The Troika’s Policy in Greece: Rob the Greek people and give the money to private banks, the ECB, the IMF and the dominant States of the Eurozone
On
20 August 2018, the Greek government of Alexis Tsipras, the IMF and
the European leaders celebrated the end of the Third Memorandum.
On
this occasion, the major media and those in power spread the
following message: Greece has regained its freedom, its economy is
improving, unemployment is on the decline, Europe has lent Greece 300
billion and the Greeks will have to start repaying that debt in 2022
or in 2032.
The
main claims are completely unfounded as Greece remains under the
control of its creditors. In compliance with the accords that the
Alexis Tsipras government signed, the country must imperatively
achieve a primary budgetary surplus of 3.5% which will force it to
continue brutal policies of reduction of public spending in the
social sector and in investment. Contrary to the dominant message
that Greece will not begin to repay its debt until some time in the
future, it should be clearly understood that Greece has been repaying
considerable amounts constantly all along to the ECB, the IMF and to
private creditors, and this prevents it from responding to the needs
of its population.
by
Eric Toussaint
Part
12 - The French private banks hid their losses resulting from the
fiasco of their expansion into Greece from the public - There was an
alternative to the Troika scenario
The
French bankers also made sure not to attract public attention to the
losses they suffered in Greece due to their adventure with the
private debt bubble, which they actively contributed to creating.
Société
Générale, for example, lost €7 billion with the Greek bank
Geniki, which it had purchased in 2004… and then re-sold for a
symbolic one euro to the Piraeus bank… Who heard about it? What
major French newspapers headlined it? Not one. But everyone read all
about the 4.5-billion-euro loss for which Société Générale’s
trader Jérôme Kerviel was supposedly solely responsible. And of
course everyone also heard about the problems Greece was supposedly
causing for the French banks and France’s population…
On 17
October 2012, the French bank Crédit Agricole sold off Emporiki’s
total capital to Alpha Bank for a symbolic euro. The Emporiki
adventure cost Crédit Agricole over €10 billion. But it should be
pointed out that the cost of those losses was ultimately borne by the
personnel of the banks through massive job cuts. Did anyone hear
about that?
The
ECB, then, purchased Greek securities for a total of €56.5 billion
in 2010-2012. Officially, this was done to come to Greece’s aid. In
reality, the ECB was pursuing a different goal.
From
whom did it purchase the Greek securities? Answer: BNP Paribas,
Société Générale, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, ING, Hypo Real,
Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Dexia, etc. Why did it make these mass
purchases? To prevent the private banks from taking even bigger
losses should the price of the securities drop too low due to a lack
of massive buying. So the ECB alone bought €56.5 billion worth,
whereas the Eurozone banks in question together held a maximum of
between 70 and 80 billion at the start of 2010.
If the
ECB had not purchased them from the big private banks, the Greek
securities would have had to sell for 15% or even 10% of their value.
As a
matter of fact, in such a context, if the Papandreou government had
shown a modicum of courage in defending the interests of the
population, it would have declared a suspension of repayment of the
debt and conducted an audit. That is what Ecuador did in 2009. Its
declaration of suspension of payment threw a scare into the bankers
in New York and they began to sell off Ecuador’s government bonds
at cut-rate prices. At one point they were selling for 20% (or less)
of their value. Ecuador then entered into an agreement with Banque
Lazard under which the latter purchased the securities at the lowest
possible price. Then, Ecuador bought them back after having issued an
official buy-back offer on all the securities. Defending the
interests of the population against the sharks of the financial world
takes guts. Ecuador did it by playing one of those financial sharks,
Banque Lazard, against the other sharks, and it worked out very well.
Conversely, in the case of the Greece, Lazard played against Greece
and participated in preparing the restructuring of the debt in 2012,
which had a crushing impact on the population and earned a juicy
commission for Lazard.
Source,
links, references:
Related:
Comments
Post a Comment