ECB Pulls The Trigger: Blocks Funding To Greece Via Debt Collateral

originally posted by: BornAgainAlien
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

While I agree with you about what needs to happen with the parasites of this World, it would be too nasty for comfort to pull the band-aid too quickly, we would most likely pull all the stitches out of it and bleed to death.

I`m more for letting it collapse somewhat controlled and after that take it back. The real bastards will survive it anyway, so there`s no need to make even more victims and misseray because of them.

A lot get nervous because of the wait, but I`m not one of them, I`m personally very calm about it.

I'm not nervous or anxious, what will be, will be, it comes down to one's ability to adapt LOL. I am already a good distance for major cities with my own well water, generators, wood stoves, supplies, etc. and I compare a collapse of now to later differently.

Consider the longer we wait as an increase in caliber size and accuracy. If "the change" were to happen tomorrow it would be like being hit by a 9mm handgun with FMJ's from say 100 feet. There's a chance it will hit the body or an artery but there's a better chance of walking away with a flesh wound. A year or two from now, maybe a shotgun with SSG at 20 feet and a very long recovery or death, but in 2 plus years might as well strap up to a G5 cannon so the world can take it in the head or the heart.

The longer the wait, the greater the long term damage. Of course this might be the plan anyway, reduce population and make things so bad everyone is screaming for solutions from a world government that has carte blanche control.

It's time to face the music and the longer we play musical chairs with this situation, the worse it's going to get. There is no easy way down in a year or two. The only solution is to forgive ALL debts right now and change the way countries create and value currency and control debt, it has to be taken out of the hands of bankers and put into the hands of government. Similarly with politics, it has to be taken out of the hands of corporations and bankers and placed back where it rightly belongs, in the hands of the people.

But if we continue to wait, thinking governments or bankers or corporations are going to fix this problem that they have created, I believe in two years (on the outside) will we see a worldwide collapse of apocalyptic proportions. Power will go out, pipelines will stop, gasoline will stop, water will stop, technology will begin to fall away and I suppose we will re-enact the dark ages to some extent. It only takes 3 days to empty all the stores in a city and for the bloodshed to become full blown.

I am a firm believer that as inhabitants of this rock in space, this has been done many times before and as an intelligent (questionably) species, we or something else will rebuild again. But don't worry, for now, the worst is yet to come ;-)

Cheers - Dave

originally posted by: earthling42
a reply to: Willtell

Well you're entitled to believe what you want of course, but it cannot be the case that Greece simply spends money which it doesn't have, and the european taxpayer must pay the bill.
They wanted to stay in the eurozone and asked for financial aid which they received.
While it was certainly not wanted by the european taxpayers and even against regulations of the european union, every member state has contributed to a sum of hundreds of billions in bail out money to keep Greece afloat.
Greece got debt reductions, they got the bail out money against an interest of 1.5 percent which is lower than the actual interest against which member states had to borrow.
They do not have to start paying interest until 2023 and also do not have to start repaying before 2023.
But what they must do according to the agreements is clean up their mess, which they obviously refuse to do.
If they don't want to respect the agreements than EU should not want Greece with their problems anymore.

Raising taxes (particularly on the wealthy) moderate cuts in services, and other measures along a uniform line of economic indicators, are reasonable in times of economic depression or recession.

But modern economics, to a great degree, is a matter of manipulation NOT REAL DEPRESSION OF RESOURCES…
There are no crises in material resources in the world therefore a modern capitalist society does not have to torture its people in bad economic times.

With computers, modern communication and delivery means there is always an alternative to the draconian measures imposed on the Greek populace.

Also it turns out even though the austerity may well help in the budget deficits it has also stunted economic growth, as all of the anti-austerity economist predicted. So with that it is doubtful extreme austerity works.

So we are left with the only premise of what I call TORTURITY (rather than austerity) of this measure as a sop to the usurious Banksters.

a reply to: earthling42

...one big EU and one currency is the ideal which they have been striving for since the 90s. It has cost us much with still no end in sight.

Actually it was in the working from the 50s.

Why do you think the Dutch government is pushing for everyone always to buy houses ?

Our Central Bank belongs to all the other private banks which is used to control us with debt.

Look at the Surprise when Antoinette Hertsenberg hears our Central Bank isn`t be subjected by any control (very good documentary which has won the first price of the best documentary at St. Tropez International Film Festival)...


The funny thing about our country is we have also way higher unemployment as what is being told, but they just changed it in the early 90s to make it look like it being less worse.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

it has to be taken out of the hands of bankers and put into the hands of government.

Then you'd be sure than in no time we will be using an wheelbarrow to carry the money if we want to buy a bread, just like the people in Zimbabwe.
No, it is the government who runs the deficit, in other words, spends more than it has, give them the ability to print the difference and you'll have a recipe for disaster.
Banks must be under regulation and speculation such as speculating on a crash in the housing market or any other market should be forbidden for financial institutions.

originally posted by: earthling42
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

it has to be taken out of the hands of bankers and put into the hands of government.

Then you'd be sure than in no time we will be using an wheelbarrow to carry the money if we want to buy a bread, just like the people in Zimbabwe.
No, it is the government who runs the deficit, in other words, spends more than it has, give them the ability to print the difference and you'll have a recipe for disaster.
Banks must be under regulation and speculation such as speculating on a crash in the housing market or any other market should be forbidden for financial institutions.

I can agree with that to some extent as I was living in South Africa when Mugarbage went nuts in Zimbabwe. The idea of controls is paramount, however, when banks and corporations get too large they destroy the ability of government to manage currency and debt through extortion. Simply look at the way reserve banks work, they create funds, charge governments interest and the debt accumulates until it can never be paid off. The creation of currency should not have debt attached to its creation. As long as we allow parasites to control currency and debt policy, nothing will change. Well, except of course the regulations to make it easier for bankers and corporations to steal using taxpayers labour as collateral.

Remember the too big too fail bailouts? Whose backs did that mess ride on? How many politicians bald-faced lied about what was going on? I know in Canadakastan, Harper did, he did it right on national television, lied through his teeth. And Obama ROFL, "It's Bush's fault!" Bald-faced lies, lies of omission, diversion, it's all in the politics game. Right now the world runs on exploitation and extortion, two things that would be illegal for you and me, right? You know what they say though, kill a few people and you're a murder, kill a few million and you're a king.

No, I'm sorry, we need a complete paradigm shift in ALL politics and economic matters and in the process we have to at least attempt to insure that this never happens this way again. I may or may not like the idea of trials and rope, but you have to admit that the criminals in politics, banking and business need to be tried.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Willtell

read about 'internal devaluation' because that is the only thing a member state can do if spending is out of control.
This is because we have no monetary policy anymore, this has been given away by joining the eurozone.
That is indeed a harsh measure.

Normally, a country has its own currency and the value of this currency reflects the current state of the economy, in a strong economy the value will be higher, in a weak economy it will be lower compared to other currencies.
This economic flexibility has a good side if the currency drops in value.
Labor becomes cheaper but also the country becomes attractive as a vacation destination, this helps the economy.
The downside is that import is more expensive, but in my opinion it is way better than not having ones own currency and therefore a country must resort to internal devaluation.
So i think it is very clear that i am not a fan of the euro, but the reality is that our politicians decided that we should be a eurozone with one currency.
Greece wanted to join the eurozone and did so, getting out is going to cost even more.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

You should have been here in the Netherlands during the last election, our p.m promised tax cuts and the deduction of mortgage interest would not be limited.
This while everyone with a sane mind could see that he could not do these promises because we had to cut spending.
Surely many voted for him, but their taxes have gone up and the deduction of the mortgage rate is limited.

People make it very easy for politicians to lie, the memory is short so he'll probably be chosen again in 2017.

originally posted by: earthling42
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

You should have been here in the Netherlands during the last election, our p.m promised tax cuts and the deduction of mortgage interest would not be limited.
This while everyone with a sane mind could see that he could not do these promises because we had to cut spending.
Surely many voted for him, but their taxes have gone up and the deduction of the mortgage rate is limited.

People make it very easy for politicians to lie, the memory is short so he'll probably be chosen again in 2017.

I remember the scary prices there in the 80's so I can imagine how much worse it has gotten since then. Yes, politicians lie, they should be called out on their lies and fired, preferably though a cannon.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

That was certainly a good documentary, didn't know it was online with english translation.

Now our government is indeed pushing people to buy with their rent policy, and sure enough with the mortgage interest as low as it is now, it is actually much cheaper and affordable to buy a home compared to ten years ago.
But there is a catch, the house prices are going to drop a lot more, especially when interest rates are going to rise and that is a certainty.
So buy a house for the long run might be good but not for the short term.
The Netherlands as well as every other debt laden country will have to cut even more in their budget because of the high state debt which has grown so much in the past 6 years and on which interest must be paid.

And yes, agreed.
Only about 90.000 vacancies which include unpaid jobs, jobs for a few hours per week and partime, many vacancies which are already fulfilled but have yet to be removed, and against that at least 700.000 people who need a fultime job for 40 hours a week according to the official numbers.

Part two

a reply to: earthling42

This was from `97...

Dutch

According to Sweder van Wijnbergen it was already 25% back then, and you know he`s reliable (you probably have seen him enough on TV).

originally posted by: earthling42
a reply to: Willtell

Well you're entitled to believe what you want of course, but it cannot be the case that Greece simply spends money which it doesn't have, and the european taxpayer must pay the bill.
They wanted to stay in the eurozone and asked for financial aid which they received.
While it was certainly not wanted by the european taxpayers and even against regulations of the european union, every member state has contributed to a sum of hundreds of billions in bail out money to keep Greece afloat.
Greece got debt reductions, they got the bail out money against an interest of 1.5 percent which is lower than the actual interest against which member states had to borrow.
They do not have to start paying interest until 2023 and also do not have to start repaying before 2023.
But what they must do according to the agreements is clean up their mess, which they obviously refuse to do.
If they don't want to respect the agreements than EU should not want Greece with their problems anymore.

I'm not sympathetic to the EU at all. It is a corrupt institution forced on us by politicians and unelected wonks.

The sooner it crashes and burns, the better.

Quite happy for Greece to serve as the catalyst.

a reply to: citizenx1

I'm not, there is a better way than this.
First of all Ploutonas gave us a little more information about the problems in Greece like heavy taxation on the poor.
Tsipras should start talks with EU about the agreements without taking such a harsh stance, and while he and his government sets things straight when it comes to taxation.
While i'm no fan of EU either, but the EU is not the cause of the situation in which Greece finds itself currently, certainly not the european citizens like the Germans.
The anger towards the north is misplaced, moreover the EU member states have done much to ease the burden on Greece by giving debt reductions, low interest rates and not having to pay interest or repayments before 2023 and spread over 32 to 40 years.
But it is my understanding that the IMF is a burden on Greece because the repayment to the IMF was 7,4 billion last year and is 8.6 billion for this year.
So it is not the EU that squeezes Greece, this was in the financial (paid) news yesterday.

The stance which Tsipras takes is damaging Greece financially, money flows out of the country and is placed on international bank accounts, the interest rates are rising again, Greece has been downgraded last week and will be downgraded to junk in the coming weeks.
This is not helping Greece and its citizens, and leaving the EU will certainly mean that the financial problems will get a lot worse.

They should approach this in a diplomatic way, they should say, yes we continue to meet our current obligations but we are facing problems which need to be dealt with.
That is vastly different from 'the hell with you all, Greece has enough of this and we will reverse the things that were implemented.

Politicians today start spreading some roumors and I have no idea if they speak the truth or not.

There is a couple of articles allready and I will give you bellow a translated version of it, via google translator.

article :


The revelation that if the EU continues intransigence following the Berlin line the country will seek other funding sources such as Russia and China, M.Chrysoveloni and N.Chountis, just said.

N.Chountis revealed that already have been offers from Russia and China without being requested. This is a very important news as well as confirms that there are interested superpowers in the geopolitical "shop-corner" called Greece.

At the same time sensation caused by the statement of Kaklamanis that already has been agreement between the government and the EU and will be announced officially on 16th of February!

Obviously when a country has a plan B and stepping "foot" to the end requires the voice of reason instead... the paranoid "dominant".

Both strains belong to ANEL and SYRIZA which constitute the components of the government and the MoD P.Kammeno confirm that yesterday evening interview talked about plan B and other financial outlets....

the article goes on and on... but they end up saying, they delay to announce any agreement, is because they want to play some games with the euro curency... if you wanna read the rest translate it.

link

a reply to: Willtell

The problem they have in Greece is that because they are married to the Euro, the currency tools they could have used in connection to the austerity measures and other items you mentioned are lost to them. They cannot do what sovereign states normally do to make their country look attractive to foreign investment.

Imagine if California goes utterly bankrupt in the US which is very well could. They would have to do a lot of fat trimming in order to even try to reign in their debt and right their budget. There would have to be a lot of instant austerity and things would get ugly because California would not be able to raise or lower the value of the dollar relative to the currencies of the rest of the US to make investment in Cali more attractive.

Basically Greece is stuck with the Euro as is. That's why the Grexit is attractive. They could then go back to the drachma and use currency options to make foreign investment more attractive to bring in more revenue to help balance out their books.

we must create a new drachma, we cannot go back to the old drachma... because the old drachma was under british constitute or something... So this time, they have to create a new currency from scratch, a new drachma. That takes time.

The previews drachma was 1 euro/340 drachmas (something like it), the new drachma if they ever make it, will be 1/100.

If they plan to move out, I am sure they are working for PLAN C as well... The only certainty is, even if the talks fail in a couple of days, people shouldn't worry, because we already have PLAN A (euro agreement) and PLAN B (Russia), so whatever happens is after the summer.

Russia allready offered 10+b also china.

Where has all that money gone? where is it still going? just cannot get my head around it all.

a reply to: pikestaff

That money was spend between 2000 and 2010, now the money goes into the black hole that had formed because of al that spending.

If you get €30000 a year and spend €40000, after 10 years you'll have created a black hole of €100000 which is more than three times your yearly income and which must be paid back.
That is a hugh problem because that €30000 is not enough to cover the yearly cost you have, you'll need to loan more to finance your deficit and cannot even pay back €1 euro of your debt which will even grow with the amount that you have to borrow in order to cover your costs.

This is a simple example of the problem in Greece, it was spend on a hugh public sector and governments don't produce anything, they only cost money.
They failed to implement a good taxation system in which both, the people and companies pay their fair share to cover the costs of Greece, think of the national and regional governments who must be paid, the police, defence and other civil servants, social benefits for people without work, health insurance, maintenance on roads and bridges, buildings and so on.

a reply to: Ploutonas

Thanks for the link.

It would certainly be good if China would invest in Greece, every job that is created through investment is a plus.
If i am reading the article correctly the first attempt is to reach a deal with EU and otherwise make a deal with Russia?
It will certainly help if EU is persistent in its approach that it will not negotiate again and therefore closes the credit line if Greece does not meet its agreements with EU.
On the other hand there is also not much change, be it EU or Russia, lending more money means the debt of Greece will grow.
I honestly fail to see why EU would not want to negotiate if Tsipras is someone who will and can put Greece in the right direction by implementing a sound tax system and fight corruption.

a reply to: earthling42

Cosco already rents the port of Piraeus, its been years like that. (thats why eu have lots of Chinese shops all over the place lol). The previews government tried to sell the port and therefore cosco deal was about to over, but now this government canceled the the sellouts and cosco remained.

Also fresh news, our foreign affairs minister Mr Kotzias, is in Berlin today and he officially stated about ww2 loans and destructions. Germany is very negative, but the talks are already begun in an EU level. Here is the announcements, I found the video on Youtube. youtu.be...

Here is also an article in English, from the oficiall Ministry of foreign affairs in Hellas link

a reply to: Ploutonas

Great thanks

A few sentences out of the interview with Foreign minister Kotzias

The way this is interpreted by the international media and some – luckily, a few – foreign players is that we don’t want to pay. We are saying that these policies cannot be implemented because they are catastrophic and we cannot continue them, while they don’t tell their people that their policies were catastrophic, but that they were wonderfully successful and that we simply don’t want to pay. We’re ‘dodging’ our debts, as they say.

I think the international factor as a whole has received the Greek government’s message, and the Prime Minister was very clear in the Hellenic Parliament that we are not backing down. We aren’t saying this because we’ve dug in or because we are angry with anyone. We say this because we cannot lead the Greek people into further suffering.

This is precisely what i meant in an earlier reply, this is the clarity we need from politicians and which opens the dialog.
As for certain foreign players, it seems to be popular among politicians to lure votes by stating that Greece must meet its financial obligations or else exit the eurozone.
Before the elections it was popular for our politicians to say, no more money to Greece, it just shows how far europe has sunk.

Because lets be honest, if politicians can say this and attract more votes by doing so, than obviously their followers are not the smartest minds.

I just heard the discussion on the countries with a Muslim or Arab make-up, and it was mentioned that youth unemployment is at 30%, and that this is what is engendering terrorism. And I thought, in our country we are at over 50%, but we have a culture of dialogue, democratic institutions, and a good government today.

Last week i opened a thread about the three soldiers that were stabbed in France by a jihadist.
I think it is important for the EU to be wary of what ideology can do with humans.
There is a reason why soldiers are needed near jewish schools and synagogues, why so many jihadis born and raised in Europa have joined IS and plan attacks within Europe itself such as Charlie Hebdo and in Brussel last year.
So democracy and a culture of dialog obviously does not prevent extremism and terrorism.
In a talk last week with a young man who said to me that gods law is above manmade law, so islam and the west conflict with each other.
But i'll stop now because this is offtopic in this thread.