The blog, goldseek.com, recently published a report on a Freedom of
Information Act request they recently filed with the US government. They
were seeking seven reports from federal audits of the gold at Fort
Knox. The government's response? They can't find those reports - even
though they reference those reports as evidence of the gold stored at
Fort Knox in a number of ways. The Resident discusses.
This article may be re-posted in full with attribution.
In this country where we live today, on the very soil we tread, the
“ideologist” of the Athenian Republic, Protagoras, proclaimed “Man is
the measure of all things”, for the first time in the history of
humanity.
The Greek people, at one of the most critical and dramatic crossroads
of a history going back several thousands of years, for which they feel
proud and justifiably so, shall be called, this coming Sunday, to
decide once again whether man is the measure of all things or money is
the measure of all things, the latter being the central “motto” and
“belief” of the global financial oligarchy, the European “elites” and
their domestic offshoots, attacking Greece. And in the face of the
Greeks, they are attacking the social and democratic conquests of all
Europeans after their victory in 1945 against fascism, if not after the
French Revolution.
A moment comes for man, societies and nations alike, when they have
to decide «where they stand». This moment has now come for the Greek
people. They will have to decide once for all that their Alexandria[1] of
a few decades of a relatively stable and democratic prosperity that
followed the fall of the junta in 1974 and accession to the EC in 1981
is definitively lost. The real question facing this people, though, is
whether they will abandon this Alexandria with dignity, as urges their
great Poet, whether they will take the thorny and dangerous road towards
a new future, a new perspective for their country, or whether they will
fall apart in a state of enslavement. 1940, 2004, 2015
The answer the Greeks are going to give to the creditors’ ultimatum
is of no less importance than the importance of the answer they gave to
Benito Mussolini’s ultimatum on October 28, 1940. An answer that led to
the first victory of the Allies in World War II and to a delaying of the
German attack against the USSR which was probably decisive for the
outcome of the war. Their answer made Winston Churchill, celebrated for
his wit and not a friend of the Greeks, say: “Hence we will not say that
Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks!.”
The Greeks didn’t give this answer to Mussolini’s ultimatum out of
sympathy for their own regime, nor because they were in a better
position than they are today. They didn’t put up the strongest
resistance, proportionally to the country’s size, in the Nazi-occupied
Europe, because the conditions were favorable to them or because they
didn’t have anything to lose. They acted the way they did because, deep
down, they felt that they could not survive without their dignity. As a
people, we may be full of faults. But, I find it hard to believe that
some decades of consumerism were sufficient to undermine our sense of
self-pride (“filotimo”) that has always been with us during the critical
times of our history.
The significance of a NO in 2015 is no lesser than that of the NO
uttered by the citizens of the Republic of Cyprus in the 2004
referendum, who refused to give in to the strongest international
pressures in order to accept a plan which would abolish their
independent and democratic state. It is no lesser either than that of
the NO uttered by the French and the Dutch (2005 referendum), the Irish
(2008 referendum) and the Icelanders (2010) against Euroliberalism,
despite the fact that these NOs, with the exception of the one in
Iceland, were later belied by their leaderships.
What these NO had in common, despite the different circumstances, was
people’s opposition to the dissolution of their national and popular
sovereignty, of their independence and democracy, in the only context
where it still exists in today’s world, that of the nation-state. This
is what the Annan plan attempted to do in Cyprus or the European
constitutional treaty in Europe. Dignity
The question History is now asking us, by means of the «take it or
leave it» question of the creditors, is whether we continue or not to
consider our national and individual dignity as the fundamental value
which allowed our people and civilization to survive in the midst of
defeats, incredible threats and disasters for several thousands of
years. We have known many defeats in the course of our history. But we
never signed off our enslavement – this is the reason that the Greek
state exists today, be it a miserable, poor one; but the only one we
have got. We shall suffer of course if we resist the will of the mighty.
But, where shall we be without our own state, in the ocean of a
barbarous, “prehistoric” globalisation which causes whole nations to
perish?
This coming Sunday we are not merely called to decide whether we
accept the creditors’ ultimatum. We are called to determine whether we
consider the existence of a state of even a rudimentary independence and
democracy, as the most fundamental prerequisite for our national
survival.
Peoples have been called times and again in their history to choose
between destruction and enslavement. The creditors do not even place us
before such a dilemma. They want both. Our destruction and our
enslavement! The only thing they are offering us is the continuation of a
program which has caused, beyond the shadow of a doubt, as the greatest
economists of Europe, America and Russia admit, the biggest financial,
social and political disaster in Western (capitalist) Europe after 1945.
Instead of apologizing for the destruction they have caused, they are
now impeding the Greek government from taking even elemental measures to
enable hundreds of thousands of people to have some food, the
medication they need, electricity, and heating, a roof over their heads;
they are killing the hopes of a whole people. These are the hands we
have permitted to take the control of Europe! The disillusionment
Many, including the SYRIZA leadership, had been under huge illusions
and, unfortunately, they are still suffering under them. They believed
that the Greek disaster was nothing but a misunderstanding, a mistake of
the prevailing European elites. After Monday, June 22, however, all
these illusions ought to have been dispelled. The Greek government
presented to the institutions a proposal which was in line,
unfortunately, with the program’s spirit, and a far cry from SΥRΙΖΑ’S
pre-electoral announcements on the basis of which it won the elections.
Had the proposal been accepted, it would not have solved any problems.
For many, this was an unacceptable proposal of capitulation.
What was the creditors’ reaction to this proposal? Initially, they
expressed their satisfaction because the spoiled leader of a «spoiled»
country was finally beginning to «see reason». After that they began
asking him for more concessions! They as good as told him “we are not
interested in taking prisoners of war, we are demanding your full
surrender and suicide.”
Faced with the political suicide option he was given for himself and
the option of a national-social suicide for his country, Alexis Tsipras
and his closest associates, who never wanted or prepared for a rupture
(on the contrary, they turned against all those of us who kept telling
them to prepare for the worse option), proclaimed – and rightly so – a
referendum, an idea which had been «brewing» since 2012 in the highest
echelons of SYRIZA.
It is now the time for the Greek people to answer whether they accept
or not the ultimatum. We hope that they will reject it with a sweeping
majority, although the indecisive stance of the SYRIZA leadership, its
weakness in defending its own choice, risks to bring about disastrous
results, aggravating the population’s doubts and fears.
The leaders of SYRIZA need to understand that they have already
crossed the Rubicon. They did so when they asked for the vote of the
Greek people in order to stop the disastrous course of the memorandum.
They crossed it yet again when they decided to hold a referendum. By so
doing they cut off bridges. They will drown and will drown us if they
attempt to reverse their course.
If they now turn around and look where they were, even a week ago,
they will turn into pillars of salt like Lot’s wife did. If they
capitulate, if they do not assume the consequences of their choices,
they will be adding ridicule to defeat.
Let not Alexis Tsipras entertain any illusions. If he cops out now,
he will not even be allowed to have George Papandreou’s relatively quiet
retirement. George is a man who always belonged to the “family”, to the
club of the “international establishment”, he is their man. Alexis
Tsipras shall be humiliated and thrown to the dogs, as an example for
all European peoples and politicians to see what is the fate of those
who dare challenge the masters.
There is only one way for the SYRIZA leaders. Rid themselves of their
remaining illusions and finish off what they started, taking all
necessary measures to organize the Greek people’s struggle for the
rescue of their country, and explaining to them what to do and why. We
shall never tire of repeating that it is not possible to organise the
Missolonghi exodus [2] by inviting people to a drink of ouzo on the beach of Aitolikon. Α la guerre, comme à la guerre, Napoleon used to say. And Greece has been at war since 2010, only, till now, it has chosen not to retaliate!
We hope that the Greek citizens, when asked by their children if they
personally accepted the TROIKA ultimatum in 2015, will be in a position
to answer them without lowering their heads. We also hope that the
leaders of the country will find the will and the mind to meet the
historical challenge it is facing. Dimitris Konstantakopoulos can be reached through his blog: Konstantakopoulos.blogspot.com. (Translated from Greek) Notes. [1] A poem by C. Cavafy, a Greek poet from Alexandria (1863-1933) [2]
A town which had been besieged by the Ottomans during the Greek
Revolution of 1821 and the inhabitants decided on a heroic exodus after
they had been exhausted by the long siege of their town. Aitolikon is a
small city near it.
Source: Counterpunch, 3 July 2015
(ATHENS)
Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in”
of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse,
bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on
Friday.
The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on
deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at
least one bank, the sources said.
A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in
2013, when customers’ funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a
haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000.
It would be implemented as part of a recapitalisation of Greek banks
that would be agreed with the country’s creditors — the European
Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.
“It [the haircut] would take place in the context of an overall
restructuring of the bank sector once Greece is back in a bailout
programme,” said one person following the issue. “This is not something
that is going to happen immediately.”
Eurozone officials said no decision had been taken to wind up any
Greek banks or initiate a bail-in of depositors, a process that would be
started by the ECB declaring the banks insolvent or pulling emergency
loans.
Greece’s banks have been closed since Monday, when
capital controls were imposed to prevent a bank run following the
leftwing Syriza-led government’s call for a referendum on a bailout plan
it had earlier rejected. Greece’s highest court rejected an appeal by two citizens on Friday who had asked for the referendum to be declared unconstitutional.
Depositors can withdraw only €60 a day from bank ATM cash machines,
while requests to transfer funds abroad have to be approved by a special
finance ministry committee in co-operation with the Greek central bank.
Two senior Athens bankers said the country had only enough cash to
keep ATMs supplied until the middle of next week. This followed the
ECB’s decision this week not to increase Greece’s allocation of
emergency liquidity assistance after the bailout programme ended on June
30.
The outcome of Sunday’s referendum will determine how quickly Greece
wraps up a new bailout agreement with creditors, a top Greek banker
said.
“The solvency of Greek banks is not currently an issue, but obviously
the banks will be affected by how soon the country enters a new
programme,” the same banker said.
Greek deposits are guaranteed up to €100,000, in line with EU banking
directives, but the country’s deposit insurance fund amounts to only
€3bn, which would not be enough to cover demand in case of a bank
collapse.
With few deposits over €100,000 left in the banks after six months of
capital flight, “it makes sense for the banks to consider imposing a
haircut on small depositors as part of a recapitalisation. . . It could
even be flagged as a one-off tax,” said one analyst.
The average American spends 42 minutes shopping each day, but only 35 minutes socializing.
That’s the latest result of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’
annual “American Time Use Survey.” The survey is based on annual average
data from the American Time Use Survey about how individuals age 15 and
over spend their time.
It gets better on the weekends though. Although time spent buying
things goes up to 50 minutes per day on weekends and holidays, Americans
spend 62 minutes per day socializing.
As far as sports and volunteering goes? Forget about it. The average
American spends 18 minutes per day participating in sports, exercise and
recreation, and just 9 minutes per day volunteering.
BY SKY WANDERER – a stubborn deadlock that keeps the 99% in planned poverty –
In extant financial-economic system Banks keep “bailing out”
Governments and Governments keep “bailing out” Banks, and in both cases
the 99% of us – the Taxpayers – have to pay £ / € / $ trillions.
Meanwhile the elites of each country, the “top 1%”, are getting richer
by actually grabbing these £ / € / $ trillions.
This blog-post – specifically updated and offered as a starting point
of investigation to seek legal remedies and Debt-relief for the
long-suffering Greek people [9] – explains the REAL reason behind the
global phenomenon of Public Debts, Crisis and Austerity. Loaned Money is just IOU, Debt is a phantom, Austerity is planned poverty
At the very core of the global Crisis and Debt-trap, we find a series of fictitious transactions – Government- bonds and Bank-bailouts
– that result in the many £ / € / $ trillions of odious (illegitimate)
Public Debts – also called Sovereign or National Debts – as well as in
the increasing Tax-burden and intensifying Austerity and Cuts for the
99%.
The two sides of the sequence of fictitious (phony) transactions
between Banks – via the agency of IMF and WB – and Governments that
generate the ever-increasing Odious Public Debts, are in fact two empty but giant IOUs exchanged by Banks and Governments [1,2]:
1) The Bank ‘buys’ Bonds from the Government – lends money to the
Government – from the NEW money that the Bank creates out of thin air
for the transaction; that is, the Bank ‘pays/lends’ funds by merely
issuing an empty IOU to the Government; which means, the Bank promises
to pay X amount + y interests to the Government.
2) The Government ‘sells’ Bonds to the Bank – borrows money from the
Bank – that is, the Government issues an IOU to the Bank in exchange
for the Bank’s IOU; which means, the Government promises to pay X amount
+ z interests to the Bank, in exchange for the Bank’s promise to pay X +
y to the Government.
The first point to emphasize: the exact same empty transaction – as described above – is used for both purposes:
– for Banks supposedly helping out Governments
– for Governments supposedly helping out Banks.
This fact is proof that NO real tangible help is given and/or
received by either of the two parties, and that these transactions are
phony.
No risks, No losses, No reason for “bail-outs”, No reason for “Euro-crisis”
The second main point of the same relevance: how come that Banks need to be “bailed out” by Taxpayer money if the very same Banks are the very source of creating – out of thin air – ca. 97% of all money circulating in the economy? [1, 2] In current monetary system, private Banks create NEW money (in the form of mere IOUs/promises) every time they make loans,
which implies, inter alia, that these transactions between Banks and
Governments are responsible for issuing a large percentage of the money
circulating in the economy.
What follows from above proven and given fact is the shocking truth, that Banks can NEVER go bankrupt,
since they never posses money per se to begin with. When Banks create
money, it is merely in the form of computer digits entered on their
servers. When Crisis sets in, or the illusion thereof appears, it is
merely due to the very act of fear-mongering, panic-generating and to
the crowds’ consequent intensified rush into the Banks. And apparently
this trick is used by Banks and Governments as the most effective means
to blackmail all countries – a present case in point is Greece – thus
force them to surrender to described phony Debt-creating transactions
and to the consequent Austerity-dictates by the financial oligarchy.
Another relevant angle of private banking: whenever Banks “lend”
money, they do NOT take any risks, since they do NOT draw funds from any
pre-existing money-base. Again: Banks newly create money upon lending
by simply entering the respective monetary units on the borrower’s bank
account on a bank-server. Since no risks are involved in these
transactions, no real creditors/stakeholders are behind them, who suffer
NO LOSSES whatsoever in case of the borrower defaulting on the loan.
The way referenced Guardian article [2] puts it: “Just consider what
might happen if mortgage holders realised the money the bank lent them
is not, really, the life savings of some thrifty pensioner, but
something the bank just whisked into existence through its possession of
a magic wand which we, the public, handed over to it.”
By above consideration, another extra dimension of the ongoing hoax
called “modern banking system” is to be seen via the fact that the same
Banks that are allowed to create new money out of thin air upon
extending loans to their clients, when are supposed to pay out deposits
to their clients, they “run out of money” and “must” be bailed out
by the very bank-account money of the Banks’ clients – which does NOT
even exist as real cash – and by the Tax-money of the country’s
citizens.
No reason for Austerity, and even less reason for more Debt Guardian: “The Bank of England’s dose of honesty throws the theoretical basis for austerity out the window” [1, 2]
Another equally shocking implication of the fact that NO real money
is involved in the act of giving loans: The “borrowed” funds that enter
the economy as Government-loans are newly created upon the transactions
exchanging two fictitious IOUs [1, 2] yet, the Government Deficit
arising from the Debts these transactions generate is referred to as the
very “reason” for the subsequent Austerity and Government spending
Cuts.
The neoliberal Austerity-policy is imposed on all affected countries
as the “necessary” measures to compensate for the “monetary sacrifice”
to be made in order to enable Governments and countries to properly
function. These fictitious Government-loans are to deceive the citizens
of affected countries that the “inevitable consequences” of these
transactions that our societies must suffer are increasing Taxation for
the 99%, Cuts of essential public services, severe Austerity-measures,
Privatisations, loss of jobs, decreasing salaries and lower Government
Spending.
In other words, these transactions are illegitimate, because they are empty / fictitious / no-value / phantom-transactions; they do NOT represent any pre-existing priorly earned funds;
yet the astronomical amounts of Odious Public Debts created via such
transactions are cited by Governments as the ‘reason’ to keep their
countries entrapped in the unresolvable vicious cycle of increasing
Public Debt, Deficit, intensifying Austerity, Poverty and Crisis [12].
Even if the cause of the Government Deficit and its alleged consequences
were legitimate (they aren’t) the very policies via which the
collaborating Governments attempt to “handle” the deficit-problem,
further signify the lack of legitimacy of these Governments.
For all experts in Finance and Economics – and even for those with a minimal sense of logic – it is evident that:
Austerity only contracts any Economy, thus worsens any Crisis – triggers recession even in a healthy economy, as it is demonstrated on the Crisis side of flowcharts [12]
Constantly increasing the Debt/Deficit will obviously yield the exact
opposite effect of what is “expected”; it will obviously increase the
Deficit, obviously increase the Debt and will keep the Crisis in a
downward spiral – even more so when an economy is further burdened with
Austerity. A genuinely democratic, legitimate and responsible Government
would implement policies as shown on the Recovery side of flowcharts
[12]
Why Banks and Governments all over the world inflict this scheme upon the 99% of us: the hidden reasons
All Governments that keep accumulating the Odious Public Debt/Deficit
and keep imposing the “consequent” Austerity measures – under the
disguise of “attempting to treat the Crisis” – are either fatally
ignorant (lacking even basic common sense) or are deceiving their voters
and deliberately keep them in planned poverty via the
Crisis-Debt-Austerity vicious cycle. The net result of the Odious Public
Debts and the ‘subsequently’ enforced Austerity and Privatisations is
the accelerating process of transferring all lands, resources, values,
strategic organisations such as the NHS, ie., all wealth, power and
control, into the private ownership of the global elites: banks,
corporations and richest individuals. (With the notable exception of
Iceland [5, 6, 7, 8] who rejected the conditions of the IMF, suffered
the first and WORST hit by the sinister revenge of the financial
oligarchy, yet was first to recover and start economic growth, even
outside the EU.)
As far as the principles of macroeconomics are concerned, recognition
of the fact that Austerity only worsens economic recession and pushes
an economy into a downward spiral, requires no more than basic knowledge of economics,
and it is safe to assume that the respective decision-makers who still
keep imposing these measures possess an advanced knowledge in economics
and related field(s), hence we should indeed look for a more plausible
explanation behind the idea of their attempting to “fix” the economy in a
way – via Austerity – that would actually kill even a healthy economy,
than the assumption of mere “honest mistake” on their behalf.
The actual answer is hidden somewhere else than in the elites’ mere
ignorance or mistakes. The elites deliberately keep the 99% in Crisis
because they gain£ / € / $ trillions on the ‘Crisis business‘
[10, 11]. They keep us locked into this scheme because this way the
global elites can grab real tangible values – lands, buildings,
resources, of all countries and continents – in exchange for empty computer digits.
The most profitable business that one ever had or can ever imagine.
This is the ultimate explanation behind the historically unprecedented
inequality between the globally richest class and the rest of mankind.
This is why Banks were so willing to extend subprime loans to those
countries and individuals who will certainly default on the loan [11].
This is why central banks, even though aware of the intensifying process
of subprime loans, chose to allow it to continue; they merely pretend
it that they made “mistakes” [11] They impose a system of Debt and
Austerity on us in order to maintain the vicious cycle of Crisis so that
they could continue grabbing these assets [10, 11]. An issue of constitutional democracy, democratic rule of law and national sovereignty
When loans are given to countries via their collaborating
Governments, the demonstrated phony financial transactions entered by
these Governments are the very cause of the Odious Public Debts
accumulated in many £ / € / $ trillions on behalf of the 99%.
The most relevant implication of the Public Debts is this
consideration: Rather than exchanging empty IOUs thus accepting the
burden of Debt on behalf of their citizens upon the act of financing a
country, responsible and real democratic Governments could – and should –
create the money-supply in the very amount that is necessary to be
invested into the economy and they should make these necessary direct
investments – via Public Banking and without the burden of Public Debt
– into constructive projects, creating jobs, fostering green energy and
human-centered economies, infrastructure, affordable healthcare,
children-care, education, housing, etc.
One just can’t avoid arriving at the blatant conclusion: the acts of
those Governments who choose not to finance their own citizens, and
rather collaborate with the global financial oligarchy, come down to
deliberate destruction of countries and sheer robbery of all countries’
values. Financial world-war led by the richest 1% against the 99% across all countries.
Even though this financial world-war appears to be a class-war, as
one waged by the rich against the poor, it is not. It is neither a
class-war nor an aspect of “left” or “right” party-politics. It is not
even a question of finance and economics, since finance and economics in
this regard are mere means to wage the war.
It is not a question of ethics and morality either. It is a
constitutional, hence legal issue. All Governments who surrender their
sovereign right to devise and control their respective country’s
economic and monetary system and as elected bodies surrender their
decision-making powers in fiscal and monetary policies to unelected
bodies such as Banks, give up constitutional democracy in their country.Who surrender their country to the financial crime described herein, give up democratic rule of law. In addition, those Governments who surrender their own electorate-given rights to unelected international lobbies, give up their country’s sovereignty and surrender their country as a whole to foreign interests.
With special regard to the currently intensifying Greek crisis, a
final note. From the facts and implications analysed in this post it is
evident: it is not Greece – or any of the other affected countries who
supposedly “owe” € billions, or even trillions, to Troika (EU/IMF /ECB) –
it is the way around. The ongoing financial CRIME of unprecedented
scope and magnitude described in this post, should be investigated,
ended and prevented with utmost urgency, which however requires
reinstating the democratic rule of law in all affected countries. The
citizens of Greece – and of all countries subjected to this financial
crime – should be compensated for the financial and other damages they
suffered and/or still suffer. image: http://globalpoliticalanalysis.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/banks-and-govs-debt-fraud.jpg?w=750 Related posts:
Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder at ECRI,
discusses the low growth trend in the United States economy. He speaks
on “Bloomberg Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Official also believes Sunday’s referendum is escalation of a Greek negotiating strategy that has gone wrong
The EU official believes the debate over debt relief is irrelevant
because creditors needed assurances that Greece did not want to provide.
Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images
Debt relief was not on the table during negotiations to extend
Greece’s existing bailout programme and agree a package of reforms
needed to unlock its remaining funds, according to a senior EU official.
The official told the Guardian that debt relief was “politically highly toxic for many eurozone member states”.
Any form of debt restructuring would only be possible as part of a
new programme – which would be Greece’s third – and only after the
country provided assurances that it would really implement reformsand
demonstrate that no further relief would be needed in future.
However, even then, writing off some of the debt would be a “no-go”, the official said.
A more realistic option would be applying “very long maturities with 0 [%]-interest” on the existing debt.
The revelation is at odds with the position of the International Monetary Fund, which said earlier this week that Greece needed an extra €60bn of funds and debt relief to provide its economy with “breathing space” to stabilise.
According to the IMF’s analysis, Athens’ debts are unsustainable and
require large-scale relief: a 20-year grace period, or a haircut that
yields a reduction in debt of more than 30% of GDP.
However, the EU official believes that the debate over debt relief is irrelevant because creditors needed assurances that Greece did not want to provide.
When asked why he thought Greece had called a referendum on whether
to accept the creditors’ proposals, the official says that he believes
that the vote is an escalation of a negotiating strategy gone wrong.
First, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, would have been unable to get a credible agreement through parliament.
Second, the finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, had been calculating
with 100% confidence that the EU would not allow an exit from the euro
because of political and geopolitical considerations.
Because of these two factors the Greek government pretended to
negotiate while waiting for a political solution. But a deal was close
even under these “fake negotiations”, so they chose to escalate the
situation.
Things happened too fast for game theorist [Varoufakis] to adapt, and
not only is he destroying his economy, but has made a huge tactical
mistake.
The official is adamant that if the first bailout programme had been
fully implemented, Greece would have been recovering in three to four
years like Ireland or Portugal.
Instead there were no structural reforms. This lead to “ad hoc savings” to meet fiscal targets, which are bad for growth.
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