Is Greece about to be stripped of its (financial) sovereignty?

Perhaps its time to consider increasing rent on the US Military bases and NSA outposts.

Slumberjack wrote:

Perhaps its time to consider increasing rent on the US Military bases and NSA outposts.

The Yanks prolly suckered them into a 99 year lease at rock-bottom rates, like they've wangled out of our stooges for massive supplies of oil and gas, hydroelectric power, timber and mineral rights in various parts of Bananada over the years.

pffft...the Olympic committee and corporations, and athletes who won medals, should be paying them profit royalities for the tax payer funded extravanganza  and monetary windfall they got, which has put Greece and its people, into this situation.

Could Olympics Undo the Global Economy?

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/02/17/OlympicEconomy/

"Greece's crushing debt problems can be traced back to the 2004 games, which cost the smallest nation to ever host the Olympics a whopping $15 Billion--double what was originally predicted.."

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks are on strike to protest at the imposition of austerity measures to save the economy.

Greece's airspace will be closed to all flights, trains and ferries will stand idle, and archaeological sites shut.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8533240.stm

Ken Burch wrote:

What the EU is doing is a betrayal of democracy.  It should not be possible for outside forces to deny the people of a particular country the government and the policies that they voted for.

Problem is that Greece has also tied itself to the EU (presumably with the consent of its people, who never opposed it over the past 20 years or so). In doing so it gave up some sovereignty over its financial policy.

Sure, what's happening now (in terms of the loss of sovereignty) goes far beyond what Greece may have originally signed up for, but it must have been aware that with a common currency and common market, it would never be permitted to just do whatever it wants (at least without first leaving the EU and the Euro zone).

I'd be all for cracking down on tax cheat.  But that's not what's likely to happen here. 

Is there any way the current Greek government could indict the ministers of the previous government for fraud, given that they deliberately hid the level of debt they had incurred?  How about an audit discovering where the funds went?  And assets recovery from any institutions that received funds they shouldn't have received(kickbacks, subsidies, hidden cost overruns on infrastructure)?

It would be great if those things were done, yet it seems likely that the Greek and international political elite will insist on making the poor and public workers "tighten their belts" first(even if the poor already have those belts cinched tightly around their vertebra).

Michael Hudson recently said that Latvia is just as much the neoliberalized basket case that Greece is. So how could Latvia(and Greece, too,  I would imagine) possibly deal with corrupt leadership dropping it down a debt hole and exposing the country to neoliberalized asset stripping and debt peonage? [url=http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/10/latvia-the-insanity-continues.ht... Auerback[/url] said that Latvia's problems could be solved over a weekend:

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The sad part about this whole episode is that Latvia’s problems could be fixed over a weekend. Here’s what I would do:

Drop the peg to the euro, which functionally acts like an gold standard external constraint.
Don’t answer the phone when the foreign creditors call the government.
Have the banks declared insolvent, convert their external debt to equity, and then have them reopen that way on Monday with full deposit insurance guaranteed in the now free floating local currency.
Enact a 0% rate policy (use fiscal policy to regulate demand going forward).
Offer a local currency minimum wage job that includes healthcare to anyone willing and able to work as was done in Argentina after the Kirchner regime repudiated the IMF’s toxic package of debt repayment.

Full employment and economic prosperity would come in no time at all.

George Victor wrote:

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"Papaconstantinou is looking for clearer EU support to help escape a vicious circle of rising borrowing costs, harsher austerity measures, prolonged recession and diminished revenue.

Having owned up to a massive under reporting of its deficit and promised swift corrective action, Greece's negotiating leverage with its EU partners is mostly negative.

It can dramatize the risks for the entire euro zone if its debt woes get worse, it can point to the danger of social unrest if the EU forces too harsh austerity on Greeks, and it can threaten to go to the International Monetary Fund."

 

Demand is going to drive up the price of Hemlock, for sure. Just hope we hear more about the role of U.S. banks in this.

The Globe Report on Business lead on Feb.26: "Role of banks eyed in Greek debt crisis".  "The vast and unruly credit-default-swap market is facing renewed scrutiny as U.S.authorities probe the role Golman Sachs and other Wall Street banks may be playing in pushing Greece toward financial collapse...U.S.Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke expressed concern yesterday that U.S.banks and other investors may be compounding the debt pressures facing some European countries by using swaps to wager the countries will default on their debts."

And on page 8 of the business report ..."Heavy weight hedge funds are teaming up in big bets against the euro, in an effort to'break' the currency that some say resembles George Soros's move in 1992 to break the British pound."  The page 8 head reads: Hedge funds bet against euro: Currency wagers signal that big financial players spot a rare opportunity to 'make a lot of money'."

A rare opportunity knocks.   What were your bets for the Euro on opening this thread, Sven? 

Greece should sell islands to keep bankruptcy at bay, say German MPs

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Greece must consider a fire sale of land, historic buildings and art works to cut its debts, two rightwing German politicians said today in a newspaper interview that is bound to exacerbate tensions between Athens and Berlin.

Alongside austerity measures such as cuts to public sector pay and a freeze on state pensions, why not sell a few uninhabited islands or ancient artefacts, asked Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and Frank Schaeffler, a finance policy expert in the Free Democrats.

The Acropolis and the Parthenon could also fall under the hammer, along with temptingly idyllic Aegean islands still under state ownership, in a rush to keep bankruptcy at bay.

"Those in insolvency have to sell everything they have to pay their creditors," Schlarmann told Bild newspaper. "Greece owns buildings, companies and uninhabited islands, which could all be used for debt redemption."

 

If Gordon Brown wanted to help, he could put the Elgin Marbles up for sale on ebay and send Athens the proceeds.

Britain auctioning the sculptural elements from the Partnenon frieze? That might encourage a display of Greek nationalism, such as from the likes of that character in Las Vegas? But no, Lord Elgin was wrong to remove the marbles in the way he did and they are to be returned to Greece and England specifically should pay damages for the theft of culture. Since they are indeed priceless, England agreeing to erase Greece's current debt load on that basis could work out amicably.

the 'Tobin' tax is interesting isn't it! Actually brought a Canadian politician's surname to mind when I first read it!

If Greeks paid taxes rather than bribes, there might be less of a problem.

 

The Greeks paid an average of €1,355 ($1,830) in bribes last year for public services such as speeding up the issue of driver's licenses and construction permits, getting admitted to public hospitals or manipulating tax returns, according to a new study by Transparency International, the Berlin-based global corruption watchdog.

 

bailout unpopular in Germany: click on the cover image (statue) :

http://www.focus.de/magazin/archiv/jahrgang_2010/ausgabe_8

the verb umbringen means to "kill", so I understand they feel Greece is killing the euro, with Portugal, Spain et cie to follow;

I can imagine all the German barroom/beer hall discussion about the incompetent southern Europeans they have to bail out of their own messes  ...

 

 

 

Back onto the cultural side of it, just musing, I can well imagine 'austerity' being a cultural predilection quite germane to German society, but whereas with Greeks something more like dyonisian comes to mind? Wondering if Greeks might be better served 'heading backward' so to speak, in instituting applying certain cultural terms that make better sense to them, rather than forward and further into such alienly tentacled ways of financial culture?... Maybe they are quite happy with achieving their ends by what others may term 'bribing' (I know that in Japan this is referred to as showing one's appreciation, and on a socieatl level is absolutely expected as the social norm where warranted)? For all I know that might actually be their way? If they are able to communicate openly about a figure of Euros 1,355 per capita annually, I already find that to be a whole bunch more transparent than how the international banking cartels conduct their business!

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No blame to be attached to the sharks from the American hedge funds that suckered them into deals that were bound to bankrupt them.  

 

"Suckered" them?

 

Greeks are intelligent enough to avoid being "suckered"... aren't they? Or what are you saying? Are they gullible or something?

And now they're "cheats", too!

Greece is a sovereign nation who were providing banking services thousands of years before there was a United States.  You make it sound like the nation of Greece is some semi-literate farmboy who got tricked by the fast-talking stranger in the shiny suit.

I somehow doubt the Greeks feel that their situation is a result of someone more clever than them "tricking" them.

Snert wrote:

And now they're "cheats", too!

Greece is a sovereign nation who were providing banking services thousands of years before there was a United States.  You make it sound like the nation of Greece is some semi-literate farmboy who got tricked by the fast-talking stranger in the shiny suit.

I somehow doubt the Greeks feel that their situation is a result of someone more clever than them "tricking" them.

Learn to read and stop making up what people actually post you are being disingenuous and pedantic.  I said something about Wall street everything about Greece are your slanderous words not mine.

[url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,druck-676634,00.html]How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt[/url]

Same old story. Conservatives get in and charge up national debt big time with nothing to show for it. Then stick socialists with the mess to deal with.

Slumberjack wrote:

Snert wrote:

You make it sound like the nation of Greece is some semi-literate farmboy who got tricked by the fast-talking stranger in the shiny suit. I somehow doubt the Greeks feel that their situation is a result of someone more clever than them "tricking" them.

In that case, a hypothetical war crimes tribunal of the future would be within its rights to indict the entire USian population, at least those who side with the warmongering demagogue or rethuglican regimes at election time, since they are clever enough to know whether or not the information being provided to them is the truth, and therefore their decisions at the ballot box are made in the clear light of day. They knowingly facilitate genocide against other peoples, but call it something else to cover their tracks.

Honestly Snert, do you actually believe the citizens of Greece, victims themselves of the same crooked lies and swindle as the ever increasing numbers of homeless in America, are ultimately responsible for what is happening to them?

Snert may be young, and believes that credit was always this "easy" to obtain, that "bait and switch" was always a legal route to transactions in the finance industry, that taxes can be avoided/lowered forever, and that only governments  proposing spending but not taxing are on the side of the people, and should be voted for.  I thought that Papandreous was above that, but then the MSM tells us little of Europe, except in moments like this.

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Honestly Snert, do you actually believe the citizens of Greece, victims themselves of the same crooked lies and swindle as the ever increasing numbers of homeless in America, are ultimately responsible for what is happening to them?

 

Do I blame each and every one of them, personally? No. But ultimately, they got the government they voted for.

 

So did we, for that matter. I don't love much of what our current government does, but whatever they do or don't do, they do with our mandate. If Stephen Harper makes a (further) right mess of things, whether or not I or you or your neighbour wanted him to, or knew he would, it's our mess. It's not somebody else's mess just because we're not engaged enough in our own governance to have prevented it. If Stephen Harper blows all the public money on magic beans then Canadians will be tightening our belts, paying some more taxes, and hopefully taking our complaints to the polls the first chance we get. Please tell me that in such a scenario you wouldn't be whining that it's everyone else's fault except Canada.

 

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Markaris: Corruption permeates all of Greek society. If the only way to get swift treatment in a Greek hospital is to bribe someone, it is really a problem of the state. Even the respectable citizen has given up hope and believes that evading taxes is justifiable. As he sees it, that is the only way to get his money back. From this arises a society in which everyone shares in the guilt.

 

Wow. Sounds like those citizens did everything they possibly could to prevent this. Well, except paying taxes. But what possible difference could that have made?

They're the cradle of democracy.  They shouldn't need anyone's help forming a legitimate government.

 

That's what I find funny about all of this.  They're not a so-called "developing country", they're not ruled by a dictator, they're not a former colony, they're not war-ravaged and they haven't suffered any recent catastrophic hurricanes or earthquakes or levee breaches that I'm aware of. 

I agree they likely do not need anyone's help either forming or running their own democracy! But Snert, realize that the behind the scenes manipulations of global finance forces is not a laughing matter, since it should be understood as an act of foreign aggression to undermine Greek sovereignty, the opening question to this topic thread puts it clearly enough.

The fact that Greece easily staved off the crises as manufactured by outsiders to try to get Greece to 'sell' its islands + that they also know there is interest in bond purchases equal to at least three times what they just raised, actually makes the  'finance powers that be' in the 'big' EU countries nervous, why would France even feel a need to make a political statement that the EU should not let Greece go through a debt  default situation right after it became clear that Greece has the available resources to avoid this? This is the real story here and, think in terms of the likelihood that a prime motivation to destabilize Greece may have even more to do with the financial elite's interests in destabilizing the Balkans...

also, a relevant aside here: Remember the big French bank who made headlines because of one of it's trading officers having supposedly lost billions right around the time that Bear Sterns went under? Whatever became of all of that? In hindsight that 'incident-development' is beginning to look incredibly suspicious,  not as readily 'believably'=apparently obvious from the outside as is the role played by Goldman Sachs in Greece's recent finance problem, but surely is more sensational and is being recollected now, as the 9/11 cover up is blowing open, as more likely probably a finance industry false flag operation?!