved a lot of typing by using the often used around ZH phrase, debt slavery.
2. Do you reference the popular notion of socialism being of and for the people or the educated understanding that socialism is a means of wealth consolidation and social control? If the first then yes, you are correct. If the second then no, people on ZH aren't falling for it.
There's a huge problem with political vocabulary in America. It's not accidental, either. The words we need to use have been intentionally corrupted, and used to mean so many things they mean almost nothing. The intent is to prevent us from being able to discuss politics. If we can't even understand each other, we certainly can't dissent. That's why I blather on so much; I want people to understand what I mean, and the words themselves mean almost nothing anymore.
I intentionally didn't say "debt slavery" because I wanted to be specific that the debt in question has to do not with the "socialism" of Greece's pensions etc. That debt didn't cause this crisis. The debt that did cause this crisis came about from the very predictable collapse of the house of cards set up by the former Greek government, with plenty of Bankster aid and comfort, to defraud their way into the Euro because their Elites wanted it. Now they're all locked into the Euro, so getting out is going to be much, much more painful than never having gotten in would have been.
What I see us here falling for is the Bankster-perpetuated theme that everything they do is justified and the only people who suffer deserve it because they're lazy and greedy and irresponsible. And you know, they might even be all those things, but that doesn't justify predatory behavior. And they're doing it to us, right here and now, but we still have a lot to extract so they haven't had to get into the more, um, persuasive methods yet.
And again you obfuscate. If the pensions and the bloated government payrolls aren't the problem then they would have walked away the day after the election. But they didn't. Did Iceland see a coup after they jailed the banksters? If you would bother to do the math, you'd see that there are too many Greeks feeding at the public trough, and no one, not even Tsipras wants to face it. Is Peurto Rico also an innocent victim? Where 80% of the population either works for the government or is on welfare? Socialism is the problem and I will give you a clear definition. Using the power of government to take the wealth of one person and give it to another.
Greece has a working age population of around 7 million and over 700,000 government employees; not counting workers in state-owned enterprises. A quarter of government spending goes to paying government employees.
Social Justice is the Root of All Debt
I see I've unfortunately brought up the matter of King Charles' Head.
I suppose you deny the centrality of military spending to US fiscal woes? In that case you are innumerate.
Political vocabulary and the abuse of language is key. Noam Chomsky deciphers this stuff in great depth as many are probably aware. To a european whats especially interesting looking at american discourse is the perversion of the term socialism. Its always been a smear word in america and presumably this is due to distaste for organised labour and connotations with communism but the way americans use pejoratives like leftard and libtard and assume all the evils of the world are due to 'socialism' shows a truly succesfull linguistic warping within american political discourse.
Now , bring on the downvotes for being a socialist,leftard,libtard, commie, USSA etc etc yada yada
.
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"WAAAAHHHHHH!!!! You Germans are MEAN for making me take all that money from you!
And, and NOW you even expect me to PAY IT BACK! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
Yes, you ARE that stupid.
Go right ahead and demand repayment from those who have nothing left; there's a brilliant strategy. This is the same line of crap banksters always use when the legitimacy of their debt-farming operations are called into question. For some weird reason, some people think their loyalty to the banksters will be rewarded. Good luck with that. When it all comes down, there will be plenty of rope to go around, and people won't be so picky about who's the bankster and who's just their little buddy.
Your tilting at windmills with well reasoned arguments and appeals to moral awareness is honorable but you should accept that only small units of social organization (Dunbar's number) and direct barter for goods and services can be expected to work across the evolved intellectual capacity of the human population (in fact, without Darwinian feedback this too becomes untenable). At present, the super-states are operating far outside expected parameters of social cohesion and beneficial hierarchies and the populations are lost in the terrain vague of unperceived slavery and faceless predation.
One of the banks who was put into administration in the Icelandic banking crash was Kaupthing.
They invested in some US subprime debt, and when it became clear how worthless it was then they used a Luxembourg based Kaupthing sister company called Black Sunshine to reinvent this as a precious asset.
The guys who did this are now in prison for market manipulation where they will remain for several years.
I suspect that creative accounting is something that is far more common than people realize, and one of many weaknesses in the banking system.
http://www.icenews.is/2010/05/10/more-iceland-banking-arrests-likely/
Double post
Probably the best post I have read on the greek crisis. Greece always had petty corruption and tax avoidance at all levels of society yet they got along with their relaxed way of life until they joined the euro and the credit crunch sucked all the liquidity of the system. Now corruption and tax avoidance are to be the preserve of the wealthy and corporations and its austerity,blame and neverending debt for the rest.
This is the paradigm thats coming to us all
Do what McDonalds did and just stop reporting the numbers!
. ". . . it would have cost Europe’s taxpayers many billions of euros"
Clawbacks & incarceration. Problem solved.
Fact: The Euro is stronger than the USD
Europe Economy is stronger than US economy.
A Euro demise is just the wishful thinking by some ignorant sheeple,
dreaming of endless QE hopeum delusions...
to fix their bailout addicted lifestyle ....
No ? make my day !
WR;)
What you are in abject denial of is the fact that we are going into a GLOBAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE.
The World Economies, ALL OF THEM, have already fallen into the abyss from which there is no escape.
The European Union is not facing any structural problems whatsoever. They, like the United States, are facing a PREDICAMENT.
Problems may have solutions whereas PREDICAMENT have OUTCOMES, dismal at best and fatal at worst.
When an airplane falls out of the sky at 10,000 Meters the passengers are not facing any problem whatsoever. In fact they have no more problems at all. They are all going to die.
It does not matter how strong one is over the others. The consequences are assured that every single passenger on that aircraft has seconds to live.
And if you believe that a Euro demise is wishful thinking then what do you think about wishing for the collapse of the ENTIRE GLOBAL ECONOMY?
You must understand that is not what I am just wishing for, but I am watching that event unfold before my very eyes.
I AM JOYFUL ABOUT IT. I AM CELEBRATING IT. I cannot be any HAPPIER about this.
The whole entire GLOBAL ECONOMY has been built upon a foundation of FRAUD AND CORRUPTION.
The day that FRAUD and CORRUPTION DIES is a DAY OF JUBILEE, a DAY OF CELEBRATION.
And the REASON that YOU find it so DISTURBING is a direct result of your OWN PERSONAL FRAUDULENT AND CORRUPTED CHARACTER which you have EXPOSED here on the pages of Zerohedge for ALL TO READ. You are INVESTED in the continuance. Your treasure is where your heart is. The Holy Bible is quite clear on that, SATAN.
Take a good look in the mirror SATAN.
So let's argue about positions of Deck Chairs on the Titanic...
Your words are those only a nihilistically deranged Leftist could love.
Au contraire....
I refuse to place my faith, trust and confidence into a system based upon fraud and corruption.
I am a CHRISTIAN and NIHILISM is DIAMTRICALLY OPPOSED to that.
Here is a good definition of Nihilism...so that you may understand it...
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history.
Well I am loyal to the principles set out by the Lord Jesus Christ, who was killed on Golgotha, buried for three days and three nights, and was resurrected in the flesh as a glorious form, in His Glory.
I rejected the philosophy of Nietzsche when I first was exposed to him, while reading a book called "Beyond Good and Evil".
There is NO HOPE in this World. For those that place their hope in the Kingdom of the World there will be sadness, disillusionment, suffering and despair.
My hope resides into the Kingdom of Heaven, where Jesus sits at the right hand of God Almighty upon his throne.
Anytime the forces of evil, the forces of fraud and corruption, are defeated, I will take great joy and my heart will sing hymns to the Father that the adversary has been defeated..
I value the TRUTH, JUSTICE and LOVE above all.
I believe that man is inherently flawed and corrupt and that the only chance for redemption is through the Blood of the Lamb of God.
Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who gives discernment, and guidance BY THE GRACE OF GOD, and not by our works (so that we wrongfully boast), shall we commune with our Father who may forgive us our sins and give mercy unto us that we may not experience His wrath on the Day of Judgment.
My words are celebrated by the angels in Heaven above and my Christian Brethern in the World but not of the World.
If there is to be death and suffering as the result of Global Economic Collapse then it has been brought about by Lucifer himself...not by my works and not by my words.
It is far better to suffer here, or even die and lose this life, rather than to perish eternally by the loss of your soul to Satan's minions by allowing the Fraud and Corruption to continue.
Let Truth and Justice REIGN ON ETERNAL. God shall prevail. It has been foreseen and written within the pages of the Holy Scriptures.
If you do not value God Almighty then all is for naught!!!
TallTom,
Satin hasn't taken control yet... We ALL get to choose him as our savior. Then we get the seven years of tribulation. The new world order has a choice for us after it all collapses. Good luck in your choices.
LOL...
I choose the Kingdom of God.
Fuck the Luciferians. Fuck the NWO. Fuck the NSA.
I will be singing hymns to the Father on the way to the Guillotines in the FEMA Camp.
But what must happen will happen.
I have already chosen. But it is far more important that God Almighty chooses me. For I may be called to sing out against the Fraud and Corruption. But I may nt be chosen to be with Him in paradise. So I will not rebuke my calling under any set of circumstances as Jesus Christ is Lord.
The forces of Truth and Justice will ultimately prevail and I do not fear it whatsoever.
i got your back tom. justice will prevail, and i humble myself to gods purpose in its pursuit. i know you'll do the same in return. no melodrama, just good will among brothers.