CYPRUS; THIEVES HAVE BEEN UNMASKED !

Next new criminal in Angela Merkel’s government. Wolfgang Schaeuble Germany’s finance minister uses terror against the honest people of Cyprus ! This man are not enough black boxes of stolen money in the days when he was a trusted by Helmut Kohl. He wants to steal not only Cypriots but also all of Europe !!!

Germany’s finance minister has warned Cyprus that its crisis-stricken banks may never be able to reopen if it rejects the terms of a bailout. Wolfgang Schaeuble said major Cypriot banks were “insolvent if there are no emergency funds”.

He was speaking after the Cypriot parliament rejected an international bailout deal that would have imposed a one-off tax on bank deposits. Frantic talks are under way to try to agree an alternative plan.

Leaders of political parties in Cyprus are due to meet later after parliament rejected the controversial levy, proposed as part of a 10bn-Euro bailout package.

Not a single MP voted in favour of the controversial deal, sending a clear message to Brussels that the strategy needs a drastic rethink, our correspondent adds.

Late on Tuesday, Mr Schaeuble said that he “regretted” the vote.

”The ECB (European Central Bank) has made it clear that without a reform programme for Cyprus the aid can’t continue. Someone has to explain this to the Cypriots and I think there’s a danger that they won’t be able to open the banks again at all,“ he said.

”Two big Cypriot banks are insolvent if there are no emergency funds from the European Central Bank,” Mr Schauble added.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades called the talks between party leaders when it became clear that the measure would not be passed by parliament. Fearing a run on accounts, Cyprus has shut its banks until at least Thursday. The local stock exchange also remains closed.

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Up to million in the streets of Athens

Riot rage: Athens protesters throw firebombs, police shoot tear gas

A rally in the Greek capital turned violent when protesters in Syntagma Square lobbed Molotov cocktails at police, who retaliated by firing tear gas at the demonstrators.

Security forces also reportedly used flashbang grenades and pepper spray to push protesters back from the parliament building. According to Greek newspaper Kathimerin, the police had been ordered to orders to refrain from using chemicals against protesters.

It's as thousands gathered in front of parliament for the country’s biggest anti-austerity protest since the new government came to power.

Clashes erupted in different parts of Athens Syntagma Square, with demonstrators throwing fire bombs at police.

Witnesses reported smoke rising over the square as security forces dispersed most of the protesters. Some remained, and continued the demonstration; others relocated.

Athens police have arrested at least 20 protesters so far, local media report. Some of the arrests come after members of the radical leftist party Syriza clashed with riot police in the streets of Panepistimiou and Benaki, in the capital's downtown district. Police reportedly again used stun grenades to disperse the hooded youths.

Several injuries are reported.

The general strike halted transit and other industries nationwide. As many as 350,000 Greeks have poured out into streets across the country, estimates the civil servants union ADEDY.

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To all Europeans !

Liberation: Greece cradle of an other world!

No, what happens in Greece, though dramatic, is not a disaster. It is also an opportunity. Because the power of money has, for the first time, exceeded a target rate of previously progressive, thorough and carefully organized destruction of public interest and human dignity. And in a country so famous for its philosophy of life, the antithesis of the Anglo-Saxonic model, and famous for his tireless resistance to the multiple forms of oppression that tried to rein it.

The Greek does not dance and will never dance on one leg, nor bend slavishly or anything else the regimes want him to do. He dances with his hands, as if he is to fly to the stars. He writes on the walls what he'd like to read elsewhere. He burns a bank when he no longer affords to bake with the traditional barbecue. The Greeks are so alive, as the ideology of the deadly threat. And if the Greek is sickened to death, at the end he always gets up. Yes, the economy of Europe wanted to create an example. But amid the frustration of hitting the country that seemed weaker in the euro area, in the extreme violence the masks fell. It is now more than ever, the time for us to demonstrate its true face: that of totalitarianism. Because this is really what is all about. And there is only one answer to totalitarianism: the fight, persistent and tenacious, until the battle, if necessary, since the very existence jeopardized . We have one world, one life, and values ​​to defend. Everywhere the streets are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our parents, who are  hit in front of our eyes, even if they are away. They are hungry, cold and we are with them. All the hits that they receive equally injure us. Every child in Greece who faints at school, invites us to resentment and rebellion. For the Greeks, it is time to say no, and, for all of us, it's time to support them. Because the Greek people are now leading the battle against economic totalitarianism, everywhere destroying public property, threatening their daily survival, spreading despair, fear and indolence through a war of all against all.


Apart from an emotional anger that is defused by destroying the symbols of oppression, Greeks develop a clear anger, the fighters who refused to give their very lives for the benefit of the banking mafia and logic, that of "mad money". In the assemblies of direct democracy, the movement of civil disobedience movement "We do not pay" and the first experiences of self management, a new Greece emerges at this time, it rejects the tyranny of the market on behalf of the people. I do not know how long it will get people to free themselves from their voluntary work, but it is certain that, faced with the absurdity of client politics, corrupt democracy, the rule of grotesque cynicism of banksters (bank mafia) they will have only the option-against any blackmail - to manage thei affairs on their own.


Greece is our past.
It is also our future.
Discover with her again!
In 2012 we all become Greek!


source:http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012390932-grece-berceau-d-un-autre-monde

Hey, Germany: You Got a Bailout, Too

By the Editors May 24, 2012 2:00 AM GMT+0300

In the millions of words written about Europe’s debt crisis, Germany is typically cast as the responsible adult and Greece as the profligate child. Prudent Germany, the narrative goes, is loath to bail out freeloading Greece, which borrowed more than it could afford and now must suffer the consequences.

Would it surprise you to know that Europe’s taxpayers have provided as much financial support to Germany as they have to Greece? An examination of European money flows and central-bank balance sheets suggests this is so.

Let’s begin with the observation that irresponsible borrowers can’t exist without irresponsible lenders. Germany’s banks were Greece’s enablers. Thanks partly to lax regulation, German banks built up precarious exposures to Europe’s peripheral countries in the years before the crisis. By December 2009, according to the Bank for International Settlements, German banks had amassed claims of $704 billion on Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, much more than the German banks’ aggregate capital. In other words, they lent more than they could afford.

When the European Union and the European Central Bank stepped in to bail out the struggling countries, they made it possible for German banks to bring their money home. As a result, they bailed out Germany’s banks as well as the taxpayers who might otherwise have had to support those banks if the loans weren’t repaid. Unlike much of the aid provided to Greece, the support to Germany’s banks happened automatically, as a function of the currency union’s structure.

How It Worked

Here’s how it worked. When German banks pulled money out of Greece, the other national central banks of the euro area collectively offset the outflow with loans to the Greek central bank. These loans appeared on the balance sheet of the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, as claims on the rest of the euro area. This mechanism, designed to keep the currency area’s accounts in balance, made it easier for the German banks to exit their positions.

Now for the tricky part: As opposed to the claims of the private banks, the Bundesbank’s claims were only partly the responsibility of Germany. If Greece reneged on its debt, the losses would be shared among all euro-area countries, according to their shareholding in the ECB. Germany’s stake would be about 28 percent. In short, over the last couple of years, much of the risk sitting on German banks’ balance sheets shifted to the taxpayers of the entire currency union.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much Germany has benefited from its European bailout. One indicator would be the amount German banks pulled out of other euro-area countries since the crisis began. According to the BIS, they yanked $353 billion from December 2009 to the end of 2011 (the latest data available). Another would be the increase in the Bundesbank’s claims on other euro-area central banks. That amounts to 466 billion euros ($590 billion) from December 2009 through April 2012, though it would also reflect non-German depositors moving their money into German banks.

By comparison, Greece has received a total of about 340 billion euros in official loans to recapitalize its banks, replace fleeing capital, restructure its debts and help its government make ends meet. Only about 15 billion euros of that has come directly from Germany. The rest is all from the ECB, the EU and the International Monetary Fund.

Better Prepared

Germany’s changing financial exposure has major implications for its role as a leader of Europe’s response to the crisis. Before Germany’s banks pulled back their funds, they stood to lose a ton of money if Greece left the euro. Now any losses will be shared with the taxpayers of the entire euro area -- particularly France, whose banks still have a lot of outstanding loans to Greece. Perhaps this is what some German officials mean when they say that the euro area is better prepared for a Greek exit.

Ultimately, though, the cost of letting Greece go would come home to Germany. If bank runs and market turmoil forced Portugal, Spain, Italy and others out of the euro area as well, the losses could wipe out much of the capital of German banks. Not to mention the longer-term damage the euro breakup would do to the exports that drive Germany’s economy, and the potential demise of a European project designed to prevent a repeat of the horrors of two world wars.

To prevent such an outcome, with or without Greece, Germany will have to do everything it has so far refused, and more. This would include allowing the ECB to stand behind the debt of sovereigns. The euro area also needs a mechanism that would transfer money to economically troubled countries just as automatically as the region’s payment system bailed out Germany -- an element economists have long said is crucial to making the euro area a workable currency union. As we have advocated, a joint unemployment insurance fund could be a first step toward such a fiscal union.

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers the next step in the euro crisis -- one that could help the euro area return to growth or, alternatively, risk the survival of the entire currency union -- she should keep in mind that her country is indebted to the euro system as much as Greece is.

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Subscribe to receive a daily e-mail highlighting new View columns, editorials and op-ed articles.

Today’s highlights: the View editors on the problems with the Facebook IPO; Clive Crook onEurope at the brink; Jonathan Alter on political substance and slander; Ezra Klein on the fight over Bain; Caroline Baum on overregulating banks; Tobias Moskowitz on data-driven policy; Panagis Vourloumis on Greek shock therapy; Junheng Li on China’s economic misinformation.

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-23/merkel-should-know-her-country-has-been-bailed-out-too.html

Response to the Euro-fascists!

The Greek people have never been asked,
therefore they are not obliged to honor any 

commitment!


Written by Pyros the Athenian


Everyone in Greece (Hellas) knows that our country is not independent. Since the Greek revolution the vultures of the West devoured all the independent voices of the newly state, with great example the assassination of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first (and only) independent ruler of Greece (Hellas).

 Since then Greece (Hellas) is "tied" to the chariot of Europe. Wanted desperately to join the "civilized" Europe, where the principles of democracy, equality and justice - which incidentally is a Greek (Hellenic) gift, but nobody deliberately did not educate the Greeks, who were completely unaware of their history, and emerged from a period of 400 years of obscurantism - represented hope and joy of a people who had suffered so.

We were convinced by the "civilized" Europeans, or rather we tried to convince ourselves at all costs - that we are part of Europe (of course, Europe got its name from Greek mythology and the word is very much Greek) that we participate as equal partners in the European architecture, that the loss of economic sovereignty, which was granted by our inclusion in the common currency, was a small sacrifice in front of the common good of Europe (of Germany as demonstrated ).

So the Greeks due to naivety and - most importantly - because of historical ignorance, were "delivered" in the arms of (German) Europe. A Europe which had not overcome the negative stereotypes against the Greeks, which was carrying since the Middle Ages. Proof of this is the ease with which - most Europeans - accepted and welcomed the German - mostly - Media propaganda against the Greeks (Hellenes). A hatred that goes back to the 5th AD and culminated in Charlemagne (ninth century), who never received recognition and legitimacy as successor of the Roman Empire. Besides, so it was. Since then the Germans guarding us, as history has proven many times.

Once they took the Greek polls results, the "Fuhrers" of Berlin put aside any pretense of democratic legitimacy of the EU and began mud expulsion threats of Greece 

(excact phrase from an article by G. Delastik at the EPIKAIRA magazine). Openly threatening that if the Greeks (Hellenes) did not honor their signatures and commitments, namely to consent to physical extermination because of austerity and recession of the memorandums, would be expeled from the eurozone.But the German "friends" and "partners" forget that the Greek people never consented to any memorandum, any austerity measures and when they were given the opportunity, through democratic processes-, spoken up their opposition to it. Therefore, it is not required, the Greek people to honor an agreement that they did not make! 

Unlike, the one who must stand by its commitments and signatures is Germany as a defeated, must compensate Greece for Nazi atrocities and return the entirely conventional loan which they took from Greece!

I was trying to understand the German mentality, but in vain. The vanity of the attempt to repeat the germanization of the rest non-German Europe, when the Germans themselves have suffered so many losses from previous failures suggests schizophrenic tendencies. They do not realize that the only thing they manage from their action is reaction? The same reaction that created the fifth century in Byzantium the anti-german movement called "Panhellenic" which had as its purpose to prevent the germanization of the eastern part of the Roman Empire and finally completed successfully its mission. This is what happens now but it is not happening only in Greece. 

Greeks (Hellenes) and many Europeans are realizing every day the new (;) orientation of the unified Europe that is not what everyone hoped it would be, ie social welfare, equity, solidarity, and democracy but instead turned into an undemocratic Europe where decisions are not made by elected - but appointed by secret places, commissioners who override the popular mandate, where the economy and the rules of precedence stand over the dignity of human existence and democracy, in which Europe of people has become a Europe of banks.

So this is not the Europe we want. We do not need, and the threats of the Eurofascists for expulsion of our country from the euro area and Europe, in my ears sound like ... greetings, wishes to come true!

source:  http://dimokratis-politis-oplitis.blogspot.com/ 

The purpose of Euro!

Listen to the cry of Athens

Instead of treating Greek officials as outcasts and their constituents like the plague, European leaders, and particularly Germans, would be better off listening. Because, in attempting to prioritise the needs of the economy over those of democracy, they are undermining the Union’s foundations.

Barbara Spinelli 17 May 2012

LA REPUBBLICA ROME

We get used to cliches so quickly that we no longer see their more perverse consequences, and so we repeat them mechanically, as if they were irrefutable truths, while the purpose of them is to push us back into line. The danger of following the same path as Greece, for example: it has now become the slogan that has turned us all into bewildered spectators observing some rite of penance, where a scapegoat is sacrificed for the collective good. Those who are different or deformed have no place in our city. And if the new elections that have just been called do not provide the majority needed by their partners, Greece’s destiny will be mapped out for it.

How many times have we heard leaders whisper darkly: "You don’t want to suffer the same fate as Greece, do you?" The exit from the euro area was not foreseen by treaties but it can easily be surreptitiously achieved. In truth, Athens has already fallen into the twilight zone of non-Europe, it is already the bogeyman invoked to frighten children.

The real root of the problem ignored

Perhaps Greek secession is inevitable, but at least shed a little light on the real reasons why: if it's inevitable, it is not because rescue is too expensive, but because democracy has come into conflict with strategies that were supposed save the country. In the May 6 elections, the majority of voters rejected the austerity pill that the country unsuccessfully swallowed two years ago and which, on the contrary, triggered the recession in Greece which has proved disastrous for democracy. A recession reminiscent of Weimar Germany, with military coups on the horizon. Forced to go back to the polls in the absence of agreement between the parties, voters will reaffirm their rejection and give more power to the radical left, the Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras. And again, clichés proliferate: Syriza is a negative opposition force, against austerity and against the Union, while Tsipras is portrayed as the ultimate anti-European.

The reality is different. Tsipras does not want to leave the euro nor the EU. He wants another Europe, just like François Hollande. He knows that 80% of Greeks want to keep the single currency, but not under these terms, not with these national and European politicians who have impoverished them, while ignoring the real roots of evil: the corruption of the ruling parties, the state and the public sector who are slaves to politics, the wealthy who have been spared [by austerity]. Tsipras is the answer to these ills, yet nobody wants to get burnt by talking to him. Not even Hollande, who refused to meet the leader of Syriza when he rushed to Paris after the elections.

And have you heard the European left, who claim to have solidarity in the blood, supporting George Papandreou when he said he had Europeanized the Greek crisis in order to find a solution? Who took his words seriously when he addressed the German Greens in December, after his resignation as Prime Minister? The idea he had outlined today remains the best solution to overcome the crisis: "For the member states, austerity. For Europe, policies to spark growth."

Papandreou's words went unheeded, as if it were shameful to listen to a Greek these days. As if there were no thought to the astonishingly off-hand manner with which the country, the birthplace of democracy, was transformed into a pariah state as its merciless degeneration was watched from the sidelines: oligarchy, the dominance of the market resulting in plutocracy, the freedom with which the law and justice are disregarded.

Athens' expulsion, Europe's failing

If we had just a little memory, we would better understand the Greek soul. We would understand the writer Nikos Demou when he voices aphorisms on the misfortune of being Greek: "The Greek people feel the terrible weight of their own legacy. They grabbed the superhuman level of perfection in terms of their words and forms of old. It overwhelms us: we are more proud of our ancestors (without realising it), than we are concerned about ourselves." Those who mention the Christian roots of Europe, forget the Greek roots and the enthusiasm with which Athens, once it turned its back on military dictatorship in 1974, was welcomed into Europe as a symbolically important country.

What our leaders do not say is that the expulsion of Athens will not only be the result of its own failure. It will be the failure of Europe, a nasty story of voluntary inaction. We have not managed to balance economic needs with those of democracy. We have not been able, even by bringing together our resources and intelligence, to overcome the first lesson from the old nation states. Europe did not do as did former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton just after the American Revolution, when he decreed that the central government would assume the debts of each state, thus uniting them in a strong federation. Europe did not make Greece a European affair. It did not see the link between crises of the economy, democracy, nation and politics. For years, it has been courting a corrupt Greek establishment and now here it is stunned to find its people do not accept responsibility for this disaster.

This distance between Union and democracy, between Us and Them, will have painful consequences. With their death, a little of us would die too, but the decline lacks the self-knowledge that Athens has taught us. It is not the Greek death that Ajax the Great spoke of in the Iliad* : "A black fog envelops us all, men and horses. Father Zeus, deliver us from this darkness, the sons of the Achaea: clear the heavens so that our eyes can see and if, in your rage, you want us to lose so be it, but at least give us light so that we can see! "

*Iliade (XVII 645- 647)

source: http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1997681-listen-cry-athens#commentadd

Europe Has Bet The Farm

From Mark Grant, author of Out of the Box

Things that go Bump in the Night

Europe is heading for a showdown and in a number of places; that much can be acknowledged with certainty. The first, and perhaps the most important, is the stand-off between France and the European Commission. The EU budgetary office is demanding that France reduce its deficit to 3.00% for 2012 while the projection is for 4.50% so that the Commission is threatening France with large fines. Mr. Hollande ran his campaign upon a reduction in the retirement age, more generous pensions, shorter work hours and more governmental spending so that the budgetary miss is likely to be larger than forecast; somewhere around 5.2% in my estimation. France then finds itself, one way or another, with a larger budgetary deficit and if the EU then imposes fines and sanctions Paris may thumb its nose at Berlin/Brussels in what could be a rather nasty affair with unknown consequences.  Mrs. Merkel in one corner and Mr. Hollande in another slugging it out will not make for harmonious relations. Then there are the issues of Greece and Spain and the Socialist reaction is bound to be very different than the Austerity imposition as demanded by Germany. Jawohl!

“After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said Bother!”

                                             -Eeyore

The new EU fiscal pact is becoming something of a deviated piece of humor as Spain is being released from its constraints and Greece is now only constrained by the fear and loathing of the country removing its hand from the honey pot. “Keep Eating,” is the resounding cry from all of the European politicians as they are truly frightened of the old bear not following orders. It may well be that the new political dandy in Greece is correct; Europe may soon be begging for Greece to take the money under almost any terms as they do not wish to dance the jig of contingent liabilities becoming real ones and having to be accounted for in actuality with all of the pending losses that this would entail. What will they say in Berlin; “Mein Gott, waren wir nur ein Scherz“(My God, we were just kidding.) If Greece defaults or leaves the Eurozone then the ECB will be broke and have to be re-capitalized, the IMF will take one serious financial hit, the EIB will be seriously impaired and while the Greek bonds are mostly held by governmental bodies now the municipal debt, the derivatives, the bank loans are still to be found in securitizations of many of the large European banks and American banks who will be forced to recognize thier losses. Charades is so much fun until someone comes up with the answer.

The real debt of Greece is approximately $1.30 trillion and as contingent morphs into actual the impending explosion may become reality. This amount of money is 40.60% of the entire GDP of Germany because it is a small country that now has a giant debt given its population. Europe has, in fact, bet the farm and the decision now rests entirely with the Greek electorate. The European Union has played its hand badly and reality is very close to biting off the hand that fed it! I want to repeat this for you, I want you to understand the gravity of what Europe is facing; Europe has BET THE FARM and the croupier is about to roll the dice. We are all facing a momentous instant in time and all of the noise in the background is quelled by the showman announcing the main event; Let’s Roll.

“You are about to have your first experience with a Greek lunch. I will kill you if you pretend to like it.”

                                           -Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/europe-has-bet-farm