Bleeding Edge

Last Tuesday, Greece became the first developed country to default on the IMF — and the pro-creditor camp is already propagating the convenient self-serving myth that the country’s “radical” and “irresponsible” government is somehow to blame for this.

Still though it seems to me that nothing could be further from the truth.

To begin with, we should note that defaults come in many forms and guises — and not all of them are the debtor’s fault.

In our own research on the political economy of sovereign debt, we identify at least seven types of country/nation economic default of the Sovereign Debt as one of the following categories…

The negotiated rescheduling;

The voluntary restructuring;

The unilateral moratorium;

The outright debt repudiation;

The undeclared economic war victimization of a country;

The sudden country bankruptcy;

And lastly the Debt Jubilee and the total Amnesty of All Debts follows when all else has failed.

Still what is interesting about sovereign debt in general and about international lending in particular, is the almost wholesale absence of repudiation, and the complete lack of Truth or understanding amongst the People of Europe about the power of compound Interest and Usury.

And although most sovereign debts become usurious after the economic depressions, and recessions that all too often visit the World — most countries try extremely hard to repay their debts in full and on time — even when they cannot due to economic failures and circumstances beyond the control of any single country.

In the worst case scenarios, and at the extremes — the debtor countries may be able to negotiate a rescheduling or restructuring of the debt with their lenders — or to simply walk away through forgiveness of Sovereign Debt as we’ve done to Africa and others when the Debt was clearly unsupportable.

As William Shakespeare clearly showed us in the theatre play of the “Merchant of Venice” it is He who seeks to extract a pound of flesh from the Borrower — that is bound to lose his own wealth, his Dignity, and his Liberty, to boot.

And even in History Greece has defaulted and gone bankrupt at least four time officially since the New Greek Republic was established in 1828, and it has been found insolvent at least another nine times. So have many other countries in the long history of Sovereign Debt and it is not exceptional cases, when countries can declare a moratorium on repayments. Hundreds of countries have gone that route multiple time and it’s bet we understand that now as a simple right of Passage on the road to rebuilding the Economies and put the people back to work on a sustainable economic path.

Having your own currency and exercising your own National Monetary policy is the Birthright of any Sovereign nation and it should become so again in Greece. Because that is the only way to become Free and Independent once again. And this economic fight is only about this issue and nothing more…

Yet we must accept also that while this insolvency and Sovereign bankruptcy practice for Economic Reorganization, was very common prior to World War II, it is a little rarer today. Yet it is more uncommon today only amongst the developed world, because the developing countries and the emergent economies have a totally different risk profile for their Debt Bonds and their bankruptcies are at least as common as for StartUp companies.

Yet things are a changing. The Creditors are ready set to get schooled and understand that the Greek Default will pierce the Global Bubble of unsustainable Sovereign Debt. And if you don’t believe that — rest assured that the Three Hundred Trillion Dollars Sovereign Debt is unsustainable today and we best get ready for a new wave of Sovereign bankruptcies, because the Global Sovereign Debt is far beyond the limits of sustainability and a general Debt Amnesty has to come for all countries developed or not — same as we’ve done for Africa when we offered Debt Relief to all countries of the poorest Continent of this world.

Now is the turn of Europe to taste the Humble Pie of Sovereign debt defaults through Greece’s bankruptcy, and then America’s turn to taste it through Puerto Rico’s imminent debt default. So get ready if you are a Bond holder, or a Bond Trader, or a Sovereign Bond Banker, to have some fun because You will surely live in interesting times…

And the Chinese have an interesting curse for those that forget history: They wish them to Go Live in Interesting Times…

In this respect, the first thing to remember as the NO VOTE take control of the Hearts and Mind of the Greek people — is that Greece clearly did not repudiate its debts outright, because despite the preliminary conclusions of the Greek parliamentary debt audit committee, which found much of the country’s debt to be odious, illegitimate and illegal — the current Greek government still formally recognizes the legally binding character of the debt contracts.

However it is the IMF’s default that therefore looks more like an undeclared moratorium, since Greece could still settle its arrears with the International Monetary Fund at a later stage; if it somehow managed to secure new and sustainable credit.

The second thing to note is that Greece clearly cannot repay its debts in full without economic growth that cannot ever come through the Austerity programs. Even the IMF recognizes that the country needs serious debt relief in order to make Greece’s debts sustainable and this is what is not yet on offer.

Still, the country’s left-led government committed itself to remaining current on its obligations even under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Over the past five months, the Greek Government of Syriza basically did the impossible; as it continued to repay the usurious and extortive debt payments to the loan-sharking foreign creditors even though the country didn’t receive a dime in foreign financing.

So how did Greece find the money to pay for these practically unsustainable debt payments?

Well, it generated the payments domestically from taxes and budget cuts — along with a de facto default on government suppliers, on pensioners, on government workers, on poor people, on the unemployed, and on all of it’s children.

Because long before Greece defaulted on the IMF, it defaulted on its own people, and on the private sector firms that do business with the Greek government — just so it could keep servicing its external debts to unwieldy foreign country creditors somehow enforcing a form of suzerainty and despotism over an independent country as a form of current Foreign occupation.

In fact, for all the talk of Greek “profligacy” and Greece’s spending beyond it’s means, or even the current government’s so called spending ways, the left-led government of Greece, would have run the largest primary surpluses in the EU by far.

In fact, this year the Greek Government’s budget would have been the most austere on the continent of Europe as shown on this Chart by the Economist magazine of London UK:

Source: Economist (2015)

Now, the reason Greece has hit a wall and defaulted on the IMF is very simple: despite running primary surpluses, it basically ran out of cash reserves — and the fact that it ran out of money to pay anybody, was clearly not its own fault.

If the Creditor nations of Europe and Germany truly cared to keep the European nations together, the Greedy Creditors could have easily prevented a default. Sadly, they found it more important to punish Greece and set an example for other nations to toe the line of the “Germany Uber Alles” White supremacist, fascist, and racist doctrine…

North versus the South is played out here in the heart of Democracy and along all the countries of Europe with the Greeks being the perennial “black heads” as described in German lore and as Angela Merkel today’s German Chancellor of the Reich, describes the Greeks as lacking Commitment…

Indeed the Greeks and their government truly lack commitment to the German occupation of their own country and homeland…

Amazing…

The insolence and temerity of these people…

Ladies start clutching your pearls.

The Gall…

The insolence of these Greek people to stand up naked and poor against the might of the German economic war machine’s Blietzkrieg — to stand up like modern day Leonidas and his band of Three Hundred ferocious Spartan warriors of old, standing guards of the Gates of Greece in Thermopylae.

And that is the whole story of what is going on today.

And for that I offer them a debt of Honour on behalf of the whole world, and I salute the Greeks who vote NO as modern day heroes…

Because as Winston Churchill said when the Greeks in 1940 gave the First Victory of the Second World War to the Allies by beating back the Italian fascists all the way into Italy — we must remember again today tat this necessitated the German Hitler thugs to come to the rescue of their Italian Allies and the delay caused the German armies to march against Russia during the winter. The Russian General Winter along with General Molotov won the war … and the Hitler thugs never forgot who held them back. so now they want to repay the Greeks and settle this old score. This is the real score and got nothing to do with current debt that is just an excuse to scare and scar a whole country for it’s insolence.

Undertand?

But I want to Thank the Greeks for standing up against the Banker-wanker Status Quo and thus gaining this early Victory on behalf of all of us and giving strength to our backbone by voting NO fiercely:

“”It is not the Greeks who fight like heroes but it rather the Heroes and the Lions that fight like Greeks””

–WInston Churchill

So the Greek NO has to be a resounding and full mouth NO, in order to be heard all over the World… and to be seen in beautiful High Definition colour and sound.

Yet to be fully ready to deflect anyone’s criticism we must be ready with the Accounting as well. So we must also look at the Accounting Record carefully…

For one, Greece’s repayment schedule for 2015 was simply quite unrealistic because the slow economically summer is full of huge payments that could never be made. Moreover, the creditors showed absolutely no willingness to reschedule or restructure Greece’s debt profile towards sustainability. The German creditors’ stubborn refusal to make any concessions in the negotiations also contributed to continued uncertainty, slowing down the economy even further, increasing the unemployment, and thus affecting negatively all economic growth and tax collection. This combination of factors made an involuntary moratorium on the IMF debt inevitable.

But it gets worse. If the creditors had truly cared about preventing a Greek default, they could have done so at the flick of a switch. The Eurogroup and IMF still owed Greece the last 7.2 billion euro tranche of its previously agreed bailout package, while the European Central Bank owed it nearly 2 billion euros in withheld profits on Greek bonds, which it was supposed to return to the government. If the lenders really didn’t want Greece to default, they could have simply transferred this money from one part of the “Books” to another, and thus the Greek debt problem would have been solved…

But it should be clear by now that the standoff between Greece and its creditors is no longer about the money. It rather is about power and control over the small nation of hardy people and independent Democratic traditions. The German creditors were adamant not to encourage the Greek people’s freedom as represented by Syriza’s resistance, because this might embolden the anti-austerity forces elsewhere in Europe — most notably in Spain, where the young people’s party might well win the next elections.

And then in Italy the left leaning Young Democrats are winning and are going to sink the Austerity government beholden to Germany… And then in Portugal this scenario will take place, and in Ireland, and above all else in the UK where England is set to call a Referendum and Exit the European Union altogether by next year.

So while the brick dominoes are falling all over the German brick shithouse; the foolish German Conservatives like Ms Merkel, and Mr Schauble, much like their predecessors the horrible Nazis some seventy years ago did — now they want to set an example of the Independent Greeks by stringing up their proud necks.

And this isn’t going down well with anyone, because the only possible way Greece could have obtained further financing to repay the IMF this week would have been to sign up to the self-defeating and humiliating “take-it-or-leave-it” national suicide offer that was made by the Germans and the other Foreign creditors last Friday — designed to humiliate and defeat the Greek Sovereign Government.

And of course taking this national suicide offer coming from the Creditors; it would have been suicidal both for the Greek Government of Syriza and for Greece, and the Greek people themselves.

And it was a stupid move by the Germans because it must have been obvious even to school children from the start; that the Greek Premiere Mr Tsipras would be unwilling and unable to submit to the same austerity measures that had produced such disastrous economic consequences under previous docile and submissive Greek caretaker governments, against which he had been campaigning aggressively all those years until the Greek people installed him to power, in order to lead them out of the dark wood of foreign occupation and dependency.

If anyone is a student of History out there — will truly know which way this story is going to play forward and if there are some tears and toils and pain to come amongst the Greek people for a little while — then they can take it easily because that’s the price of Freedom. Freedom and National Liberty has always been the most treasured and valuable experience for the Greeks and these people are hard enough and don’t care as their long and brilliant history loudly declares.

They are made to guard Thermopylae, Marathon, and Salamis, and they don’t mind dong it, even if it is to only to win a Great Victory at the cost of their own blood and sinew.

So the only choice really for anyone who votes for this Referendum this Sunday is to Vote NO and hope that enough Greeks will vote NO in order to help the small country turn a new leaf, and start on the road to prosperity and growth with it’s own coin and it’s own Monetary Policy to be able to sustain it’s own needs and geographic national integrity and sovereignty.

Yours,
Dr Kroko

PS:

The bottom line is that Greece was pushed over the edge by its own creditors. Its government is clearly still willing to pay — just not at all costs, like previous docile to the German foreign Masters, Greek governments.

In fact, the Greek government of Syriza rightly demands a fairer distribution in the burden sharing, a sustainable long-term debt payment trajectory, and a sovereign say in the way it chooses to meet its obligations — whether by taxing shipowners, bankers, large constructors, large scale Tourism Operators, and Media magnates — rather than cutting the wages and the miniscule social net benefits of the low workers, the aged and sick pensioners, and the unemployed.

If in a country with more than a third of it’s workforce is long term chronically unemployed, and it’s youth is unable to even hope to find any kind of work in the country, this is considered “radical” and “irresponsible” Policy in the European Union of today — it’s only because the Germans and their Media slaves have hijacked the debate and manage to present only their side of the story.

But the European people are not stupid either. And the fact that the very appearance of where the Political Center is, has been erroneously shifted by the Media for far too many clicks of the compass to the right — has not escaped anyone’s attention.

Yet the European people are sensitive and sensible and above all else they are smart and cannot be led to another German occupation while there are still people alive who were interned in the Nazi concentration camps during the second World War…

Unfortunately, this is precisely what is happening today again some Seventy years after the last Travesty of Justice and the bloodshed and the horrors heaved upon Europe, because of the Fascist Conquest in Europe.

And if anyone bears responsibility for the Greek default towards the IMF today, this is the extremists in the creditor camp and the Germans, the imaginary Masters of Europe, and of the Universe — who would rather suffocate their borrowers than ensure the continued repayment of debt through Growth and shared prosperity and perhaps the keeping of the European dream alive…

Somehow they must think that they are the Very Evil Empire that the Alliance beat a couple of times before in the last go round in Europe, last century, and is going to beat them again this time.

Long Live the Alliance of Justice…

Vote NO my Friends — vote NO this Sunday — Vote NO today — Vote NO tomorrow — Keep your Dignity and Independence…

Stay Strong…

The whole World is Watching and Rooting for the Greeks today.

Go vote and vote a strong NO on this Referendum.

Lady Liberty is tearing up — hell she is full-on crying — as she is watching with awe her children fighting forth for Freedom from want, freedom from need, and freedom of Being…

On this Fourth of July the Anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence it is through the Vote of the Leaders and the Representatives of the American people to become Independent that this great Nation has come about.

So tomorrow may the Greek People muster their strength and rise up to vote NO and regain their own Independence too and be able to celebrate through the ages to come as A Free People all over again…