GREEK CRISIS AND GOLDMAN SACHS

ECONOMY

How Goldman Sachs May Provoke Yet Another Major Financial Crisis

The banking giant had a role in Greece's financial problems too.

By Ellen Brown / Web of Debt blog

January 6, 2015

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Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday”if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no more.”

A return to the polls was triggered in December, when the Parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ pro-austerity candidate for president. In a general election, now set for January 25th, the EU-skeptic, anti-austerity, leftist Syriza party is likely to prevail. Syriza captured a 3% lead in the polls following mass public discontent over the harsh austerity measures Athens was forced to accept in return for a €240 billion bailout.

Austerity has plunged the economy into conditions worse than in the Great Depression. As Professor Bill Black observes, the question is not why the Greek people are rising up to reject the barbarous measures but what took them so long.

Ireland was similarly forced into an EU bailout with painful austerity measures attached. A series of letters has recently come to light showing that the Irish government was effectively blackmailed into it, with the threat that the ECB would otherwise cut off liquidity funding to Ireland’s banks. The same sort of threat has been leveled at the Greeks, but this time they are not taking the bait.

Squeezed by the Squid

The veiled threat to the Greek Parliament was in a December memo from investment bank Goldman Sachs – the same bank that was earlier blamed for inducing the Greek crisis. Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi wrote colorfullyof it:

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

Goldman has spawned an unusual number of EU and US officials with dictatorial power to promote and protect big-bank interests. They include US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who brokered the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who presided over the 2008 Wall Street bailout; Mario Draghi, current head of the European Central Bank; Mario Monti, who led a government of technocrats as Italian prime minister; and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, chair of the Financial Stability Board that sets financial regulations for the G20 countries.

Goldman’s role in the Greek crisis goes back to 2001. The vampire squid, smelling money in Greece’s debt problems, jabbed its blood funnel into Greek fiscal management, sucking out high fees to hide the extent of Greece’s debt in complicated derivatives. The squid then hedged its bets by shorting Greek debt. Bearish bets on Greek debt launched by heavyweight hedge funds in late 2009 put selling pressure on the euro, forcing Greece into the bailout and austerity measures that have since destroyed its economy.

Before the December 2014 parliamentary vote that brought down the Greek government, Goldman repeated the power play that has long held the eurozone in thrall to an unelected banking elite. In a note titled “From GRecovery to GRelapse,” reprinted on Zerohedge, it warned that “the room for Greece to meaningfully backtrack from the reforms that have already been implemented is very limited.”

Why? Because bank “liquidity” could be cut in the event of “a severe clash between Greece and international lenders.” The central bank could cut liquidity or not, at its whim; and without it, the banks would be insolvent.

As the late Murray Rothbard pointed out, all banks are technically insolvent. They all lend money they don’t have. They rely on being able to borrow from other banks, the money market, or the central bank as needed to balance their books. The central bank, which has the power to print money, is the ultimate backstop in this sleight of hand and is therefore in the driver’s seat. If that source of liquidity dries up, the banks go down.

The Goldman memo warned:

The Biggest Risk is an Interruption of the Funding of Greek Banks by The ECB.

Pressing as the government refinancing schedule may look on the surface, it is unlikely to become a real issue as long as the ECB stands behind the Greek banking system. . . .

But herein lies the main risk for Greece. The economy needs the only lender of last resort to the banking system to maintain ample provision of liquidity. And this is not just because banks may require resources to help reduce future refinancing risks for the sovereign. But also because banks are already reliant on government issued or government guaranteed securities to maintain the current levels of liquidity constant. . . .

In the event of a severe Greek government clash with international lenders, interruption of liquidity provision to Greek banks by the ECB could potentially even lead to a Cyprus-style prolonged “bank holiday”. And market fears for potential Euro-exit risks could rise at that point. [Emphasis added.]

The condition of the Greek banks was not the issue. The gun being held to the banks’ heads was the threat that the central bank’s critical credit line could be cut unless financial “reforms” were complied with. Indeed, any country that resists going along with the program could find that its banks have been cut off from that critical liquidity.

That is actually what happened in Cyprus in 2013. The banks declared insolvent had passed the latest round of ECB stress tests and were no less salvageable than many other banks – until the troika demanded an additional €600 billion to maintain the central bank’s credit line.

That was the threat leveled at the Irish government before it agreed to a bailout with strings attached, and it was the threat aimed in December at Greece. Greek Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis stated in an interview:

The key to . . . our economy’s future in 2015 and later is held by the European Central Bank. . . . This key can easily and abruptly be used to block funding to banks and therefore strangle the Greek economy in no time at all.

Europe’s Lehman Moment?

That was the threat, but as noted on Zerohedge, the ECB’s hands may be tied in this case:

[S]hould Greece decide to default it would mean those several hundred billion Greek bonds currently held in official accounts would go from par to worthless overnight, leading to massive unaccounted for impairments on Europe’s pristine balance sheets, which also confirms that Greece once again has all the negotiating leverage.

Despite that risk, on January 3rd Der Spiegel reported that the German government believes the Eurozone would now be able to cope with a Greek exit from the euro. The risk of “contagion” is now limited because major banks are protected by the new European Banking Union.

The banks are protected but the depositors may not be. Under the new “bail-in” rules imposed by the Financial Stability Board, confirmed in the European Banking Union agreed to last spring, any EU government bailout must be preceded by the bail-in (confiscation) of  creditor funds, including depositor funds. As in Cyprus, it could be the depositors, not the banks, picking up the tab.

What about deposit insurance? That was supposed to be the third pillar of the Banking Union, but a eurozone-wide insurance scheme was never agreed to. That means depositors will be left to the resources of their bankrupt local government, which are liable to be sparse.

What the bail-in protocol does guarantee are the derivatives bets of Goldman and other international megabanks. In a May 2013 article in Forbes titled “The Cyprus Bank ‘Bail-In’ Is Another Crony Bankster Scam,” Nathan Lewis laid the scheme bare:

At first glance, the “bail-in” resembles the normal capitalist process of liabilities restructuring that should occur when a bank becomes insolvent. . . .

The difference with the “bail-in” is that the order of creditor seniority is changed. In the end, it amounts to the cronies (other banks and government) and non-cronies. The cronies get 100% or more; the non-cronies, including non-interest-bearing depositors who should be super-senior, get a kick in the guts instead. . . .

In principle, depositors are the most senior creditors in a bank. However, that was changed in the 2005 bankruptcy law, which made derivatives liabilities most senior. In other words, derivatives liabilities get paid before all other creditors — certainly before non-crony creditors like depositors. Considering the extreme levels of derivatives liabilities that many large banks have, and the opportunity to stuff any bank with derivatives liabilities in the last moment, other creditors could easily find there is nothing left for them at all.

Even in the worst of the Great Depression bank bankruptcies, said Lewis, creditors eventually recovered nearly all of their money. He concluded:

When super-senior depositors have huge losses of 50% or more, after a “bail-in” restructuring, you know that a crime was committed.

Goodbye Euro?

Greece can regain its sovereignty by defaulting on its debt, abandoning the ECB and the euro, and issuing its own national currency (the drachma) through its own central bank. But that would destabilize the eurozone and might end in its breakup.

Will the troika take that risk? 2015 is shaping up to be an interesting year.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of 12 books. In her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. She is currentlyrunning for California State Treasurer on a state bank platform.

ISRAEL AND THE EU

ISRAEL SHOULD STOP COURTING EUROPE, TURN TO ASIA

EUROPEAN officials and EUROPEAN civil society often like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of human rights and morality. In reality, EUROPE has become a moral vacuum and, once again, a breeding ground for casual hate, racism, and Antisemitism. This has become clear not only through the example of sophisticated elites like former IRISH President MARY ROBINSON, BRITISH Labor politician JEREMY CORBYN, or DANIEL BERNARD, the late FRENCH ambassador to the UNITED KINGDOM, but also in the increasing EUROPEAN obsession with stable, democratic ISRAEL, while countries surrounding ISRAEL degenerate into anarchy, generate millions of refugees, promote genocide, and incite and sponsor terrorism.

ANTISEMITISM - OLD EUROPE VERSUS NEW EUROPE

A lot can be written about why so many in EUROPE — or, for that matter, within the OBAMA administration and increasingly among other Democratic stalwarts — have become so hostile to ISRAEL and its ability to defend itself against threats ranging from HAMAS, to HEZBOLLAH, to ISLAMIC State and AL QAEDA affiliates in SYRIA and the SINAI. Perhaps it was the end of conscription in many countries which widened the divide between those with military service and understanding, and those without. Perhaps it was the insulation that developed from having outside powers guarantee security so that individual states seldom had to. Perhaps it’s the legacy of EUROPEAN anti-SEMITISM, the most virulent kind, which can no longer be masked by EUROPEAN smug self-righteousness. And perhaps it’s the “old EUROPE, new EUROPE” divide once described by Secretary of Defense DONALD RUMSFELD. POLES, CZECHS, and ROMANIANS remember what it is like to live under tyranny while time has diluted “Old Europe’s” understanding of reality.

ISRAEL has long considered itself almost a EUROPEAN country; the EUROPEAN immigration that marked early Zionism shaped that character, even if geography and immigration from TURKEY, IRAN, INDIA, and the ARAB world also bestowed ISRAEL with a MIDDLE EASTERN character. Indeed, TEL AVIV is much like ALEXANDRIA and BEIRUT once were, and like ISTANBUL still is, at least for the time being: a veritable mixing grounds of east and west.

INDIA AND ISRAEL - COMMON GROUNDS

For too long, however, ISRAEL has if not ignored ASIA than put it on the back-burner. Sure, there was been sporadic outreach to CHINA, but this was both half-hearted and misguided: When it comes to the MIDDLE EAST, BEIJING is the ultimate realist. Immediate commercial concerns means everything, broader principle mean little if anything.

Background Information: Israel China

JUNCTION BETWEEN CONTINENTS

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2012/05/china-and-israel-enter-dragon.html

CHINA’S ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC FOOTPRINT IN ISRAEL IS GROWING

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2014/07/china-and-israel.html

A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN, EXCEPT FOR ENERGY ISSUES

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/israel-and-china.html

INDIA—the world’s largest democracy—was largely hostile to the JEWISH state for the same reason it was hostile to the UNITED STATES. INDIAN nationalist diplomat VENGALIL KRISHNAN KRISHNA MENON coined the term ‘non-alignment’ in a 1953 UNITED NATIONS speech, and the following year JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, INDIA’S first prime minister, co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement. In theory, it sought a third path separate from the Cold War rivalry between the SOVIET UNION and the UNITED STATES but in practice it was marked by disproportionate hostility to the WEST.

Non-alignment, a fondness for socialism, and a suffocating bureaucracy hostile both to direct foreign investment and free market enterprises long restrained INDIA’S economic potential. While INDIA still has a way to go, Prime Minister NARENDRA MODI has sought to bring INDIA’S economy, political culture, and foreign into the 21st century. He recognizes how much INDIA and ISRAEL have in common. They are both democracies in a region where democracies otherwise have not thrived. And ISLAMIST radicals target them both. In the case of both, land disputes — be they have JERUSALEM and its environs in ISRAEL’S case, or the KASHMIR in INDIA’S — are only an excuse for a far more murderous agenda.

BIAS UN HUMAN RIGHT COUNCIL

Earlier this year, MODI announced that he would become the first INDIAN leader to visit ISRAEL. Among tech-savvy INDIANS, the twitter hashtag #IndiaWithIsrael is trending. Nor does it seem that MODI’S looming visit will be the end-all and be-all of warming ties. As COMMENTARY readers know, the UN Human Rights Council has long been a cesspool of anti-ISRAEL and anti-SEMITIC bias. Consider these statistics of cumulative Council condemnations from its founding in 2006 to the present:

ISRAEL has been condemned more than 60 times, yet slave-holding MAURITANIA, blogger-whipping SAUDI ARABIA, journalist-repressing TURKEY, freedom-extinguishing CHINA, migrant worker-killing QATAR, and expansionist RUSSIA have faced no condemnation.

Condemning ISRAEL has become a knee-jerk reaction around the world and, for decades, it has been INDIA’S position as well. But on Friday, July 3, INDIA shocked the Council by abstaining on its condemnation of ISRAELI actions in last year’s GAZA War. Now an abstention isn’t the same as a vote against, but clearly INDIA-ISRAEL relations are on the upswing, or could be if ISRAELI leaders are willing to work hard to cultivate them.

EYEING EAST – STRATEGIC AND TACTIC ADVANTAGE FOR ISRAEL

But INDIA is not alone. The AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL & JEWISH Affairs Council (AIJAC) has long sought to cultivate ties between ISRAEL and other SOUTHEAST ASIAN countries—INDONESIA, THAILAND, SINGAPORE, the PHILIPPINES, and even MALAYSIA. The momentum is promising, as have been the results considering the relatively small scale. If ISRAEL made a concerted effort to cultivate these ties, they might find a much more receptive audience than in past years. Not only would this create a strategic buffer, but it might also correct the narrative that all MUSLIMS embrace the radical, anti-peace positions put forward by more rejectionist ARAB states and EUROPEAN and AMERICAN proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. After all, INDONESIA is the largest MUSLIM country on earth by population, and INDIA the second largest, even though it is not even majority MUSLIM.

SOUTH EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES FACING THE SAME ISLAMIST TERROR THREATS AS HAS ISRAEL FOR DECADES

Such diplomacy need not be an either-or scenario, but just as WASHINGTON navel-gazes and forgets that the UNITED STATES and the targets of our interest are not alone in the sandbox, so, too, do EUROPEANS forget that they are not the world’s moral barometer or the doyens of the elite club with which everyone wants favor. Not only is SOUTHEAST ASIA booming as many of its countries largely abandon ruinous socialist practices and authoritarianism, but many now also face the same ISLAMIST terror threat which ISRAEL has been confronting for decades. There is a convergence of interests; let us hope that ISRAELI officials stop wasting undue energy on the Sisyphean task of pleasing EUROPEAN officials inclined to dislike them and recognize that such efforts might lead to greater results with a new eastern push.

Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and monitoring from the original article written by Michael Rubin

EMERGENCY LANDING BY TURKISH AIRLINES FLIGHT AFTER BOMB SCARE

A flight belonging to Turkish Airlines from Bangkok with 148 passengers onboard landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi | File Photo: AP

Via TheNewIndianExpress (TNIE)

NEW DELHI: An Istanbul-bound Turkish Airlines flight from Bangkok with 148 passengers onboard landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here under full emergency conditions due to a bomb scare.

The plane, an Airbus 330, landed safely at 1341 hours today, taken to an isolation bay, sources said, adding "it appears to be a hoax".

"The pilot was informed of a message written with lipstick on the mirror of one of the plane's washrooms that there was a bomb in the cargo hold of the aircraft, leading the pilot to seek Nagpur ATC's permission to land the aircraft there. He directed the pilot to approach the Delhi ATC," the sources said.

Following this, the aircraft was diverted to Delhi and where it landed at 1341 hours, they added.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said NSG and bomb disposal squad were pressed into service. "No explosive was found inside the cabin. The cargo portion is being checked," he said, adding the process may take about three hours.

He said the entire area was cordoned off and the fire brigade was alerted.

SECRET TALKS BETWEEN HAMAS AND ISRAEL - MEDIATED BY GERMAN

GERMANY MEDIATING SECRET HAMAS-ISRAEL TALKS, 

SUPPORTED BY QATAR

By Richard Silverstein

Intelligence Online (IO) reported (paywall) last month that the visit of GERMAN foreign minister FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER to both ISRAEL and GAZA involved far more than the humanitarian agenda suggested in the media.  IO writes that the GERMAN intelligence agency, BND, is conducting secret negotiations between the ISRAELI government and HAMAS aimed at achieving a durable, stable long-term ceasefire.  The GERMANS are encouraging HAMAS’ participation through a collaboration with QATAR’S state security service.  The QATARIS submitted a proposal to both ISRAEL and GAZA (presumably with the cooperation of the BND).  A key component that would make the plan attractive to HAMAS is that it would include building a floating seaport off GAZA that would be administered under NATO auspices.  This is the first time NATO has been mentioned as a potential force to monitor and enforce international agreements in ISRAEL-PALESTINE.  If the report is accurate, this could be a serious and important development, introducing a major international security force into the region.  Additional reports say TURKEY, which often acts in concert with QATAR in such matters, has also agreed to the plan.

Background Information:

HAMAS REAPS OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR FROM TARIFFS ON THE EGYPT-GAZA TUNNEL TRADE

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/11/israel-and-gaza.html

MOST OF THE CITIZENS IN THE STRIP SEE HAMAS AS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THEIR PROBLEMS

These developments may explain why the IDF Southern Command chief recently voiced surprisingly pragmatic statements concerning HAMAS and the need for ISRAEL to come to an understanding with it:

“Most of the citizens in the Strip see HAMAS as the only solution to their problems.  GAZA has an independent authority that functions like a country,” said [Sammy] TURGEMAN in comments reported by the ISRAELI daily YEDIOTH AHRONOTH, depicting HAMAS in terms as much akin to a functioning state as to a militant group.

“There is a government and an annual plan, with executive bodies and inspection authorities. Within the country there is a ruler that is called HAMAS which knows how to exercise power over the other authorities. As of now, there is no substitute ruler to replace HAMAS in the strip.

The only replacement for HAMAS is the IDF and authoritarian chaos. Other than HAMAS there is no other axis that could control [GAZA].”

TURGEMAN added: “The [PALESTINIAN] Authority cannot rule and this should be taken as an indisputable statement.”

Of course, the prime minister and his cabinet war hawks entirely dismiss this approach.  It remains to be seen whether whoever within ISRAEL is shepherding this process (possibly the army and intelligence services?) can win over the hardliners who would like nothing more than to torpedo such a peace initiative.

HAMAS HAS MUCH MORE TO GAIN FROM THIS PROJECT THAN ISRAEL, WHICH IS WHY IT’S LIKELY TO FAIL

Naturally, the PA is suspicious and mistrustful of any development that might present HAMAS in a more favorable light.  It hates the plan.  The PA intelligence service recently warned MAHMOUD ABBAS about it and suggested that he approach the EGYPTIANS to stop it.  This hasn’t happened, in part because the EGYPTIAN military government, facing increasing levels of unrest and terrorism in the SINAI, is considering a rapprochement with HAMAS.  Recently, EGYPT opened the border with RAFAH for several days as part of this reconciliation process.  The EGYPTIANS expected as a quid pro quo that HAMAS would aid EGYPT’S military and intelligence services in the hunt for ISLAMIST terrorists in SINAI.  Note, this contradicts repeated (and questionable) IDF claims that SINAI militants work together with HAMAS in perpetrating terror attacks.

HAMAS hardliner, MAHMOUD ZAHAR, leads a faction opposed to any deal with either ISRAEL or EGYPT.  He represents the view of HAMAS’ military wing.  The movement’s political wing is eager for any plan that would involve improving the quality of life for average GAZANS since the war last summer, which made life a sheer misery for most residents.  Further, an ISIS affiliate, ANSAR JERUSALEM, recently announced that it planned to challenge and defeat HAMAS in the enclave.  Though it’s doubtful the group has the muscle to fulfill its threat, just the name ISIS is enough to instill fear in the hearts of HAMAS’ political wing.

HAMAS has much more to gain from this project than ISRAEL, which is why it’s likely to fail.  But just its existence is a positive development.

GREECE - GREXIT

On Sunday, 14 June 2015 we posted: 

GRIECHENLAND

DER GREXIT IST EINE LÜGE

In den Medien wird zurzeit eine seltsame Panik geschürt vor dem Austritt oder Rauswurf GRIECHENLANDS aus der EUROZONE (GREXIT). Wir werden von Fakten erschlagen. Zwei der entscheidendsten Fakten werden aber nicht erwähnt: die Schuld der EU-Politik am Elend in GRIECHENLAND und die Unmöglichkeit des GREXIT.

Von Dr. Christian Weilmeier

Sicher hat GRIECHENLAND geschummelt als es darum ging dem Euro beizutreten. Aber welche Regierung hätte das nicht?

HINTERGRUND INFORMATIONEN:

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

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/goldman-sachs.html

GREECE: IT WAS NOT THE PUBLIC SECTOR BUT THE PRIVATE SECTOR THAT WENT HAYWIRE

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2015/02/greece-and-europes-debt.html

Wurde der Euro doch als quasi-religiöses Erlösungswerk von allen Übeln angepriesen. Wer hätte da draußen bleiben wollen. Im Euro ist Heil, ohne Euro stehst du am Rande, bist ein Nichts, wirst überrollt von der strahlenden Macht des künftigen EUROPA. Die EU-Propagandisten haben so dick aufgetragen wie es geht. Dann kam die Finanz- und Eurokrise. Riesige Summen gingen an GRIECHENLAND, na ja, nicht ganz, sie gingen an die griechischenBanken. Die wollte man retten, französische unddeutsche Banken hatten eine Menge Verpflichtungen dort.

DIE GRIECHENLANDHILFE WAR NICHT GANZ UNEIGENNÜTZIG.

Irgendwoher muss das Geld aber kommen und darum hat man die griechische Regierung zu einem harten Sparkurs verpflichtet, der das Land zerrüttet und die Menschen in Armut gestürzt hat. Nach neuesten Zahlen leben in Athen 500.000 Menschen als Obdachlose, in Autos oder sonstigen nicht dafür gedachten Unterkünften. Es ist ja nur recht und billig, dass die Menschen mit ihrer Armut den Reichtum der europäischen Banken bezahlen, dachte man sich wohl in BERLIN, LONDON und PARIS.

Dann kam der Wahlsieg von TSIPRAS und seinem Finanzkrieger VAROUFAKIS. Während VAROUFAKIS seinen Finger sofort in die Schwachstellen der EU-Führer bohrte, legte TSIPRAS nach und stürzte sich in ein monatelanges Tauziehen mit den EU-Mächtigen. Wer gibt als Erster nach? Bis jetzt, nach vielen verwirrenden Wendungen, gibt es immer noch keine Klarheit. Ende Juni ist Stichtag, bis dahin muss eine Lösung her, dann laufen die alten Hilfsprogramme aus. Die deutschen Mainstream-Medien haben Schaum vor dem Mund, Politiker schlagen auf GRIECHENLAND ein, drohen mit dem Rauswurf GRIECHENLANDS aus dem Euro und sind doch baff, wie eiskalt die Sozialisten in ATHEN die Macht-Kamarilla in BRÜSSEL auflaufen lassen. Woher kommt dieser Mut? Nun, er kommt aus der Einsicht in dieeuropäischen Realitäten.

HINTERGRUND INFORMATIONEN:

THE EURO HAS BENEFITED GERMANY GREATLY

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2015/02/germany-and-greece.html

GRIECHENLAND IST EIN GEOPOLITISCH ENORM WICHTIGER STAAT, VOR DEN TOREN DES NAHEN OSTENS.

Auf seinem Staatsgebiet wurden zudem große Erdgaslagerstätten gefunden, die so viel Geld abwerfen werden, dass es in der Zukunft seine Schulden wird bezahlen können. Die USA unterstützen den Verbleib GRIECHENLANDS im Euro, weil die AMERIKANER keinesfalls eine Zunahme des russischen Einflusses in der Region wollen und natürlich sollen die US-Banken ihregriechischen Kredite zurückbekommen.

HINTERGRUND INFROMATIONEN:

RECENT AEGEAN OIL AND GAS FINDINGS COULD BLOT OUT GREECE’S ENTIRE DEPT

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/hostile-takeover.html

EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_14.html

EIN UNGEORDNETER BANKROTT GRIECHENLANDS ODER DER GREXIT WÜRDEN DAS GANZE WELTFINANZSYSTEM GEFÄHRDEN UND DIE EUROZONE WOMÖGLICH ZERSTÖREN.

Zu guter Letzt ist ein Rauswurf GRIECHENLANDS aus dem Euro vertraglich gar nicht möglich. BRÜSSEL müsste in einem Putsch die Verträge brechen und GRIECHENLAND illegal rauswerfen. Das wäre gelinde gesagt kein gutes Signal. Es wird also nicht passieren. Fazit: Die ganze Sache mit dem GREXIT ist reine Drohkulisse, eine Lüge, mit der die DEUTSCHEN auf ohnehin geplante neue Finanzspritzen vorbereitet werden. Das Gerede um den GREXIT ist nichts als EU-Schmierentheater, niemand sollte darauf hereinfallen. TSIPRAS und VAROUFAKIS wissen das und darum können sie ganz locker bleiben.

CRISIS: MAINSTREAM MEDIA

WHY HAS SO MUCH JOURNALISM SUCCUMBED TO PROPAGANDA?

Journalism should monitor, deconstructs and counters propaganda and teaches the young to be agents of people, not power

Written by John Pilger

Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious power? Why do the NEW YORK TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST deceive their readers?

Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power?

These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the UNITED STATES clearly determined to isolate and provoke RUSSIA and eventually CHINA. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in IRAQ in 2003.

The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as EDWARD BERNAYS called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies.

Background Information:

THE PROPAGANDIST

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2011/12/economists-sorry-journalism.html

BBC PROPAGANDA: PHOTO USED TO DOCUMENT THE MASSACRE IN HOULA SYRIA WAS TAKEN IN 2003 IN IRAQ

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2012/05/bbc-propagandaphoto-used-to-document.html

THE INFORMATION AGE IS ACTUALLY A MEDIA AGE.

We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.

This power to create a new "reality" has building for a long time. Forty-five years ago, a book entitled THE GREENING OF AMERICA caused a sensation. On the cover were these words: "There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual."

I was a correspondent in the UNITED STATES at the time and recall the overnight elevation to guru status of the author, a young Yale academic, CHARLES REICH. His message was that truth-telling and political action had failed and only "culture" and introspection could change the world.

Within a few years, driven by the forces of profit, the cult of "me-ism" had all but overwhelmed our sense of acting together, our sense of social justice and internationalism. Class, gender and race were separated. The personal was the political, and the media was the message.

In the wake of the cold war, the fabrication of new "threats" completed the political disorientation of those who, 20 years earlier, would have formed a vehement opposition.

IF WE JOURNALISTS HAD DONE OUR JOB "THERE IS A VERY, VERY GOOD CHANCE WE WOULD HAVE NOT GONE TO WAR IN IRAQ

In 2003, I filmed an interview in WASHINGTON with CHARLES LEWIS, the distinguished AMERICAN investigative journalist. We discussed the invasion of IRAQ a few months earlier. I asked him, "What if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged GEORGE BUSH and DONALD RUMSFELD and investigated their claims, instead of channeling what turned out to be crude propaganda?"

He replied that if we journalists had done our job "there is a very, very good chance we would have not gone to war in IRAQ."

That's a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question. DAN RATHER, formerly of CBS, gave me the same answer.  DAVID ROSE of the Observer and senior journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous, gave me the same answer.

In other words, had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children might be alive today; and millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between SUNNI and SHIA might not have ignited, and the infamous ISLAMIC STATE might not now exist.

THE ANGLO SAXON EQUATION

Even now, despite the millions who took to the streets in protest, most of the public in western countries have little idea of the sheer scale of the crime committed by our governments in IRAQ. Even fewer are aware that, in the 12 years before the invasion, the US and BRITISH governments set in motion a holocaust by denying the civilian population of IRAQ a means to live.

Those are the words of the senior BRITISH official responsible for sanctions on IRAQ in the 1990s - a medieval siege that caused the deaths of half a million children under the age of five, reported UNICEF. The official's name is CARNE ROSS. In the Foreign Office in LONDON, he was known as "Mr. IRAQ".

GOVERNMENTS DECEIVE AND JOURNALISTS WILLINGLY SPREAD THE DECEPTION

Today, he is a truth-teller of how governments deceive and how journalists willingly spread the deception. "We would feed journalists factoids of sanitized intelligence," he told me, "or we'd freeze them out."

The main whistleblower during this terrible, silent period was DENIS HALLIDAY. Then Assistant Secretary General of the UNITED NATIONS and the senior UN official in IRAQ, HALLIDAY resigned rather than implement policies he described as genocidal.  He estimates that sanctions killed more than a million IRAQIS.

What then happened to HALLIDAY was instructive. He was airbrushed. Or he was vilified. On the BBC's Newsnight program, the presenter JEREMY PAXMAN shouted at him: "Aren't you just an apologist for SADDAM HUSSEIN?" THE GUARDIAN recently described this as one of PAXMAN'S "memorable moments". Recently, PAXMAN signed a £1 million book deal.

The handmaidens of suppression have done their job well. Consider the effects. In 2013, a COMRES poll found that a majority of the BRITISH public believed the casualty toll in IRAQ was less than 10,000 - a tiny fraction of the truth. A trail of blood that goes from IRAQ to LONDON has been scrubbed almost clean.

RUPERT MURDOCH “THE GODFATHER OF THE MEDIA MOB”

RUPERT MURDOCH is said to be the godfather of the media mob, and no one should doubt the augmented power of his newspapers - all 127 of them, with a combined circulation of 40 million, and his Fox network. But the influence of MURDOCH'S empire is no greater than its reflection of the wider media.

The most effective propaganda is found not in THE SUN or on FOX NEWS - but beneath a liberal halo. When the NEW YORK TIMES published claims that SADDAM HUSSEIN had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn't FOX NEWS; it was the NEW YORK TIMES.

WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN - CONDITIONING THEIR READERS

The same is true of the WASHINGTON POST and THE GUARDIAN, both of which have played a critical role in conditioning their readers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All three liberal newspapers have misrepresented events in UKRAINE as a malign act by RUSSIA - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in UKRAINE was the work of the UNITED STATES, aided by GERMANY and NATO.

This inversion of reality is so pervasive that WASHINGTON'S military encirclement and intimidation of RUSSIA is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war.

Once again, the evil empire is coming to get us, led by another STALIN or, perversely, a new HITLER. Name your demon and let rip.

DELIBERATE WESTERN MAINSTREAM MEDIA DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN, WHEN IT COMES TO THE UKRAINE CONFLICT 

The suppression of the truth about UKRAINE is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The biggest WESTERN military build-up in the CAUCASUS and EASTERN EUROPE since world war two is blacked out. WASHINGTON'S secret aid to KIEV and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern UKRAINE is blacked out. Evidence that contradicts propaganda that RUSSIA was responsible for the shooting down of a MALAYSIAN airliner is blacked out.

And again, supposedly liberal media are the censors. Citing no facts, no evidence, one journalist identified a pro-RUSSIAN leader in UKRAINE as the man who shot down the airliner. This man, he wrote, was known as The Demon. He was a scary man who frightened the journalist. That was the evidence.

Many in the western media haves worked hard to present the ethnic RUSSIAN population of UKRAINE as outsiders in their own country, almost never as UKRAINIANS seeking a federation within UKRAINE and as UKRAINIAN citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government.

THE GENERAL BREEDLOVE EXAGGERATION SYNDROME

What the RUSSIAN president has to say is of no consequence; he is a pantomime villain who can be abused with impunity. An AMERICAN general who heads NATO and is straight out of Dr. STRANGELOVE - one General BREEDLOVE - routinely claims RUSSIAN invasions without a shred of visual evidence. His impersonation of STANLEY KUBRICK'S General JACK D. RIPPER is pitch perfect.

Background Information:

DIE ARROGANZ DER ENTWERTETEN

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2015/01/journalismus-2015.html

GERMANY: LAME JOURNALISM, OR DELIBERATE DISINFORMATION ON SYRIA?

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2015/01/germany-syria-and-media.html  

DER-SPIEGEL "Der-Hass-der-Bescheidwisser"

http://www.scribd.com/doc/251845876/DER-SPIEGEL-2015-02-Der-Hass-der-Bescheidwisser#scribd

Forty thousand RUSKIES were massing on the border, according to BREEDLOVE. That was good enough for the NEW YORK TIMES, the WASHINGTON POST and THE OBSERVER - the latter having previously distinguished itself with lies and fabrications that backed BLAIR'S invasion of IRAQ, as its former reporter, DAVID ROSE, revealed.

There is almost the joi d'esprit of a class reunion. The drum-beaters of the WASHINGTON POST are the very same editorial writers who declared the existence of SADDAM'S weapons of mass destruction to be "hard facts".

"If you wonder," wrote ROBERT PARRY, "how the world could stumble into world war three - much as it did into world war one a century ago - all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire US political/media structure over UKRAINE where a false narrative of white hats versus black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason."

PARRY, the journalist who revealed IRAN-CONTRA, is one of the few who investigated the central role of the media in this "game of chicken", as the RUSSIAN foreign minister called it. But is it a game? As I write this, the US Congress votes on Resolution 758 which, in a nutshell, says: "Let's get ready for war with RUSSIA."

SECULAR LIBERALISM - "THE FINAL RELIGION, THOUGH IT’S CHURCH IS NOT OF THE OTHER WORLD BUT OF THIS"

In the 19th century, the writer ALEXANDER HERZEN described secular liberalism as "the final religion, though its church is not of the other world but of this". Today, this divine right is far more violent and dangerous than anything the Muslim world throws up, though perhaps its greatest triumph is the illusion of free and open information.

In the news, whole countries are made to disappear. SAUDI ARABIA, the source of extremism and western-backed terror, is not a story, except when it drives down the price of oil. YEMEN has endured twelve years of AMERICAN drone attacks. Who knows? Who cares?

In 2009, the University of the West of ENGLAND published the results of a ten-year study of the BBC's coverage of VENEZUELA. Of 304 broadcast reports, only three mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the government of HUGO CHAVEZ. The greatest literacy program in human history received barely a passing reference.

In EUROPE and the UNITED STATES, millions of readers and viewers know next to nothing about the remarkable, life-giving changes implemented in LATIN AMERICA, many of them inspired by CHAVEZ. Like the BBC, the reports of the NEW YORK TIMES, the WASHINGTON POST, THE GUARDIAN and the rest of the respectable western media were notoriously in bad faith. CHAVEZ was mocked even on his deathbed. How is this explained, I wonder, in schools of journalism?

IS COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT CALLED “AUSTERITY” NECESSARY IN BRITAIN

Why are millions of people in BRITAIN persuaded that a collective punishment called "austerity" is necessary?

Following the economic crash in 2008, a rotten system was exposed. For a split second the banks were lined up as crooks with obligations to the public they had betrayed.

But within a few months - apart from a few stones lobbed over excessive corporate "bonuses" - the message changed. The mugshots of guilty bankers vanished from the tabloids and something called "austerity" became the burden of millions of ordinary people. Was there ever a sleight of hand as brazen?

CROOKED BANKS ARE GIVEN AN ANNUAL SUBSIDY OF £100BN IN FREE INSURANCE AND GUARANTEES

Today, many of the premises of civilized life in BRITAIN are being dismantled in order to pay back a fraudulent debt - the debt of crooks. The "austerity" cuts are said to be £83 billion. That's almost exactly the amount of tax avoided by the same banks and by corporations like AMAZON and MURDOCH'S NEWS UK. Moreover, the crooked banks are given an annual subsidy of £100bn in free insurance and guarantees - a figure that would fund the entire NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IS PURE PROPAGANDA.

Extreme policies now rule BRITAIN, the UNITED STATES, much of EUROPE, CANADA and AUSTRALIA. Who is standing up for the majority? Who is telling their story? Who's keeping record straight? Isn't that what journalists are meant to do?

In 1977, CARL BERNSTEIN, of WATERGATE fame, revealed that more than 400 journalists and news executives worked for the CIA. They included journalists from the NEW YORK TIMES, TIME and the TV networks. In 1991, RICHARD NORTON TAYLOR of THE GUARDIAN revealed something similar in this the UK.

None of this is necessary today. I doubt that anyone paid the WASHINGTON POST and many other media outlets to accuse EDWARD SNOWDEN of aiding terrorism. I doubt that anyone pays those who routinely smear JULIAN ASSANGE - though other rewards can be plentiful.

It's clear to me that the main reason ASSANGE has attracted such venom, spite and jealously is that WikiLeaks tore down the facade of a corrupt political elite held aloft by journalists. In heralding an extraordinary era of disclosure, ASSANGE made enemies by illuminating and shaming the media's gatekeepers, not least on the newspaper that published and appropriated his great scoop. He became not only a target, but a golden goose.

Lucrative book and Hollywood movie deals were struck and media careers launched or kick-started on the back of WikiLeaks and its founder. People have made big money, while WikiLeaks has struggled to survive.

WHISTLE-BLOWERS – "THE UNPEOPLE"

None of this was mentioned in STOCKHOLM on 1 December when the editor of THE GUARDIAN, ALAN RUSBRIDGER, shared with EDWARD SNOWDEN the RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARD, known as the alternative NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. What was shocking about this event was that ASSANGE and WikiLeaks were airbrushed. They didn't exist. They were unpeople. No one spoke up for the man who pioneered digital whistleblowing and handed THE GUARDIAN one of the greatest scoops in history. Moreover, it was ASSANGE and his WikiLeaks team who effectively - and brilliantly - rescued EDWARD SNOWDEN in HONG KONG and sped him to safety. Not a word.

Photo: Transparency International 

What made this censorship by omission so ironic and poignant and disgraceful was that the ceremony was held in the SWEDISH parliament - whose craven silence on the ASSANGE case has colluded with a grotesque miscarriage of justice in STOCKHOLM.

"When the truth is replaced by silence," said the SOVIET dissident YEVTUSHENKO, "the silence is a lie."

It's this kind of silence we journalists need to break. We need to look in the mirror. We need to call to account an unaccountable media that services power and a psychosis that threatens world war.

In the 18th century, EDMUND BURKE described the role of the press as a Fourth Estate checking the powerful. Was that ever true? It certainly doesn't wash any more. What we need is a Fifth Estate: a journalism that monitors, deconstructs and counters propaganda and teaches the young to be agents of people, not power. We need what the RUSSIANS called perestroika - an insurrection of subjugated knowledge. I would call it real journalism.

Its 100 years since the First World War. Reporters then were rewarded and knighted for their silence and collusion. At the height of the slaughter, BRITISH Prime Minister DAVID LLOYD GEORGE confided in C.P. SCOTT, editor of the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN: "If people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow, but of course they don't know and can't know."

It's time they knew.