Soros bets against Euro

[Keith Millea]

So where are they putting their money now?Where is a safe place in a global economic crisis?

[Jan Klimkowski]

German Panzers rolling over the European plains and mountains are replaced by German bankers and politicians telling the inferior peoples they must surrender to the Reich's fiscal will.

Via Zero Hedge.

This is will lead to mass disorder and revolt.

No wonder the elites are desperate for their War on Iran and Syria.

It's Official: German Economy Minister Demands Surrender Of Greek Budget Policy, Says It Is First Of Many Such Sovereign "Requests"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/29/2012 12:19 -0500

While over the past 2 days there may have been some confusion as to who, what, how or where is demanding that Greece abdicate fiscal sovereignty (with some of our German readers supposedly insulted by the suggestion that this idea originated in Berlin, and specifically with politicians elected by a majority of the German population), today's quotefest from German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler appearing in Germany's Bild should put any such questions to bed. And from this point on, Greece would be advised to not play dumb anymore vis-a-vis German annexation demands.

So from Reuters, "Greece must surrender control of its budget policy to outside institutions if it cannot implement reforms attached to euro zone rescue measures, the German economy minister was quoted as saying on Sunday. Philipp Roesler became the first German cabinet member to openly endorse a proposal for Greece to surrender budget control after Reuters quoted a European source on Friday as saying Berlin wants Athens to give up budget control." And some bad news for our Portuguese (and then Spanish) readers: you are next.

More:

"We need more leadership and monitoring when it comes to implementing the reform course," Roesler, also vice chancellor, told Bild newspaper, according to an advance of an interview to be published on Monday.

"If the Greeks aren't able to succeed themselves with this, then there must be stronger leadership and monitoring from abroad, for example through the EU," added Roesler, chairman of the Free Democrats (FDP) who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Reuters reported on Friday that Germany wants Greece to give up control of budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package.

Greece, which has repeatedly failed to meet the fiscal targets set out by its international lenders, is in talks to finalise a second 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) package.

With many Greeks blaming Germans for the austerity medicine their country has been forced to swallow, officials in Athens dismissed the idea of relinquishing budget control as out of the question.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Sunday Greece was perfectly capable of making good on its promises.

"Anyone who puts a nation before the dilemma of 'economic assistance or national dignity' ignores some key historical lessons," he said in a statement before heading to Brussels for a European Union summit on Monday.

And by the way, this is just the beginning:

A government source in Berlin said Germany's proposal was aimed not just at Greece but also at other struggling euro zone members that receive aid and are unable to make good on their obligations.

So yes, it is true, and Germany is dead serious. Ball is in the Greek court now: just how far will the new technocrat PM go to sell its people in exchange for a few banker smiles?

[Phil Dragoo]

Soros backed Barack Obama early, eschewing Hillary Rodham Clinton. On information and belief, Obama was a Brezinski protege.

Brezinski and Robert Gates co-authored the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations paper "Iran: Time for a New Approach" positing negotiations, not George W. Bush's Axis of Evil as the way forward.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate said Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Panetta just said Israel might attack in March, April or May.

Obama has not yet turned the CIA and NATO loose on Iran as he did to accomplish his Arab Spring.

Obama's re-election is hovering at 50-50.

Enter Romney to the royal audience with George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara, followed by Soros' announcement, "If it's between Obama and Romney, there isn't all that much difference"--

And Iran has skirted sanctions with Citibank money laundering.

I posit any Iran gambit will be turned against Israel by either Obama or Romney.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3603[/ATTACH]

[Christer Forslund]

Europe in economic crisis:

Austerity, moi? Nicolas Sarkozy spends £10k a day on food and keeps 121 cars under his palace

By Ted Thornhill 7th February 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096799/Nicolas-Sarkozy-spends-10k-day-food-keeps-121-cars-palace.html


Nicolas Sarkozy has been promising to cut back on his presidential spending, but he's actually splashing out £10,000 a day on food and keeps 121 cars under the Elysee Palace, according to a new book.
Socialist MP Rene Dosiere, in L'argent de l'État (Money from the State), sets out what he sees as extraordinary excesses by the French President.
In the explosive book, he accuses Sarkozy of ignoring the most elementary principles of the separation between private and public accounts'.

Sarkozy, whose palace budget exceeds that of the Queen, recently stated that there will be a rupture' with his past money-splurging ways and more transparency.

He has cancelled the annual £500,000 palace garden party, but this doesn't go far enough, according to Dosiere.
Just last week he sent a medical team to the Ukraine on board a state-owned private jet to attend to one of his sons, Pierre, and fly him back to Paris to the tune of £22,000.
His fleet of cars is double the size of predecessor Jacques Chirac's and cost, annually, £100,000 to insure and a whopping £275,000 to fuel.
Then there are his huge travel costs.
He uses an Airbus A330 dubbed Air Sarko One - that drained the public purse of £215million to kit out, is accompanied by a delegation of 300 people on trips abroad and travels more often that previous presidents, claims Dosiere.

Recent excursions include an 80-mile trip to Saint-Quentin, from Paris, that cost £350,000, a £109,000 sortie to the Lascaux caves with Bruni and a two-and-a-half-hour trip to Ain that Dosiere worked out cost £700 a minute.
What's more, he never seems to linger anywhere to meet locals and absorb their culture.
Mitterrand and Chirac knew how to take their time admiring a landscape, meeting people, interesting themselves in the history of the host country, Sarkozy behaves like a man in a hurry,' complains Dosiere.
The French people also chip in for a thousand pounds worth of daily newspapers and Sarkozy's house' wine, the red option being a £160 bottle of Crozes-Hermitage, which guests use to wash down foods such as lobster carpaccio and calves cheeks.
His total annual expenditure comes to £95million.

The figures make you giddy,' says Dosiere.

[Magda Hassan]

tagged: Greece, Greek debt crisis, IMF, IMF aid, IMF connection, June 2009, Stratfor,TA NEA, wikileaks

Wikileaks Revealed Stratfor Knew About Greek Debt Crisis … In Advance

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in EconomyThe economic crisis in Greece and the possible financial support by International Monetary Fund was been monitored by the US think tank Stratfor long before the country officially sought the aid of IMF and before then PM George Papandreou had relevant talks with then IMF Head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in December 2009, shortly after he won the September elections.There revelations came after Wikileaks released over 5 million communication e-mails between Stratfor employees and their informants in several countries. Greek daily TA NEApublished some of these e-mails that definitely raise eyebrows as to why the Stratfor also known as "the shadow CIA"- had such an interest on the IMF aid to Greece. The e-mails also revealed connections betweetn Stratfor and the IMF.

"According to several e-mails that were published by the Greek newspaper TA NEA, the US private intelligence agency Stratfor monitored the moves of Greece in connection with the International Monetary Funds already in June 2009, half a year before the exploratory talks between Papandreou and Strauss-Kahn and ten whole months before the Greek decision to appeal to IMF support mechanism in May 2010.
In an e-mail acquired by Wikileaks, on June 19, 2009 a Stratfor employee responsible for the countries of Central Europe, Baltic and the Balkans sent to colleagues involved in the region of Eurasia a message entitled "Detailed Instructions Europe Tier 3. " In this text message a file was attached giving details of the issues that needed to be paid attention. Specifically for Greece, i was mentioned among other instructions that "we need to know exactly what happens if / when Greece will apply for a loan from the IMF. It is very likely to witness a complete economic collapse in a eurozone country. Please, pay attention to any signs of trading bonds. Greece has a large debt, how they will act it may also depend on what happens with their debt.
Another e-mail sent beginning of November 2011 revelas the close connections between Stratfor and the IMF. In this e-mail, a IMF employee briefed Stratfor that "Greece cash reserves were decreasing and that the country would run out of cash in December (2009).
The e-mail with the instructions was sent in June 2009, that is before EUropean Commission head Jose Immanuel Barroso had revelead his rpediction about the high levels of the Greek deficit. Barroso's report was drafterd a month later. That the Greek deficit was at 10% was revealed at the end of summer 2009." (Source:Ta Nea viaReal.gr and in.gr)

Stratfor had two informants in Greece covered with the code names GR001 and GR101.
http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2012/02...n-advance/

[Magda Hassan]

Greece Has Defaulted: Here Is Where We Stand

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/09/2012 19:33 -0500


After reading this, everyone should have a fairly good grasp of what happened not only today, but ever since the great (and quite endless) European financial crisis took center stage, and what to look forward to next...
From Chindit13
In a nutshell---okay, a coconut shell---this seems to be where we are:
1) Greece was able to write off 100 billion euros worth of debt in exchange for a 130 billion rescue package of new debt, of which Greece itself will receive 19%, or about 25 billion, so that it can continue to operate as an ongoing concern. Somehow Greece is in a better position than before, with more debt and less sovereignty and still---by virtue of sharing a common currency---trying to compete toe-to-toe with the likes of Germany and the Netherlands, kind of like being the Yemeni National Basketball team in an Olympic bracket that includes the US, Spain and Germany. At least a "within the euro" default prevented bank runs in Portugal, Spain, Italy et al.
2) As a result of the bond haircuts, Greece has many pension plans that can no longer even pretend to be viable, at least according to the original contracted scheme, but pensionholders still working can take heart in the fact that their current wages will be cut, too.
3) CDS buyers will have to sweat bullets, jump through hoops, and be forced to endure every cliche known to man, but they might end up getting something for all their trouble, provided their counterparty is solvent and that counterparty itself is not heavily exposed to an insolvent party or a NTBTF institution, otherwise known as a Lehman Brothers. Expect the legal profession to be the prime beneficiary of this "event", as any new CDS contract will be at least a hundred pages of boilerplate longer in the future.
4) Good luck to any less than AAA rated sovereign who wants to issue debt from now on out. That contracts can now be unilaterally abrogated, as Greece' bonds were with the retro-CACs, bodes ill for attractive pricing from here on out. Peripherals in the EU will suffer most, as they face the added indignity of being subordinated to the ECB at any point the ECB chooses to exercise its divine right of seniority. The thing that used to be called the risk free rate no longer exists. Bill Sharpe take note.
5) One hundred billion euros worth of perceived wealth evaporated. That can not be a good thing for a Eurobanking system already capital short, as it raises leverage (quick back of the envelop calculation) by about 6% across the board. It also will not make the interbank market any more trusting, thus increasing the likelihood of perpetual LTRO. LTRO lll looks to arrive sooner than QE lll.
6) With the drawn-out Greek event and the LTRO, Europe might believe it has firewalled the system for at least three years and limited damage to Greece and Portugal (who will likely undergo a similar default by the 3rd quarter). LTRO-provided liquidity, it is hoped, will lower market rates enough in Spain and Italy so that those countries can meet sovereign bond obligations and both service existing debt and issue new debt. When the LTRO expires in 2015, "hopefully" something called organic growth will have taken over in countries imposing severe austerity measures on their public sectors, so that debt servicing becomes easier. Organic growth obviously is something that comes in a can, a can which has been kicked out to 2015.
7) As Europe now speaks increasingly of greater EU financial integration, Sarkozy's poll numbers will be the victim and a less EU friendly individual will likely win the upcoming election. Since France and Germany fortunately have a long and storied history of being the best of friends, and no one in either country would ever pander to nationalist sentiments, this shouldn't present a problem.
8) Given how much angst was caused by the drawn out Greek affair, the Spanish leader knows he has enormous leverage with EU leadership and he can continue to do what he has been doing with regard to ignoring the deficit targets demanded/suggested by the EU. The EU might well bark at him, but they cannot afford to bite at this time. Muchos gracias, Greece.http://www.zerohedge.com/news/greece-has...e-we-stand

[Jan Klimkowski]

In the fantasy propagandized by MSM, this Greek "deal" is presented as a great day, a victory, triple Gin and Tonics all round.

Tyler Durden, in Magda's post above, expertly articulates the catastrophe that has just been inflicted on the European people - workers, pensioners, children alike.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The human cost of Shock Therapy.

An honourable man is dead.

An elderly man who took his life outside the Greek parliament in Athens , in apparent desperation over his debts, has highlighted the human cost of an economic crisis that has not only brought the country to the brink financially, but also seen suicides soar.

As Greeks digested the news, with politicians clearly as shocked as society at large, mourners made their way to Syntagma square, where the retired pharmacist shot himself with a handgun.

The 77-year-old pensioner pulled the trigger as people were emerging from a metro station nearby in the morning rush hour. One witness told state TV that before shooting himself he had shouted, "I'm leaving because I don't want to pass on my debts."

In a handwritten note, the unidentified man, who was described as an "upstanding and decent" father of one, said he had decided to end his life because he did want to be reduced to foraging through rubbish bins to survive.

"The Tsolakoglou occupation government has nullified any chance of my survival which was based on a decent salary that for 35 years I alone (without state support) paid for, " said the note likening the Athens government to that run by Giorgos Tsolakoglou who headed a collaborationist administration when the Nazis invaded and occupied Greece during the Second World War.

"Because I am of an age that does not allow me to forecfully react (without of course excluding that if some Greek took a Kalashnikov first, I would be the second) I see no other solution than a decent ending before I start looking in the garbage to feed myself. I beleive that youth who have no future will one day take up arms and hang the national traitors upside-down in Syntagma square just as the Italians did in 1945 to Mussolini."

Within hours, dozens of handwritten notes and flowers had been pinned to the tree under which he had stood.

Source - The Guardian, April 4, 2012.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Like living inside an apocalypse movie.

Majority Of Neo-Normal Greek Cops Vote Neo-Nazi

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/15/2012 17:23 -0400

Zero Hedge

In a somewhat stunning revelation, especially after our earlier note on the Golden Dawn leader's 'position' on the issues of the day, GreekReporter notes via the news paper To Vima, that more than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party Golden Dawn in the elections of May 6th. It's not really for us to judge (well maybe it is) but when some polling stations report Golden Dawn receiving 19-24% of the votes, things are going from the dismal to the horrific (and potentially chaotic) very fast.


ANSAmed: Greece: More than half police officers voted Neonazi party


Upsetting result revealed by newspaper "To Vima"

(ANSAmed) - ATHENS, MAY 11 - More than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party

Chrysi Avgi' (Golden Dawn) in the elections of May 6. This is the disconcerting result of an analysis carried out by the authoritative newspaper To Vima (TheTribune) in several constituencies in Athens, where 5,000 police officers in service in the Greek capital also cast their ballot.

At some polling stations Chrysi Avgi' obtained 19 to 24% of votes.

Others, like Agios Panteleimonas and Kypseli, traditional strongholds of the party, reached 15 to 18%. According to the newspaper, at the 11 polling stations (from 806 to 816) located near the police station (Ellas), Chrysi Avgi' received most votes, reaching 18.64% at station 813 and 23.67% at number 816.

Other polling stations situated at a short distance from the ones mentioned before, where police officers do not vote, recorded 12-14% of votes for the Golden Dawn party.


Moreover, the four polling stations located near the riot police station (MAT), used by the police, recorded percentages between 13 and 19 for Chrysi Avgi'.


These figures, To Vima underlines, are impressive, considering the fact that other polling stations close to the riot police station reached 7-10% of votes for the pro-Nazi party. Based on the electoral lists, 550 to 700 people have voted at each of these voting stations, of which 20 to 30% police officers. This means, the newspaper worked out, that 45 to 59% of police officers have voted for Chrysi Avgi'. (ANSAmed).

[Jan Klimkowski]

Denninger's latest Market Ticker editorial:

Greece Will Leave The Euro: Be Prepared


Stop pretending folks, and start preparing.

Karolos Papoulias, the Greek president, warned party leaders that their continued failure to agree was risking "fatal consequences". Citing a secret government document, he said Greeks were already pulling £80 million a day out of the country's banks. Almost €1 billion (£795 million) has been withdrawn since the last elections on May 6.

"The extension of political instability will lead to fatal consequences. The absence of government is a serious risk to the financial security of the Greek people and our national existence," the president was reported as saying.

Mr Papoulias said he had been warned by the central bank and finance ministry that the country faced "the risk of a collapse of the banking system if withdrawals of deposits from banks continue due to the insecurity of the citizens generated by the political situation".

Fatal consequences my ass.

Well, not for Greece anyway.

But let's put a couple of things to bed, ok?

First, one of the common chestnuts is that if Greece leaves the Euro, it will then devalue the Drachma (true) and this will result in a more-competitive environment for their goods and services on the world stage (true.)

What's not mentioned is how that happens.

Let's say your salary is €2,000 monthly before Greece exits. Your new salary is D2,000 ("Drachmas"; I don't happen to have a symbol for it handy.) The drachma is then allowed to float against the Euro after being issued at 1:1 conversion and it falls by 40% almost immediately.

Your new salary is still 2,000 units of currency, the price of what you produce remains as it was in units of currency, but both your salary and the price of the things you make have gone down in external units.

In other words while I, as an American, now can visit your nation while spending many fewer dollars, you cannot buy American products without spending many more Drachmas.

Is this good or bad? That depends on your point of view. If you were formerly unable to be employed as demand for your production at the Euro-denominated wage was insufficient and now it's sufficient, a job is better than no job, right?

But the idea that there's no cost to this is false. The cost is that your inflated wage, which was unsupportable, along with the inflated benefits the government was providing but couldn't afford, both contract to what can be afforded.

The difference is that you now have a floating exchange rate and thus others, outside, can afford to buy your goods and services while on "holiday" and similar, and thus you have a job. But do not mistake this for the idea that you got a free lunch -- you most-certainly did not, and that which you import will go up dramatically in price. Your standard of living will go down, as it must, since your income will now inexorable (and correctly) be matched to what the market will pay for your goods and services.

This is the adjustment that must take place. It must take place in Greece. It must take place in France. It must take place in Spain. And it must take place in The United States.

It is not what anyone wants to talk about, but it doesn't matter if we want to talk about it or not. The fact of the matter is that government cannot provide services that it cannot fund with current taxes. No government can over the intermediate and longer term. Blowing serial financial bubbles to hide this fact is economic suicide and will inevitably lead to either collapse of the inflationary bubble or collapse of the government and currency. It cannot be otherwise as leveraging debt upon more debt is a Ponzi Scheme and is entirely reliant on someone coming along to "bid up" asset prices on a continual basis. When the next buyer fails to appear -- and he always eventually does -- the scheme collapses.

The real problem is that the banking system in Europe is massively leveraged and is still counting all these sovereign credits as "money good", carries no reserves (or effectively no reserves) against them and has embedded and hidden losses in the hundreds of billions of Euros. There are various estimates on the "damage" from Greece sticking their bonds in the paper shredder and sending the pieces to the ECB as their answer, but the most-credible I've seen are somewhere around €400 billion. This is for Greece alone; the problem is that Greece is not alone, and if they do this (and they should) what prevents Italy, Ireland and Spain from doing likewise?

Further, the German public will shortly come to realize that they are effectively subsidizing almost every other nation in the Eurozone right about the time the first of those losses are realized and their banks are assessed to cover them. That's the point where Merkel loses her ability to govern as the fact that she has serially and intentionally deceived her people will be laid bare on the table (disgusting though laying her bare would be.)

The most-likely outcome of that revelation? Germany returns to the Mark to cut off what would otherwise be ruinous capital calls from the ECB.

This game is pretty much over folks. Oh sure, there will be those who will argue otherwise, and markets will alternate between cheers and jeers for a bit. But for someone to expect a different outcome at this point one must show how Greece can be persuaded to make their internal adjustment by means other than tearing up those bonds and accepting that their government must stop deficit spending -- one way or another.

I just don't see it.