loansharks

Last week in the news we had quite a breakthrough. The police in Salonika managed to crack one of the most vicious gangs of loansharks. Members included bank managers and the highest ranking member of the local revenue department. Victims included many local businessmen who had needed to borrow money at high interest. More than 53 members of this gang where arrested and all week long taped conversations where being played on the news. Many of the victims where led to economic ruin by this gang and some to suicide. It is actualy a couple of suicide notes that included names of people above suspicion that led to this investigation. The sad part of this whole icky mess is the methodology used by the loansharks and how similar it proves to be to the methods of international lenders. There where four different gangs that lent money at different interest rates. When a borrower would be near default a new loan would be made up at a lower interest rate. The lender of course would appear to the victim as somebody who was unrelated to the original loan shark. Something of a good guy. Then when they couldn't squeeze anymore money out of their victims this way they would turn up the heat with more classical methods. The taped conversations are insane. First they are friendly and it sounds like they are trying to help somebody out. Then they become irritated and finaly threatening. The exact same techniques that collection agencies use. For anybody watching the methods used over the last few months by the EU and the IMF with Angela, Christine and Olli you will see the exact same methodology. First they want to help us out. Then when it is time to fork over the loan they become irritated and up the interest. Along with internal arguments, yeah sure, as to how unfair these interest rates are, new demands for deeper austerity measures are put forth. At present all loans to Greece are being installed with a three month delay. To make that clear to you, the money from the new loans arrives here with a three month delay while the old loan with the higher interest rate keeps running. The new loan is probably running too. So we have that turn of last century (1900s) situation where we are called upon to pay payments on a loan that was never deposited. Angela gets mad at Christine and when the two of them finaly agree Olli gets mad at both. They have their accomplices at Standard and Poors downgrade the victims credit rating thus upping interest on the original loans. Hedge funds are set up in third countries to profit from the spread in interest rates while the IMF and the EU Commission step in. Many thanks to Angela Merkel, Olli Rhen and Christine Lagarde... and their Troika reps that come to visit Athens every few months... break a leg guys or an arm or whatever it takes. Just get the money.