Saturday, June 20, 2015

Greek debt audit: pure mafioso extortion

Update (Jun 25): full report (PDF).

The executive summary of the Greek Public Debt Audit Report was made public this week, setting the legal and ethical basis for the national bankruptcy which was delayed in extremis to the end of this month but will take place without doubt by June 30th. 

Can't pay, won't pay is the most read header in the mainstream media and even many blogs but that's only part of the issue. The background problem is that the debt was contracted in ways that were akin to high treason

First of all, the debt growth in the pre-Troika period was not used to increase public spending, which remained in fact the lowest of the Eurozone, but was caused by:
  • Usury by creditors, who charged very high interest rates
  • Extremely high unjustified military spending (ironically not at all what the Troika demands cutting)
  • Loss of tax revenues via capital outflows (tax evasion to British colonies, etc.)
  • Public subsidies (recapitalization) to private banks (welfare for the rich)
  • Trade imbalances caused by a flawed design of the monetary union: no UE public spending or low-rate public financing to compensate for this catastrophic design makes the UE a colony of Germany and a few small Nordic satellites, the infamous post-modern IV Reich. Is it a flaw or rather a feature?
These are the objective mechanisms that created the snowball of Greek public debt. 

Then, in the Troika period, states were coerced to bail out troubled private banks. This was again financed by the international financial bankster mafia and greatly increased the public debt of not just Greece but many other states. 

The Troika-imposed agreements (the infamous memorandums) only created new debt at even worse abusive costs (usury again). Most of the money that was lent to Greece in the 2010-14 period went directly back to the pockets of the lending International Capitalist Mafia. These also benefited from the dismantling of the Greek state, purchasing many of its profitable assets at ridiculously low prices. 

Worse: the conditions attached to those credit lines have only damaged the Greek economy, destroying its very sustainability and causing an almost unprecedented humanitarian crisis. 

The European Union and its institutions, such as the ECB, as well as UN institutions like the IMF, are bound (in theory) to protect human rights but they have only charged against them, following the only logic of (1) usurary gain and (2) the forge of an unstable German neo-colonial empire in Europe. In synthesis: profit of the oligarchs above the human rights of us so-called "European citizens". 

Incidentally the agreements were not signed under Greek law or international legality but under English law, which apparently does not care at all for human rights, only for profit. This was intended to circumvent the Greek constitution, what is actually illegal when one of the signatories is the Greek state itself. 

The debt is also illegal because it breaches the IMF statutes. It is also odious because it was produced in spite of being cause of breach human rights, something that neither the IMF nor the EU can legally do.

The ECB is also accused of over-stepping its mandate to favor the narrow interests of the Bankster Mafia. This should also be illegal and certainly is odious. Similarly the EFSF loans are illegal because they breach the Treaty of Lisbon (effective "constitution" of the EU), as well as imposing conditions that are anti-democratic.

The bilateral loans between Greece and various other states are also illegal, as they violate the Greek constitution, as well as EU and international laws. 

Loans with private banks are also illegal and odious because said banks (notably Goldman Sachs) did not behave responsibly and often acted in bad faith (credit default swaps, for instance). The recapitalization of Greek banks was also illegal, using public funds for private purposes and further indebting the Greek nation.

The fact that all these debts are illegal and odious make up the legal and ethical frame that allow the Greek state to unilaterally repudiate them. Of course the Greek state can always declare sovereign bankruptcy (can't pay: won't pay) but this report offers the basis for a different kind of default: the debt is illegal and immoral, so it does not exist. If anything, lenders owe reparations to Greece for the damages caused. 

One may think this is a totally pointless exercise because after all the situation is the same: little red and democratic Greece versus the massive Imperial Bankster Mafia. The point of it is, I understand, to stop the diversion: it's not that Greece owes money because it has dilapidated it, Greece is simply being extorted by the International Mafia

And it is not just Greece of course.

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You can sign a petition demanding to cancel the Greek debt HERE.

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