The Franco/German "save Greece" Scam

So basically Germany and France have been the driving force behind the Greece bailouts and have pushed the other EU countries to pay their parts.

But while the Greek economy and its people are suffering the downfall, Greece has a defense budget that is disproportionately high when compared to other EU countries.

In the wake of the private sector debt swap agreed last week, European leaders have continued to call for major structural reforms to Greece's economy and society. The current EU-IMF bailout remains conditional on further austerity measures, including reducing pensions, the minimum-wage and civil service jobs. However, one area of the Greek budget doesn't seem to have received much scrutiny: its huge military spending

In 2006, as the financial crisis was looming, Greece was the third biggest arms importer after China and India. And over the past 10 years its military budget has stood at an average of 4% of GDP, more than £900 per person. If Greece is in need of structural reform, then its oversized military would seem the most logical place to start. In fact, if it had only spent the EU average of 1.7% over the last 20 years, it would have saved a total of 52% of its GDP – meaning instead of being completely bankrupt it would be among the more typical countries struggling with the recession.

www.guardian.co.uk...

So, what countries have been selling them the weapons?

One major factor is that France and Germany's arms industries have greatly profited from this profligate military spending, leading their governments to put pressure on Greece not to cancel lucrative arms deals. In the five years up to 2010, Greece purchased more of Germany's arms exports than any other country, buying 15% of its weapons.

Over the same period, Greece was the third-largest customer for France's military exports and its top buyer in Europe.

Significantly, when the first bail-out package was being negotiated in 2010, Greece spent 7.1bn euros (£5.9bn) on its military, up from 6.24bn euros in 2007. A total of £1bn was spent on French and German weapons, plunging the country even further into debt in the same year that social spending was cut by 1.8bn euros. It has claimed by some that this was no coincidence, and that the EU bail-out was explicitly tied to burgeoning arms deals.

In particular, there is alleged to have been concerted pressure from France to buy several stealth frigates. Meanwhile Germany sold 223 howitzers and completed a controversial deal on faulty submarines, leading to an investigation into accusations of bribes being given to Greek officials.

So there you have it. Greece is broke, mainly because of their defense expenses, money that went to Germany and France.

Then we Europeans all have to pay to save Greece, only that money is still being spent on weapons, and still going to Germany and France, and is not helping the Greek economy at all.

A big scam if I ever saw one.

Germany and France are still the bullies of Europe that think they can own us all.

And of course my government goes along with it like the little Euro minions they are.

Disgusting.

When it came to his turn to address the leader, he instinctively popped the question that many in Greece have wanted to ask. "After running through all the reasons why austerity wasn't working in my country I brought up the issue of defence expenditure.

Was it right, I asked, that our government makes so many weapons purchases from Germany when it obviously couldn't afford such deals and was slashing wages and pensions?"

Merkel's reaction was instant. "She immediately said: 'But we never asked you to spend so much of your GDP on defence,'"

Panagopoulos recalled. "And then she mentioned the issue of outstanding payments on submarines she said Germany had been owed for over a decade."

Greek profligacy may be blamed for triggering the debt crisis that now threatens to tear the eurozone apart, but if there is one area where Berlin is less excoriating of state largesse it is in Athens's extravagant taste for arms.

Behind the frequent exhortations that Greece rein in spending after living "beyond its means" – admonishments made most loudly by Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble – there is another reality that paints Germany in a less than flattering light, according to MPs, military experts, economists and scholars.

"If there is one country that has benefited from the huge amounts Greece spends on defence it is Germany," said Dimitris Papadimoulis, an MP with the Coalition of the Radical Left party.

www.guardian.co.uk...

So the Greek collapse was mainly blamed on the "lazy" Greek people but it was the country's defense spending for the most part.

Germany sucked them dry, made a lot of money over the Greek peoples' backs, then accused them of living beyond their means, not acknowledging their own part in it, and then scammed the rest of Europe out of their money so Greece could keep on buying their weapons.

It's infuriating.

Originally posted by StraightBananas
So there you have it. Greece is broke, mainly because of their defense expenses, money that went to Germany and France.

False.

So I guess there never was a global financial crisis?
The Greek Government never cooked their books (with the friendly help of Goldman&Sachs) to lie themselves into the €Z in the first place?
General tax evasion in Greece never reached 15 percent (45 billion € annually) of their gross national product and Greece's shadow economy was never the biggest in Europe?
I also guess not a single Cent of the financial aid went straight into the pockets of the same corrupt banksters and politicians who caused Greece's situation in the first place?

It was all the evil Franco/Germans, pushing their agenda for a Franco/German-4th-Reich, right?

reply to post by ColCurious

False. So I guess there never was a global financial crisis?

I said this,

So there you have it. Greece is broke, MAINLY because of their defense expenses, money that went to Germany and France.

I posted this,

If Greece is in need of structural reform, then its oversized military would seem the most logical place to start. In fact, if it had only spent the EU average of 1.7% over the last 20 years, it would have saved a total of 52% of its GDP – meaning instead of being completely bankrupt it would be among the more typical countries struggling with the recession.

Yes there obviously is a financial crisis, but Greece would not have suffered so much if they had cut their disproportionate defense budget earlier.

One major factor is that France and Germany's arms industries have greatly profited from this profligate military spending, leading their governments to put pressure on Greece not to cancel lucrative arms deals. In the five years up to 2010, Greece purchased more of Germany's arms exports than any other country, buying 15% of its weapons. Over the same period, Greece was the third-largest customer for France's military exports and its top buyer in Europe.

These are simple facts.

Off course the banksters are behind everything in the end but one can't deny the influence that Germany and France have on the other European countries.

Historically as well as in the present.

I have presented the facts, you can deny them if you want.

Do you happen to be a citizen of one of these countries?

reply to post by StraightBananas

I was not denying any facts about the arms deals. Chancellor Merkel's statement regarding this is valid IMO.

I was just pointing out that Greece's dire situation is MAINLY caused by various other factors and not their 4%/GDP-worth defense budget and thus not indirectly by Germany or France.

And yes, I am German.

Off course the banksters are behind everything in the end but one can't deny the influence that Germany and France have on the other European countries.

and the mason brothers in high places willing to sign contracts for things a country has no need for.

German has slowly recovered from the debacle that was WWII. Now the weapon of choice for them is "market share". This weapon is a total success and it leave building and labor untouched. Official EU stats show this clearly.

Germany recorded by far the largest trade surplus in industrial goods (EUR 178.7 billion) in 2007; with exports covering imports by 125.2 % (see Table 2). Much of the German trade surplus in industrial goods reflected the export performance of machinery and equipment and transport equipment, areas in which German manufacturers are particularly specialised. Ireland was the only Member State to report a cover ratio above that registered in Germany, as exports covered imports by 149.9 % in 2007, largely as a result of a relatively large trade surplus for basic chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

That was in 2007 as the start of the crash.

reply to post by ColCurious


The defense budget does matter a lot because it is the straw that breaks the camels back, and it is disproportionate and not needed.

As for the role of Germany and France,

www.defensenews.com...

PARIS — France and Germany put a priority on maintaining arms deals after the 2008 financial crisis, rather than see Greece cut spending that would hit their defense companies, European member of parliament Daniel Cohn-Bendit said March 5.

Cohn-Bendit, nicknamed Dany the Red for playing a leading role in the 1968 student protests in the streets of the French capital, said former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told him that Berlin and Paris had not wanted Athens to slash military spending, as that would hurt French and German industry.

Papandreou had been replying to Cohn-Bendit’s call in the European Parliament for cuts in Greek military spending to balance the budget, the French politician said. “If you really want to balance the budget in Greece, you have to attack the military budget,” Cohn-Bendit said.

The French and German leaders also insisted that Greece would use part of a first tranche of financial aid from the European Union to honor the arms contracts, Cohn-Bendit said. The EU aid was intended to stave off a national debt default.

“That’s when I said, that’s truly perverse — we’re giving them money so they can pay French and German industry,” Cohn-Bendit said.

Indeed.

Chancellor Merkel's statement regarding this is valid IMO.

Yes, you guys tend to stand behind your leaders, all the way.

reply to post by tintin2012


Can you expand on that?

Originally posted by StraightBananas
The defense budget does matter a lot because it is the straw that breaks the camels back, and it is disproportionate and not needed.

Maybe, but it's not even a third of one of the factors I mentioned, so it's hardly the MAIN reason why Greece is broke, as you stated.

The French and German leaders also insisted that Greece would use part of a first tranche of financial aid from the European Union to honor the arms contracts[...]

What's wrong with honoring already existing contracts?
Breaching those contracts sure wouldn't have helped Greece regaining trust of investors.

Yes, you guys tend to stand behind your leaders, all the way.

I actually don't like our current Chancellor Merkel, but she's right on this issue.
It's not the bakers fault the kid gets fat.
If Greece couldn't afford those arms deals they shouldn't have made them.

reply to post by StraightBananas
Well StraightBananas it is a complicated picture. One needs to go to the past to understand the present. No other way to do it.

I will throw a few things to consider and see if it help to sheds some light on things today in the EU.

The Crusades - the motivation for them ,as some interpret it , was to milk the nobility and give the young hawks something to do in order for them to get rich. Question is who was milking whom. Since the "bankers" were giving loans to get the boys suited up for war it seems obvious who gained.

If you look closely at the Teutonic Knights (I am angling toward German aspect of this) you will see that its structure was a corporation which used "war against Pagans" as the pretexts to expand Eastward and Southward. This would be the future seed of bigger trouble for this part of the world. Germany thinks still that these lands are hers (I am simplifying things a bit).

We still have the other Crusader Orders who were active in the Western Europe. Their influence lives on and their main engine of profit was War.

As I said before, Germany has found a much better method to do this today. It is called EU. Who benefits? Ask the Hungarians, Slovaks, Poles, Romanians and of course Greeks. It is not these countries.

Greeks should have never entered the EU but Goldman-Sachs helped it to "doctor" its accounts. What is interesting is that nothing happened to GS. Whereas the Germans of all never noticed anything. I don't buy that one for a moment.

Now lets look at the EU puppets

José Manuel Barroso -

Barroso's political activity began in his late teens, during the Estado Novo regime in Portugal, before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. In his college days, he was one of the leaders of the underground Maoist MRPP (Reorganising Movement of the Proletariat Party, later PCTP/MRPP, Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers/Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat).

those are iron clad qualifications for whom? I say a Bolshevik-light dressed by Hugo Boss. No need of firing squads when Brussels directives can do the same.

I mentioned Hugo Boss,

The same year, he became a member of the Nazi party and a sponsoring member ("Förderndes Mitglied") of the Schutzstaffel (SS).[9] He later stated himself that he had joined the party because of their promise to end unemployment and because he felt "temporarily" withdrawn from the Lutheran church.[9] He joined the German Labour Front in 1936, the Reich Air Protection Association in 1939, and the National Socialist People's Welfare in 1941.[9]

Back to EU.

Mario Monti and his qualifications

Monti actively participates in several major think tanks. He is a member of the Praesidium of Friends of Europe. He was the founding chairman of Bruegel, another European think tank, which was formed in 2005. He is also the European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a think tank founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller.[48]

Later he won a scholarship to Yale University,[8] where he studied under James Tobin, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.[9]

lets look at his mentor

James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who, in his lifetime, served on the Council of Economic Advisors and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities.

when I hear Federal Reserve that is an alarm bell that I am dealing with someone that is not doing anything in my interest as a citizen.

The pattern that I see here is that what we think all is Normal is far from normal.

reply to post by ColCurious

Maybe, but it's not even a third of one of the factors I mentioned, so it's hardly the MAIN reason why Greece is broke, as you stated.

No other area has contributed as heavily to the country's debt mountain. If Athens had cut defence spending to levels similar to other EU states over the past decade, economists claim it would have saved around €150bn – more than its last bailout. Instead, Greece dedicates up to €7bn a year to military expenditure – down from a high of €10bn in 2009.

"For a long time Greece spent 7% of its GDP on defence when other European countries spent an average 2.2%. If you were to add up that compound 5% from 1946 to today, there would be no debt at all," he said. "It's vital that if the European Union wants to speak about fair deals it should at least guarantee Greek borders [with Turkey] so the country can bring down military spending to 2.2%."

www.guardian.co.uk...

What's wrong with honoring already existing contracts? Breaching those contracts sure wouldn't have helped Greece regaining trust of investors.

What is wrong is that Europe didn't pay the money so Greece could pay German and French weapon industries, but it obviously was what Germany and France were after by pushing the bailouts.

They even demanded guarantees on new weapon deals that weren't signed yet. Europeans are paying money to them, for weapons Greece doesn't even need. We payed money to save Greece's economy, not for paying back loans for wastefull weapon deals, to the two countries that were the driving factors behind the bailouts in the first place.

Are you that biased that you don't get that?

I actually don't like our current Chancellor Merkel, but she's right on this issue. It's not the bakers fault the kid gets fat. If Greece couldn't afford those arms deals they shouldn't have made them.

The point is that she is a hypocrite. Off course Greece has a big part of the blame, but why it is that France and Germany are demanding cuts in pensions, salaries and public services,by the Greeks, but the buying of arms is allowed to continue unabated.

Pure self serving hypocricy.

it obviously was what Germany and France were after by pushing the bailouts.

reply to post by StraightBananas
It was obvious to a lot of people that the bailout would do no good. I suspect the idea was to sink Greece even further under water with debit so that it would be easier to set terms for "privatization" of what ever they could get their hands on in Greece.

Take a look at how this played out in Argentina because it was the same trick there as right now in Greece. There is only one way out and that is to show the middle finger to the IMF and WB and Merkel Inc.

reply to post by tintin2012


I am pretty sure it all stinks top to bottom, and I agree with your references to historical influences that still play today.

Bump da bump.

Originally posted by StraightBananas

No other area has contributed as heavily to the country's debt mountain[...]

Again, this statement is obviously false.
If you can't see the difference between 4-7%/GDP and 15%-25% I don't know what else to say.

"For a long time Greece spent 7% of its GDP on defence when other European countries spent an average 2.2%. If you were to add up that compound 5% from 1946 to today, there would be no debt at all" [...]

Yeah, and if you would add up only all the losses of tax revenues (which alone amounted to 25%/GDP already in 2007, shortly before(!) the GFC hit) resulting from far-reaching tax evasion and tax avoidance, major loopholes in Greece’s tax system, failing control mechanisms and a general absence of incentive for tax-payers to disclose their actual taxable incomes, AND the damage Greece's shadow economy caused to their budget, Greece would be more than consolidated today.

Originally posted by StraightBananas
The point is that she is a hypocrite. Off course Greece has a big part of the blame, but why it is that France and Germany are demanding cuts in pensions, salaries and public services,by the Greeks, but the buying of arms is allowed to continue unabated.

The German Government suggested austerity measures, and more important: structural reforms.
They never demanded exactly how those measures should be implemented and just FYI, the way the Greek Government killed their middle-class-economy is widely estimated as "ill-considered austerity" here.

Originally posted by tintin2012
reply to post by StraightBananas

 

If you look closely at the Teutonic Knights (I am angling toward German aspect of this) you will see that its structure was a corporation which used "war against Pagans" as the pretexts to expand Eastward and Southward. This would be the future seed of bigger trouble for this part of the world. Germany thinks still that these lands are hers (I am simplifying things a bit).

Yeah right, simplifying things a bit...

I must say this is even more preposterous than playing the good old nazi-card.

reply to post by ColCurious


Good arguments matey and I applaud your efforts, but I think the OP matey has an anti-defence agenda, as does the Guardian Newspaper. For the record, you're spot on in every aspect about Greeces problems and it has pretty much nothing to do with their meagre defence spending. 7B Euro's a year? Pah...

If the Guardian had their way, we'd all be spending every penny on making sure those that don't want to work don't have to, the Africans who can't feed their kids can have more babies and would happily have us absorbed into a gargantuan EU superstate without a whimper.... Just so you know what you're dealing with

reply to post by ColCurious

Again, this statement is obviously false. If you can't see the difference between 4-7%/GDP and 15%-25% I don't know what else to say.

What does the 15%-25% represent?

Yeah, and if you would add up only all the losses of tax revenues (which alone amounted to 25%/GDP already in 2007, shortly before(!) the GFC hit) resulting from far-reaching tax evasion and tax avoidance, major loopholes in Greece’s tax system, failing control mechanisms and a general absence of incentive for tax-payers to disclose their actual taxable incomes, AND the damage Greece's shadow economy caused to their budget, Greece would be more than consolidated today.

Sources?

The German Government suggested austerity measures, and more important: structural reforms. They never demanded exactly how those measures should be implemented and just FYI, the way the Greek Government killed their middle-class-economy is here widely estimated as "ill-considered austerity".

So you are denying that Germany was demanding that all these measures would be taken, yet were silent about the crazy defense budget. You also deny that in order for Greece to get any bailout, Germany and France demanded that they would first pay their weapon industries with European money, meant to save the Greece economy?

You are such a good subject.

reply to post by stumason

If they had their way, we'd all be spending every penny on making sure those that don't want to work don't have to, the Africans who can't feed their kids can have more babies and would happily have us absorbed into a gargantuan EU superstate without a whimper.... Just so you know what you're dealing with

What? I am opposing the European superstate that has Germany at the head of the table. I oppose my tax money going to Greece so they can pay German and French weapon industries.

Please keep your ridiculous assumptions to yourself.

I am very much anti EU for the most part.

Originally posted by StraightBananas
Sources?

You're really going to ask for sources for what has been a well documented, publicly debated problem for 3 years now? If you are not aware of anything he has said, then you are clearly not aware of anything to do with Greece's problems and are , in fact, just regurgitating an article without any thinking yourself.

For giggles, here is a Guardian article.. Although it does try to blame the "middle classes" and leaves the "workers" alone.... God old lefty Guardian...
Bloomberg article
Another Guardian article on the black economy and Phantom jobs...

That's just the tip of the iceberg and in all honesty, you should verse yourself on the nuances of the debt crisis, rather than try to make a square peg fit a triangular hole...

reply to post by StraightBananas


I said the Guardian thought that, apologies if it wasn't clear. I didn't mean you.