Wednesday 22 July 2015

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JORDANIANS




THERE CAN BE NO PEACE IN JORDAN UNTIL THE WORLD APPRECIATES THE COUNTRY’S TRUE ETHNOGRAPHY

ARAB nationalism is dead. It lasted for 100 years and it has suddenly disappeared. In the former states of now war-torn LIBYA, SYRIA and IRAQ, speaking ARABIC now means nothing. However, being a member of a family, lineage or clan of either the SHIA, SUNNIS, CHRISTIANS, DRUZE, YAZIDI, TUAREG or BEDOUIN means everything. The “ARAB LEAGUE” is now totally dysfunctional.
From MOROCCO to MALAYSIA, ISLAMIC JIHADIS go from one place to another in support of recently created political entities like the TALIBAN, AL-QAIDA, or ISIL. Nations and their borders now count for nothing. Yet the new POPE has just recognized yet another ARAB state, “PALESTINE.” Perhaps this is because he has critically misread how ARAB entities really rise and fall.

Background Information:

PALESTINIANS ARE ARABS, WITH ARAB CULTURE, ARABIC LANGUAGE AND ARABIC HISTORY – PHILISTINES ARE FROM CRETE, PRESENT DAY GREECE

PALESTINE - ORIGIN OF PEOPLE - WHO ARE THE PALESTINIANS?

Until the end of the First World War, most of the ARABIC-speaking MIDDLE EAST was under the authority of the TURKISH OTTOMAN EMPIRE. The TURKS lost their empire when they fought against the allies during the war. And so, after four centuries of subservience to the TURKS, CHRISTIAN and MUSLIM speakers of ARABIC, longing for independence, created ARAB nationalism, a political movement that mirrored the ethnic and linguistic nationalism that were then transforming the landscape of 19th-century EUROPE.

In this new ideology, an “ARAB” was someone who spoke ARABIC. The largely CHRISTIAN ARAB proponents of this ideology hoped that as citizens of newly created secular states, they would finally be given the legal and political equality denied to them for centuries under ISLAMIC law and MUSLIM rulers. And so, after the First World War, a number of “ARAB” states were created by the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, such as LEBANON, SYRIA and IRAQ. By the end of the Second World War, they had all gained their independence.

AFTERMATH OF BRITISH COLONIALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Among these newly created states, there arose the HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN, which became formally independent in 1946. Until then, it was legally part of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS Mandate for PALESTINE, implemented on trust from the LEAGUE OF NATIONS by the BRITISH government. So we must ask, in this age of suddenly disintegrating “ARAB states,” where do the JORDANIANS live and who are they?

Bad times ahead: Sir Edmund Allenby enters 
Jerusalem’s Old City Photo: 2013 Culture Club
The people who reside in JORDAN live on the east side of the JORDAN River. Anyone who has ever been to Sunday school probably knows the regions and cities of this area better than they know their own state or province. This is the biblical land of BASHAN and of GILEAD.

Three thousand years ago, what is now northern JORDAN was the territory of the ISRAELITES: specifically the tribes of DAN, MANASSEH, GAD and REUBEN. Later, the area became part of the second JEWISH Commonwealth under the MACCABEES, before the ROMANS conquered the whole area and made it part of their empire (the CHRISTIAN Bible has retained numerous books which describe the history of the MACCABEES until the ROMAN conquest).

HASHEMIS WERE AND CONTINUE TO BE A USURPING BEDOUIN TRIBAL ELITE IN EASTERN PALESTINE

No one reads the LEAGUE OF NATIONS Mandate for PALESTINE document anymore. But according to international law, it is still valid
Who are the JORDANIANS? Until the second decade of the 20th century there had never been a JORDANIAN people, ethnic group or tribe by that name, or a group of diasporic exiles who thought of themselves as “JORDANIAN.” JORDAN is a 20th-century BRITISH invention, dreamed up in the 1920s, for the peoples living in what BRITAIN illegally hived off from the LEAGUE OF NATIONS Mandate for PALESTINE in 1923. Until 1946 its BRITISH administrators called it just that — EASTERN PALESTINE.

Background Information: 

BRITISH RULING IN THE MIDDLE EAST – THE CAUSE OF CURRENT SITUATION - SKYES PICOT AGREEMENT   



The British diplomat Mark Sykes and a FRENCH counterpart Francois Georges Picot divided the Middle East into zones of influence that later served as the frontiers of independent Arab states.


LEAGUE OF NATIONS MANDATE FOR PALESTINE

No one reads the LEAGUE OF NATIONS Mandate for PALESTINE document anymore. But according to international law, it is still valid. It is the legal basis for the creation of the JEWISH state of ISRAEL. Its provisions still stand, because all of the legal pronouncements of the League were subsequently recognized as binding, when the UNITED NATIONS was created after the Second World War.

In 1923 the BRITISH arbitrarily violated the Mandate, morally and legally, by creating the “EMIRATE OF JORDAN” in EASTERN PALESTINE. The BRITISH announced that this was a “temporary” measure, which they quietly and quickly made “permanent.” Jews were no longer allowed to live there.

BRITISH WHEELING AND DEALING

The name, the “HASHEMITE” Kingdom of JORDAN, makes reference to the fact that its ruling tribe, the HASHEMIS, were imported by the BRITISH from outside of JORDAN in the HEJAZ (what is now western SAUDI ARABIA). The HASHEMIS rule JORDAN today as the SAUDIS do ARABIA, claiming the name of the country by right of tribal conquest and occupation, but in their case with the connivance of the BRITISH, who unilaterally lopped off 70 per cent of mandated PALESTINE, and gave it to them as their compensation for their tribal revolt against the TURKS during the First World War.

In order to give this new national fiction of JORDAN some instant legitimacy, the BRITISH creatively mistranslated ARABIC titles like “emir” (in those days it meant an often non-hereditary, elected BEDOUIN tribal leader) and “SHARIF,” and called these men “kings,” giving them a kind of faux-royal aura. In fact, the HASHEMIS were and continue to be a usurping BEDOUIN tribal elite in EASTERN PALESTINE.

This explains all those “tribal rebellions” that occurred there during the 1920s and 1930s. Clearly, the BEDOUIN tribes that were there before the HASHEMIS invaded had a hard time understanding why they should give up their independence and be ruled by these BRITISH imports. The HASHEMIS put down these “rebellions” with the active aid and military support of thinly disguised BRITISH mercenaries, in an army that was ironically named THE ARAB LEGION, trained and led by BRITISH officers.

Although the BEDOUIN were the masters of most of the desert lands of JORDAN, east of the river there were always small towns and villages, where farmers and townsmen eked out a living. Many of the ARAB MUSLIMS of these towns and villages were former BEDOUIN who had become farmers. Among them were the demographically reduced survivors of the BYZANTINE EMPIRE, which had fallen to the invading ARAB MUSLIMS in the seventh century during the first MUSLIM invasions from ARABIA. These included various ARABIC- and ARAMAIC-speaking CHRISTIANS, as well as ARMENIANS who were later joined by MUSLIMS from the CAUCASUS, and DRUZE immigrants from SYRIA.

Background Information:  PALESTINIANS

PALESTINE - MIDDLE EAST: THE MYTH OF PALESTINIAN CENTRALITY

LICENSE TO STATEHOOD

TELLING THE UN SIX HOME TRUTHS

CONTEMPLATING A SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE IN THE PALESTINIAN POSITION

PALESTINE, AND ITS PROSPEROUS MARKETING CONCEPT


PALESTINIAN ARAB IDENTITY DEVELOPED QUITE RECENTLY, AS A CONTRARY MOVEMENT AND MIRROR IMAGE TO THAT OF THE JEWS

Today the majority of the country’s inhabitants are largely MUSLIM ARABS who now think of themselves as PALESTINIANS. Before the Mandate, they had no national identity and like that of JORDAN, there is no record of a self-defined, self-declared PALESTINIAN national identity in any historical document before the early to mid-20th century.

PALESTINIAN ARAB identity seems to have developed quite recently, as a contrary movement and mirror image to that of the JEWS, who were returning to their ancient homeland by right, and whose physical, religious and cultural connection to the land had never been severed, or questioned, and which was formally recognized by the LEAGUE OF NATIONS after the First World War. This is the essence of that strange and paradoxical ethno genesis of what is now called the PALESTINIAN nation.

Once the BRITISH established the Mandate, and JEWISH immigration began to create a mini-industrial revolution, both WESTERN and EASTERN PALESTINE attracted waves of MUSLIM ARAB immigrants from EGYPT and SYRIA. These new immigrants found it convenient to make common cause with the non-BEDOUIN residents of JORDAN and much later, specifically after 1967, called themselves and their children PALESTINIANS. President ROOSEVELT pointed out in 1939 that “ARAB immigration into PALESTINE since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total JEWISH immigration during this whole period.”

JORDAN IS CLEARLY A PALESTINIAN ARAB STATE IN WHAT WAS FORMERLY BRITISH MANDATED PALESTINE

The great historical irony of this period is that all of the ancestors of today’s MUSLIM ARAB PALESTINIANS, now living in Mandated EASTERN PALESTINE, all of a sudden stopped being thought of as ARABS of PALESTINE by the BRITISH, and then by the members of the UNITED NATIONS after 1948, and even more so since the OSLO process began in 1992. This has been and remains one of the great disappearing acts of modern history, for JORDAN is clearly a PALESTINIAN ARAB STATE in what was formerly BRITISH MANDATED PALESTINE, with a majority of non-BEDOUIN villagers and townspeople who do not define themselves as BEDOUIN or JORDANIAN.

Background Information: TRANS JORDAN

JORDANIAN-PALESTINIAN CONFEDERATION

DOES JORDAN WANT PALESTINIANS IN CONTROL OF THE BORDER?


In 1948, the same year that the BRITISH-led ARAB (BEDOUIN) LEGION OF JORDAN invaded the newly created State of ISRAEL, KING ABDULLAH of JORDAN declared that “PALESTINE and JORDAN are one.” And so in 1948, ARABS resident in both EASTERN and WESTERN PALESTINE went to war with the newly created state of ISRAEL in that small part of WESTERN PALESTINE that had been begrudged by the UN to the JEWISH people. No one thought that this new state of ISRAEL would survive.

The ARABS of the BRITISH Mandate on both sides of the JORDAN attacked ISRAEL and when they were defeated, many of them removed themselves from one part of WESTERN PALESTINE to those parts of PALESTINE, on both sides of the JORDAN, then under “JORDANIAN” authority. The same thing happened when ARABS from the WEST BANK chose to cross the JORDAN after the 1967 and subsequently, when JORDAN and so many of them had once again taken up arms against ISRAEL, in the hope of conquering all of WESTERN PALESTINE. If that is the case, are they really “refugees” or are they not still residents in the territory of the PALESTINE Mandate?

“PALESTINE IS JORDAN AND JORDAN IS PALESTINE.”


The political and ethnographic disappearance of the PALESTINIAN nature of the ARABS of EASTERN PALESTINE (JORDAN), has largely been a tactic used by the ARAB LEAGUE, and its allies on the left, to put ISRAEL and its supporters on the defensive, for many ARABS have made public statements in favor of the JORDAN-IS-PALESTINE argument. They just happen to do so in a way that usually implies the destruction of the JEWISH State.

For example, on Feb. 2, 1970. Prince HASSAN of the JORDANIAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY said, “PALESTINE is JORDAN and JORDAN is PALESTINE: there is only one land, with one history and one and the same fate.” On March 14, 1977, FAROUK KADDUMI, the head of the PLO political department told Newsweek, “There should be a kind of linkage because JORDANIANS and PALESTINIANS are considered by the PLO as one people.”

Also in 1977, speaking to a DUTCH newspaper, PLO representative ZOUHAIR MUHSEN said, “For tactical reasons, JORDAN, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to HAIFA and JAFFA, while as a PALESTINIAN, I can undoubtedly demand HAIFA, JAFFA, BEER-SHEVA and JERUSALEM. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of PALESTINE, we will not wait even a minute to unite PALESTINE and JORDAN.”

Perhaps the most revealing public quote by MUHSEN was when he bluntly stated that “There are no differences between JORDANIANS, PALESTINIANS, SYRIANS and LEBANESE. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our PALESTINIAN identity. … The existence of a separate PALESTINIAN identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a PALESTINIAN state is a new tool in the continuing battle against ISRAEL.” (And this goes some way to explaining why ARAB states rise and fall so quickly. They have little historical or ethnographic unity, with the exception of EGYPT.)

THE MINUTE A MINIMUM LEVEL OF DEMOCRACY IS IMPLEMENTED IN JORDAN, THE PALESTINIAN MAJORITY WOULD TAKE OVER THE POLITICAL MOMENTUM

MUDAR ZAHRAN is an ARAB, MUSLIM, PALESTINIAN, and JORDANIAN, who has had to flee JORDAN because he had told the truth to his fellow ARABS— that JORDAN is a PALESTINIAN State. In a recent article he has bluntly stated: “There is, in fact, almost nothing un-PALESTINIAN about JORDAN except for the royal family. Despite decades of official imposition of a BEDOUIN image on the country, and even BEDOUIN accents on state television, the PALESTINIAN identity is still the most dominant … to the point where the JORDANIAN capital, AMMAN, is the largest and most populated PALESTINIAN city anywhere. PALESTINIANS view it as a symbol of their economic success and ability to excel. Moreover, empowering a PALESTINIAN statehood for JORDAN has a well-founded and legally accepted grounding: The minute the minimum level of democracy is applied to JORDAN, the PALESTINIAN majority would, by right, take over the political momentum.”

The JEWISH state of ISRAEL lies west of the JORDAN RIVER and has sovereignty over that territory by historical and legal right. There is no “occupation.” If the ISRAELI government decides to give back some of this land in a territory-for-peace deal, it will have done so knowing it is sacrificing part of its historic homeland to hostile ISLAMIC expansionists, not to “a people without a land,” for the ARABS OF PALESTINE, that is the PALESTINIANS, are a majority in EASTERN PALESTINE.

ETHNOGRAPHIC FICTION

The world has been living with a two-state solution for decades. No matter what the faux King of JORDAN may say or do, his country and his people are not JORDANIAN. JORDAN is what anthropologists call an “ethnographic fiction.” The majority of JORDANIANS are PALESTINIANS living in Mandated PALESTINE. There can be no peace without the recognition of this simple ethnographic truth. The Pope should know this.

Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the article originally written by Geoffrey Clarfield and Salim Mansur  

Monday 20 July 2015

GREEK DRAMA – IN REALITY ANOTHER BANK BAILOUT




GREEK PARLIAMENT PASSES DEBT AGREEMENT: OMITTED EURO – SOVEREIGNTY DIMENSIONS

The GREEK SYRIZA government of PM ALEXIS TSIPRAS passed legislation to adopt the EU’s economic package. Splitting SYRIZA, TSIPRAS had to draw on votes from the right. GERMAN Finance Minister WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE revealed that many in GERMANY actually might prefer GREECE to leave the euro. While SCHÄUBLE is being widely criticized, it is generally omitted that the euro was forced on GERMANY as a precondition for GERMANY’S reunification. The crisis opens a Pandora’s Box of questions about GREEK, GERMAN, EUROPEAN, and by implication, WESTERN AFRICAN nation’s sovereignty and representative democracy.

TSIPRAS and the GREEK parliament’s passing of legislation to approve the EU program sparked widespread protests in ATHENS and other EUROPEAN capitals. GERMAN Finance Minister WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE would tentatively imply that the package had been crafted to poise GREECE towards a GREXIT, saying that an exit from the currency union might be the better alternative for GREECE and its citizens. SCHÄUBLE’S assessment is consistent with an IMF report that called the terms of the EU – GREEK deal unrealistic.

Background Information: GREEK DEBT CRISIS

GOLDMAN SACHS COULD BE SUED
FOR HELPING HIDE DEBTS WHEN IT JOINED EURO

DATELINE GREECE


GERMANY was forced to accept the euro. So far to what is being reported by EUROPEAN and global media and policymakers. What is largely being omitted is that GERMANY was not fond of giving up the D-Mark and that the euro was imposed on GERMANY by the THATCHER and MITTERAND governments and as a precondition for the GERMAn reunification. Former GERMAN Chancellor HELMUTH KOHL wrote in his biography that MITTERAND implicitly threatened GERMANY by saying that unless GERMANY would accept the euro, it would find itself as isolated as it was in 1913 – the year before WW I.

GERMANY SUGGESTED THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, THUS CHALLENGING THE PRIMACY OF THE US-DOMINATED IMF

A few GERMAN “experiences”? Other GERMAN “experiences” would include the assassination of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DEUTSCHE Bank ALFRED HERRENHAUSEN in 1989.  The assassination, which was blamed on the militant GERMAN left RAF came only days after HERRENHAUSEN suggested that international banks should work towards a debt moratorium for third world countries.

Cognizant of the consequences of the impeding breakdown of the USSR and the GDR (EAST GERMANY), HERRENHAUSEN had also suggested the establishment of a EUROPEAN Development Bank, thus challenging the primacy of the US-dominated IMF. No positive proof that the RAF, HEZBOLLAH, or the GDR’s STASI had been involved was ever tested in a court of law. Many analysts suggest the involvement of NATO intelligence.

Another GERMAN “experience” is the unsolved assassination of DETLEV KARSTEN ROHWEDDER in 1991. ROHWEDDER was the manager of the Treuhandanstalt – the institution that was responsible for the privatization of EAST GERMAN businesses. ROHWEDDER pleaded for a socially responsible transition and was opposed the “economic hit-men” policies that were especially led by foreign cartels. The EASTERN GERMAN economy was devastated, leading to extreme high unemployment, poverty and the rise of right-wing radicalism. The RAF would also be blamed for the ROHWEDDER assassination which it rejected as preposterous. 

Background Information: GREECE AND THE AUSTERITY MEASURES

PERMANENT AUSTERITY - DEMOCRACY AT STAKE?

NIGEL FARAGE SPEAKS TO GREECE: YOU'RE BEING DESTROYED BY THE "ECONOMIC PRISON" OF THE EURO

WASHINGTON ADMITS AUSTERITY 'KILLING' GREECE

BANK RESCUES AS AN EXCUSE TO APPLY FURTHER AUSTERITY

WHO IS CONTINUALLY FORCING NEW ROUNDS OF AUSTERITY MEASURES ON SOUTHERN EU STATES? THE TROIKA?

EUROPE WAS A LEADER IN TERMS OF QUALITY INFRASTRUCTURE


A QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY AND DEMOCRACY, NOT ONLY FOR GREECE.

The function of THATCHER’S and MITTERAND’S demand that GERMANY would implement the euro was to negate any future attempt of GERMANY to regain legal and actionable sovereignty and to prevent GERMANY from assuming a position as a EUROPEAN power and bridge between the East and the West.

Forming the EUROZONE, all of the core EU member States gave up much of their economic sovereignty and autonomy. Joining the EUROZONE implied stringent rules to all of the constituents, although there were no mechanisms put in place that would make these rules easily enforceable. The result was the hollowing out of national central banks and the pooling of monetary decisions – with some exceptions.

The UK did not join the euro. FRANCE is vehemently opposing any EU, especially GERMAN initiatives that would have FRANCE reconsider its virtually absolute control over the economies of its former WEST AFRICAN Colonies via the UMEOA. Numerous, including FRENCH experts would note that the economy of FRANCE would be worse than that of GREECE, was it not for the fact that FRANCE maintains what WEST AFRICANS describe as “FRENCH Finance Nazism”.  

UN CHARTER STILL DESIGNATES GERMANY AS ENEMY STATE TO THE UN

Considering what some would perceive as a trend of GERMAN-bashing, these factors may put the hardline of SCHÄUBLE or MERKEL into perspective. That, not to mention that the UN Charter still designates GERMANY as enemy State to the UN and that GERMANY cannot make independent decisions on a wide variety of policies.

Background Information:

EU AT A CROSSROAD
DEPLETED EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY

REGIME CHANGE IN EUROPE, FROM DEMOCRACY TO FINANCE DICTATORSHIP?

BANKING INSTITUTIONS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN STANDING ARMIES


GREECE has been the country that has been hardest hit by a manipulated international crisis that set in 2007 -8. GREECE has also been the EUROPEAN country that has been hardest hit by a failing austerity policy. 

Blaming any particular country for the situation in GREECE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, ITALY.. is popular but negligent of the functions of the IMF, the ECB, the EUROPEAN Commission, and not least the role of predominantly WALL STREET and City of LONDON-based banks and oligarchs in bringing about the “crisis”.



Background Information: ANGLO SAXON CURRENCY WAR

THE UNITED STATES IS NO STRANGER TO WAGING FINANCIAL WARFARE

ANGLO SAXON MONETARY QUEST


GREEK PM ALEXIS TSIPRAS is being blamed for accepting the EU package. One of the largely omitted facts was that GREECE, as EUROPE is currently constructed, had very little room for a viable fallback strategy and most importantly, viable assets to bargain with.

WEAKENING OF THE EURO, AN ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE PRIMACY OF THE (F)AILING US DOLLAR AND BRETTON WOODS

The GREEK crisis, if anything, shows that the EU urgently needs a reassessment with regard to national sovereignty – an issue that will be difficult if not impossible to address as long as the economic motor of the EU, GERMANY has not regained its sovereignty.

Other omitted facts? Chancellor MERKEL’S statement that GERMANY would not mind if any nations would seek association with both the EU and the newly formed EEU. Good and well 50% of GERMANS do not perceive GERMANY as solidly and permanently anchored within NATO.

About 50% of GERMANs would like to see GERMANY at equal distance and with equally good relations to WASHINGTON and MOSCOW. Ultimately, the weakening of the euro may very well be a function of the attempt to save the primacy of the (f)ailing US dollar and BRETTON WOODS – and GREECE is, together with other EUROPEAN nations including GERMANY at the receiving end of this policy.


Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the original article written by Dr. Christof Lehmann via Globalresearch

Friday 17 July 2015

GREEK DEBT CRISIS:


GOLDMAN SACHS COULD BE SUED 
FOR HELPING HIDE DEBTS WHEN IT JOINED EURO

GOLDMAN SACHS faces the prospect of potential legal action from GREECE over the complex financial deals in 2001 that many blame for its subsequent debt crisis.

A leading adviser to debt-riven countries has offered to help ATHENS recover some of the vast profits made by the investment bank.

The Independent has learnt that a former GOLDMAN banker, who has advised indebted governments on recovering losses made from complex transactions with banks, has written to the GREEK government to advise that it has a chance of clawing back some of the hundreds of millions of dollars it paid GOLDMAN to secure its position in the single currency.
The development came as GREECE edged towards a last-minute deal with its creditors which will keep it from crashing out of the single currency.

The deal is based on fresh economic reform proposals submitted by ATHENS which bear a striking similarity to the creditors’ offer rejected by the GREEK people in the referendum– sparking claims that Prime Minister ALEXIS TSIPRAS has effectively executed a huge U-turn in order to avoid a catastrophic “GREXIT”.

GREECE managed to keep within the strict MAASTRICHT rules for EUROZONE membership largely because of complex financial deals created by the investment bank which critics say disguised the extent of the country’s outstanding debts.

GOLDMAN SACHS THE BIG WINNER

GOLDMAN SACHS is said to have made as much as $500m from the transactions known as “swaps”. It denies that figure but declines to say what the correct one is.

The banker who stitched it together, Oxford-educated ANTIGONE LOUDIADIS, was reportedly paid up to $12m in the year of the deal. Now JABER GEORGE JABBOUR, who formerly designed swaps at GOLDMAN, has told the GREEK government in a formal letter that it could “right historical wrongs as part of [its] plan to reduce GREECE’S debt”.

Mr JABBOUR successfully assisted PORTUGAL in renegotiating complex trades naively done with LONDON banks during the financial crisis. His work helped trigger a parliamentary inquiry and cost many senior officials and politicians their jobs. It also triggered major compensation payments by banks to the PORTUGUESE taxpayer.

ILLICIT BANKING

Mr JABBOUR, who now runs ETHOS CAPITAL ADVISORS, has also helped expose other cases including allegations against GOLDMAN SACHS and SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE over their dealings with LIBYA relating to financial transactions that left the country’s taxpayers billions of dollars out of pocket. Both banks deny wrongdoing.

Based on publicly available information, he believes the size of the profit GOLDMAN made on the transactions was unreasonable. Scrutiny and analysis of the documents and email exchanges could give GREECE grounds to seek compensation and assess if the deals were executed for the sole purpose of concealing the country’s debts.

Background Information:

THE GREEK ISSUE: IN REALITY IT WAS A BAIL OUT OF SOME OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY ON THE COST ON SOME OF THE POOREST

GRIECHENLAND: GEHEIMER DEAL MIT GOLDMAN SACHS LÖSTE EURO-KRISE AUS

GERMANY DEMAND SELL-OFF OF GREECE’S STATE OIL COMPANIES!!!

LENDERS TOOK GREECE’S EURO MEMBERSHIP AS A STAMP OF CREDITWORTHINESS

GREECE’S membership of the euro gave it access to billions of easy credit which it was then incapable of paying back, leading to its current crisis. Lenders took its euro membership as a stamp of creditworthiness, but the true state of its economy was far less healthy.

Under Ms LOUDIADIS’S guidance, GOLDMAN swapped debt issued by GREECE in dollars and yen for euros which were priced at a historical exchange rate that made the debt look smaller than it actually was. The swaps reportedly made about 2 per cent of GREECE’S debt disappear from its national accounts.

The size and structure of the deal enabled the bank to charge a far bigger fee than is usual in swap transactions, and GOLDMAN persuaded GREECE not to test the transaction with competitors to ensure it was getting good value for money.

GREECE DID NOT REPORT THE GOLDMAN SACHS TRANSACTIONS IN 2008

Such deals were not uncommon among smaller countries attempting to enter the EUROZONE club, but they were stopped by the EU economic statistics agency Eurostat in 2008. Eurostat has said GREECE did not report the GOLDMAN SACHS transactions in 2008, when it and other countries were told to restate their accounts.

Two of the men in charge of the debt management agency of GREECE at the time have argued the department did not understand what it was buying and lacked the expertise to judge the risks or costs.

One, CHRISTOFOROS SARDELIS, told BLOOMBERG news agency that Ms LOUDIADIS offered one swap which had what is known as a “teaser rate”, or three-year grace period. But the GREEK official realized three months after signing the deal that it was far more complicated than he first thought – a situation exacerbated by the 9/11 attacks’ downward impact on global interest rates. While GOLDMAN reworked the deal, GREECE continued to lose heavily.
SAUL HAYDON ROWE, a partner at TURING EXPERTS, a team of former bankers who advise in court cases involving bank derivatives, said: “GREECE would have to unpick the trades completely and look into what advice was given, and how much GOLDMAN might have expected to make over the course of the transaction.

“For a legal action to go ahead, GREECE would have to show that GOLDMAN SACHS said something it knew was untrue or which it did not care was true or not.”

GOLDMAN said its transactions were in accordance with Eurostat rules. It said they reduced GREECE’S foreign denominated debts by €2.37bn, or 1.6 per cent in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio, adding that they had “minimal effect on the country’s overall fiscal situation.”

Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the article originally published in The Independent


DATELINE GREECE: 
GOLDMAN, JUST PAY UP

Below article was posted on this blog October 2011!



As GREECE teeters on the edge of sovereign default of around $300 billion and sends shudders of premonition throughout the global economy, the fingerprints of GOLDMAN SACHS are once again to be found, as in so many crises beforehand. SREERAM CHAULIA argues that GOLDMAN should accept moral responsibility and contribute funds to bailing out GREECE.

BANKING INSTITUTIONS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN STANDING ARMIES


As more skeletons fall out of the closet, it is coming to light that GREECE'S profligacy was abetted and managed for several years by the top Wall Street financial firms via complex instruments.


Economies of developing countries have endured decades of bitter experiences of falling into debt traps that sap productive resources.

FOR CONSULTANCY, WHICH HELPED GREECE JOIN THE EURO BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, GOLDMAN RECEIVED FEES OF $300 MILLION

In 2001, before spendthrift GREECE could enter the EUROZONE by satisfying the deficit limit rules of the currency union, GOLDMAN SACHS entered the picture with a tricky currency trade deal that would hide billions of dollars of additional public borrowing and not make it look like debt. For this piece of consultancy, which helped GREECE join the euro by hook or by crook, GOLDMAN received fees of $300 million.
In 2005, GOLDMAN sold to the National Bank of GREECE an “interest rate swap,” one of the notorious derivatives that have come under scrutiny since the WALL STREET implosion of 2008. GREEK critics of such dubious debt-hiding transactions had warned their government of the mounting long-term liabilities to the likes of GOLDMAN, but to no avail.

GREEK ASSETS SELL OFF –HEAVILY PROMOTED BY GERMAN MINISTER OF FINANCE - WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE AND GOLDMAN SACHS

According to news reports, GREECE mortgaged revenue-generating assets like the national lottery, airports and highways as part of the agreements with GOLDMAN in what amounted to "a garage sale on a national scale."
GOLDMAN SACHS is reported to have attempted a redux of 2001 when its president, GARY COHN, landed in ATHENS in November 2009 with a similar debt deferral proposal that would continue to fool investors and the EU. This time around, GREECE did not oblige.

SIMILAR BORROWING BINGES OCCURRED WITH PIGS, COURTESY OF FINANCIAL DODGING EXPERTISE OF GOLDMAN, JP MORGAN AND ENTIRE CADRE OF HEDGE FUNDS

But the damage had already been done over a decade of spiraling foreign debt that was repackaged and postponed with WALL STREET'S wizardry. We now know that similar borrowing binges were occurring in the rest of the PIGS (PORTUGAL, ITALY, GREECE and SPAIN) economies courtesy of the financial dodging expertise of GOLDMAN, JPMORGAN and the entire cadre of Hedge Funds.

It may not be unfair if the EU demands that GOLDMAN accept moral responsibility and contribute to bailing out GREECE.
Economies of developing countries, especially in AFRICA and LATIN AMERICA, have endured decades of bitter experiences of falling into debt traps that sap productive resources, benefit speculative financiers and weaken state capacities to govern.
In their cases, the BRETTON WOODS institutions acted as economic restructuring consultants and funding taps that only opened if the recipients met crushing conditionalities.

“ECONOMIC HIT MAN” LURE POOR COUNTRIES INTO ACCEPTING MASSIVE “DEVELOPING LOANS” FROM THE WORLD BANK AND USAID

JOHN PERKINS'S book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," reveals how highly paid professionals with knowledge of macroeconomics and world affairs were deployed to convince political and financial leaders of poor countries to accept massive "development loans" from the WORLD BANK and USAID. Once ensnared, the supplicants would be subjected to pressure on different issues from WASHINGTON.

In the PIGS economies, it was not so much strategically motivated hit men working for the U.S. government but rather some freewheeling U.S. financial corporations that could make a killing out of clients who were addicted to reckless state spending.
In late February 2010, as the EU began investigating the WALL STREET shenanigans in ATHENS, GOLDMAN defended its GREEK misadventures by arguing, predictably enough, that they were legal actions consistent with the regulations of their time.
Of course, much of the fault lay with the GREEK politicians who were seduced by the WALL STREET financial advisers who, for their part, were simply pursuing the bread-and-butter business of circulating wealth for profit.
Of course, much of the fault lay with the Greek politicians who were seduced by WALL STREET financial advisers.

DID U.S. INVESTMENT BANKS DELIBERATELY DUG THE GRAVES OF PIGS TO WEAKEN THE EURO?

Had ATHENS been more disciplined in organizing its finances, there would not have been a window of opportunity for GOLDMAN and company to exploit its vulnerability.
But southern EUROPE'S debt-proneness has systemic consequences from which WALL STREET cannot easily extricate itself. While there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. investment banks deliberately dug the graves of PIGS to weaken the EURO, the disastrous social costs of their financial chicanery call for reparations.
It may not be unfair if the EU demands that GOLDMAN, which now leads the earnings chart on WALL STREET, accept moral responsibility and contribute to bailing out GREECE.
Who knows — now that even the U.S. Federal Reserve is making noises about investigating GOLDMAN’S practices, the firm may be in a hurry to pay up. 

Written by SREERAM CHAULIA 


Editor's Note: This feature is adapted from a longer version published in The Financial Express on February 25, 2010