social crash haircut

Along with the economic woes that describe our era a social crash is even more difficult. What does it realy mean though? Families that split up, crime, violence, growing social inequality, the loss of the middle class. It is the week before Christmas and for most families there is either no income or a highly reduced income. The haircut to the Greek debt back in October has been translated into paycuts and pensioncuts along with a sharp increase in taxation (see HARATSI November 25th 2011). Those who are employed have seen their paycheques reduced by a full third. Pensioners had their Christmas alowance reduced by one half. Christmas shopping is down eighty percent. Sure one of the reasons to love and live in Greece is that it is not a consumer based economy or culture. What is it though? What do you call a community that is somewhere between first and third world with ties to the second? Even geographicaly we are spread across three tectonic plates. Parts of Greece remind one of Africa, other parts of Asia and other parts of Europe. The one thing I can say for certain is that our ruling class thinks it is ruling serfs. The illusion is that they can do whatever they want, never pay taxes, and continue to raise the cost of living while reducing incomes and increasing taxation to the working class and the middle class. The idea that has held on from the days of the dictatorship is that the people will just roll over and play dead. The people of course have a whole different view of things and a whole different agenda. I just hope that the hotheads don't prevail. Why do I plaster 26th of October on the 17th of November flag? Well the first is the date of the new and improved deal for the 6th installment of the IMF-Troika save Greece loan plan, 26th of October 2011. As for the 17th of November, the student uprising that ousted the dictators in 1973, and the red flag belongs to the 17th of November terrorist organization. They are all, the terrorists, presently behind bars. May cooler heads prevail...

Alexander the Great Plan Part 2

So what's in a name? Well Alexander the Great did topple the Persian Empire and then emptied the Bank of Persia. The money he split with his generals and the first and only working example of trickle down economics took place. The main reason that Alexander was called Great was this. Not his ability to win battles, no small talent for the ancient world, but his knack for spreading cash. Yes his little known economic plan that kickstarted the ancient Asian economy. People had been left cash starved and unable to maintain a basic system of commerce due to overtaxation and the immense money-clog at the Persian palace. Today an entire planet suffers and starves while extremely ignorant first world shoppers are worried about the appearance of apples and tomatoes. People in Africa live and die without the ability to farm their own land or to feed anything beyond mashed roots to their kids. These same people work incredible hours in plantations on their own land that was either grabbed by force or by assumed debt. Today Greece is also being asked to assume debt. To give up her sovereignty and to succumb to external "fatherland" pressures. What are the chances realy, after 5000 years of recorded history and the survival of our language and heritage inspite of a 400 year occupation. The Alexander the Great Plan has been set into motion and the "markets" are now in the crosshairs. Soon the dominoe effect will topple everything worldwide. The first ripples have reached every shore and in every nation a newscast has responded to the Greek debt crisis. The crisis to end all crisis. Our debt may be small, it may even be proportionaly small, but somehow nobody wants to help finance it and demanding payment now will lead to the blackest monday ever. Elections in this country will probably lead to a minority government, not so bad, but may give the balance of power to the one party that does not recognize the debt or the euro. A full default and a return to the drachma. Sure nothing has been heard about it lately and there is a general calm. The calm before the storm...

part sentiment...

Greek club...

My wife says that the Germans are "moose-go-fee" (μουσκοφοί). It is a funny term that describes someone who is always smiling and friendly but has a hidden agenda. She also says that when they reveal themselves-"agnandia"-they are already aiming a gun at you. She also says that she is not surprized by Merkel, "all she wants is to turn us into soap", but by our own politicians who are standing by idle. My dear wife describes the sentiment of many people here in Greece. She is a simple person, like me, but a wise person who usual guesses these kinds of things correctly. Judging by publications in the German press and by the stranglehold on our lawmakers she is right on both occasions. The Germans spent crazy sums in the south of europe. Now it holds the south hostage to its every whim. The fact that Germany and its leader Merkel have the power to cancel budgets, topple governments, force legislation and stop democracy in her tracks is something very depressing to us in the south. Those that lived through the German occupation of WW2 are preparing to starve. You can see the elders as they watch their pensions being reduced for the fifth time in two years. They are dying from this. The people my age and older, in their fifties, are also feeling the pressure. We are the generations that grew up in the years of the junta. We too feel the psychological pressure of a foreign power denying us our democratic rights. A close friend of mine who is an ambulance driver describes to me the shift in his job. He spends more time picking up forty and fifty year old victims of heart attacks and strokes than he ever did. "I use to be called mostly for accidents" he tells me. The feeling of foreboding, of things being beyond our control, of a twilight zone eeriness to our daily lives reveal our path. In the small town I am living in there are endless funerals. The tradition here is to post a small announcement on telephone poles and special billboards for this purpose. Every single day there seems to be a couple more funerals or memorials. I am certain that 2011 will be the year of the highest deathrate yet recorded in Greece. In our village church in the last year there was one marriage, one or two baptisms and 40 funerals. Not a typical year. Even in my neighborhood two men, one 48 and the other in his early fifties, died of heart disease. I will not even mention what I saw in the hospital. We use to be a healthy population with little or no heart disease. Seems like we are being liquidated...

Cinderella needs a spanking...

I always wanted to write a kick-ass blogg. You know the kind that people would read in droves. So I picked this spicy title for todays instalment to see if anyone stumbles upon us through a search engine. So far I have almost given away the message on the sign being held by the man on the left. For those of you who do not speak Greek I will say that the man is expressing his frustration with Merkel Greek style and then some. I will also say that the street is in downtown Athens and from his expression I am guessing that passersby are agreeing with his intentions. But why this open agression to the woman who would be president of Europe by economic force alone? Why would any Greek be anything less than grateful to our German and other European counterparts? Click on this link and see a little excerpt of how welcome one of our own ministers is made to feel while visiting the island of Mytilini. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFixHUBMp8w Why would the crowd be chasing this man with such a vengeance, the minister of maritime and shipping, one of the most important positions in our government? Well, as part of our temporary coalition government and seeing as the leftist parties would not cooperate, the socialists and conservatives opted to work with the fascist party. Yup, at the insistence of Merkel the two leading parties needed a broader base so in comes the 4 percent of our little fascist party, like a supporting finger. Nobody likes getting the finger. Hence this gentelmans' response. A couple more things, the Greek motto "Freedom or Death" is still taught in elementary and of course, if you are curious as to why the police are not arresting anyone in the aforementioned video: ΠΛΗΘΟΣ ΔΕ ΑΡΧΟΝ...ΜΟΥΝΑΡΧΟΣ ΠΟΙΕΕΙ ΟΥΔΕΝ-ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ. Or to put it in English-when the mob rules the tyrrant is powerless-Herodotos. Sure, Merkel is no Nazi but she has forced an openly Nazi minister upon us, yes that barely 40 year old guy, and has toppled our elected government, and Italy's as well. Oh and forbade us to hold a plebicite over the Euro or drachma dilemma. Maybe a non-agressive nazi? Tell me what you think!

HARATSI

Haratsi is a word used by Greeks to describe the latest tax grab. It is a property tax based on location and surface area (square footage) of all properties that are connected to the electrical grid. Churches and graves are not taxed but everything else is, based on location (municipality) and age. The newer the building the higher the tax. I am not sure if parking lots are included in this new tax but I do not see why not. The tax does not take into consideration income or ability to pay but is attached to the hydro bill and if not payed on time... the electric is cut off. Another world first here in Greece, people who can't pay their taxes having their hydro disconnected. You can't imagine the tumult this has brought on. The mayors who have intervened so that this is not enforced as well as the hydro union that has played cat and mouse with the riot police in an attempt to shut down the billing office. There is also a little detail of European law that forbids members from using utilities as a weapon to collect taxes. The first court hearing is coming up on December the second. The lawyers associations of various locations have taken the government to court. I withheld my haratsi from my landlord and paid it. Sure that works fine with rentals but most properties in Greece are not rentals. So pro bono takes over and we will see what happens. I do not expect a return for those of us that already paid but maybe some will be let off the hook. Funny to be living in a country with a pirate government... Pro bono Sam I am green eggs and ham... Haratsi-a head tax enforced by the Ottoman empire on all Christian citizens. I will say thanks here to the mayor of New Ionia who took action against this measure. It only makes sense since a couple of children fainted from hunger in his municipality's schools. Hunger is knocking on the door of many households these days. We are all hunkering down for the worst. I live in a rural are where the haratsi is 3 euros per square meter. In Athens I have property in a medium priced zone that is charged at eight euros per square meter. One square meter is nine square feet. This is the base price and newer homes get charged more. At the same time wages and pensions have been slashed in half over the last two years, believe it.

December 2nd

Well you may ask so what? It is important to us here though as it is the anniversary of the shooting of Alex Grigoropoulos. http://newsfromzoos.blogspot.com/2008/12/black-and-burberry.html On this day students will probably protest and there will be mayhem in downtown Athens. Or maybe not. Things are always so volatile and liquid here. Imagine we have an intern government with a non-elected Prime Minister and by non-elected I mean not even a member of parliament. We have elections set for sometime in February but probably wont see any for another year. We have decisions being made for us somewhere in Europe by politicians and bankers who will simply deal with Athens as a defacto government that is obliged to sign anything they come up with. Here we sit leaderless and voiceless in the midst of a junta-occupation simply enforced by economic measures. This will not last very long though. This is the homeland of democracy and democracy will return to it. However things aren't looking up right now... Oh and we don't get anymore loans from the IMF until we start signing any and all proposals put forth. An economic standstill. I hope it lasts.

So long Goerge Papandreou

I still remember all those nights we harmonized till dawn... So the dream of a referendum is shot down in flames in favour of an election. Of course who would dare let the Greek people decide? It was a fun week though wasn't it? Certainly a brilliant display of the effectiveness of the Alexander the Great Plan. Athens flooded with reporters and news crews from all over the world. More so than during the Olympics. The panicked faces of reporters and correspondents along with the rushed and all too obvious press releases, well it was more like we were living in Washington D.C. than Athens Greece. The dust may be settling down here and there is certainly an attempt in the press to lay the blame flatly in Goerge Papandreou's lap but things are far from normal. Let us make a quick recap of last week. A couple more members of parliament decide to abandon the ruling party. Goerge Papandreou, faced with a nonconfidence vote decides to call a referendum. He is faced with harsh criticism that goes as far as to question his sanity. The entire planet earth seems to have reacted to this idea. Greek bonds were a good buy in 2001 with a 5-8 percent pay back when the rest of the EU was selling at 2-3 percent. Such a good deal that it would seem everybody now has a stake in the Greek economy. So the Alexander the Great Plan and its mysterious web of intrigue and suspense, without buying into any toxics or hedge funds, manages to entangle the entire world to the point that Obama himself feels the urge to go on international television and lend his support to our now ex-prime minister. So in the midsts of all this hubbub and with no solution in sight Goerge does a 180. He wins a vote of confidence in the Greek parliament, the boule, and then resigns and calls for elections. The next four days are spent looking for a replacement and a formula for a coalition government. It is of no consequence who will be PM during the intern government, Peter Roumeliotis was one of the names shot around, as long as said PM is from the banking world. The message is clear to all us Greeks and we all know what to do and what role to play. Unity in the face of austerity and the Alexander the Great Plan will save us all. And our deposits too.

p.s. Don't forget to turn it up to 11 today.

Dear Goerge,

While you were out various things happened back here at home that you should know about. The president took your place in the officials stand at the annual October 28th NO day parade. A crowd of spectators apraoched him, the president, and asked him why he is not doing something in these troubled times. The crowd grew bigger and in the end the police had to intervene to evacuate our president. The parade went ahead with no honored guest. In Patras the parade went ahead with the city band leading the march with some inspiring Theodorakis music. Revolutionary music at a military parade... everybody cheered as the band marched by looking in the opposite direction of the honored guests. Everywhere in Greece where there is a NO day parade students, the body of the parade, wore black arm bands, to signify both mourning and resistance, and looked away from the officials stand. This is how the Greek people show their defiance and voice their resentment to these latest agreements that infringe on our national independence. Silently, peacefuly, united. Thank you dear George for listening and announcing a plebiscite. You may be certain of our united voice in offering a decisive NO to any silly question your European counterparts may come up with. It is funny to watch them squirm in their seats as they spit out threats at us. Greece will once more stand up to the occasion.

Just say NO...

Tomorow is national NO day for Greeks everywhere. It is the 71st anniversary of that day in 1940 when the Greek prime minister refused passage to the Italian ambassador. Passage was a way to ask for sovereignty over another land. It is a way to declare war and blame the other party for it. "Will you grant me passage" is the question and if the answer is "no" then one just passes by force. In the fifties war was rebaptized as a "police action". Nowadays things are much more confusing.
Today, October 27th 2011 will go down in history as national YES day. As opposed to that day when we said no to fascism 71 years ago this is the day we say yes to credit write off. I am not sure how it works, nobody realy is, but we are erasing one half of our debt in some kind of strange agreement with our European partners. We can all sigh a sigh of relief knowing that half of that national debt of ours was finaly miraculously erased. In the same way it appeared it simply vanished. A debt of 300-700 billion euros, depending on who you believe, will now be reduced to 150-350 billion euros. By 2020 it should round out to 120% of GNP. That is if we continue to raise taxes, drop salaries and reduce pensions.
I am filled with awe as I look around this great country of narrow sidewalks, roads filled with potholes, third world school fascilities and MASH style hospitals. Of ill health care, of line-ups, of red tape, of a corrupt civil service, of non-existent government services on all levels. I look around at our glorious leftover infrastructure so little changed from the days of our little military junta. Those habits of favouritism and who you know civil service were so well entrenched that a quarter century of democracy could not erase. Even joining the EU could not undo these old habits. The EU has bad habits of its own. It is science fiction to believe that even one tenth of that debt has ever been spent in Greece.
So what ever happened to the Alexander The Great Plan? Just stay tuned...

great algorhythm, great plan, what it means to you...

Using loans to underwrite loans is a bad policy in general. It is similar to using your VISA card to borrow cash for your mortgage payment. Governments have been doing this as a regular practice since the Reagan years. They have had no choice as the rules set back in the eighties make it cheaper to borrow money than to print your own. Imagine you are a government issuing bonds and with the money from them paying off past loans in the hopes that economic growth will offset the net loss in interest and allow you to dig your way out of the debt hole. The only other option throughout the entire decade of the 90s was to devalue your own currency to help balance the books. Canadians know exactly what this means with their 85 cent dollar. Funny how it is cheaper to shop south of the border regardless of the weaker currency.
Ever realy wonder about that. How is it possible with a weaker currency that you still get more for your buck even after taking a beating on exchange? I don't know exactly how that mechanism works but I do know that it helps you sell bonds and guarantee a higher rate of return. Greek bonds of the pre-euro era guarantee a return of 5-8%, much much higher than any other European Union member bond of the same era. Investors bought these up like candy and in 2001 the Greek drachma locked in at 340 drachmas to the euro, or 410 drachmas to the US dollar, forever. We good citizens took all our cash to the bank and were issued new funny looking bank notes in return for our old ones. The euro had arrived and the drachma was no more. Or was it? Bond holders got to cash in eight years later, 2009, and not only get a high return but also cash in on the higher euro by exchanging the bonds at the '01 fixed rate inflating their worth an extra 45% against the dollar. Like shopping south of the border in those brief periods when the loonie is suddenly worth a buck ten american. A landfall for sure.
The Greek government can no longer devalue its currency to offset this loss. But it can issue new bonds at a lower interest. Euribor is the interest rate of the central European bank, Budensbank in reality, and Greece was well within its rights to buy back its '01 bonds of 5-8% returns at the new rate of Euribor plus 1 point or 2.2%. Can you imagine remortgaging your home and dropping 3-5 percentage points off your loan? It would save you over 50% or one half of your payment. A good deal.
Well what's good for the goose is good for the gander eh? Sure unless the goose decides to snap it away dude. The European north that has so largely invested in the south and then spent the difference investing elsewhere was not about to stop chewing the fat. Euribor is great unless of course you lose your credit rating and then nobody will buy your bonds. This is the equivallent of being trapped in your old mortgage at a higher rate because no bank will issue a new loan. It is the oldest mechanism of keeping the poor poor and making the rich richer. Someone who doesn't realy need a loan gets a much cheaper rate from the bank than someone who is desperate to borrow. Only makes sense eh?
So what can the meek do in order to inherit the Earth, eh?
Alexander the Great plan has the answers...

The Alexander the Great Plan unmasked

Using an extremely complicated algorhythm the ESA was able to estimate the proper financial moves to offset a possible housing crash in the US. Due to Budensbank and Credit Agricole massive investments in US mortgages it was decided that Europe was too exposed to fluctuations of the US market. So a vast program of lending was undertaken to offset this imbalance. According to the algorhythm it was wise to simultaneously funnel large sums into the European south to offset possible downturns in the US. True the countries of the south, and their banks, avoided high risk investments and overseas investments altogether. For the most part banks of southern Europe entrust their investments in Northern European banks. The very same banks that invest in US markets. When the crash did happen and the US with its new president, Obama, was in the compromised position of having to cover bank bankruptcies guess who were the first to go. Yup, the US government bought back its banks from European investors for cents on the dollar and of course the european banks used the investments of the south to cover the losses. A dominoe effect that set into motion the Alexander the Great algorhythm. Now Greece may not need to cover a multitrillion dollar hole but with its measly write off of 100 billion euros will set off a new dominoe effect. Exactly because of its position at the bottom of the totem pole the trickle effect will be a topling effect. You see a hundred billion euros of real money is the equivallent of two to three trillion in loans. Since it is a 30 percent slashing of debt in government bonds it is a slashing of that paperwork that the banks use to underwrite loans. Like a ripple reaching the shore and transforming into a tidal wave the defunct loans will topple each other till even the largest economies crumble. For real this time...

Greek debt crisis

After many conversations with friends and associates I have decided to finaly publish, at least in part, the Alexander the Great Plan. Sure it might sound strange and one may be unsure of how great a plan it realy is but here are some of its key points. It all was set in motion in 2008 with a wave of borrowing and lending aimed to buffer the wounds that our economic allies were suffering from losses in overseas investments. Europe is of course forced to invest in the US economy so that it may continue to enjoy robust economic growth inspite of shrinknig exports to the US. A wise move to offset a trade imbalance and to keep dollars flowing inspite of the stronger euro. So everytime a large corporation in the US goes belly up it of course drags down many many euros. Billions in fact. Like far away dying galaxies european investments in the US market have dissapeared more than once. The latest crashes included many toxic products that were gobbled up by European bankers who are now scrambling to fill in the black hole. Many may not want to admit to the legacy of the Bush years and its multibillion dollar bankruptcies and nonexistent regulation of financial markets. Many may want to blame our little country for their woes. Few realize the intricate workings of the Alexander the Great Plan...