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Reports Of Secret Drachma Plots Leave Tsipras Facing Fresh Crisis
On Friday, we brought you the shocking story of the rebellion that never was in Greece.
According to FT, Former Greek Energy Minister and maverick among mavericks Panayotis Lafazanis convened a "secret" meeting at the Oscar Hotel in Athens on July 14 at which he attempted to convince Syriza hardliners (including, in FT’s words, "supporters of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez [and some] old-fashioned communists") to storm the Greek mint, seize the country’s currency reserves, and, if necessary, arrest central bank governor Yannis Stournaras.
(Lafazanis)
Obviously, the plan was never implemented, but if the story is even partly true it betrays the degree to which Greece teetered on the edge of social upheaval and even civil war in the days that followed PM Alexis Tsipras’ decision to concede to creditors’ demands and abandon not only Syriza’s election mandate but the very referendum outcome he had himself campaigned for just days prior.
Now that Tsipras has succeeded in compelling Greek lawmakers to cede the country’s sovereignty to Brussels in exchange for the right to use the euro, tales of unrealized redenomination plots have come out of the woodwork so to speak, and now, in addition to the scheme described above and rumors that a return to the drachma was nearly financed by a loan from the Kremlin, we get a glimpse at yet another plan hatched behind the scenes, this time courtesy of a recorded conference call between Yanis Varoufakis and "members of international hedge funds."
Here’s the story from Kathimerini:
Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has claimed that he was authorized by Alexis Tsipras last December to look into a parallel payment system that would operate using wiretapped tax registration numbers (AFMs) and could eventually work as a parallel banking system, Kathimerini has learned.
In a teleconference call with members of international hedge funds that was allegedly coordinated by former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Varoufakis claimed to have been given the okay by Tsipras last December – a month before general elections that brought SYRIZA to power – to plan a payment system that could operate in euros but which could be changed into drachmas "overnight" if necessary, Kathimerini understands.
Varoufakis worked with a small team to prepare the plan, which would have required a staff of 1,000 to implement but did not get the final go-ahead from Tsipras to proceed, he said.
The call took place on July 16, more than a week after Varoufakis left his post as finance minister.
The plan would involve hijacking the AFMs of taxpayers and corporations by hacking into General Secretariat of Public Revenues website, Varoufakis told his interlocutors. This would allow the creation of a parallel system that could operate if banks were forced to close and which would allow payments to be made between third parties and the state and could eventually lead to the creation of a parallel banking system, he said.
As the general secretariat is a system that is monitored by Greece’s creditors and is therefore difficult to access, Varoufakis said he assigned a childhood friend of his, an information technology expert who became a professor at Columbia University, to hack into the system. A week after Varouakis took over the ministry, he said the friend telephoned him and said he had “control” of the hardware but not the software "which belongs to the troika."
Apparently, Varoufakis planned to take control of the computers first, then hack into the ministry’s software, steal the code, and design the parallel payments system. Here are excerpts from the call, again from Kathimerini, quoting Varoufakis:
"The prime minister before he became PM, before we won the election in January, had given me the green light to come up with a Plan B. And I assembled a very able team, a small team as it had to be because that had to be kept completely under wraps for obvious reasons. And we had been working since the end of December or beginning of January on creating one.
"What we planned to do was the following. There is the website of the tax office like there is in Britain and everywhere else, where citizens, taxpayers go into the website they use their tax file number and they transfer through web banking monies from the bank account to their tax file number so as to make payments on VAT, income tax and so on and so forth.
“We were planning to create, surreptitiously, reserve accounts attached to every tax file number, without telling anyone, just to have this system in a function under wraps. And, at the touch of a button, to allow us to give PIN numbers to tax file number holders, to taxpayers.
"That would have created a parallel banking system while the banks were shut as a result of the ECBs aggressive action to deny us some breathing space.
"This was very well developed and I think it would have made a very big difference because very soon we could have extended it, using apps on smartphones and it could become a functioning parallel system and of course this would be euro denominated but at the drop of a hat it could be converted to a new drachma.
"But let me tell you - and this is quite a fascinating story - what difficulties I faced. The General Secretary of Public Revenues within my ministry is controlled fully and directly by the troika. It was not under control of my ministry, of me as minister, it was controlled by Brussels.
Ok, so problem number one: The general secretary of information systems on the other hand was controlled by me, as minister. I appointed a good friend of mine, a childhood friend of mine who had become professor of IT at Columbia University in the States and so on. I put him in because I trusted him to develop this.
"At some point, a week or so after we moved into the ministry, he calls me up and says to me: 'You know what? I control the machines, I control the hardware but I do not control the software. The software belongs to the troika controlled General Secretary of Public Revenues. What do I do?'
"So we decided to hack into my ministry’s own software program in order to be able break it up to just copy just to copy the code of the tax systems website onto a large computer in his office so that he can work out how to design and implement this parallel payment system.
"And we were ready to get the green light from the PM when the banks closed in order to move into the General Secretariat of Public Revenues, which is not controlled by us but is controlled by Brussels, and to plug this laptop in and to energize the system.
In short, Varoufakis claims Tsipras had pre-approved the creation of secret accounts for every tax filer (which, knowing Greece, might have left Varoufakis short on accounts for quite a few citizens). Greeks would be made aware of the accounts' existence in the event the banking system ceased to function altogether, and Athens would effectively facilitate payments through the new system in defiance of the EMU. Clearly, this would not have been well received by Brussels - especially the bit about hacking their software - but ultimately, because the new system would be entirely controlled by Varoufakis' finance ministry, it could be converted to the drachma immediately.
Kathimerini goes on the quote Varoufakis as saying that German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble intended to use Grexit as leverage to force France into supporting a system that ceded fiscal decision making to Brussels (which would of course mean giving Berlin more say over EMU countries' finances):
"Schaeuble has a plan. The way he described it to me is very simple. He believes that the eurozone is not sustainable as it is. He believes there has to be some fiscal transfers, some degree of political union. He believes that for that political union to work without federation, without the legitimacy that a properly elected federal parliament can render, can bestow upon an executive, it will have to be done in a very disciplinary way. And he said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient bargaining, sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French that which Paris has been resisting. And what is that? A degree of transfer of budget making powers from Paris to Brussels."
The new revelations raise serious concerns for Alexis Tsipras. The deep divisions within Syriza are by now well publicized, but reports of covert plans to establish parallel banking systems using tax filers' IDs and the idea that elements within the ruling party plotted to seize billions in currency reserves and take control of the central bank have left some lawmakers demanding answers. Here's Reuters:
The center-right New Democracy party and the centrist To Potami and the Socialist Pasok parties, which all backed Tsipras in parliamentary votes on the bailout this month, demanded a response to the reports.
"The revelations that are coming out raise a major political, economic and moral issue for the government which needs in-depth examination," it said in a statement.
"Is it true that a designated team in the finance ministry had undertaken work on a backup plan? Is it true they had planned to raid the national Mint and that they prepared for a parallel currency by hacking the tax registration numbers of the taxpayers?"
Tsipras thus finds himself in an extraordinarily difficult spot. Passing two sets of prior bailout actions through parliament cost him dearly on the political front as more than 30 Syriza MPs defected on both votes. This means he'll be forced to rely on the support of opposition lawmakers to govern going forward or at least until he can call for elections and get a "clean start" after the third troika program is formally in place.
If Syriza's political opponents come to believe that their efforts to back Tsipras on the way to keeping Greece in the euro are being subverted in secret by members of Tsipras' own party, their support could dry up quickly leaving the PM with no support from either side of the aisle.
Given all of this, it's easy to see why many analysts and commentators still belive that Grexit - and everything that comes with it both for Greece and for the EMU - is still the most likely outcome.
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putin regime paid troll "credited" sources are: Russia Today, Sputnik, RTR, Rossija24, LifeNews (RUS), etc. - why? Because they are directly financed by putin regime.
Other sources are "discredited" - at least for putin regime trolls and puppies like maxi and stoogie :D
Bark harder! :D
P.S. They are so pathetic puppies that named even Russian Federation Federal Statistics Service as "discredited source" :D Shit happens.. with putin puppies and data.
you are a fool... most news and media in Russia are owned by zio's just like in USA. in fact there are more of them in Russia... they are the oligarchs...
man what a dumb ass....
I offered to write for the Moscow Times... they rejected me cause my stories were fair and honest... while they were just some zio foreign owned paper....
you got some learnin to do if you are going come to ZH and sprout your crap.
Copypasta = FailTroll
troll
Perhaps you could now give us all a summary of America's debt problems - I realise they are not as large and complex and criminally managed as Russia's (\sarc\), but I would be interested anyway to see how they compare.
Ignore this dude.. he is a latvian troublemaker... FSB is on their way to have a little chat with him, hopefully in some remote forest.
It's all about the actors exit plan, stage-left.
Euro is king of course, but how else would it be? You sign up and the ECB is your boss!
Tsipras wants an exit, they all do - so create a plausable scene that most will swallow.
Let's stop the pretence, there is no democracy, and why should there be?
After all, we are all just plebs.
Rasputin avatar .... priceless.
Guaranteed to infalme certain segments here which can only be described as pompous rabble.
Do they all? The Greek populace seem to want the Euro and the EU, but not austerity. The referendum was on austerity only, not a Grexit.
Hold the phone!!!!!!!! I just heard that Greece made some kind of miltary deal with Israel. WTF??
I posted that here but it stunned very few out of their trance.
https://dublinsmickdotcom.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/greeces-syriza-throws...
Greece’s Syriza Throws In With Israel-Change You Can Believe In!There it is!!
What better way to provide cover for Israel now operating the internal spy/covert system within Greece. And to now take the lead in killing opposition.
Further, this allows Israel to funnel more money, quicker from the people of greece to Israel.
The jmafia has show itself to be active.
Holy Shit.
Reading this article and then the comments...
Is this Glue Sniffing Sunday and nobody told me?
your mom told you.
remember?
she was laying out your panties for you...
His blistering attacks are always sure to dissect any argument with point by point analysis. Oh Wait!
He seems to have graduated from the usual take your meds and trailer park routine however.
Shovelhead
That article was posted for people with normal shaped heads, not pointed heads. Carry on
With the correct tutor I suspect you could be taught to be an idiot in couple of years.
By the way new search engine filters out main scream news in favor of alternative news.
http://goodgopher.com/SearchResults.asp?query=gcmaf+nagalase+aluminum&pr...
Scum bags
Socialists and communists plotting to sieze and steal.
Of course no one is prosecuted for conspiracy.
Some democracy you got there Greece!
You can't steal what is already yours.
There is no way the EU and Germany would let this crisis go without extracting a freedome or two.
Fiscal freedome sounds about right.
It was probably the plan all along, since they knew they could not extract fiscal union earlier. It would take a crisis to get it.
GS probably proposed Greece as the perfect vehicle to carry the crisis!!!
the same bullshit is going to go on in Greece until its interrupted and halted by some sort of war - gauranteed
“alternate banking system… drachma or euro…” and, of course, saving monthly checks (especially pensions) of Greek criminal and useless classes.
Ah, so many issues to discuss… and no one comes close to the real issue: validity of governmental debt.
This should always be the first question; for, if the debt is invalid, no civilized forum of redress will allow its collection: alleged debtors (that is, taxpayers), in fact, will not be regarded as debtors.
As I’ve noted repeatedly, and elsewhere, the particular issue here (and one that all nations must eventually face) is the validity of debt supposedly payable by each nation’s taxpayers involved; that is, the rightless class of each nation.
A debt is valid only if those purportedly liable for it 1) participated, personally or by representative, in its negotiation; 2) had full understanding of its terms; 3) received benefits equal to the amount loaned; 4) were not misled or subjected to undue influence relative to such debt; and 5) the creditor has adequate evidence of all these requirements (and maybe more).
If A lends B money and both agree to make C liable for such debt, it is not a valid debt; no matter who A, B or C is.
You may think that, where there is a legislature, members of such are automatically representatives of taxpayers. And this would be wrong; for, who determines whether there is a principle-agent relationship? Answer: the principle; if he denies such representation, there is the end of representative status. It’s really quite simple. Of course, to deny is one thing… to make it real is quite another.
After questions of validity are settled, the next step is to make those, who ruined lives and collected plunder, accountable for what they did with such debt policy.
These are issues Greeks (and all other nations) must ponder… but won’t; for, they have no knowledge of REAL facts of what American Founders did.
The situation in question requires much more than merely “pondering” particular issues. It requires action on a most profound (nation-building) level.
And, it can’t be done in a week.
How long will it take?
The English early declared their right/power of redress with the Magna Charta. It took them 400 years and oceans of blood before they developed reasonably effective methods to redress grievances.
That is, before a nation can merely declare this power, it must first be introduced to it (One and Two).
Watch the Greek nation… then watch the American nation. You’ll witness the price of ignorance.
"participated, personally or by representative, in its negotiation;"
And that's the point that discredits the whole notion of collective debt in the first place. One cannot participate directly in negotiations by elected "representatives". It's always been a lie, and republican democracy of that sort is always a sham.
Nobody really believes they owe on government debt. It's just a matter of waiting for government to fail and print itself to irrelevance.
Pussies - the lot of them.
Shovelhead makes youtube propaganda video in the Ukraine. LOL Vlade as the last Tsar!
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/1-minute-propaganda-clip-reveals-i...
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qLEcw_ia9tE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is child's play compared to what has been done by The FED, the EU, the IMF, the ECB, and the rest of the banking cabal.
They trade, rape, and dilute entire nations at will, all in the name of 'democracy'. How fitting it is that the birthplace of democracy is where the
Fabian Socialists' dream begins to unravel into a nightmare.
Lawmakers...demanding answers?
Bwahahahhaa!
The finance ministry is incapable of collecting most taxes due. Yet somehow Tsipras and Varoufakis thought they could use that decrepit tax system to create an effective parallel banking system. Even if they digitally transferred money from bank accounts to tax-based accounts, people still would want cash. The scheme doesn't seem to address that dwindling liquidity.
I agree that the Greeks needed a Plan B. But this grandiose scheme was another fail of ivory tower game theorists. A better plan would have been to take the state assets supposedly worth 50 billion euros and use it as initial collateral for drachmas.
Regarding the question of who will play Varoufakis in the imminent movie: John Malkovich.
What a Naive Ignorant this Yanis turned out to be ...
The idea he could take over a "Software" that makes the interface for the ECB transactional system is ludicrous !
Worst yet is the typical Mistake of calling an old friend that is also a university professor and likelly never made a single usable Software in his entire life, like Yanis a complete Ignorant University professor, most likelly never developed a single line of code on Banking transactional systems in his life and asked him to turn on his laptop and make the banks transaction on Dracmas based on the TxX id of Greeks is simply ludicrous.
This story for those who know a little bit of programming and how these systems work is a complete Joke .. the most funny part is when the so called professor "Expert" on IT and told Yanis we have control of the hardware but not the Software LMAO !!
Oh boy ... simply ludicrous.
Yanis Varoufakis should have go along with the promised once made to make the currency Bitcoins in Greece ... I would argue he should let the market decide on What currency to use and specially allow the use of Gold, Silver and Bitcoins ...
Make the banks serve as Currency exchanges ... if any capital was left ...
Sad about the naivity og Varoufakis and specially the total ignorance of Tsipras ...
Typical of people that have never done anything in their lives ...
So Varoufakis was ready to move on it, but Tsipras and Co chickened out.
Varoufakis said he was voted down on the intention to nationalise banks and go Drachma, and here we see the plan was reasonably well advanced, though technically inadequate I would think, but a start at least. And I am sure Russia would have provided the technical expertise, having just established an alternate Swift as it were.
NOW for sure there we will see the rise of Troika-Trolls again to ensure Varoufakis doesn't attain any credibility. Greece must be left without hope or anybody to turn to.
Tsipras has stubbed his toe at every turn. He should either resign or kill himself. Simple really.
Rumors are flying like bats at twilight.
But what's this?
A silhoutte of the little corporal revealing to the EU who's really driving the troika.
FREE TIBET GREECE!