Syria - Just part of the game?

Sometimes I wonder if it all isn't really some kind of game. A bizarre game, of course. A dangerous one. But is it?

I've purposely moved a bit farther east from Greece, because it is here that this craziness becomes even clearer. Just as Saddam Hussein was useful to the US for a while, our friends in Russia have their preferences as well. Neither we nor they are very picky about who is supported, as long as we think we're getting something out of it. The question often is merely "What?" Power, prestige, natural resources, money ... it might be any or all of these these, though for those who place a lot a value on obtaining them at just about any cost, I have to think it is some personally perferred combination of them, and perhaps some others I haven't thought about. It's not my thing and I simply have a lot of trouble following that kind of thinking sometimes. So, I'd like to briefly consider three "coincidences" (for lack of a better word) that have moved into the spotlight recently.

OK, granted, the first one is an oldie: petrodollars. But, when you think about straws breaking camels backs, what did Iraq do back then that ticked off the US so badly that they were willing to risk an illegal war to stop it? The world knew he didn't have chemical weapons or WMDs; we know in the meantime that Bush & Co. and Blair blatantly lied about that. One thing Saddam did do that was, to many, the ultimate slap in the face was that he decided not to deal in dollars for oil anymore and had his account denominated in euros. Here's a serious explanation; and here's a more humorous one. After all, we did see that the euro was a bit of an issue with Greece too, even if in a very different way.

Could it be that the US is suffering from a bit of currency envy? Maybe. They are treading on somewhat thin ice. Banks can be very sensitive at times, especially when they have set their minds to do something, which brings us to the now notorious end-game memo. Greg Palast broke this one. Ellen Brown has pointed out that there were four countries not playing by the rules the WTO wanted everyone playing by: Iraq (which we just dealt with), Libya (which we dealt with in 2011, not the least of which also because the Crazy Colonel was thinking of trading for oil in gold dinars), our evergreen nemesis Iran (goes without saying), and, of course, Syria. They needed to be dealt with separately. Why? Apparently because these countries favor Islamic rules for banking operation, more specifically, the prohibition of usury, which is what western banks live for and from.

And, last but not least, there is the fascinating interview with retired Gen. Wesley Clark (from 2007) in which he makes frighteningly clear that in the aftermath of 9/11, seven countries were slated for take-down (originally, within five years), and the process appears to be progressing nicely: Sudan (destroyed by civil war, split and (predominantly Christian) South Sudan set up in 2011), Somalia (destroyed by civil war, reconstituted in 2012), our old friends Iraq and Libya (just discussed, which are mere shadows of their former selves) and then, not unexpectedly, Iran, Syria (our current hot spot) and Lebanon (just now creeping into the news ... coincidentally, of course). Or maybe it is a whole way of thinking.

I don't know about you, but this all gives me pause to wonder. I wonder what the US is really up to and why. I wonder why the Manning and Snowden disclosures have so recently erupted and have been reacted to so visciously. I wonder what is really at stake in Greece and Syria. But I also wonder why we, the normal, everyday, citizens of the world, have to put up with so much crap.

Syria - What's that all about?

Those who know me know how much I love a good "conspiracy", especially those that aren't. I find most conspiracy theories amusing at best, but it is generally obvious where the perceptual flaw lies. The recent developments in Syria and what has happened did get me wondering, I'll admit.

Of course it's a huge coincidence that when I finally get around to blogging about what might be going on behind the scenes in that corner of the world, it just so happens that President Obama gets called on an ill-advised and short-sighted statement that he made months ago. One really shouldn't be drawing lines of any color in the sand, if one's not ready to back it up with action. But that whole situation came across to me as rather bizarre.

The Syrians have been killing each other for months ... profusely and brutally. Neither side is giving any quarter. That couldn't be our problem. Ill-fated and unauthorized aggression, as the Iraq War perfectly demonstrated, is too big a failure and too fresh in Americans' minds to be simply ignored by another illegal war. That could have presented a problem, and may still be a problem. Of course, it could also be that this has simply been a brilliant ploy by Obama all along.

It is not clear to me when America got queasy about brutal dictators and the use of poison gas. There is every indication that we knew exactly who was using gas against civilians back in 1988 in the Halabja massacre, and who was most likely helping them. This has been confirmed by the Huffington Post, The Week and The Economist, based on a scoop revealed by Foreign Policy magazine. This was known before and thematicized as late as 2006. Moreover, this latest crossing of the red line wasn't the first, just the largest; there were allegedly five previous incidents. But none of these caused outrage. The other loudmouth in the recent response, Britain, whose Parliament refused to support the charge forward, most likely provided the chemicals which were used to develop the sarin gas in the first place.

The unexpected shift of the Russians calling for UN control and Syria agreeing plus a less-than-radical Iran in the background speaking in moderate terms were also rather unexpected twists in the whole scenario. No, for me, this is all still much too unclear. There are too many flashing lights, too much smoke, and I expect more than one mirror involved.

I'm not saying there's a conspiracy at work, but I am saying there appears to be more here than immediately meets the eye.

The Greek patient - Update

This is, of course, an ongoing story. Some of what we've seen over the past few posts is easily confirmed, other information will have to wait for further revelations. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't at least provide a few links to get you started, should you be interested in following up on developments.

The South Stream pipeline is taking shape. More information can be found

• on Wikipedia;
• on the pipeline's own webpage and
• on Gazprom's webpage.

The Nabucco pipeline is not faring so well. It appears that the project as a whole has been abandoned, but the Western portion is allegedly still an option. This is, to my mind, an interesting development. More information can be found

• on Wikipedia;
• on the World Socialist Web Site and
• at Natural Gas Europe.

Finally, there is the issue of Greece's gas reserves and its development. Offical statistics have little to say, but that would be expected in light of Müller's presentation, but there are other sources that do shed some light on the subject and provide some interesting additional perspectives:

• the Proven gas reserves page on Wikipedia;
• Wikipedia's List of natural gas fields;
• at Natural Gas Europe;
• by Reuters regarding US-Greece gas relations;
• by Reuters regarding Greek oil itself, and
• at the Online Wall Street Journal.

Of course, recent developments with Syria, to which I'll turn next time, also have an impact on this issue.

The Greek patient - So what do we do now?

When I think about all the time, money, energy, and, well, lives that have gone into this ... I'm not sure what to call it ... charade (?), this burlesque (?), this whatever-you-want-to-call-it ... I can assure you, I'm anything but happy. To be truthful, it simply turns my stomach.

Oh, I know, I know, the world isn't all that nice a place and nasty things happen all the time, but you'd think that after almost a million years of human history, we would have learned something. You'd especially think that in light of what we know about how badly all this money-grubbing and resource-grabbing turned out, we'd be a bit more cautious today. But we aren't. We're still playing stupid games that are costing real people their lives and their livelihoods. You'll forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic about support for what's going on.

You should know that I think that the EU is far from perfect. I am a big fan of the idea of Europe – that much is certain – but I'm not a big fan of the EU as it's being implemented today. I believe we've been called to do better, and in order to do so, we – and by that I mean you and me and your neighbor and my neighbor ... everyday people, that is – have to become more involved and make ourselves heard. There are lots of good ideas around, and it's time we started putting some of them to work. As for the Greek patient, well, here are my suggestions for his recovery:

1. The Americans have nothing here that is theirs. It's time for them to go home or bother someone else (though I'm in favor of the former). They should get their own house in order before telling other folks how they ought to be living.
2. The IMF should be sent home. This fits in with #1. It's an American organization, and I can't begin to imagine what business it has being involved in anything internal to Europe.
3. The Greeks should be given a say in their destiny. We all agree – hell, even the Greeks that I've spoken with agree – that they need to get their fiscal house in order, but they should decide who should help and they should invite those whom they trust in to help them.
4. The Greeks should use their natural wealth to pay off those creditors who perhaps deserve to be paid off. Some of those creditors are mere exploiters and they are free to made downward adjustments as appropriate.
5. The Greeks should play a suitable role in deciding how their resources and their wealth can help Europe as a whole prosper. (In this point, there's a whole lot of rethinking to be done.) They have the means and, with some assistance, the wherewithal to ensure that Europe can actually start becoming a reality.
6. The EU must become more democratic, devolving a lot of the current power held by the EC to the European Parliament, but as a transition to a more reasonable form of governance for the 21st century.
7. The EU has the opportunity, and therefore should take it, to reorganize their money business. It's time to place our fiscal future on a new foundation. It is time to opt out of the purely fiat currency malaise that plagues the world. They could set an example for how money itself can be made more democratic so that wealth is more equitably distributed than it is now and so that everyone, not a select few, benefit when it grows.

These are merely broad-brush suggestions, of course, but in each and every one of them is an opportunity to make sensible, positive changes to business-as-usual. Will the world become perfect as a result? Absolutely not. But, in doing so, we increase the chances that there will even be a world left to leave to our children.

Think about it.

The Greek patient - What's really at stake?

It is at this point that I want to pick up a thread which was laid down in the sixth post in this series: the gas pipelines I referred to.

At the heart of the Greek problem is a rather down-to-earth fact: natural resources. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Let's face it: America is a resource junkie. Americans represent 5% of the world's population, but they consume 25% of its natural resources, in particular its energy resources. The Americans aren't all that hip on renewable energies (cf. the Keystone pipeline, fracking, and more) but we all know that in the interest of the environment (which also doesn't make much of an impression on Americans either) there have to be other ways of conducting our (production) business. Finally, we also know that capitalism, as it is currently practiced in the US is unsustainable. Infinite growth on a finite planet is, well, simply impossible. But the impossible never stopped America. There was a time when that might have been a good thing, but in this case, it could be the end of us all.

As it turns out, Greece is sitting on more than significant quantities of much-desired natural resources. Nobody ever bothered figuring this out, for as we saw in our review of Greek history, the occupiers were more interested in getting what they could while they could get it that the search and extraction of – granted, at the time, unknown – resources was not their highest priority. We all know, though, that America's, if not the world's, greatest addiction, is to hydrocarbons. And it is here that our Greek patient becomes downright sexy.

As fate would have it, Greece is sitting on the currently largest natural gas reserves in the world. It's not like this wasn't known before. The Germans, during WW2, obtained most of their oil from Rumania, but they were drilling in Greece as well. When you look at the whole region – from Rumania in the North, to the Caspian Sea in the Northeast, to Iran, Syria and all the way down to Libya, it stands to reason that hydrocarbons should be present in and around Greece. As it turns out, the Americans have known this for a long time.

A short digression back into history:

One of the first things the Americans did after "allowing" the military junta to take over Greece was to since contracts to explore for gas and oil. These contracts were for a period of 26 years with an option for an additional 10 years. When you add it up: 1968 + 26 + 10 = 2004, oddly enough, the year that turmoil started in Greece as we have seen. Between 1968 and 2004, oil was cheap. The Saudis had agreed back then that they could live with $40/barrel, but in 2004, oil prices began to rise drastically, as high as $140/barrel. Suddenly, Saudi oil wasn't as attractive as it once was and to a junkie, well, when you have to start paying more for the same fix, you start looking for other sources.

You can say what you want, but given the fact that it has been more than proven that Bush and Blair overtly and specifically lied to start the Iraq War, the object was oil, not freedom. Our beef with Iran isn't really over their nuclear program, for the observant reader will have noted that the Americans attempts to get in good with Turkmenistan is an attempt to outflank Iran to the North ... they are sitting on huge gas and oil reserves, too.

No, if you ask me, the jig is up. We're not dealing with anything more than a grab for resources just like we had back in the 19th century. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Greek patient - A third (and final) editorial excursion

Many of you know that I'm a pretty skeptical person at heart. I'm not the world's foremost optimist. If anything, I tend strongly toward cynicism. I do think that there is still hope for humanity, but not much. I still believe that maybe even my fellow countrypeople, the Americans, can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get themselves out of the corner they've painted themselves into ... well, that's what I believe on good days. Not every day is a good day.

For as long as I can remember, the USA has considered itself something special. I don't want to get into an argument as to whether they are/were or aren't/weren't. I simply don't care. I don't think they're special; I think Americans are just like everyone else, and my travels and experiences have borne this out. America and Americans are not entitled to any more in this world than anyone else.

For as long as I can remember, though, it has appeared that America and Americans believe they are entitled to more than others. For all their talk about liberty, freedom, individualism and more, their governments have been willing to deal with the most ruthless and unsavory dictators and countries, if they thought they could get something out of it. It has never been and is still not unusual for the CIA (or whomever may be currently responsible for such things) to remove one head of government to get in another who is more sympathetic to America's interests. Pinochet was fine with us; so was the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and even Idi Amin (remember him). This bothers me, because I never wanted to believe that this is what America was all about.

But it is what America is all about. If they have "interests", of any kind, be they strategic or geo-political or whatever, they are willing to employ any means necessary to pursue those interests, regardless of the costs, be they mere financial or, more importantly, moral or human costs. You will have to excuse me if I don't stand up and simply wave the flag. Trust, respect, yes, even love, is something you must earn. You don't get any of that by simply being there. America, in my book, still has a lot of earning to do.

And just so you know: I don't want to hear any of that crap about how America isn't doing anything that others aren't doing. Just because others do things in no way justifies your doing them. This is biggest cop-out in business (hey, if we don't do , our competitors will) and it's the biggest cop-out in politics as well. When I wanted to do something because "all my friends were doing it", my mom used to ask me if my friends were all going to jump off a bridge, was I going to jump too. In some regards, too many folks (especially high-ranking politicians) simply haven't grown up.

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of nation-states and believe, fundamentally, that they may have outlived their usefulness, I do realize that they still exist and that they still have a role to play. Nevertheless, no individual country is so unique, so special that they have more, better, or unique rights than any other country. This applies to America, whether it is the richest or the most hapless country in the world.

And, with that in mind, let's finish our story.

The Greek patient - Schlimmer geht immer (Things can always get worse)

Papandreou is gone. On 11 November 2011, a new PM takes over Greece, Loukas Papadimos. Now, I know you're probably getting bored by this, but you've got to look at this guy's resumé: studied at MIT starting in 1966; from 1975-1984 Professor of Economics at Columbia; as of 1980 Chief Economist at the Federal Reserve in Boston (!); 1985 moved to Greek Central Bank, of which he was head from 1994-2002, that is, during the period in which the euro was introduced. What is more, it was Papadimos who brought in Goldman-Sachs to do Greece's books for their entry into the euro. Interestingly enough, during this time, the Vice President and Principal of Goldman-Sachs overseeing this area was Mario Draghi, the current head of the ECB. What a small world we live in.

Obviously, between internal Greek turmoil and the now-infamous Troika breathing down the Greeks' necks ... and by the way, we should recall who composes the Troika: the European Commission (EC), the IMF (there at Germany's insistence) and the ECB (led by a Goldman-Sachs man); great ... so no one is surprised when new elections are required, which brings us to the current Greek PM, Andonis Samaras, who, as it just so happens, is an Amherst College alumnus who also went on to study at Harvard. It would seem the world isn't getting any bigger.

Now, what most of you probably don't know is that the IMF is anything but a neutral or humanitarian organization. David Graeber likens them to the former Mafia collection agents ... you know, the guys who would break your kneecaps if you didn't pay back your loans ... that is, to thugs. And basically, Graeber's assessment is spot on. What is more, although officially an organ of the United Nations (UN), according to the fund's charter, the president must be European and the 1st Executive Vice President must be an American. Of all the nations sitting on the board of the fund, however, only one has the right of veto: the US. It is obviously not neutral, and it is not too far-fetched to maintain that it is simply a front organization for American interests.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize that much about the Greek "illness" is not necessarily hom-grown. There are a number of outside influences that are anything but insignificant. The involvement of the CIA, the rather obvious attempts to destabilize the country, the rather heavy-handed attempts to influence the directions of actions taken against Greece and the euro, the intrigues, the connections ... well, when you look at it all, you have more the feeling you're reading a John Grisham novel instead of something about modern-day, political life on this planet. But as I said at the onset, you can't make this up. Things are much worse than we thought.

The question, though, is why? Greece has never really been all that self-sufficient or stable; it is such a little country; it is economically anything but a powerhouse; it constitutes an insignificant portion of the total European economy; it ... yes, obviously the list goes on, and I, for one, am having trouble understanding why Greece in recent years has become such an explosive issue.

So, after another brief editorial excursion next time, we'll get to the real heart of the matter.

The Greek patient - I don't know what it is, but it just hit the fan

Old habits die hard, and old aversions even harder. By 2009, tensions were running high.

There is a strong suspicion that a thwarted assassination attempt on Karamanlis had been planned by a Western intelligence agency (most likely the CIA ... go figure). This plot was broken up shortly before a planned meeting between Karamanlis (Greece), Putin (Russia) and Paranow (Bulgaria). Greek intelligence maintains it was all part of a plan to destabilize Greece. This assassination attempt was flanked by kidnappings of major Greek industrial figures, widespread demonstrations and "terrorist" attacks (local bombings). Also in 2009, a scandal involving the transfer of ownership of an alleged historical Greek monastery on Lake Vistonida sprang up. It was an exchange of the monastery for prime real estate in Athens. The connection was Karamanlis' press secretary, but it could have been a set-up, too. In 2011, the abbot of the monastery was arrested and indicted on fraud charges in relation to the deal. Karamanlis was on the ropes, but the pressure was increased. He called for mid-term elections, though he had little chance of winning, and a mere two days before the elections in 2010, two bombing attacks were carried out at two Karamanlis campaign events. Naturally, he lost the election, but he also resigned his leadership of his party and disappeared from politics.

Enter the new Prime Minister (PM) of Greece, Georgios Papandreou, whose biography is more than interesting: born to an American mother in Minnesota in 1952; studied at Amherst College receiving his doctorate in 1979; two years later, he was a Greek citizen and member of the Greek Social Democratic Party; from 1999-2004, Foreign Minister; but, in 1992/93, he was a Fellow in the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.

He took office in October 2010. His first act as PM was to renege on his campaign promise to raise the welfare rate, which most likely got him elected in the first place. Only 14 days after the election, though, his newly appointed Finance Minister "discovered" that the actual Greek deficit was not 6% of GDP as the former government had maintained, rather 12-13%. How he was able to figure that out before even settling into his office is a mystery to everyone. Papandreou then decided to "come clean" in Brussels and denounced his own government and country for defrauding the EU. And this is how the crisis was kicked off. But it doesn't stop there.

In January 2013 the Chief Statistician at the time of the "fraud" was indicted. This was one Andreas Georgiou, whose own biography is worth reviewing: alumnus of Amherst College; PhD, University of Michigan; 1989-2010 worked at International Monetary Fund (IMF) overseeing various programs. In other words, it was a man from the IMF who was able to "discover" the Greek accounting discrepancies before actually entering office, and at least one member of his staff has testified that she was directed to misrepresent data. I don't know about you, but this all comes across as rather fishy.

To top it all off, Papandreou, Mr. I'm-So-Sorry in Brussels, negotiates a multi-billion rescue package only to announce he will put it to a popular vote (due to all the strings that are attached). This is nothing that anyone wants to happen (except for maybe the Greek people), and the next thing you know, we've got elections again.

But it doesn't stop there. More next time.

The Greek patient - What's really going on?

Some of you are probably asking yourselves by now, "Why all the fuss if there's no really big identifiable problem?" Like so many other nations the world over, the Greeks have borrowed more than they can probably ever repay, but that in and of itself shouldn't be the issue. So have the Americans, the Brits, the Japanese, and most of the European countries as well. Despite massive cuts to their social systems, the implementation of inhuman austerity programs, and the forking over of billions of euros in support payments, Greece in further in debt now than it was at the beginning of the crisis? How can that be? It's easy. Greece, and most certainly the Greek people, never see a cent of that money. It is simply siphoned off to the country's creditors (read: banks and financial institutions) primarily servicing only outstanding interest. To my knowledge, the capital hasn't been touched yet. At this rate, the Greeks will never get out of debt. How many of you has it occurred to that maybe, just maybe, that's the plan?

I'm not spinning out the latest conspiracy theory here. What follows is not something my feeble mind could make up. But, I can assure you, it will make you wonder nevertheless.

The crisis in Greece moved into full gear in 2004. The Prime Minister at the time was Konstantinos Karamanlis. Though having studied at Tufts University in the US (masters and PhD), Karamanlis turned his attentions away from the US toward Russia, offering Putin to become involved in Gazprom's newly planned cooperative venture with the Italian energy company Eni, the South Stream gas pipeline, which was to run from Russian, through the Black Sea, then Bulgaria (thereby avoiding the Ukraine, who has periodically been less than cooperative with the Moscow government) at which point it can branch south towards Italy and northwest toward Austria, thereby increasing gas service to Europe. Kamaranlis thought the Greeks could get involved, and Putin thought Russia could help Greece develop its energy industry. Sounded like win-win to those involved.

Now, who would be surprised if I said at this point that our friends in the States were anything but pleased? Why should they care? Isn't business just business? Well, it would be if the Americans weren't planning on building their own – the Nabucco – pipeline from the area around the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey (thereby avoiding Russia) to Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary to a distribution point in Austria.

The construction of South Stream started in 2012, so it will be built. The Americans are trying to gain a foothold with the dictator in Turkmenistan, a particularly unsavory character, even for American political tastes, and haven't been able to get their ball rolling yet. And then the nerve of those pesky (let us not forget, lazy, tax-evading) Greeks cozying up to Russia like that. Was somebody trying to rain on someone else's parade. It would seem so.

Obviously something needed to be done. But what? And this is where, at least to me, things really start getting interesting.

The Greek patient - A second editorial excursion

Let me say right off that I personally thought the euro was introduced too soon, but I'm not a banking/finance/economic expert, so what do I know. It turns out that Herr Müller, Mr. DAX is also of that option, so at least I'm not in discredited company. I also firmly believe that at whatever point the euro would be introduced ... it was never a question of "if", it was only ever a matter of "when" ... some conditions other than the Maastricht criteria needed to be met:

1. Joining could never be optional. If you're in the EU, you come into the Eurozone. Nevertheless, some reasonable leeway could be negotiated for each country.
2. An EU finance minister had to be appointed to manage it; individual countries would all be bound by all the same rules.
3. The European Central Bank was to become a publicly-owned central bank with the power and authority to print money.
   

By not doing that, we have run into to-be-expected difficulties. When we consider Greece, as the current configuration is the euro is too strong for the Greek economy. They have no leeway to devalue their own national currency in light of the pressing economic and fiscal problems they are facing.

To put this in perspective: the Greek economy represents only about 1.5% of the EU economy as a whole. That's like saying that if Louisana went belly-up tomorrow, the United States as a whole would implode. That is, of course, ludicrous, but one of the reasons that the US would have fewer problems is that they have a real central bank and the same rules apply to everyone in the federation (that is, in the United States as a whole).

The Eurozone has a different central-bank structure and which functions differently, and each of the "states" in Europe is still, literally (not figuratively as in the US) an independent country. This makes all the difference in the world.

There are a number of options circulating regarding how to solve the problem, but upon closer examination, we find that most of them would cause more problems than they would solve. The one that many have pushed for – in particular American economists – is that Greece (and the second patient, Cyprus) should just be pushed out of the Eurozone and return to their own native currencies. But that's not really an option at all. It turns out that if they leave the Eurozone, they have to leave the EU itself, and it is unclear whether there is a sound legal mechanism to allow for that. For better or for worse, it is up to Europe to get its house in order, and as we shall see in what follows, the last thing they need is a lot of advice from outsiders.

What we've seen up until now, however, is interesting enough:

1. the euro itself is not the problem, but the structure of the euro is (but it's internal to Europe);
2. the size of the Greek economy is not the problem, but how it can be managed is;
3. at present, Greece is still a sovereign nation and should, at least in my estimation, have some say in its destiny (especially since foreigners have been calling the shots there for almost 2,000 years); and
4. a sound financial and economic reorganization is absolutely necessary, sooner rather than later, but expecting the Greeks to save themselves to prosperity is cruel and unusual punishment.

OK, it was an editorial summary, but it is still important for what comes next.

The Greek patient - There is no end of history

OK, if it isn't the lazy, tax-evading Greeks who are the cause of their own evil, what is. As it turns out, it may not be a "what" as much as a "who". Let's pick up our (hi)story where we left off.

In 1974 a modicum of stability came to Greece. In June 1975, the Greeks applied for membership in the European Union. As of the 1st of January 1981, they became members. At the time, it will be remembered, there was no (almost) common currency: the Germans had their beloved D-Mark, the French (and others) their (individual) francs, the Greeks had their drachma. The European project was progressing nicely. The Brits came on board in the early 70s, and besides the Greeks, Portugal and Spain also entered in the 80s. At the end of the 80s, however, something happened that no one had really expected: the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc collapsed. There was now a new source of disquiet, namely the reunification of Germany.

We like to think of Germany as a sovereign nation, but in the aftermath of 1989, not everyone was as excited as the Germans about a possible reunification. The Brits held great reservations, as did their traditional rivals, the French. In fact at a meeting of the two Germanys, France, the UK and the US (the latter being the victors of WW2, of course ... a war that apparently still wasn't completely over), the French, in particular, demanded that the Germanys be allowed to reunite only if they committed to joining the fiscal union – what became the euro – as well. The Germans agreed, they reunified, and well, we know their story up till now. But what does this have to do with the Greeks?

There was a lot of euphoria surrounding the introduction of the euro. Anybody who was anybody in Europe, well, except for the Brits who were still trying to figure out where their Empire went, the Scandinavians who are really into doing their own thing, and some of the more recently accepted countries, wanted to join in the party. Europe was growing together. The idea of Europe was gaining strength within Europe (the geographical entity) itself. Things were looking up.

Of course, not everyone was as excited as the Europeans. The greatest Europe-skeptics, of course, were the Americans. I don't think I'm revealing any secrets when I say that they were downright suspicious about it all. Here was a group of countries coming ever closer together who were larger by population and growing in economic power at a disturbing rate. Americans may be competitive, but they hate competition. And now, these stodge-pots were planning on introducing their own currency, too. Everybody knows the US Dollar is the only currency worth having. Or did they. It appeared that those Old Europeans were getting just a bit uppity. They needed to be watched ... and we know where that's led.

In the end, though, as of 1 January 2002, 17 of the current 28 countries in the European Union formed a new monetary union. Which promptly sunk in value by almost 30% in relation to the American dollar. What did you expect? Didn't we tell you that was a bust?

Well, you told us, but was it?

The Greek patient - A first editorial excursion

Practically the entire recorded history of the Greek people is one of being occupied and oppressed by foreign powers. A part of pleasure of doing business with these uninvited guests is, of course, paying tribute (read: being taxed). That the Greeks haven't developed an historic love of taxes is hardly surprising. What did they have get out of paying taxes? Nothing. The money went away and never came back. It built lots of palaces and monuments for the overlords, it kept those potentates fat and happy, but there is no real evidence that the Greeks got anything – ever – from being taxed. I mean, what reasonable person wants to pay taxes if you get nothing out of it?

Come to think of it, though, Americans, who have allegedly enjoyed less than 250 years of democratic freedom, only pay taxes when they are threatened enough or forced to and go to great lengths to see that they pay as little as possible. The most recent American grotesquery, the Tea Party, wants to eliminate them altogether. Why? Well, there is the ever-present and very inaccurate big-government argument, but if you ask me why Americans hate taxes, it's because you don't get anything out of them. When we visited my Dad in Western Pennsylvania, he had plenty of stories about all the taxes he got to pay because the governor decided that his corporate buddies and donors didn't need to pay so much, but he never got much for them either. The roads weren't cleared well in winter. Those same roads were full of potholes. There wasn't much in the way of senior citizen support ... well, you get the picture. I understand why he hated paying taxes. You get nothing for it.

Considering that the Greeks have as good as never really been the masters of their own fate, I don't find it all that surprising that they themselves never really even set up a tax system. Since the occupying powers always made sure they would collect what they felt was their due, they had one and the Greeks didn't need one ... for nigh on two millennia ... and the Greek people saw again and again and again that taxes mean only that others get richer while you, the little guy, just get poorer and poorer. But, in too many people's minds, it's the lazy, tax-evading Greek populace that has brought the country to the edge of ruin. What a bunch of hooey!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing nor justifying the situation in which Greece finds itself, but I am very adamant that those who maintain it's all the Greek people's fault are ignorant (in particular of the history of the country), arrogant (not having walked an inch in their shoes), and prejudiced (yes, those of love to think they know it all, have stereotypes dictating their thoughts). What I am saying is quite simple: we expect too much too soon.

I have always maintained: the East Germans suffered under their dictatorship for 40 years, and it is ludicrous to expect that it will take fewer than 40 years to get everybody out of it. The Greeks have been in the modern sovereign-state business – as a full-fledged partner – for only 40 years as well. So they should be doing everything to the same degree of effectiveness and effectivity that others have allegedly mastered in two, three or five times as long. Right.

If you set the bar too high, others can't jump over it.

The Greek patient - A flash from the past

If you want to understand the present, you really have to understand a little about the past, and what hardly any of know anything about is Greek history, so I offer you the following for your information and edification. We are all aware that Greece is considered the Cradle of Democracy, but Greece as we know it is a very recent ... and I mean, very recent ... phenomenon.

Around 500 BCE the Athenians and others came up with the idea of allowing free (read: non-slave), native (read: non-foreigner), adult male citizens take a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, e.g., declaring war, conducting diplomatic missions, ratifying treaties, etc. This was handled either directly or via some form of popular assembly. This form of government of course applied to the rather limited city-states in existence at the time. About two centuries later, groups of these city-states formed confederations, perhaps the two best known being the Delian (led by Athens) and the Peloponnesian (led by Sparta, which, by the way, wasn't run democratically ... go figure) Leagues. These were not anywhere near similar to the country of Greece as it exists today. Once the Athenians started using League resources for their own benefit, things went downhill and by 146 BCE, the Romans were enjoying the full extent of Greek hospitality. They hung around till their own empire collapsed around 450 AD. Various peoples swept through the Greek countryside, for the most part, the Slavs and the Turks, until the Ottomans invited themselves in around the middle of the 15th century. They liked it so much, that they stayed another 400 years themselves.

Starting in 1821, the Greeks tried getting themselves together to get rid of the Ottomans. In 1832, with British backing (for the foreigners were still calling the big shots), they installed King Otto I, but as the name suggests he was the second son of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (and as Bavaria's colors are blue and white, it is no surprise that the Greeks liked them so much they made their flag out of those colors, too). That lasted till about 1862 when they invited him to leave, as unceremoniously as they had invited him to come. But, as would be expected, they were still dominated in most areas by the Ottomans, who would remain in control until 1919 and the end of WW1, when they were forced to withdraw for being on the losing side of the war.

It is not unexpected that there was a lot of internal strife after the war. Though republics were springing up all over the place, there were still a good number of folks that still believed monarchies are better so the Republicans and Royalists trying to gain control. There was absolutely no stability nor a real government that lasted very long during this time. With the beginning of WW2, the Italians saw some easy pickings to the East, and before long the Germans were back with a vengeance, further suppressing the Greeks till the end of the war. Post-WW2 wasn't much different from post-WW1, except now it was the Republicans (the monarchy issue had somehow been resolved) and the Pro-Communists who were at each others' throats trying to gain control of the country. It goes without saying which side the USA was on in this struggle. Things got so bad that in 1967 an American-sponsored military junta took control of the country to stop the election of the left-liberal candidate Andreas Papandreou. The junta remained in control until 1974 when the first democratically elected government of Greece took office.

Yes, 1974, a scant 40 years ago. In other words ... and this is the real point ... there hasn't been much of a Greece, nor much of a stable government in the country for the past 2,000 years. Could it be that we simply expect too much too soon?

The Greek patient - diagnosis and recovery?

One of the nice things about the world is its linguistic diversity: there are so many different, and interesting, ways to perceive and communication things about the world. On the other hand, this diversity is limiting to most of us because we speak only one or two, or at best a few, of those languages. Consequently, trying to inform ourselves about what is happening on our little planet is met with not only qualitative challenges (objectivity, reliability, willingness to distribute, etc.) there are pure quantitative ones as well. If you don't speak or read, say, German, you most likely aren't going to get much news from German sources.

One of the issues that interests quite a few people these day is the situation in Greece (and Cyprus) and in a recent back-and-forth with an American friend, it became quite clear to me that when dealing with limited sources of information, it is difficult to get a full picture of a particular issue. Don't get me wrong, I have no pretentions of resolving either the issue or the access to information, but I do feel obligated to add more to the mix, if you will. Maybe there is more to the whole affair than most of us are aware of, so I would like to offer my own humble contribution.

In the posts that follow, I will be relying heavily, but not exclusively, on a recent German publication by Dirk Müller entitled Showdown: Der Kampf um Europa und unser Geld [Showdown: the fight for Europe and our money]. Herr Müller is known in Germany mostly by his nickname, Mr. DAX (the DAX being the German counterpart to the Dow Jones Average); his a journalist, with his own background in banking and finance, who specializes in finance, banking, and economic topics. He appears regularly on talk shows, is often interviewed in relation to banking and finance issues, and, of course, he is a relatively popular author as well, as he does have the ability to break down complex topics into a simpler, more easy-to-understand presentation. I'm not vouching for his complete authority, but I have to admit that even if I'm not his biggest fan, he does make an interesting and rather persuasive case for rethinking the Greek problem in the Eurozone.

Whatever I have to say is, you should know, presented solely for your own reasoned consideration. You are, as always free to accept or reject anything I say on his behalf or my own, but I would ask that you do so in the spirit of enlightened discussion and debate, as outlined in the last five posts. Yes, there was a reason that I brought up those issues first. As an irregular contributor to the Daily Kos, I get involved too often in what are known there as "pie fights"; that is, stupid, senseless arguments about off-topics issues, such as my intelligence or the intelligence of my sources. Consequently, I'm going to tell you up front what the coming posts are about, namely:

1. There is more to the current Greek situation than meets the eye.
2. Not everyone involved is playing on the up-and-up.
3. Whatever problems/issues may exist in regard to the Greeks are a European ones.
4. The Greeks and Europeans should be left alone to resolve their own issues.

With that in mind, meet me next time for a bit of a history lesson.

Banking on an apology

In all fairness, I think I owe any of you who actually read (and even tried to understand) the last 10 posts an apology. No really.

How utterly boring was that? Honestly. What amazes me more than anything else - well, other than I wrote it, and more so that some of you read it - is that it was that we exchanged our society for this: an illusory lunacy, full of lies, deceit and dishonesty, leading only to so-called material wealth (in this case, money), and for this some folks are willing to not only lie, cheat, and steal, they are ready to kill and maim as well.

You think I'm joking?

You may not know anyone personally -- or maybe you do -- who lost so much in the crash that they threw themselves out a window or chomped down on a gun barrel "inadvertently" pulling the trigger, but there are people who did just that. There were people who simply lost their homes, were thrown to the wolves on the street, who are now living in a tent city or under a bridge, who may have caught an incurable illness as a result. Hell, there are people with major health issues now who can't afford insurance or care, who worked hard all their lives and have a mere pittance to exist on now that they are old and unproductive and have been more or less thrown on the scrap heap. Societies, at least in principle, represented morals and values and discussions were conducted against a backdrop of what was reasonable and desirable for everyone, for the community-at-large. Economies have no room for values, morals, or - heaven forbid! - concern for the well-being of others. Economies are simply about money, no more and no less.

Societies were composed of members; economies are composed of competitors. And even though we don't like to, and try hard as hell to, avoid thinking of it that way, that is also part of what it means to live in a world in which money is simply more important than people and a few choice legal rights are far more important than any human rights will ever be.

I say the world we live in, because it's just the space in which we find ourselves, it's not a society. At least not anymore. I suppose it could be, if we wanted it to be, but I really don't see a lot of indication that that's what's on the horizon.

Through a gla$$ darkly X

In capitalism, risk is supposed to be borne by the actor. In this recent case, the risk was private, but the loss was made public. This is an aberration unheard of in the annals of finance. What is more, it was institutionalized, made policy, expressed as the truth of the realm, but in fact, all of the rules were changed to suit the Wizard and the rest of us were literally left holding the bag.

In my day, people taking risks were considered gamblers, and gamblers did not have much of a reputation, well, at least not a good one. They were most often considered greedy, dishonest, deceitful, and unreliable. How is it that we turned the gambler into the pillar of society. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it.

I have nothing against capitalists in principle, as long as they play by their own rules, take their risk and losses like mature individuals and demonstrate by their own actions and behavior that they understand which world it is in which they operate. But, they have made their problems into my (and your) problems, and they have convinced the powers-that-be that it is only good and right and proper that the rest of us should not only pay for their mistakes, but that we should reward and continue to honor them because they are the rich, the powerful, the masters of the universe, the best and brightest ... which they aren't, never had been, and never will be. And that's, quite frankly, what turns my stomach every time I hear or see others fawning over them, kow-towing to them, catering to them and their wishes, believing their lies, their deceit, and never, ever questioning what they are doing. Why? Because for the most part, we have been repeatedly told that we can't understand this highly complex, if not complicated, world of modern finance.

Really?

Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the details of all the nonsense that they perpetuate, nor do I think it is necessary to do so. What we need is a basic understanding of how "the system" works so that we can recognize them for what they are: gamblers, and gamblers who play with other people's money. Your money, my money, pensioner's money, anybody's money but their own. And that simply has to stop.

The system they created isn't really much of a system, it is a shell game, a sleight-of-hand act, an illusion. We need to put some reality back into the system and they need to be put back in their place. As long as we can't, or won't, acknowledge the reality behind the illusion, they can continue to act as badly as they have so far and we will continue to be victimized by them and their elected henchmen.

At that moment that we traded in our society for a mere economy, we placed money (and property) rights above human rights, we made money the measure of all things, including ourselves. I'm not convinced that was a good idea. When the good St. Paul was writing his letter, he was, of course, talking about a different kind of salvation, but if we want to save ourselves from this nonsense, we need to understand what is going on, or as Paul put it "see [things] face-to-face"; that is, see things for what they are. It's not rocket science, it is business, it is a little economics, and it should be a whole lot of common sense.

It's time to expose the man behind the curtain.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly IX

What happened in the run-up to 2008 was seen by everyone involved. Anyone who tells you differently either doesn't know or is being disingenuous. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of how banks work, both commercial and speculative could see that what was being done was neither wise nor prudent nor even truly worthwhile. It wasn't going to benefit anyone but the slickest and quickest. And when the house of cards fell, the Grand Capitalists stepped forward with the cry, "But, we're too big to fail!". And most everyone believed them (Iceland is a notable exception). What to do, what to do?

If anyone has been following even casually, it does not take much to understand that the "size" of these institutions; that is, the size of the numbers on their balance sheets, was in most cases hopelessly and shamelessly inflated. In terms of actual value, most of it was made up. We like to think that financial instruments are backed by something real (a car loan with a car, a mortgage with a house, money by gold or the like), but the truth is they aren’t. The so-called "value" of all the bundled paper at the time of the "crash" was six times the world gross product.

A national or regional or even world gross product, it will be remembered, is the estimated value of all the resources, products and services in possession of or produced by a given entity. In this case it was the world and the paper was "worth" six times everything the world can do. I'd say that is just slightly absurd, and to act as if it that "value" (of the paper) is "real" is patently absurd. These institutions weren't any bigger than the legendary Wizard of Oz. It is known: Beware of the man behind the curtain.

To add insult to injury, this fiction of "value" was treated seriously and the most basic rules of capitalist economics were ignored. You will recall that riskier investments (e.g. a loan to a first-time home-buyer) often carry higher interest rates than well-secured or trusted loans. That's why local banks were once more successful, for they could better estimate their degree of risk. That risk, of course, was expressed in terms of interest rates. The higher the rate, the riskier the investment; that is, the less likely it will turn out.

So, if I can buy a savings bond that will yield around 1.75% interest, I can buy a similar Greek bond that will (possibly) yield (on average over the past 15 years) 7.7%, well, yes, I perhaps stand to make more money by "investing" in Greece, but there is equally a greater chance that I won't earn anything at all. Some people like the increased risk (you have to bet a lot to win a lot), and I suppose they should be allowed to play that game. But, I also believe that they should play the game, and I should have nothing to do with it at all. The speculator's losses shouldn't be my losses. But that's what was done to the rest of us. Exactly that.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly VIII

Picking up where I left off, in my bank, some of the loans that I have made are good, sound, loans. Some are, for whatever reasons, a bit of a stretch. Perhaps the people will lose their jobs when the factory shuts down or someone with a loan gets ill and loses their job for that reason, or perhaps someone simply misjudged the reliability of the loan recipient and it doesn't look like the bank is going to get their money back. In the traditional system, the good loans offset the bad ones and the trick was to make as few bad ones as possible. Now, however, we have other possibilities.

Let's assume that Mary, one of the bank's new employees, has a brilliant idea. Why not take some of the good loans and some of the bad loans and wrap them all up in one single bundle. You then get a rating agency to give it a AAA stamp-of-approval and then you simply sell the whole bundle to someone else for some set price, a price that is perhaps lower than the whole bundle if counted individually, but more than if the bad loans in there didn't get paid back.

You have two advantages: first, you are rid of part of your risk, and two, you have immediate cash in hand to turn around and loan out or invest and not have to wait until all the individual payments from all those individual loans come trickling in. And that's what they started to do, in various ways, with various colors and variations and who knows what all, but pushing these bundles of paper around – which are, it should be noted, a "derivative"; that is, an "investment" that derives from other forms of investment – becomes so popular and so many folks are getting used to speculation of all kinds that before long side markets show up where these things are bid upon, traded, exchanged, and who knows what else and everybody is just have a grand old time making up such derivatives and finding others who are willing to buy them or bid on them.

Again, it doesn't take a genius and just a moment's reflection reveals that the value of these bundles is pretty fictitious too. All of sudden there are bundles upon bundles that are bigger and bigger and all of them are "safe" because they've been rated safe, which increases my safe capital in my own institution, which means I can loan out more money and make more investments to grow and grow and grow and get richer, richer and richer. The only problem is that deep down beneath all those levels of paper and in spite of all the creative ways of accounting for these "instruments", as they were called, there's really nothing real at all. The "value" and the "worth" of any individual bundle was not the same. The bundles were once backed by whatever those bundles represented but once bundles were bundled and further bundled – the process can theoretically go on indefinitely – well, if you ask me, it all just starts getting absurd. One day someone is going to wake up, realize they are being sold a bill of goods and the house of cards could come tumbling down.

Welcome to the financial crisis of 2008.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly VII

The fact that Tom now owns the shares, not the company, is the point, unfortunately, that most people miss. The issue company only has so much to do with its stock as it is concerned to keep its value reasonably high, but this is more for image than financial reasons. People who buy and sell stock do so to make money. Anyone who "plays the market", as it is most accurately described, buys stock in the hopes that the price will rise so that they can sell it later for a profit.

In other words, the company should do well enough that the share price rises so they can make money. Since the issuing company's only obligation is to increase it's share price so that others can generate income, it is not truly accurate to call the stock buyers "investors". They aren't investing in the company, they are investing in themselves. Technically, the shareholders are "owners" but for the most part they are only concerned about the share price, not the working conditions, the employees, the customers, or the products or services themselves ... or only insofar as these things have a positive influence on the share price.

The stock market, then, is really more like a casino than an investment, as one chief financial officer told me. What amazes me the most, though, is the amount of media coverage this particular casino gets. Fluctuations in the stock market are more often than not market players' emotional reactions to all kinds of events, but not really a sound indication of the health of the economy. I don't think it's ever a good idea to take your temperature in a casino.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the kind of person who does well in prudent investment and helping local enterprise get along is really not the kind of person who does well in the rough-and-tumble world of speculation. There was a time when the government saw to it that these two realms remained separate. This was way back in 1933 when the so-called Glass-Steagall Act was passed and signed into law. Its real name was the Banking Act of 1933, and it covered a lot of territory, but for our discussion here, it separated commercial banking from speculative banking. Over time, of course, lots of folks started thinking this was old-fashioned and during Clinton's second term that was stated so definitively, in terms of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, which repealed the affiliation restrictions that Glass-Steagall had imposed.

It will be recalled that back in Through a gla$$ darkly IV it was shown that a bank can only lend out (or invest; that is, put at risk) about 10 times what is has "safe in the bank". Another way of saying this is that it essentially lends out (or invests) the same capital multiple times. The trick comes when we ask ourselves what is "safe in the bank".
If a bank has ∆1,000 "safe in the bank", it can loan out or invest up to, say, ∆100,000. Some of these loans – like we described in our examples then – are relatively safe. And, if the bank lends out, say, ∆1,000 at 5% for a year, it will get back – if all goes as planned – about ∆1,020 at the end of the year (it's actually slightly more but for the purposes of illustration here, inconsequential). In other words, it lent ∆1,000 but the "value" of that loan is ∆1,020. This is to say that the value of the bank is equal to what it safely has and what it expects to have at some point in the future.

The important point here is that the bank's value is actually a fictitious number. It's not real like the ∆1,000 upon which it bases its business is real. The art which allows us to keep track of such things is, of course, accounting. Or, as I like to say, it is not "counting" but "a [that is, one particular way of] counting, but that, too, is another story. But now that the door is open for all kinds of real, kind-of-real, and even imaginary things to happen, since commercial banks may now also speculate, let's take it all a step further, next time.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly VI

Let's start with borrowing since it is the most familiar to most of us. You go to a bank (usually) or other financial institution (could be a credit union, or Aunt Marge) and you negotiate a sum to be paid back over a specified period of time, and at a certain rate of interest. The riskier the bank feels this lending is, the higher the interest rate you end up paying. (It was once rating agencies which made such decisions, but they managed to tarnish their own reputations lately.)

The second way is to beg. Actually, the organization itself offers promissory notes (in everyday speak: IOUs) called bonds. The organization is, within certain limits of course, free to say when and how the bonds will be paid out, but there are several agreed on standards. Perhaps the most commonly known type of bond is the savings bond. When you buy a bond today for $37.00, in seven years the government promises to pay you back $50. The organization is basically saying, "trust me", and if you do, you can lend it money.

Whimsical as I am, I listed "stealing" as the third way, but that's obviously not 100% accurate. The third way of generating cash is to issue shares of stock. These shares represent ownership, so the percentage of shares you hold determines your "share" of the business. Such an issuing can be private, that is, you offer a part of your business to someone else and you negotiate between yourselves how many shares and what they are worth. We don't often hear about these kinds of transactions in the news. But, such offerings can also be public. These are the infamous (if at times not notorious) IPOs or "initial public offerings" that get lots of media coverage if they are big enough. In this case, the company decides to sell shares of ownership to the public, in the hopes that the demand for the new stock will raise the share price and thereby generate more cash.

A few years ago, a German low-cost airline went "public" and sold €1,000,000,000 worth of stock on the first day! Not bad, eh? But this is where the "stealing" comes in. They didn't take all that cash home with them. After paying fees and premiums and costs for staging the sale, they had a mere €400,000,000 to take home. I don't think it is out of line to wonder why the people who put on a sale earn more than the folks for whom the sale takes place, but that's another story.
What's worth noting, though, is that this is a one-time deal. Once those shares are in the public domain (on the stock market), they can be bought and sold and speculated with and the issuing company receives no money whatsoever when these shares change hands. If I buy some stock at the beginning, then the company takes home some of that money. If I sell them to my friend Tom a week later, I get money from Tom, but I don't have to give anything to the issuing company. They don't own those shares anymore: I did, and now Tom does.

And why is this so important? I'll tell you next time.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.