Actually the fact of the matter happens to be that Merkozy's threats are void: if Greece were to exit the Euro, it would be the end of the currency.
In such a scenario, the surplus EU nations would have to:
- recapitalise the ECB
- rescue German and French banks from their exposure to Greek public and private debt
- offer seas of liquidity to a European financial system where trust among the already half-bankrupt banks will evaporate completely
And then the markets will simply sniff out that the other peripheral countries (Portugal, Ireland etc.) could well consider restructuring their sovereign debt...
Not to mention the pressures on the bigger economies of Italy and Spain, and even France.
Within weeks, the surplus nations will be looking at a cost of trillions in order to salvage what will be left of the Eurozone.
As Larry Elliot writes in the Guardian, if the single currency shrinks to a handful of surplus countries, its value will go through the roof, which will kill Germany's exports.
Actually the fact of the matter happens to be that Merkozy's threats are void: if Greece were to exit the Euro, it would be the end of the currency.
In such a scenario, the surplus EU nations would have to:
- recapitalise the ECB
- rescue German and French banks from their exposure to Greek public and private debt
- offer seas of liquidity to a European financial system where trust among the already half-bankrupt banks will evaporate completely
And then the markets will simply sniff out that the other peripheral countries (Portugal, Ireland etc.) could well consider restructuring their sovereign debt...
Not to mention the pressures on the bigger economies of Italy and Spain, and even France.
Within weeks, the surplus nations will be looking at a cost of trillions in order to salvage what will be left of the Eurozone.
As Larry Elliot writes in the Guardian, if the single currency shrinks to a handful of surplus countries, its value will go through the roof, which will kill Germany's exports.
Thus the surplus nations will simply pull the plug on the currency.
There is no debt in each nation, it's just credit from thin air to facilitate trade debits person-s to person-s, no debt is owed to the issuers, it's just credit from thin air. So people are foolish to pay debt to the people that issue it from thin air.
As for the corporations to corporations of each country, let them sort it out between each other, hopefully the corporations will fail and good riddance to junk goods and services including the issuers that facilitate all the corporations.
We’re going to be in trouble if China and Russia want hard assets and we have nothing to give but slave labour (For junk) and further wont accept hard asset debts written off.
Greece's economy blew apart because a bunch of olive-spitting, ouzo-guzzling, lazy-ass Greeks refuse to put in a full day's work, retire while they're still teenagers, pocket pensions fit for a pasha; and they've gone on a social-services spending spree using borrowed money. Now that the bill has come due and the Greeks have to pay with higher taxes and cuts in their big fat welfare state, they run riot, screaming in the streets, busting windows and burning banks.
I don't buy it. I don't buy it because of the document in my hand marked, "RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION."
I'll cut to the indictment: Greece is a crime scene. The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam. And––cover the children's ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.
********
This is an adaptation of an excerpt from Vultures' Picnic, Greg Palast's new book, out next week, an investigator's pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates and high-finance fraudsters. Read the first chapter or just get the book here.
********
In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.
Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.
Is Goldman that stupid?
Goldman is stupidlike a fox. The deal was a con, with Goldman making up a phony-baloney exchange rate for the transaction. Why?
Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then. Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit. Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.
Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates.
The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain, Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.
Cool. Fraudulent but cool.
But flim-flam isn’t cheap these days: On top of murderous interest payments, Goldman charged the Greeks over a quarter billion dollars in fees.
When the new Socialist government of George Papandreou came into office, they opened up the books and Goldman's bats flew out. Investors' went berserk, demanding monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt.
Greece's panicked bondholders rushed to buy insurance against the nation going bankrupt. The price of the bond-bust insurance, called a credit default swap (or CDS), also shot through the roof. Who made a big pile selling the CDS insurance? Goldman.
And those rotting bags of CDS's sold by Goldman and others? Didn't they know they were handing their customers gold-painted turds?
That's Goldman's specialty. In 2007, at the same time banks were selling suspect CDS's and CDOs (packaged sub-prime mortgage securities), Goldman held a “net short” position against these securities. That is, Goldman was betting their financial "products" would end up in the toilet. Goldman picked up another half a billion dollars on their "net short" scam.
But, instead of cuffing Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein and parading him in a cage through the streets of Athens, we have the victims of the frauds, the Greek people, blamed. Blamed and soaked for the cost of it. The "spread" on Greek bonds (the term used for the risk premium paid on Greece's corrupted debt) has now risen to get ready for this––$14,000 per family per year.
Euro-nation, the secret Geithner memo, and the Ecuador connection
Why did the Greek government throw its nation's fate into Goldman's greasy hands? What the heck was in the "RESTRICTED" document? And why did I have to take it to Geneva, to throw it down in front of the Director-General of the WTO for authentication, a creepy French banker I otherwise wouldn't bother to spit on, and then tear off to Quito to share it with the grateful President of Ecuador?
To give you all the answers would require me to write a book. I have: Vultures' Picnic––in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters.
It's really quite important to me that you read it, that you get it now. That's a funny statement, I suppose, from an author. But if you've been reading my stories in The Guardian or watching my reports on BBC Newsnight, you've gotten the facts; but I really want to let you inside the investigations, to cross the continents with me and follow down the leads so that you can get a full picture of The Beasts. The Beasts and their trophy wives, intelligence agency go-fers, political concubines and bone-breakers. And besides, it's enormous fun when it's not scary as sh*t.
********
Here's a taste of Chapter 12 - The Generalissimo of Globalization - from the film-enhanced eBook edition. [And more on the 1% Greece-ing us, check out the upcoming issue of In These Times.]
Vultures' Picnic - Chapter 12 - The Generalissimo of Globalization
http://www.VulturesPicnic.org
BBC's Greg Palast's crew of journalist-detectives chase down British Petroleum bag men, CIA operatives, nuclear power con men----and "The Vultures," billionaire financial speculators who, through bribery, flim-flam and political muscle, take entire nations hostage for mega-profits.
The action begins when the Deepwater Horizon explodes in the Gulf of Mexico and a confidential cable arrives on Miss Badpenny's desk from a terrified insider. He has the real, hushed-up facts of the disaster----which can only be found hidden in the files of a Central Asian dictatorship.
Palast sets off for Baku to investigate the sexiest Muslim woman on Earth and the whereabouts of millions of dollars in a brown valise. Then he jumps the globe to an Alaska Eskimo village after receiving an extraordinary note from the Chief of Intelligence of the Free Republic of the Arctic.
Along the way, Palast gets drunk, gets sober, gets laid, gets arrested. It's pulp non-fiction. Columbo with marital issues and a dying father.
Note: I will be in Chicago for In These Times on November 29, part of our 15 city tour that begins this coming Sunday, November 13, in Portland, then moves to San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Denver, Boulder, New Mexico, Albuquerque, Chicago, Madison, New York, DC, Houston, Burlington, and Atlanta. Find out more info here.
***
Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores, which will be released on November 14 by Penguin USA.
Greeks are still searching for a quisling PM.
Its all fake anyhow as the new bailout treaty implies a Brussels commissioner now runs the country for good...
An analysis about the role of the IMF in Greece coupled with many eyewitness reports for the first time published in the English language in one location. What is happening, how it happened and what might be the eventual outcome of this rape of a country and its people. The first book of its kind that charts the rise and fall of the Greek Indignants. Worth a read for all those disgusted and appalled at the global banksters treatment of nations in the current light of the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the heart of the USA.
Publication Date:Oct 15 2011ISBN/EAN13:1466399465 / 9781466399464Page Count:224Binding Type:US Trade PaperTrim Size:6" x 9"Language:EnglishColor:Black and WhiteRelated Categories:Political Science / Economic Conditions
Post categories: Back Stories
Adam Curtis | 18:00 UK time, Thursday, 3 November 2011
In the present crisis over Greece there is a furious argument about whether the Greek people should be allowed to vote on the proposed solution. Many of the voices against this come from the world of finance and economics. They say that the crisis is too dangerous to leave to the will of the people.
I just wanted to show why some Greek politicians - and especially George Papandreou, even though he may have retreated from a referendum - might think it important to allow the people a voice.
I have discovered a film in the archives that dramatically tells you why. It was made in 1974 and is an engrossing history of the Colonels' coup in Greece in 1967 - and what life was then like for the Greek people under the military dictatorship that held power for seven years.
As you watch it you realise, given what the Greeks have been through, it is no wonder that politicians, especially Papandreou, think the mandate of the people is important.
The present language of the finance technocrats, and their supporters in the media, portray the Greek people as just another group of lazy southern Europeans who have fed too long at the trough of state money. A bit like us - but more nonsense.
What is forgotten is that from 1967 to 1974 the Greek people lived under a harsh and violent dictatorship that tortured and murdered thousands of ordinary people. The Colonels also corrupted the society by handing out vast loans to individuals in towns and villages across the country - to buy their loyalty. At the same time the repression and torture bred a powerful resistance that finally burst out in incredible bravery in 1973.
This is the strange and twisted society that the present Prime Minister's father, Andreas Papandreou, inherited when he became the newly elected leader in 1981. He was faced by the task of rebuilding the peoples' trust in democracy and the state. Partly he did it through state spending - and in that policy lie many of the roots of today's crisis.
The discussion of Greece today in the press and the political offices of Europe is almost completely ahistorical - everything is couched in utilitarian terms of economic management. I just think it is important to put the present crisis in a wider historical context. Above all the extraordinary history of the military dictatorship and the savage effects it had on the whole of Greek society.
First - here is a short compilation of some of the best bits of the news coverage from the time.
Back in 1965 Mr Papandreou's grandfather, who was also called George, was the Prime Minister - leading the progressive Centre Union Party. Young right-wing officers in the military became increasingly concerned about the influence of George's son, Andreas who they saw as a dangerous leftist.
The officers were convinced that Andreas wanted to remove Greece from its frontline role in the Cold War - they believed this would open the door to communists. For eighteen months there was political chaos. Then new elections were scheduled for May 1967 - which George Snr. was certain to win.
So, on the 21st of April, the officers mounted a coup. They used a NATO plan for neutralizing a communist uprising in the event of a Soviet invasion.
The news coverage starts with a wonderful piece of reporting by the Panorama reporter John Morgan at the first press conference held by the officers after the coup. Then there are sections from other reports that both give a brilliant sense of the absurdity of the military men who now took control of the country, but also of the total fear they induced. I have included some vox pops taken by a crew inside the country in 1972.
Here is the film about life under the Colonels. It is called Greece - The Seven Black Years. It was made in 1974 - and broadcast in early 1975.
Its commentary is very much of its time - but the film has a power both in the details and in the way it is made. It shows that along with the terrible torture, the Colonels exercised control through financial means - or what one villager calls "the big money".
The film starts with these details and some great interviewees, and then builds to a very moving climax with the students who took over the Athens Technical University in November 1973 and stood against the military might of the Junta. There is extraordinary film of what then happened - and it also tells you a lot about the radicalisation of many of the Greek people today, and how important democracy is to them in the face of unelected elites who try and control them and their society. A belief in democracy born out of struggle - something that we may have forgotten.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:58 pm Post subject:
Really shocking back story not being told by the BBC
When your country goes broke - With Max Keisar and Directed by Stacy Herbert
It happens all over the world, but it's been a long, long time since a European country has had the experienced. Default. National bankruptcy.
There is something positive in the whole situation.
The traditional parties are now being run directly by Bilderburg and the Trilateral Commision in the form of unelected banksters.
Democracy and the EU are contradictions which cannot be resolved in our lifetime, we will either get one or the other as they are incompatible. We have gone from multiple referendums on the Lisbon Treaty to slanging matches in mentioning the word referendum, to banksters doing politics.
All we need to seal the totalitarian path is army generals...a few concentration camps along the way and we might just as well be back where we started...
But that is the problem. History never repeats itself directly, they wont be able to get away it as the lives of nations will override their decisions as any government even a dictatorship with no modicum of consent cannot survive forever as society cannot last indefinitely in a state of suspended animation where cuts are always one way, and the money flows in another direction....
Since the IMF arrived GDP collapse has been around 16% officially.
Another couple of years like this and meltdown will be guaranteed indefinitely......if civil war doesn't erupt, Libyan style.
2012 is going to much harder than 2011
Greek economic crisis turns tragic for children abandoned by their families
The government scrambled on Thursday to defuse the political furore sparked by the resignation of two financial crime prosecutors who cited state interference with their high-profile investigations.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos discussed the matter at a special meeting on Thursday with the heads of the country’s three high courts (Council of State, Supreme Court and Council of Auditors) as well as Supreme Court prosecutor Ioannis Tentes, who - earlier in the morning – had ordered an emergency investigation into the allegations of the two: Grigoris Peponis (pictured), who headed the financial crimes unit at the public prosecutor’s office, and his deputy, Spyros Mouzakitis.
Tentes ordered deputy public prosecutor Fotis Makris to carry out a preliminary probe into the reasons cited by the two prosecutors for their resignation, submitted on Wednesday in a letter to deputy Supreme Court prosecutor Nikos Pantelis.
Following similar appeals by the main political parties, Papademos urged Tentes to conclude his preliminary investigation as early as possible - “if possible, today” - and proceed to formal questioning of suspects.
In their resignation letter, the officials noted that they had accepted their appointment as chief “economic and taxation crime investigators” in the end of March, “with a deep sense of duty and motivation to contribute to the common good … despite a negative climate and in full knowledge of the peculiar relation between contemporary Greek society and the fast evolving phenomenon of financial crime”.
But the government, they complained, not only deprived their office of rudimentary administrative support and computer terminals, but “a new bill uses false pretexts and unfounded arguments as reasons for attempting to replace us and get rid of our presence,” the letter said.
“Since we have never vied for high office and privileges, we don’t accept being public prosecutors under prohibition and under dictation. Moreover, we don’t accept being used as an alibi and a Siloam pool of absolution for all sorts of organised interest groups and their various mouthpieces that are actively engaged within the grey zone of economic crime.”
Hot cases
Some of the high-profile cases which Peponis’ office was investigating were:
The resignation of the former secretary general in charge of the finance ministry’s information system, Diomidis Spinellis, who accused financial crime squad officials of blocking the collection of heavy fines on fuel market racketeers as well as his revelations about tax inspectors pocketing 40 percent of every fine that results from their audit
The allegations of former board member of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat), Zoi Georganta, against the authority chairman, Andreas Georgiou, that he distorted the country’s budgetary statistics for 2009 and 2010 to inflate the final deficit figures which prompted the enforcement of harsh austerity measures
Excessive indebtedness of the two main political parties that have borrowed tens of millions of euros from Greek banks using their future earnings from the state as collateral for loans which they are now unable to service
Allegations of insider trading and speculation against Greek bonds by people linked to former premier George Papandreou, using credit default swaps (CDS) purchased from the state-owned TT Hellenic Postbank.
The case against 29 people, including navy officers and former defence ministry officials, in connection to an order by the government for four German submarines a decade ago that involves the Ferrostaal company
The investment by social security funds in high-risk structured bonds, which costs the funds several million euros in losses and kickbacks to fund officials and intermediaries
In recent weeks, Peponis has headed Operation Handcuffs, which is resulted in the arrest and charging of a number of prominent businessmen for tax evasion.
In November, he secured a copy of a list of the country's biggest tax evaders, after he threatened to investigate finance ministry officials who were refusing to hand it over
Admissions
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and his colleague at the justice ministry, Miltiadis Papaioannou, issued a joint statement late on Wednesday suggesting that the two prosecutors’ letter was “a hasty and excessive public reaction”.
They added that it was also “harmful to the institution of justice” since the bill which they admitted having prepared, would replace deputy appellate court prosecutor Peponis with a higher court judge, namely a deputy Supreme Court judge.
The two ministers also admitted that the change of the law was being initiated only nine months after the creation of the post of economic prosecutor, and after a “wide discussion at a meeting in which Mr Peponis participated, together with deputy Supreme Court prosecutor, Mr Nikoloudis, and the head of the Financial and Economic Crime Unit (SDOE), former prosecutor Ioannis Diotis, who agreed that the institution [of the economic prosecutor] was functioning satisfactorily as it stands”.
How a routine jab sent me so mad I sobbed (and saluted) through the Royal Wedding - then became convinced I was the Messiah...
By Malcolm Brabant
Last updated at 12:53 AM on 1st January 2012
Comments (4) Share
Before wielding the syringe, the middle-aged nurse in the scruffy Greek prefectural office warned me to expect symptoms similar to mild influenza.
But nothing could have prepared me for the catastrophic adverse reaction that I endured and which has left me a ruined, broken man.
Stamaril, the yellow fever vaccine made by Sanofi Pasteur, one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives. But the jab fried my brain and transported me to within a whisper of death and paralysis.
Anguish: BBC Correspondent Malcolm Brabant with his wife Trine and their son Lukas outside their new home in Copenhagen
It has taken my little family and me to the gates of hell. Since April, I have spent more than three months in the intensive care units of psychiatric hospitals in three countries, and there is a possibility that I will never fully recover.
(Malcolm has had three psychotic episodes. In between, he is lucid, aware that he has endured a period of serious mental illness. He can remember most of what has happened to him during the psychotic episodes. He also keeps a diary and has been filmed frequently. This account was written last week, during a lucid period.)
'I needed the inoculation as protection against mosquitoes that carry the yellow fever virus and kill an estimated 200,000 people each year in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.'I needed the inoculation as protection against mosquitoes that carry the yellow fever virus and kill an estimated 200,000 people each year in sub-Saharan Africa and South America. I was due to fly to Ivory Coast to shoot a series of films about victims of the country’s civil conflict for Unicef, the United Nations children’s fund. It was supposed to be my second assignment for Unicef TV, an organisation that requires sensitive videography and story-telling.
I have been a freelance BBC foreign correspondent for 22 years and had been in Athens for the previous eight years, with none of the benefits enjoyed by journalists on the staff.
Well respected: Malcolm Brabant was the BBC's Athens correspondent - but was unable to report on rioting in the Greek capital due to his illness
Work and money was scarce at the start of the year because of the BBC’s focus on the Arab uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa. Interest in the Greek financial crisis had waned. So I leapt at Unicef’s offer to fly to West Africa.
But the immunisation made me too sick to travel. Within 24 hours of the jab, I was confined to bed with a temperature of 103.6F (39.8C). We knew instantly this was a reaction to the inoculation, since no one else was sick and nothing had happened to me apart from the vaccination. I was shivering and rocking the bed so violently that it slammed against the bedside table.
My wife, the Danish author Trine Villemann, couldn’t believe the severity of the fever and changed thermometers. The second thermometer confirmed the first reading. I was gripping on to the duvet for dear life because I was simultaneously freezing and drenched in a cold sweat.
Trine applied over-the-counter medicines such as Ibuprofen to try to suppress the fever but my temperature hovered resolutely at 104F (40C) and on occasions spiked as high as 104.5F (40.3C).
The body’s normal temperature is 98.6F (37C).
Petition: Mr Brabant's wife, Trine Villemann is now trying to obtain the findings of an investigation
I had a battery of examinations in hospital and was admitted when my liver test produced an abnormal result.
The fever was depriving me of sleep and the insomnia left me emotionally exhausted.
I suffered my first hallucination 11 days into what was now a severe illness that was baffling Greece’s top infectious diseases experts. I was convinced my Kindle e-book reader flew across the hospital room from the bed to a chair.
Despite being a veteran, cynical journalist, I started to believe that I had supernatural powers.
Thirteen days after the shot, doctors began giving me steroids to try to dampen the fever. At long last, they succeeded. But my mental downward spiral steepened the next day, Friday, April 29, the day Prince William married Kate Middleton.
I was watching the ceremony on television with Trine, who has written two books about the Danish royal family. This was supposed to be a treat for her because of her professional interest.
But I spoiled the occasion. Every time I saw someone in uniform, I jumped up and saluted. I was in floods of tears and in hyper-patriotic mood at witnessing a British ceremony at its finest, weeping over the flowers and the music.
Trine never got to see the Royal couple say ‘I will’. She switched off the television because she thought I was too distressed.
She ordered me to have a rest and left my room. When she returned an hour later, I was still sobbing.
Later that day, I became convinced that I was the Messiah. The trigger was a midnight email from Bob Traa, the head of the International Monetary Fund team in Athens, who was agreeing to a highly prized off-the-record meeting about the Greek economic crisis. I was delirious. I never thought he’d see me.
I sent back a crazed reply saying: ‘I’m getting very tired now. I need to sleep because we have a lot of work to do. One thing I will say is that Greece has really been kind to me and it has cured my son.
‘It is God’s country. Its people are fantastic. Sorry, the bed is shaking.God bless. Malcolm.’
'The bed was pitching so violently, I thought it was a sign from Heaven that the second coming had begun.'Indeed, the bed was pitching so violently, I thought it was a sign from Heaven that the second coming had begun. A few days later, Trine transferred me to the Sinouri Clinic, a poor Athenian imitation of Britain’s Priory. ‘You had called me and told me you were Jesus,’ she says.
I was sitting on the windowsill of my room on the 15th floor of the hospital, looking towards the dome of an Orthodox church. ‘I am going to fly with the angels,’ I said.
Apparently, it is quite common for the insane to be convinced that they are Jesus Christ. My experience in Athens in April and May was similar to that of Jim Carrey when he played an ordinary American who suddenly developed divine powers and became Bruce Almighty in the movie of the same name.
There were times when I was confused about whether I was Christianity’s Joseph figure or the Messiah himself. It was excruciating trying to persuade Trine that our son Lukas was in line to save the world like me.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I used to beg.
‘Yes, I know who you are,’ she would reply. But her eyes told me she didn’t believe me.
I thought I had been chosen because of my understanding of the media and new technology. I decided to test my powers and flushed my Kindle in the lavatory, then picked it up and turned it on. The display flickered briefly and then it expired permanently. I thought perhaps this was just teething trouble and was certain that other miracles would ensue.
For a week, I disappeared into a mental black hole and had no inkling of just how mad I had become. Then, gradually, I returned to consciousness and became self-aware.
Bad reaction: The Stamaril vaccine that Malcolm took
But during the psychotic episode, I became convinced that the British Government knew that I was the Messiah and had put cameras in the bathroom of my room in the psychiatric ward. I spent hours in the bathroom denouncing various Greek politicians for being corrupt.
I was sure that a video-feed from the bathroom was being played to 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace and the White House. During one session, I was certain that the Queen Mother had returned from the dead and was roaring with laughter at my antics.
I interpreted ‘messages’ that meant the British Royal Family was going to step aside so that Lukas could become King and could have the protection the next Messiah would require.
I was getting messages from the dead people that, during the sane period of my life, I have always regarded as my guardian angels. They included my son James, who would have been 33 years old this year and who died in his pram of cot death when he was just four months old.
I would get an electronic buzz when the guardian angels wished to speak. The spirits ‘on the other side’ included Danny McGrory, one of my best friends in journalism, who died of a sudden stroke; Kurt Schork, a Reuters correspondent who was killed in Sierra Leone during the civil war; Terry Lloyd, the ITN reporter killed in Iraq, who had given me my first job in journalism; and Bill Frost, a brilliant Radio 4 correspondent who died prematurely young.
They set me a series of tests, and were cackling with laughter as they commanded me to drink my own urine from the porcelain bowl and to clean my teeth with a toilet brush. I complied with their demands. Urine doesn’t taste as bad as you might think, but I refused to go along with my guardian angels’ most outrageous demand – to eat my own excrement. ‘There are limits, chaps,’ I said.
Emotional moment: The Royal wedding in April put Malcolm in a 'hyper-patriotic mood'
It was excruciatingly frustrating trying and failing to convince anyone that I was the next Messiah. I tried to recreate the stigmata by squashing fresh strawberries, brought to me by my wife, and painting ‘blood marks’ on the wall of the bathroom. I commanded her to dress me up in a nappy made from a sheet so I could lie in bed like a divine infant. I also insisted she polish my halo.
The owner of the Sinouri Clinic, a psychiatrist called Pantelis Lazaridis, declared that I had suffered what he called ‘an acute organic psychotic event’.
Throughout my illness, Trine was conducting an investigation into the cause. We both knew the trigger was the yellow fever inoculation. A specialist at the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases said he suspected the jab was contaminated. Professor Eleni Giamarellou, Greece’s leading specialist in infectious diseases who treated me at Athens’ Ygeia hospital, believes I was hypersensitive to the drug and suffered an allergic reaction to it.
'Despite the devastating impact on me, the Greek health authorities have displayed no interest in investigating whether other syringes were contaminated' Despite the devastating impact on me, the Greek health authorities have displayed no interest in investigating whether other syringes were contaminated. Sanofi Pasteur denies there is any link between my illness and its vaccine.
The company is also asking for more data and claims we have prevented its investigators from having access to my medical records. That is simply not true. My wife sent the company an email giving them permission to talk to Professor Giamarellou and Dr Laziridis.
With the help of anti-psychotic drugs, prescribed by Dr Laziridis, I returned to sanity in time to be able to vigorously cover the Greek economic crisis for the BBC in June.
But there was no escape from the devastating impact of Sanofi Pasteur’s vaccine.
In July, I found myself sectioned in a secure psychiatric ward in Ipswich, the town where I grew up.
I had returned to Britain because I lost faith in the efficacy of Greek psychiatric care. The specialists in Ipswich decided I needed to be protected from myself after I suffered a major relapse and displayed more bizarre behaviour.
I escaped from a psychiatric crisis team. Wearing excessively tight Lycra shorts and jacket, I took my bike on the train to London, with the aim of acting as a peacemaker in the BBC journalists’ strike. I demanded to see the director-general and the strike leader.
As I was being gently shepherded out of Television Centre to a BBC car to take me back to Ipswich, I spotted Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, who is partially paralysed after being shot in Saudi Arabia in 2004. I told him about my Messianic convictions and rubbed his back in the hope of accomplishing a miracle cure.
Frank was really graciously indulgent and said: ‘I’ll take whatever I can get.’
My performance in front of senior BBC managers and other colleagues demonstrated that I was certifiable and reinforced the stigma attached to mental illness.
But it isn’t just me who has suffered. Trine and son Lukas have also been tormented by my psychotic episodes.
How a routine jab sent me so mad I sobbed (and saluted) through the Royal Wedding - then became convinced I was the Messiah...
By Malcolm Brabant
Last updated at 12:53 AM on 1st January 2012
Comments (4) Share
Before wielding the syringe, the middle-aged nurse in the scruffy Greek prefectural office warned me to expect symptoms similar to mild influenza.
But nothing could have prepared me for the catastrophic adverse reaction that I endured and which has left me a ruined, broken man.
Stamaril, the yellow fever vaccine made by Sanofi Pasteur, one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives. But the jab fried my brain and transported me to within a whisper of death and paralysis.
Anguish: BBC Correspondent Malcolm Brabant with his wife Trine and their son Lukas outside their new home in Copenhagen
It has taken my little family and me to the gates of hell. Since April, I have spent more than three months in the intensive care units of psychiatric hospitals in three countries, and there is a possibility that I will never fully recover.
(Malcolm has had three psychotic episodes. In between, he is lucid, aware that he has endured a period of serious mental illness. He can remember most of what has happened to him during the psychotic episodes. He also keeps a diary and has been filmed frequently. This account was written last week, during a lucid period.)
'I needed the inoculation as protection against mosquitoes that carry the yellow fever virus and kill an estimated 200,000 people each year in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.'I needed the inoculation as protection against mosquitoes that carry the yellow fever virus and kill an estimated 200,000 people each year in sub-Saharan Africa and South America. I was due to fly to Ivory Coast to shoot a series of films about victims of the country’s civil conflict for Unicef, the United Nations children’s fund. It was supposed to be my second assignment for Unicef TV, an organisation that requires sensitive videography and story-telling.
I have been a freelance BBC foreign correspondent for 22 years and had been in Athens for the previous eight years, with none of the benefits enjoyed by journalists on the staff.
Well respected: Malcolm Brabant was the BBC's Athens correspondent - but was unable to report on rioting in the Greek capital due to his illness
Work and money was scarce at the start of the year because of the BBC’s focus on the Arab uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa. Interest in the Greek financial crisis had waned. So I leapt at Unicef’s offer to fly to West Africa.
But the immunisation made me too sick to travel. Within 24 hours of the jab, I was confined to bed with a temperature of 103.6F (39.8C). We knew instantly this was a reaction to the inoculation, since no one else was sick and nothing had happened to me apart from the vaccination. I was shivering and rocking the bed so violently that it slammed against the bedside table.
My wife, the Danish author Trine Villemann, couldn’t believe the severity of the fever and changed thermometers. The second thermometer confirmed the first reading. I was gripping on to the duvet for dear life because I was simultaneously freezing and drenched in a cold sweat.
Trine applied over-the-counter medicines such as Ibuprofen to try to suppress the fever but my temperature hovered resolutely at 104F (40C) and on occasions spiked as high as 104.5F (40.3C).
The body’s normal temperature is 98.6F (37C).
Petition: Mr Brabant's wife, Trine Villemann is now trying to obtain the findings of an investigation
I had a battery of examinations in hospital and was admitted when my liver test produced an abnormal result.
The fever was depriving me of sleep and the insomnia left me emotionally exhausted.
I suffered my first hallucination 11 days into what was now a severe illness that was baffling Greece’s top infectious diseases experts. I was convinced my Kindle e-book reader flew across the hospital room from the bed to a chair.
Despite being a veteran, cynical journalist, I started to believe that I had supernatural powers.
Thirteen days after the shot, doctors began giving me steroids to try to dampen the fever. At long last, they succeeded. But my mental downward spiral steepened the next day, Friday, April 29, the day Prince William married Kate Middleton.
I was watching the ceremony on television with Trine, who has written two books about the Danish royal family. This was supposed to be a treat for her because of her professional interest.
But I spoiled the occasion. Every time I saw someone in uniform, I jumped up and saluted. I was in floods of tears and in hyper-patriotic mood at witnessing a British ceremony at its finest, weeping over the flowers and the music.
Trine never got to see the Royal couple say ‘I will’. She switched off the television because she thought I was too distressed.
She ordered me to have a rest and left my room. When she returned an hour later, I was still sobbing.
Later that day, I became convinced that I was the Messiah. The trigger was a midnight email from Bob Traa, the head of the International Monetary Fund team in Athens, who was agreeing to a highly prized off-the-record meeting about the Greek economic crisis. I was delirious. I never thought he’d see me.
I sent back a crazed reply saying: ‘I’m getting very tired now. I need to sleep because we have a lot of work to do. One thing I will say is that Greece has really been kind to me and it has cured my son.
‘It is God’s country. Its people are fantastic. Sorry, the bed is shaking.God bless. Malcolm.’
'The bed was pitching so violently, I thought it was a sign from Heaven that the second coming had begun.'Indeed, the bed was pitching so violently, I thought it was a sign from Heaven that the second coming had begun. A few days later, Trine transferred me to the Sinouri Clinic, a poor Athenian imitation of Britain’s Priory. ‘You had called me and told me you were Jesus,’ she says.
I was sitting on the windowsill of my room on the 15th floor of the hospital, looking towards the dome of an Orthodox church. ‘I am going to fly with the angels,’ I said.
Apparently, it is quite common for the insane to be convinced that they are Jesus Christ. My experience in Athens in April and May was similar to that of Jim Carrey when he played an ordinary American who suddenly developed divine powers and became Bruce Almighty in the movie of the same name.
There were times when I was confused about whether I was Christianity’s Joseph figure or the Messiah himself. It was excruciating trying to persuade Trine that our son Lukas was in line to save the world like me.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I used to beg.
‘Yes, I know who you are,’ she would reply. But her eyes told me she didn’t believe me.
I thought I had been chosen because of my understanding of the media and new technology. I decided to test my powers and flushed my Kindle in the lavatory, then picked it up and turned it on. The display flickered briefly and then it expired permanently. I thought perhaps this was just teething trouble and was certain that other miracles would ensue.
For a week, I disappeared into a mental black hole and had no inkling of just how mad I had become. Then, gradually, I returned to consciousness and became self-aware.
Bad reaction: The Stamaril vaccine that Malcolm took
But during the psychotic episode, I became convinced that the British Government knew that I was the Messiah and had put cameras in the bathroom of my room in the psychiatric ward. I spent hours in the bathroom denouncing various Greek politicians for being corrupt.
I was sure that a video-feed from the bathroom was being played to 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace and the White House. During one session, I was certain that the Queen Mother had returned from the dead and was roaring with laughter at my antics.
I interpreted ‘messages’ that meant the British Royal Family was going to step aside so that Lukas could become King and could have the protection the next Messiah would require.
I was getting messages from the dead people that, during the sane period of my life, I have always regarded as my guardian angels. They included my son James, who would have been 33 years old this year and who died in his pram of cot death when he was just four months old.
I would get an electronic buzz when the guardian angels wished to speak. The spirits ‘on the other side’ included Danny McGrory, one of my best friends in journalism, who died of a sudden stroke; Kurt Schork, a Reuters correspondent who was killed in Sierra Leone during the civil war; Terry Lloyd, the ITN reporter killed in Iraq, who had given me my first job in journalism; and Bill Frost, a brilliant Radio 4 correspondent who died prematurely young.
They set me a series of tests, and were cackling with laughter as they commanded me to drink my own urine from the porcelain bowl and to clean my teeth with a toilet brush. I complied with their demands. Urine doesn’t taste as bad as you might think, but I refused to go along with my guardian angels’ most outrageous demand – to eat my own excrement. ‘There are limits, chaps,’ I said.
Emotional moment: The Royal wedding in April put Malcolm in a 'hyper-patriotic mood'
It was excruciatingly frustrating trying and failing to convince anyone that I was the next Messiah. I tried to recreate the stigmata by squashing fresh strawberries, brought to me by my wife, and painting ‘blood marks’ on the wall of the bathroom. I commanded her to dress me up in a nappy made from a sheet so I could lie in bed like a divine infant. I also insisted she polish my halo.
The owner of the Sinouri Clinic, a psychiatrist called Pantelis Lazaridis, declared that I had suffered what he called ‘an acute organic psychotic event’.
Throughout my illness, Trine was conducting an investigation into the cause. We both knew the trigger was the yellow fever inoculation. A specialist at the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases said he suspected the jab was contaminated. Professor Eleni Giamarellou, Greece’s leading specialist in infectious diseases who treated me at Athens’ Ygeia hospital, believes I was hypersensitive to the drug and suffered an allergic reaction to it.
'Despite the devastating impact on me, the Greek health authorities have displayed no interest in investigating whether other syringes were contaminated' Despite the devastating impact on me, the Greek health authorities have displayed no interest in investigating whether other syringes were contaminated. Sanofi Pasteur denies there is any link between my illness and its vaccine.
The company is also asking for more data and claims we have prevented its investigators from having access to my medical records. That is simply not true. My wife sent the company an email giving them permission to talk to Professor Giamarellou and Dr Laziridis.
With the help of anti-psychotic drugs, prescribed by Dr Laziridis, I returned to sanity in time to be able to vigorously cover the Greek economic crisis for the BBC in June.
But there was no escape from the devastating impact of Sanofi Pasteur’s vaccine.
In July, I found myself sectioned in a secure psychiatric ward in Ipswich, the town where I grew up.
I had returned to Britain because I lost faith in the efficacy of Greek psychiatric care. The specialists in Ipswich decided I needed to be protected from myself after I suffered a major relapse and displayed more bizarre behaviour.
I escaped from a psychiatric crisis team. Wearing excessively tight Lycra shorts and jacket, I took my bike on the train to London, with the aim of acting as a peacemaker in the BBC journalists’ strike. I demanded to see the director-general and the strike leader.
As I was being gently shepherded out of Television Centre to a BBC car to take me back to Ipswich, I spotted Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, who is partially paralysed after being shot in Saudi Arabia in 2004. I told him about my Messianic convictions and rubbed his back in the hope of accomplishing a miracle cure.
Frank was really graciously indulgent and said: ‘I’ll take whatever I can get.’
My performance in front of senior BBC managers and other colleagues demonstrated that I was certifiable and reinforced the stigma attached to mental illness.
But it isn’t just me who has suffered. Trine and son Lukas have also been tormented by my psychotic episodes.
4.25pm: Elsewhere in the Eurozone crisis, talks between Greece and its private sector creditors appear to be on the brink of collapse tonight.
In a very worrying development, the negotiations have been suspended after the two sides were unable to make progress on Greece's debt reduction.
The IIF, which represents the investors who hold Greek debt, released this statement this afternoon:
Quote:
Discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach.
We very much hope, however, that Greece, with the support of the Euro Area, will be in a position to re-engage constructively with the private sector with a view to finalizing a mutually acceptable agreement on a voluntary debt exchange.
The two sides have been trying to hammer out a deal under which private investors take a haircut of up to 50% on their Greece's sovereign bonds, along with up to €100bn of debt forgiveness.
If that deal cannot be agreed, then Greece will not get its next aid tranche (Angela Merkel made that very clear on Monday).
Without that money, Greece cannot repay €14bn of debt which mature in March.
The chances of Greece defaulting, in a disorderly manner, have just risen significantly.
If that deal cannot be agreed, then Greece will not get its next aid tranche (Angela Merkel made that very clear on Monday).
Without that money, Greece cannot repay €14bn of debt which mature in March.
The chances of Greece defaulting, in a disorderly manner, have just risen significantly.
A bit of a political theatre going on here.
Any country 'defaulting in a disorderly manner' and consequently exiting the Euro would bring about the demise of the common currency within weeks.
Not because of the exposure of Eurozone banks to the government and corporate debt of said country, but because of what people in other weak Eurozone economies will do after such a development.
Any country 'defaulting in a disorderly manner'...
I thought "defaulting in a disorderly manner" was a strange concept too - wondering what other kind it could be - then I remembered! The trick is to make sure that the banksters don't lose out...
I'll cut to the indictment: Greece is a crime scene. The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam. And––cover the children's ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.
Interesting quote by Kissinger from 'A World to Gain' - the battle for global domination and why America entered WWII by Thomas Toughill.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gTLqsBYgvKQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA8#v=onepa ge&q&f=false _________________ "Soon after the year 2000 has been written, a law will go forth from America whose purpose will be to suppress all individual thinking. This will not be the wording of the law, but it will be the intent" Rudolf Steiner: Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes in Menschengeiste (The Present and the Past in the Human Spirit)
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:46 am Post subject:
Isn't this ESSENTIAL viewing in the current Greek crisis???
BBC should show it right now.
Z - by Costa Gavras
The Academy Award-winning political thriller, "Z", celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The director, Costa Gavras, talks to WNYC's Leonard Lopate about making the film and how it became a critically acclaimed, worldwide smash and the winner of both the Cannes Jury Prize and the Best Foreign Film Oscar, along with fifty other international awards.
The Intel Hub
By Adrian Salbuchi
February 23, 2012
Here in Argentina, when we watch the terrible things that are happening today in Greece, we can only exclaim, “Hey!! That’s exactly what happened in Argentina in 2001 and 2002…!”
A decade ago, Argentina too went through a systemic Sovereign Public Debt collapse resulting in social turmoil, worker hardship, rioting and street fights with the police.
Some months before Argentina exploded, then-President Fernando de la Rúa – forced to resign at the height of the 2001 crisis – had called back as finance minister the notorious pro-banker, Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller/Soros/Rhodes protégée Domingo Cavallo.
Cavallo was the gruesome architect of Argentina’s political and economic capitulation to the US and UK when he was President Carlos Menem’s foreign minister and economy minister in the ’90s.
Menem and Cavallo are primarily responsible for Argentina’s signing of a formal Treaty of Capitulation with the UK/US after the 1982 Falklands War, opening up our economy to unrestricted privatization, deregulation and grossly excessive US Dollar-indebtedness, almost tripling our sovereign debt in a few short years (see my February 11, 2012 article British Laughter in the Falklands).
The Plan? Prepare Argentina for planned weakening, bankster take-over and collapse, so that a new weakening-takeover-collapse cycle could begin. In 2001, Cavallo was back to finish his work…
During that very hot summer in December 2001, true to its Latin temperament, Argentina even had four (yes, 4!) presidents in just one week. One of them, Adolfo Rodriguez Sáa, who only lasted three days, at least did one thing right, even if he did it the wrong way: he declared Argentina’s default on its sovereign debt.
All hell broke loose! The international bankers and IMF did everything they could to break Argentina’s back; global media pundits predicted all kinds of impending catastrophes.
Debt default meant Argentina would have to weather the pain and agony alone, being cast out by the “international financial community”.
‘You’re not the boss of me!’
But no matter how bad it got, it would always be better to do that without the bankers, without the IMF’s, European Central Bank’s, US Fed’s and US Treasury’s “help”.
Better to sort out your mess on your own, than to have parasitic banker vultures carving out their pound of flesh from your nation’s decaying social and economic body.
And how bad did it get in 2002? A 40 per cent drop in GDP; 30 per cent unemployment; 50 per cent of the population fell below the poverty line; dramatic, almost overnight, devaluation against the US Dollar from 1 peso per dollar to 4 pesos per dollar (then it tapered down to 3 pesos per dollar); if you had a US dollar Bank account, the government forced you to change it into pesos at the rate of 1.40 pesos per dollar.
What did Argentina’s government do wrong? In the months leading to collapse it bowed to all the bankers and IMF-mandated measures and “recipes”, which were actually the very cause of collapse: Argentina was loaned far more than it could pay back…. And the banker knew it!
This was described in our December 19, 2011 article, Argentina: Tango Lessons.
Successive governments since then have continued to be functional to banker interests by rolling over debt 30 to 40 years, aggregating huge interest and in 2006 paying the full debt to the IMF – almost US$10 billion in full, cash and in US dollars (sole entity given most-favoured creditor status).
Same vultures circling Greece
Today, Greece is confronted with a similarly tough decision. Either it keeps its sovereignty, or it capitulates to the “Vulture Troika” – the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund – who work for the Bankers, not the People.
Not surprisingly, today we find that Greece too has a Trilateral Commission Rockefeller/Rothschild man at the helm: Lucas Papademos who is doing the same things Argentina did in 2001/2.
Argentina not only suffered Cavallo, but President De la Rúa himself was co-founder of the local Global Power Masters lobby, CARI – Argentine International Relations Council – local branch of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, networking with the Trilateral Commission / Bilderberg mafia.
Greece today should do what Argentina did a decade ago: better to endure pain and hardship, and sort out the mess made by your politicians in connivance with international bankers on your own, wielding whatever shred of sovereignty you still have than allowing the Banker Vultures sitting in Frankfurt, New York and London decide your future.
It’s the Neocolonial Private Power Domination Model, stupid!
Or do you think it’s just bad luck, bad judgment and coincidence that countries – Greece, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, Iceland, Ireland, Russia, Malaysia, Ukraine, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, France, even the US and UK – always borrow too much from the bankers and then “discover” that they cannot pay it back and that, symmetrically, the same bankers – CitiCorp, HSBC, Deutsche, Commerz, BNP, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorganChase, BBVA lend too much to countries and then “discover” they cannot collect?
No! That is the very yellow-brick road that leads to the Emerald City of “debt restructuring”, “debt refinancing”, and “sovereign debt bond mega-swaps” that snowball sovereign debt, spreading it over 20, 40 or more years into the future.
That guarantees unimaginably colossal interest profits for the Mega-Bankers and for all those nice politicians, media players, traders and brokers, without whom that would not be possible.
This is a Model. It must keep rolling and rolling and rolling… As this Monster Machine steams forwards, it completely tramples on, overruns, destroys, flattens and obliterates people, jobs, workers, health services, pensions, education, national security and just about everything human on its path.
Run by parasitic usurer technocrats, it does not care what it destroys because it has no ethics; no Christian, Muslim or Buddhist morals. It only worships a greedy golden idol of money, money and more money. This is 21st-century Money Power Slavery.
Three generations of Argentines saw hopes dashed and dreams thwarted by this Monster Machine, suffering the hardship, woes and humiliations that come when countries give up sovereignty.
Bring back the drach!
So, Greece: Just default on your “sovereign debt”! Just revert to the drachma! Just say “No, thanks!” to the German bankers and the Troika Vultures.
Please, Greece: just say “No!” to your Trilateral Commission president!
You will be setting a strong precedent for your European neighbours. Like Spain, which is hurting so badly right now for similar reasons. Like Italy, with its Trilateral Commission Prime Minister Mario Monti (also Trilateral’s European Chairman!).
Greece, the Cradle of Democracy, can teach the world a lesson in True Democracy by kicking these parasites out of the country, which will hopefully trigger kicking them out of Europe and one day, kicking them out of the global economy.
Because what Greece and Argentina and Italy and Spain suffer today is not True Democracy, but rather a distorted b****** imitation that systematically yields control to the Global Power Masters at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg and Mega-Banking Overworld.
They run the whole “democracy show”, whereby all countries end up having “the best democracy that money can buy”… which is no democracy at all…
The Money Power juggernaut is steaming full speed towards us all. If Greece falls, who’ll be next? Spain? Italy? Portugal? Argentina (yet again!!!)?
So what if Greece’s reverting to the drachma marks the beginning of the end for the euro? Let Italy revert to the lira, Spain to the peseta, Portugal to the escudo…! A National Currency is a key National Sovereignty factor.
All governments should understand that you either govern for the people and against the bankers; or you govern for the bankers and against the people.
This article originally appeared on RT
Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar
Greece Officially Defaults, UK Prepares For Euro Collapse
Posted by Alexander Higgins - March 9, 2012 at 8:05 pm
UK Government prepares for Euro collapse and nuclear financial fallout of Moody’s officially declaring a Greece default on their sovereign debt.
Greece has now become the first developed western nation to default on its sovereign debt and, while the media is downplaying the consequences, no amount of propaganda and deception will be able hide the debris that will be scattered across Europe once the the financial *-storm is done blowing over.
The consequences will be severe indeed as the spotlight focuses on the rest of the PIIGS nations while investors are forced to consider the situation in Greece, which does not bode well for the economic future of these nations nor is it a good omen for the future of the Euro.
While this can easily be written off as the speculation of some blogger, you’ll see below that the BBC reported that even the UK government issued a a read alert warning just yesterday running the headline “UK must prepare for the collapse of the Euro” predicting that the events that unfolded today would soon come to fruition.
UK Must Plan For Euro Collapse
For those not following what just happened, earlier the IDSA declaration of a “credit event” that triggers credit default swaps and Fitch downgraded Greek debt to “restricted default” following a debt swap deal to keep the Greek government alive by securing an EU bailout.
Reports have now just hit the wire that Moody’s has declared Greece in default, which will have dire consequences on Greece and the entire Euro-zone area.
For those wondering which EU nation is next, the answer is of course Portugal.
recent days have seen a mass exodus of investors money as the Troika gave their first indications that Portugal will be forced to restructured their debt in the same manner as Greece.
Of course we now know that means a default on the nation’s sovereign debt, which then runs the risk of the contagion spreading all across Europe and finishing in a crescendo whose tidal wave may finally land on the shores of the United States.
First reports we’ll look at reports from RT and Press TV on the Greece default, then a report from Zero Hedge on the immediate ramifications the default will have, followed by the BBC article warning of the collapse of the Euro and the political unrest such an event will have.
RT reports:
Moody’s: Greece has defaulted
Moody’s Investors Service considers Greece to have defaulted per its default definitions. The announcement comes despite Athens reaching a deal with private creditors for a bond exchange that will shave €107 billion from its €350 billion debt.
[...]
Eventually, the overall cost to bondholders, based on the present net value of the debt, will be at least 70 per cent of the investment, Moody’s explained.
“According to Moody’s definitions, this exchange represents a ‘distressed exchange,’ and therefore a debt default,” the US rating firm said. “This is because (i) the exchange amounts to a diminished financial obligation relative to the original obligation, and (ii) the exchange has the effect of allowing Greece to avoid payment default in the future.”
[...]
On Friday, Athens announced that it had carved out a crucial bond swap deal with private investors designed to write off more than €100 million of Greek debt. The bondholders agreed to take huge losses, giving up some 74 per cent of the value of their investment.
The agreement with private investors was a crucial part of a new bailout from the EU and the IMF aimed at averting a catastrophic default which could plunge the entire eurozone into a deep crisis potentially harming the global economy.
Greece is experiencing its worst economic crisis since World War II and has been on the brink of a default with debt equal to 160 per cent of its GDP.
Source: RT
Press TV reports:
The US-based credit rating agency issued a statement on Friday, saying that “even as 85.8 percent” of the holders of Greek government bonds had agreed to the plan, the “exercise of collective action clauses that Athens is applying to its bonds will force the remaining bondholders to participate.”
“According to Moody’s definitions, this exchange represents a ‘distressed exchange’ and therefore a debt default.
“The exchange amounts to a diminished financial obligation relative to the original obligation,” the statement added.
Moody’s also said the debt swap deal “has the effect of allowing Greece to avoid payment default in the future.”
On Friday, the Greek government announced that a large majority of private creditors had signed on to a debt exchange plan expected to cancel about 107 billion euros (143 billion dollars) in Greek government bonds.
On February 24, Greece had formally offered private creditors the deal, which is expected to reduce the country’s debt of about 350 billion euros (469 billion dollars). The deal is part of the second bailout package for Greece approved by eurozone finance ministers during a meeting in Brussels on February 20.
According to the second bailout package, Greece will get loans of more than 130 billion euros (174 billion dollars). The first bailout, which was approved by Eurozone finance ministers on May 2, 2010, was worth 110 billion euros (147 billion dollars).
On March 2, Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of Greece to C from Ca and said the country’s debt exchange plan may “constitute a default.”
Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Friday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF plans to offer Greece a loan worth about 28 billion euros (36.7 billion dollars).
Lagarde’s statement added, “Today I have consulted with the IMF’s Executive Board and on that basis, as discussed with the Greek government, I intend to recommend a 28-billion-euro arrangement under the Fund’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to support Greece’s ambitious economic program over the next four years.
[...]
Source: Press TV
Zero Hedge reports on what the consequences of the Greek default.
Greece Has Defaulted: Here Is Where We Stand
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.
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
Source:Zero Hedge
The BBC reports on the UK government’s issuance of the warning that EURO collapse is next
Security: UK ‘must plan for euro collapse’
Ministers should draw up plans to deal with a break-up of the eurozone “as a matter of urgency”, a committee of MPs and peers has warned.
The joint committee on the government’s National Security Strategy (NSS) said the full or partial collapse of the single currency was “plausible”.
It said political unrest and a rise in economic migrant numbers could result.
“Long-term security” is at the heart of foreign policy thinking, the government said in response.
The committee, whose members include ex-MI5 director general Baroness Manningham-Buller, said economic instability could leave the UK “unable to defend itself”.
It added that governments across the EU could be forced to cut defence spending if the instability were to continue.
“International economic problems could lead to our allies having to make considerable cuts to their defence spending, and to an increase in economic migrants between EU member states, and to domestic social or political unrest,” it said.
And, while the committee welcomed the government’s decision to publish the NSS alongside the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, it said that “a clear over-arching strategy” had not yet emerged.
Committee chairman and former Labour foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said: “A good strategy is realistic, is clear on the big questions, and guides choices. This one does not.
“We need a public debate on the sort of country we want the UK to be in future and whether our ambitions are realistic, given how much we are prepared to spend.”
[...]
The committee said that in an era of “diminished resources”, the UK would have to take on a more “partnership-dependent” role in world affairs.
It stated: “We believe it is totally unrealistic not to expect any diminution in the UK’s power and influence in the medium and long term.”
In response, a government spokesman said ministers remained vigilant and regularly took stock of “the changing global environment” and threats to the UK’s security.
Pensioner shoots himself at Greek Parliament, refuses to 'search for food in garbage' (PHOTOS)
Mourners stand around the spot where a man committed suicide at central Syntagma square in Athens (Reuters / Yorgos Karahalis)
A 77-year-old Greek man has committed suicide in central Athens by the nation’s parliament, shooting himself with a handgun in apparent financial desperation.
Eyewitness reports say that the man shouted “So I won’t leave debts for my children” before turning the gun on himself. Others claimed he said nothing.
Greek state media reports the man left a suicide note saying “The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival. And since I cannot find justice, I cannot find another means to react besides putting a decent end [to my life], before I start searching the garbage for food."
Georgios Tsolakoglou headed the Greek collaborationist government during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War.
The note has been widely regarded as drawing a parallel between Lucas Papademos’ current collaborationist government and Tsolakoglou’s regime because of the economic crisis in the country.
The incident occurred around 9 am (local time) in Syntagma Square, just outside a metro station, when the area was filled with people and commuters. The man took his life behind a big tree, which concealed him from most eyes. Two people sitting on a bench some 10 meters away have been questioned by the police. An investigation into a motive has been opened.
The pensioner, whose name is not yet released, appears to have been a pharmacist who owned a drugstore in Athens, which he later had to sell, Lourantos Costas, the head of the Attica Pharmacist’s Association told the Greek daily The City Press.
The shocked Greek community is issuing calls for a "Syntagma afternoon" later on Wednesday. Motorcyclists are planning a protest ride around the capital starting at 17:30 local time (14:30 GMT).
‘Who’s next?’
People are bringing flowers to the tree under which the desperate old man took his own life. They also leave messages on the tree: "Austerity kills," "Not a suicide; a murder” or “Who’s gonna be next?”
The number of suicides has dramatically increased in the country since the beginning of the economic crisis, shows data released by the Greek Health Ministry.
Prior to the economic downturn Greece had the lowest suicide rate in Europe at 2.8 for every 100,000 inhabitants. Now, this figure has almost doubled, with police reporting over 600 suicide cases in 2010 and 2011 respectively. Attempted suicides are also on the up.
Just on Tuesday, a 38-year-old Albanian man killed himself on the island of Crete. He had been unemployed for some time. The financial hardship made him jump off his second-floor balcony, reported local news.
The private sector is proving to be no safe haven either, as in the last few months several businessmen have fatally shot themselves.
To secure loan payments to foreign investors, Greece has been forced to drastically cut state spending by slashing public salaries and pensions by almost 40 per cent, while the unemployment rate has hit 21 per cent.
But so far the Greek government has failed to pull the country out of its three-year economic downturn and continues to rack up austerity measures to qualify for EU bailout packages.
(Reuters / Yorgos Karahalis)
‘Killing Austerity’ sweeps through stricken EU
Greece is not the only country to see a spike in the suicide rate caused by the government’s effort to battle crippled finances.
In neighboring Italy, a 78-year-old woman threw herself out of her third-floor apartment on Tuesday after her monthly pension was cut from 800 to 600 euro. Since the 25 per cent cut, the pensioner from Sicily had reportedly been struggling to make ends meet.
"The government is making us all poorer, apart from the wealthy – who they don't touch – in contrast with us workers and small businessmen who are struggling with heavy debts," said her son, Bruno Marsana, as quoted by The Daily Telegraph.
On Monday, a picture frame-maker hanged himself in Rome. His suicide note told of "overwhelming economic problems." Previously, two men in northern Italy set themselves on fire in two separate incidents, citing financial woes as well. Both survived, sustaining severe burns.
Italy, like Greece, is struggling with a recession and mounting unemployment by increasingly severe austerity measures. This includes drastic spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reform. Rome is also trying to pass an unpopular labor decree, which will make it easier for companies to sack employees. _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
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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