[dissident]

Greece will not pay IMF loan due on Tuesday: government official

Greece will not pay a 1.6 billon euro loan installment due to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday, a Greek government official confirmed on Monday, highlighting the depth of the financial crisis facing the country.

Despite the shock of a default by a euro zone country, Greece's fate is likely to remain unchanged until after a snap referendum on July 5 on bailout terms presented by creditors in exchange for aid.

Euro zone policymakers have warned Greeks that a "no" vote against the aid package would be tantamount to a rejection of engagement with creditors and point toward a euro zone exit.

link

"Aid" from creditors who need to be engaged. The creditors took a chance, cry me a river. Instead of demanding their piece at all costs they should have to wait until things settle down to see any money. The EU is not a real country, but has business interests associated with a few dictating to the rest. This model cannot last.

[Cid_Yama]

This is what that's about:

Greek officials said they are seriously considering suing the European Central Bank itself for freezing emergency liquidity for the Greek banks at €89bn. It turned down a request from Athens for a €6bn increase to keep pace with deposit flight.

This effectively pulls the plug on the Greek banking system. Syriza claims that this is a prima facie breach of the ECB’s legal duty to maintain financial stability. “How can they justify setting off a run on the Greek banking system?” said one official.

As long as Greece is still a member of the EU there are certain obligations of the EU to it's member. These legally-bound obligations of the EU to it's member states must be fulfilled. Some states or institutions cannot arbitrarily decide to withhold or suspend those obligations to the member state.

The withholding or suspension of certain obligations as leverage against a member state is illegal.

It's not that Greece wants to remain in the EU, but that as long as it is still a member it is entitled to the full rights and privileges of an EU member.

Also the threat of expulsion to sway voters on the Greek referendum is nonsense as there is no provision within the EU charter for some members to expel another. There is no legal way for them to do it. There is also no provision to force them to stay within the Union.

So Greece can stay as long as she likes and remain entitled to full rights and privileges, and walk away when SHE chooses. Since all decisions by the EU require consensus, a unanimous vote, they can't even change it to allow for expulsion without a Greek yes vote.

So Greece has them over a barrel. Greece can remain as long as she likes, legally entitled to all rights and privileges, and make life hell for the EU by scuttling any votes it tries to make.

As Stiglitz said:

By providing financial aid, Russia and China would then be able to undermine Greece’s allegiance to the E.U. and its foreign policy decisions, creating what Stiglitz calls “an enemy within.” There is no way to predict the long-term consequences of such a break in the E.U.’s political cohesion, but it would likely be more costly than offering Greece a break on its loans, he says.

The complexities of international relations are always 'wheels within wheels'. It's never as simple as it appears on the surface, and there is always something that will come out of left field that hasn't been anticipated or provided for. Stiglitz was almost prescient to have seen this potential game changer.

Perhaps Tsipras wants to exact a little vengeance first, or just maybe, staying and throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of the EU was part of his deal with Russia. Like the members of the UN Security Council on UN decisions, Greece has a VETO on EU decisions. Hard to buy that kind of power.

Makes sense then that China would pop up with the carrot on a stick.

China's premier offers Europe investment, wants Greece in euro zone

China used an EU summit on Monday to promise to invest in the bloc's new infrastructure fund, call for a global climate deal and warn it did not want to see Greece leave the euro zone.

Li struck a positive note at the meeting with the new heads of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and of the European Council of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, saying China was ready to invest in the European Union's new 315 billion-euro infrastructure fund.

Premier Li Keqiang, in Europe on a day when financial markets took fright that Greece might leave the euro, said China and the world wanted to see Athens remain in the currency area and that China would continue to buy euro zone debt.

Following his first summit with top EU officials, Li declined to say whether Beijing could come to Greece's aid with loans, but commented: "China is ready to play a constructive role. We would like to see Greece staying in the euro zone and we urge the international creditors to reach an agreement with the Greek side," he said. "It is in China's interest."

link

I'll bet it is. They are tag teaming the EU. Beware of Greeks, or in this case China, bearing gifts. Their Trojan Horse is already within the gates, and they want it to stay there. I think the EU is about to be as impotent as the UN.

[Quinny]

[StarvingLion]

Greece is trying hard to start WWIII except nobody is qualified to be cannonfodder.

[SeaGypsy]

That is hilarious & momentous Cid. Big Grandad PRC shows up making grown up sounding speeches & offering a lifeline, the great power shift at play in it's most subtle form, yet even rhetorically still powerful.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y320-U151 using Tapatalk

[davep]

This Vanity Fair article from a few years back is long but stunning http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010.

It begs the question as to how the Greeks were let in the Euro. It must have been for ideological reasons rather than pragmatic reasons, as no due diligence of note appeared to have been done. Even the Goldman Sachs thing was after they joined up.

[dissident]

This Vanity Fair article from a few years back is long but stunning http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010.

It begs the question as to how the Greeks were let in the Euro. It must have been for ideological reasons rather than pragmatic reasons, as no due diligence of note appeared to have been done. Even the Goldman Sachs thing was after they joined up.

More blame the victim BS.

http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/en/Eni ... bb016e6c48

The real reasons are:

1) recapitalization of banks
2) excessive military spending
3) loss of tax revenues due to illicit capital outflows

Not how many hours someone has to spend dealing with bureaucracy. It is ludicrous for people to advocate austerity when it is the fact that the GDP of Greece has shrunk so much that it could no longer handle its original debt and was forced to accumulate more after 2008. Austerity will shrink the GDP yet more in a vicious spiral of decline forcing more austerity. Clearly austerity can only be applied during good times (pre-2008) when the debt was generated. This applies to the USA, Canada, UK, France and Germany and not just to "corrupt" Greece.

All I see is cheesy caricatures being passed off as sober assessment. No details, just "my friend told me how horribly corrupt Greece is" so it is the fault of Greek workers and pensioners and not banksters and corrupt corporations that offshore their profits. Give it a rest.

[Plantagenet]

Greece has threatened to seek a court injunction against the EU institutions ...to halt asphyxiation of the banking system

????

It was the Greek government that ordered all Greek banks to close.

[onlooker]

Really great post Dissident spelling out the real situation and how this exploitative system has not and is not working for the ordinary people of much of the world.
Some want to blame Greeks, hey look at the greedy Banks and corporations who bestride the planet seeking to exploit workers and countries for the sake of their huge profit making demands. Just look at what this great country of the US is now and what is was, that is all you need to know , the corrupt system bought down the wealthiest country in history. Banks, elites of countries, politicians, corporations, investers all trying to enrich themselves at the expense of the mass of people around the world and of the planet.

[Cid_Yama]

Back in 2010 nearly everyone was asleep to that, onlooker. But a good number have woke up. And once they wake up they don't go back to sleep. They wake up others.

This is the elite parasites worst nightmare. Their greatest weakness is their numbers compared to the rest. They require operating in the dark to survive. They require ignorance and distraction from everyone else.

Usually the only way to remove a leech is to burn them off. This won't be any different.

[onlooker]

Cid, despite our bleak one way ticket to destruction, I for one and I know you too would love to see the masses truly awake and demanding that some heads roll. Throughout history the elites have done as they will without consequences for them. Well maybe this time will be different. They sure do deserve what ever is coming to them for being the catalyst to this nightmare of capitalism, greed, war mongering, planet destroying that has been happening here on Earth. Hopefully, the masses can now focus their grievances exactly where it belongs - squarely on the high up elites of the world.

[Cid_Yama]

It begs the question as to how the Greeks were let in the Euro.

If you look at it for what it is, a Ponzi scheme, it's obvious. They need marks to feed on. And the way the con is structured, they have to be less developed and have a weaker economy for it to work. You happily give them as much as they want to borrow, and then force them to impoverish and enslave their own people in perpetuity.

Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland all were ripe for the picking. You see, once they had harvested all the fruit that was easy to reach (the third world), and got as many Eastern European nations they could to join, the only way to survive was to start feeding on the weaker among them.

So, also add all the eastern European nations that haven't been members long enough to be totally sucked dry, and you've got quite a pyramid with Germany at the top, followed by France and Britain (who knew enough of the con not to adopt the Euro). Also note, Switzerland is NOT a member and retains their own currency (which currently is much stronger than they would like).



'Debt' is the 'Chains that bind us'

The grasp and grab for resources, including and most obviously oil and gas, has been going on since the end of World War II in its current state. It was spoken about openly when the media was more constrained and less widely available. Churchill spoke eloquently about how debt was a far better weapon against rowdy natives than the Gestapo or the state-capitalists in the Soviet Union’s KGB.

Debt would allow “great men” to reach their destiny without insufferable wretches, the public, getting in their way. Institutionalize debt internationally and it would also allow great nations to rule quietly and with Adam Smith’s “silent hand.” “Or else we should be forever trapped within our mansions.” said Churchill.

Adam Smith however would today be classed as a left wing economist, the Joseph Stiglitz of his age. He wrote, also eloquently, about how markets needed justice in order to function, otherwise the merchant class would spew despair and misery around the world. He was correct.

link

[onlooker]

A little aside, the US has similarly sucked dry Latin America. Their method though was a bit more direct. See "Confessions of a Hit Man" a book which explains how covertly certain people CIA and others have been sent to Central and South America with offers to the governments and elites. They say open up your country and resources to us and we will make it worth your while code for bribery. Now if those ruling class people declined this offer then more blunt terminology was used. They would say okay but you know nasty things happen to those who do not cooperate. So the carrot and the stick. If those elites still refused cooperation then "jackals" a euphemism for assassins were sent. Of course a final recourse was invasion ie. Iraq. By the way is some cases assassins were home grown via the "School of the Americas" a school teaching how to kill and torture to governments of Central and South America.

[StarvingLion]

A little aside, the US has similarly sucked dry Latin America. Their method though was a bit more direct. See "Confessions of a Hit Man" a book which explains how covertly certain people CIA and others have been sent to Central and South America with offers to the governments and elites. They say open up your country and resources to us and we will make it worth your while code for bribery. Now if those ruling class people declined this offer then more blunt terminology was used. They would say okay but you know nasty things happen to those who do not cooperate. So the carrot and the stick. If those elites still refused cooperation then "jackals" a euphemism for assassins were sent. Of course a final recourse was invasion ie. Iraq. By the way is some cases assassins were home grown via the "School of the Americas" a school teaching how to kill and torture to governments of Central and South America.

You know what the crim bankers hate? They hate people competent in nuclear reactor design. If the little people would all become physicists capable of making an a-bomb and rocket technology,... that scares them. Look at stupid Ukraine, ...got rid of the nukes and got invaded. Much better yet is inertial confinement fusion for the development of miniature h-bombs that don't require a fissile trigger. The crims are working on that at the NIF and the new one in france.
Did you know one of the lead design guys for NIF was stabbed 10 times in the gut for whistleblowing that that thing wouldn't work: search for Investigators in the brutal slaying of Lee Scott Hall -- who found a flaw in a billion-dollar project.

But no, the sheeple hate nuclear because then they won't be "safe"...lol. I guess they need an even bigger debt yoke (solar) around their braindead heads to figure out something is wrong here.

[davep]

All I see is cheesy caricatures being passed off as sober assessment. No details, just "my friend told me how horribly corrupt Greece is" so it is the fault of Greek workers and pensioners and not banksters and corrupt corporations that offshore their profits. Give it a rest.

I posted an interesting link and my conclusion was that the European partners were so hasty to get Greece on board that they didn't perform their due diligence (which meant that the current situation was inevitable and is hardly the fault of the current administration). That doesn't mean there aren't other factors at work; it was just a subjective snapshot of a different sort of economy that should never have entered the Euro in the first place.

[onlooker]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/ ... endum.html
Quite on the mark article detailing the no win situation of Greece. As has been observed by others here, Greece is being looted just as the other weak Euro countries are being. Their was never going to be any out for Greece. My personal hope though was given that fact both the politicians and people of Greece would leave the EU and embark on their own to the challenges that await them. This is because it would set the example for others. But no, as is always too common in this world, the tough and far sighted choices are put off for the future, all cling to the sides of this sinking boat hoping beyond hope that it will not sink, instead of plunging into the water and attempting to face squarely their dilemmas. Greece looks like it is capitulating to the demands of EU and so the drama of this slowly sinking ship continues unabated. We, humanity will have to be like the phoenix and rise from our ashes.

[Cid_Yama]

Greece will vote no ( although I see that foreign intelligence services are covertly trying to split the no vote by instigating a 'vote neither' campaign among the communists), and then Russia and China will turn Greece into a shining store front window of success. Advertising what being a friend of the Eastern Alliance can do for your impoverished country if you just throw off the Western yoke.

You see, they intend to take down the Western Banking system, using their own corruption against them. China's imminent move to set the price of gold higher through the SGE, delivering gold trades in metal instead of fiat paper, will take the legs out from under fiat currency, exposing that the West has no reserves to back it up.

Add to that the Petro-Yuan, making the Yuan a reserve currency. And wa la, the Emperor has no clothes, and everyone can see it.

TPTB in the West during the Bush Administration market collapse, saved their asses by the bankers and insurers agreeing not to trade those worthless derivitives and pretending they had the same value as before even though there were no trades to price them.

Over the last few years, they turned the entire western gold market into a gold derivitives market. China is about to expose it.

You want to see a bank run, just wait till you see the run by people to try to turn their gold paper into actual gold. Couldn't happen to a nicer class of people.

[onlooker]

I hope it pans out just the way you say Cid and reports I read are not accurate of Greece acquiescing. Boy oh boy the West I think must really be quaking in their boots as the Event Horizon is approaching for the end of Western economic and banking dominance.

[StarvingLion]

You people are very confused. The "Western" Banking system went into China in the 60's and 70's, transferred all the tech over there and they own all that infrastructure...and now you want me to believe the PRC somehow is running the show? Uh, no, that can't be right.

The "Western" Banking system deliberately ran the USA into the ground with their confetti, now they are jumping off this sinking ship to their new host, the PRC.

Guess what happens next. The PRC bombers show up over the USA. Thats why the USA coal industry was run into the ground, the nuclear industry run into the ground, all for the complete bullshit of renewables that you suckers bought hook line and sinker. No more industrial base to defend itself.

Have fun when it rains bombs on your head! and don't say I didn't warn you!