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Thoughts On Greece ... From Zimbabwe
Late last month, after Greek PM Alexis Tsipras’ announcement that a referendum would be held on the terms of the country’s bailout, we noted that sadly, the supermarkets in Greece were beginning to resemble those of Venezuela as Greeks, anticipating an impending shortage of imported goods, stocked up on food staples:
Many of the visuals and stories that emanate from Venezuela are to be expected, and are generally in line with the transformation of any normal nation to a socialist utopia. None however, are more poignant than the images of supermarkets and grocery stores that have been ransacked empty as a result of the collapsing currency, devastated supply chains and soaring inflation (supermarkets which have since imposed fingerprint scanners in what is no longer capital but food controls). We are sad to announce that what was once a Venezuela trademark has now transitioned to a country that until recently was among the most developed nations in the west: Greece. In clear rejection of Tsipras' plea for calm, the Greek population stormed (now empty) ATMs, grocery stores and gas stations as they scrambled to obtain, or convert, paper currency into tangible products.
Now, with a depositor bail-in looking more likely by the day, and with redenomination risk rising materially, Greece is drawing unflattering comparisons to another country which knows the depths of economic despair all too well: Zimbabwe.
Presented below is a letter from writer, blogger, and Zimbabwean Cathy Buckle.
* * *
Dear Family and Friends,
Seeing pictures of hundreds of people crowded around banks in Greece desperate to withdraw their own money from the banks has sent cold but sympathetic shivers down our spines here in Zimbabwe. Greek banks closed for a week, cash withdrawals from ATM’s restricted to a limited amount per person per day is all too familiar to Zimbabweans. We know exactly how this feels: the fear, anger, despair and disbelief that goes with watching your life savings evaporating and knowing there’s nothing you can do to save it. How well we remember standing for hours at the banks and then only being able to draw out enough money to buy a single bar of soap.
Zimbabwe has the dubious honour of being able to say “been there, done that” to almost every bad governance and economic crisis you can think of. It’s been six years since Zimbabwe discontinued using the Zim dollar and began trading in the US dollar and a few other international currencies but for the last few weeks we’ve been doing all the sums again, counting the zeroes and seeing if there’s anything we can salvage from our lost life savings.
When an announcement came in June that the old Zimbabwe dollar was to be demonetized there was a frenzy of rumours that this meant a new Zimbabwe dollar was going to be introduced. A return to the Zim dollar, old or new, is still probably the biggest fear of all Zimbabweans. As bad as things are for people now, at least we have an internationally accepted currency in our pockets and not a worthless currency which isn’t backed by gold reserves, which can be printed at will by an unaccountable government.
People outside of Zimbabwe have never really understood how we woke up one morning in February 2009 and found that all our bank balances had been reduced to zero. Regardless of whether we had millions, billions, trillions, septillions or even octillions of Zim dollars in our accounts, it had all gone. Suddenly our bank balance was just ZERO and we were told to reactivate our accounts by depositing US dollars. Exactly the same thing applied to the huge piles of Zim dollars we had in boxes and bags in our homes : it had all become valueless paper, eroded to almost nothing by super-hyper-inflation and then suddenly worth ZERO.
It’s taken six years for the government of Zimbabwe to put a value on the money that turned to ZERO in 2009 and frankly for most people, who had become paupers through hyperinflation anyway, it’s a pointless exercise. The Central bank announced that bank accounts with balances up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars will be paid a flat amount of five US dollars; yes, just five US dollars. Bank balances of over 175 quadrillion will be paid at what we are told is the UN exchange rate of US$1 for every 35 quadrillion Zim dollars. (That’s US$1 ; Z$1,000,000,000,000,000 ) Cash customers can apparently walk into banks with their old Zim dollar notes and will, with “no questions asked,” get US$1 for Zim$250 trillion. For most of us the cost of the taking old notes to the bank will be more than the US cents we get back in our pockets.
There is a “demonetization window” from the 15th June to the 30th September to exchange every 35 quadrillion Zim dollars we have into one US dollar and after that the Zim dollar will be officially dead, no longer legal tender.
The Central Bank announcement says : “Demonitization is not compensation for the loss of value of the Zim $ due to hyper inflation, it is an exchange process.” Compensation is a dirty word in Zimbabwe’s governance system and it doesn’t apply at any level from farm seizures to compulsory 51% indigenization shareholdings to loss of life savings and pensions in hyper inflation.
Looking at the conversion chart and seeing that I can get 0.04 US cents for every 10 trillion dollar note that I have, leaves my head swirling as lines of zeroes mount up on the page. Is that a trillion, quadrillion or octillion I ask myself? I decide I’d rather keep the old bank notes in the cupboard so that I never forget what my government reduced me to after they’d stolen my farm and declared my Title Deeds null and void. So that I’d never forget what bad governance could do to a nation of ten million people or how many thousands died needlessly while trying to survive Zimbabwe’s collapse.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.
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Yes, but where did Ebola go?
watching your life savings evaporating and knowing there’s nothing you can do to save it
Yo, Cathy. WTF? Ever hear of tangible assets? Presumably those people with cash in the bank have the means to purchase hard assets and dispose of the fraudulent fiat prior to account foreclosure. It didn't creep up that fast that you didn't have time.
People outside of Zimbabwe have never really understood how we woke up one morning in February 2009 and found that all our bank balances had been reduced to zero
Oh really?
You clearly didn't read the letter. They took her farm too.
Yes, I saw that and I read the letter doc. She was sympathizing with "bank closures and ATM lines", then at the end complained about poor government management with respect to her property.
The letter, as I understand it, is a view from Zim about Greek bank closures.
Or, am I wrong? Is this about Greek farm confiscation?
Pffft.
There are still a few whites left in Zimbabwe?
In 2000, when Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe began to target whites who farmed the land, there were about 4,000 whites owning tobacco, maize, sugar, wheat, and other profitable agricultural holdings. Now there are fewer than 150 white farmers.
In 2000, they employed about 400,000 Africans, and supplied a significant percentage of Zimbabwe’s export earnings. Zimbabwe’s Virginia tobacco crop was world famous and, before Mugabe sent young thugs and supposed war veterans to usurp white-owned holdings, the nation was comparatively wealthy. It could feed all of its citizens.
Six years later the World Food Program began feeding 10 or more percent of all Zimbabweans, which it still does. The 400,000 African farm laborers lost their jobs, a major contributor to Zimbabwe’s 80 percent unemployment rate. And nearly all of the 4,000 white farmers were forced off their farms in successive pogroms. Those white families who were not killed, fled the country and are now settled in Australia, New Zealand, Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya, and other more hospitable nations.
At the same time, a quarter of Zimbabwe's population has fled to South Africa, Botswana, and other neighbors.
It is in this very weakened state, when Zimbabwe needs all of the internal and external support it can muster, that Mr. Mugabe has decided to threaten the remaining whites who still grow cash crops in his country – with expulsion.
In a racist speech on June 30, 2014, he blamed whites for Zimbabwe’s ills and opined that they had no right to own land. All the country’s farms rightfully belong to Africans, Mugabe said.
Whites could continue to own businesses and live in towns, the president decided, but they could no longer stay on the land – even if they employed Africans or contributed significantly to his nation’s GDP.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2014/0707/Zimbabwe-...
This is one of the reasons that I question the intelligence of the writer: the thug "leading" the country was systematicly ruining it at every turn, but you kept your local bank account open and kept your funds in the local currency. Oooookaaaaayyyy. And this made sene how? There is ignorance and there is gross stupidty. In this case we have both cojoined at the hip.
It's probably alot like here, where we start out saying,"they'd never try to pull that". And in the end, after a supreme court descision upholding the obviously uncsonstitutional law, you realize that it "really can happen here".
Huh, it was already too late for Rhodesia, and it is probably too late for us as well.
I quite concur. Each day a step closer to hell, but each step still comfortable enough you aren't motivated to do anything to help yourself. And once you are standing at the edge of the cliff you find a bayonet urging you one step further...which is one of the many reasons I do not in the slightest trust ANYONE with power, and one of the reasons any sane person will have moved a portion of their assets into something completely out of the reach of said power.
There is only one who is "completely out of the reach of said power."
That is Jesus Christ.
"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." - Revelation 4:11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsiDukXIeVY
Same as Humpty Dumpty, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Gigantic thumbs down on your bullshit.
You forgot The Tooth Fairy!
"In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit." - Jude 1:18,19
"Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires." - 2 Peter 3:3
I'd like to pose a question.
WHO told you that there is 'no God'?
Would that possibly have been the grade-school teachers, or the MSM, or the 'enlightened' college professors?
To SOME, 'mammon' (money and goods) is a god (and people seek this god on various financial websites). it's funny, because after you are done living, and no longer know anything, all that shit you thought was important will stay on the Earth (or; IN the Earth, should you decide to be buried in your Cadillac with those coins and boats and houses).
THOSE that TAUGHT YOU that there IS NO GOD do, indeed, believe in THEIRS. HOWEVER, I would be careful when finding out which 'god' they worship, so as to NOT choose that side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJR30CQpPdQ
You're welcome to share your sentiments on metaphysics as long as you include all of the religions of this world. No fair holding out on any others as this would create a disparate impact. Tsorvarisch!
Rhodesia used to be the breadbasket of the continent, now they can't feed themselves. Doesn't bode well for the US.
If a viable and producing farm is not a tangible asset I'm not sure I could name one.
What are we talking about here Bitcoin or something?
"Kill da white land owna, den giv der land to da black dat don no how to farm it... Den prints da monies"
3 steps to success by King Mugabe
Nothing you can do about it?
Yeah there is: When its down to survival - them or you, you process them as criminals, and execute them.
Go back in history as far as you want to go; there comes a point that Ruling Elite finally squeeze the masses until the masses explode. "Kill the bastards" is just another phrase for "nothing left to lose."
Even the dumb ass cops and non-flag officers finally get it; their dozens versus our thousands makes their minds focus on exactly why are they going to die for the rich assholes and rich-bitch women.
So face down the thugs wearing badges, then rip the criminals out of their board rooms, limos, and last resort hiding rooms.
Scrub the planet clean, and buy another couple centuries of relatively clean; then repeat when the lesson is forgotten.
-30-
New Zealand and places like the Cook Islands seem to be where they think they'll be safe.
They wont be... for long.
NO, NO, NO!
They'll be 'SAFE'.
(Until they're NOT)
If you have the opportunity, read the book (or watch the original 1950's movie) entitled 'When Worlds Collide'. Fascinating and prescient prediction of what is possibly coming. The 'top scientists' chose a place that was geologically STABLE; in order to construct their one-off space-ship. Fracking N.Z. and the Cook Islands are bumps of the pox that is geologically unstable volcanic activity (the tail end of the so-called 'ring of fire').
'THEY' only choose these places because they are 'remote' and most people there don't know enough to lynch them while the local conditions of calm are still present.
ACTUALLY, these 'enlightened ones' aren't very intelligent.
I bought a timeshare in Zimbabwe for $14.99US and my brother's girlfriend works in the basement making $70 an hour in her spare time.
Life is good.
you bought at the peak. should have waited an extra 3 months....
I bought too early.
Paid 34.7 Octillion Zimbucks, on a variable rate loan.
Damn!
AWW...
I was waiting for the link! 123-Zimbabimbowhores.net, or something!
Ebola seemed like just a distraction. My teacher in Preply at http://preply.com/en/italian-by-skype told me during our skype lessons that people are being misled by the media about the government.
currency which isn’t backed by gold reserves
Not sure what currency she thinks is backed by gold.
The real irony in all this is if those Zims just wait a few months, they will surely be able to get more than one dollar for those notes...
(but not more value)
The real irony is they won't get more dollars, but still lose the value. Mugabe is not going to compensate them for USD inflation, the rate is $1. Bent over twice in a row.
All of Europe looks like "Zimbabwe" right now.
A noce bottle of Finlandia does sound good though.
We have to wait for another Sunday....the new deadline is Sunday again...can we get a live feed in a Super market as the shelves empty or an ATM as it throws out the last Euro...I can watch Bourbon Street 24/7...why cant I see greece crater..implode
I make all contributions to politicians in Zim Dollars.
There are still white people living in Zimbabwe?
Who knew?
Still Jews in Poland.
Looks like a banker/MSM attempt to scare the Greeks away from printing Drachmas.
There is nothing wrong with competing currencies. The market will determine the value of each. If Greece has produces highly valued goods and forces their customers to pay in Drachma, then there will be an exchange rate from foreign currencies to drachma.
Or the Greeks could get ahead of the curve and
use bitcoin instead... (!) Imagine how that would
go over at the ECB/ FED/ IMF/ BIS... LOL
Yo Bopeep - " If Greece has produces highly valued goods and forces their customers to pay in Drachma..." .... there is no IF. If there was an IF, then Greece would not be in the spot they are today.
Certainly they will go back to Drachmas, unless Obama starts smellin' like Janet Yellen and decides to go full retard with a bail out of Greece with USDs. (This is not so far fetched ... Greece beng a NATO ally and all... calling Victoria Nuland.).
But with their currency the Drachma... its inital value will be extremely low. Inflation for oil, gas, automobiles, machinery ... all the materials required of a modern nation will be 5 or 10 times the cost in Drachma than in Euro.
Now name a product that Greece produces competitively wiht the rest of the world. Tourism ? Do you think that Germans will travel there?
If you want to see where this is headed, read Revelations.
This 3rd horse is let loose and coming strong.
Interesting, is there a way to contact you directly to discuss further? Skype? Email? I'm curious and don't think people here in the comments are too interested in a lengthy discussion on this
I disagree.
The Third Horse has come some time ago, and is ever-present now. I'd be looking at the SEALS that have been opened. How about that 'Wormwood' thing going on in the Pacific?
"As bad as things are for people now, at least we have an internationally accepted currency in our pockets and not a worthless currency which isn’t backed by gold reserves, which can be printed at will by an unaccountable government."
BWAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!! That is the funniest shit I have EVER read!!!
I read that sentence, paused, and had to reread it. "She couldn't have said....there's no way....oh my...she did."
I feel bad for the dupes that were sold the line of bull that the US Dollar is any better than the Zim dollar. The only thing we have going for us is that nobody wants to be the one that places the final straw on our back.
The things the US has are:
1. Reserve currency
2. Large military
'Large military'
The Chinese PLA can easily field 100,000,000 men (by ITSELF). How many can the CONUS put together?
'Reserve currency'
The CHINESE COSCO can easily prove ownership of between 8,000 and 12,000 TONS of gold (in RESERVE), but the CONUS cannot and WILL NOT reveal its TRUE HOLDINGS (and has refused to for decades). Therefore it is assumed to be ZERO in RESERVES (to back this fiat CURRENCY).
Of course, I only name ONE nation as a rebuttal to your 'CHOSEN' nation argument, fool. I wonder what region holds all those OIL RESERVES that the petrodollar is valued in; and how THEY feel about the CONUS right about now, and how many of them are counted...
DAMN! For someone who claims to be 'logical' you are really uninformed, and your statements are HIGHLY ILLOGICAL!
A vacation in Haifa or Tel Aviv (while you still can) might be the best alternative to posting your bullshit lies, here. It COULD be your last chance to 'get away from it all'.
Right? However, it is really a new thing, this standard of knowedge about banking.
Whether it is the interwebs or critical mass literacy or magic fariy dust from Mars, SOMETHING has changed in the world: If you still think bankers and politicians act in your interests and not against them, you are stupid.
Not misguided, not "of another political view". just bone stupid. A sucker, a rube, a degnerate imbicile.
That's new.
The bankers feel this, as well. They know, and it worries them. For years they have all lived in the happy and very cosy world of privacy generated by mass ignorance. That privacy is being stripped away at an alarming rate. Everyone talks about the survielence state, but the people who are really terrified of modern technology are the elites themselves.
Think about those blackwater guys who were filmed by school kids on their mobile phones in Ukraine, as they travelled from airport to hotel on their first day in theatre. they hadn't dropped off their bags, and the whole world knew where they were sleeping.
Back in the day, it would be decades before anyone knew you were there, and even then it would be denied. Now everyone sees everything as it happens, and this trend is accelerating.
There was an HSBC banker living in my village when I lived in Switzerland. He would lament the dreadful reputation of bankers, and the unfairness of the tide of hate. I mourned with him, but suggested that bankers ought not dissolve themselves completely of liability. i suggested that feudal institutions had undermined the rule of law by corrupting systems of representation. He got angry and said that lawyers were no better than bankers. I agreed, but pointed out that the mob need lawyers to properly organize the hanging of the bankers. Just as the bankers needed lawyers to organize the rape of democracy and the rule of law.
When the lawyers finally turn on the bankers, it is going to get real. And that day is coming, because history only moves in one direction, and when honour becomes a commodity we are all worthless, and our children learn to forget our names.
The true suffering and pain has only just begun for Greeks.
The Europeans on the other hand are treading a fine line between beating Greeks into submission and seeing them default totally.
As with all other measures of the last 5 years, nothing of meaningful substance will be achieved other than to kick the can a little further towards the edge of the abyss.
The common factor between Zimbabwe and Europe is that they both suffer from megalomaniacal leaders who impose insanity upon their populace.
We are approaching the time when the unit of currency in a number of countries will be the internationally recognized one sheet of toilet paper.
I totally agree. My teacher tells me during our skype lessons in Preply that Greece may not have hope for a lot of years to come.
@nope-1004. There we no tangible assets for these people to buy. Nothing of any value. An old car was worth ten times what it would be worth in the USA. The country had been looted of tanglibles since the 1970s when everyone realised it was on the skids. Pointless buying real estate as it could be whimsically grabbed by the govt. Eveyone had tried everything. Even those with all the answers like you.
So What? Eat Simple and Local and STARVE the BEAST.
“there’s nothing you can do to save it.”
Which is why you have to save yourself and your family before "Just Us" start saving themselves.
There's only one way to be saved:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16
No, greece is the opposite of zimbabwe, they don't have enought cash. it will be zimbabwe if they go to the drachma.
Cathy Buckle. Probably one who hated Ian Smith.
When it was RHODESIA it was the BREAD BASKET of Africa.
They grew some of the finest tea in the world. The Rhodesian Ridgeback, a friend of mine, from Texas, had moved to Rhodesia and bred them. He bred an outstanding example of the breed. They were a bit oversize in terms of breed standards but for guard duty that is a + not a -. When it was clear that the White-hating Communists, the TERRS as they called them were going to take over the reins of government he went to SA taking his dogs with him. At that point I lost contact with my friend. That was many years ago.
Then the Whites trying to placate America and England, and I might add that the American government chose to buy chromium which is VITAL to jet engine manufacture from the SOVIET UNION, rather than Rhodesia, which was a fierce anti-Communist state and a true FRIEND to America and the West, had a black Bishop Abel Muzorewa run as leader and he won the election, but the USA and the UK were not satisfied they wanted Joshua Nkomo, who really looked like a gorilla, and I hope not to insult the gorilla kind, or the African version of Obama, ROBERT MUGABE. And so America and the UK got what they wanted because the government of South Africa, which was HEAVILY INFILTRATED by the Tribe, sold them out. And we all know how that worked out for South Africa. Ian Smith was a REAL man, a wonderful man.
To really understand what happened, rather what was LOOMING on the horizon I can only recommend an Englishman who lived in Joburg, Anthony Jacob's WHITE MAN, THINK AGAIN! published in Johannesburg in 1965.
Why you should read it, and the day will come when it is BANNED, is to understand your future.
He talks about the USA in his book, now it was, of course, a different world, yet the lessons are true because they are eternal verities.
"The North is learning that only the fear of immediate and effective punishment will ever persuade the Negro to obey the law and refrain from violence and that it is precisely because he is being treated as an equal human being that his resultant contempt for the Whites has become so dangerous."
What a shock the Jewish owned FB & Youtube took down the videos so here to the rescue, once again, is LIVELEAK:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e1a_1436230994 Saturday July 4, 2015
Do you think the mainstream media networks would have shown this video if the victim was a black guy surrounded by Whites? HMMM? But since the victim is White and the perps are NOT the Media Bosses HIDE it from you.
As I said the the day before when posting this:
"FB & Youtube are notorious for removing videos that show people of color in other than MSM portrayals"
Well that didn't take them long, now did it?
HORROR! Black Youths Mock and Laugh at Unconscious and Bloody White Victim After July 4th Beatdown (VIDEO)
The USA is speedily going down the path of what was Rhodesia and South Africa. Don't let it happen...
Not a victim here. I'll go down fighting if I go down at all. If that was a family member of mine laying on the pavement I'd make sure he was joined by several ghetto goblins. I have no tolerance for that bullshit. Time to take off the gloves people...
When I was kid, we used to travel a lot to Italy, Spain and Greece.
Those trip where unforgetable. But what I also remember was all the dirt roads, old house, villages witha single bar in the center and nothing else, you name it.
These countries changed a lot in the last 20 to 25 years.
All on credit.
So a return isn’t that weird for older people with a clue.
Greeks, Italians ans Spanish people use to come to the north to work in the mines, so they know all to well how to work hard. They’re not lazy.
It’s just the American disease of cheap credit and spending more then you earn, and that made sense in the 80’s because everybody thought the world would end in a nuclear war, terminator was a perfect image of the thinking of the 80’s.
But that spending "because we’re all going to die" became "spending because it’s my god giving right!"
And having a company now meant get rich quick or die trying and roll over everybody in your way was not the thinking in the 80’s at all.
The only way to save the system is to destroy it first.
And that’s why every fucker who thinks: "everybody is screwed but I’ll be fine because..." will someday wake up with a serious hangover.
What history shows us is:
1. When a economic crisis happens, the smart people leave
2. Those who prosper after the crisis are those who’returned with their money and bouht shit up on the cheap.
It’s actually like a defence trick, stay mobile. Nobody ever prospers in a fixed deefensive position.
And that’s also why in America for example, most preppers are doomed.
You can’t prepare if you’re not willing to leave it all behind.
And that’s where the gold and silver part comes in. It’s the money in the belt.
I agreee with you 100%. Particularly the need to be fleet of foot and not be tied down to an anchor, when the tide starts rolling in with vigor. Kind of a career limiting move, that.
Give Greece some QE... print some Euros! Unless Merkel wants a leftist revolution in southern Europe.
There is one big difference.
Rhodesians did not live beyond their means or demand to live on the efforts of others. On the contrary, they were able to feed themselves, and live fairly normal lives even under sanctions and the Bush War. They merely wanted government in Africa kept in the hands of those who had made western civilization possible there, to keep the fruits of their labour, and to be left in peace to rule themselves as they thought best. Their only real crime was being an embarrassment to western elites, who turned a blind eye to their being outgunned by African terrorists bankrolled by the Soviet Union, and refused to help them.
For that, their country was handed over to Robert Mugabe and systematically looted by him and his tribesmen. The hyperinflation and hunger only came after the savages had run out of the white people's money.
I wonder why the people that lost everything haven't ripped Mugabe to shreds?
You have to wonder how so many people get caught with their pants down, having their "life savings" in the bank. Banks are not a safe place to keep your currency. Period. They even write it down now, but people either can't read or don't bother to read the account agreements. You don't put your "money" in a bank anymore. They call it an "investment" in the bank. You can lose your "investment". Sorry.
The Zimbawe dollar is the new reserve currecy!
Zimbabwe is being harassed by world powers because they (rightly) kicked out the (W) colonizers who earlier took away their lands & resources at very cheap low prices and made them as hand to mouth living laborers.
All that Zimbabwe needs is good education & technical know how, then they can do better.
They need not look up to evil west now. The eastern nations (BRICS) have all they need.
------
All the nations tormented & troubled by exploiting evil west,
leave UN, come to BRICS , we will give you rest , respite, hope & respect
which you, who are equally human, deserve so well.