I wonder how much more Greece’s laughable defiance cost it relative to how
much it would have cost to just roll over in the first place? That accounting
will be a while coming, but rest assured, it will be a politically volatile
and useful statistic in the future for a challenger in Greek elections.
Interestingly, the best Euro creditors could exact out of Greece from
privatization of government assets was $3 billion – barely an interest
payment in the grand scheme of things.
Its always been understood by the financially sophisticated that debt is
the tool by which borrowers are enslaved. I have no debt, apart from accounts
payable on the day-to-day. The old saw that goes “if I owe you $1 million,
you own me. But if I owe you $1 billion, I own you” only works if you have a
sufficiently large military to assure that reality. Nobody is going to
forclose on the United States. But Lehman Brothers was allowed to fall.
Bankers at the top of the food chain have understood this for centuries.
If you owe the bank a billion dollars, they own you and your family and their
children. Because in order to satisfy that creditor, once you have reached a
point where you can’t pay, you are essentially enslaved to that creditor, and
have no say over anything. The only escape from such bondage is the declaration
of bankruptcy, which has persistent disqualification prejudices attached to
it for the life of the bankrupt (seven year redemption period
notwithstanding).
So while the bleeding hearts vent their outrage at the German-led Euro
bailout package that is staving off a collapse of the entire Greek financial
system, and wax accusatory against the evil Goldman Sachs, I have one
question.
Did anybody seriously did anybody point a gun at the Greeks and force them
to lie their way into the Euro? Are they not duplicitous in the authorship of
this sovereign tragedy? It wouldn’t be the first time that a wolf in sheep’s
clothing or Trojan horse was used to dupe the Greeks. Goldman Sachs
successfully targeted them, perceiving the opportunity embodied in their
desire to achieve Euro membership.
Really, think of the outcome of this sorry tale as two criminal outfits
getting together to hatch a scheme, and in true ‘honour amongst thieves’
fashion, one of them gets left holding the bag while the other one rides off
into the sunset. Is there an element of surprise here that I’m missing?
Debt, for those sovereign borrowers who haven’t figured it out yet, is the
instrument of enslavement by more financially powerful entities. If you don’t
like austerity, don’t borrow. If you borrow funds you can’t afford to pay
back, blame yourself when it all goes pear shaped.
Personally, I would have thrown the Greeks under the bus years ago. It
would ultimately be an act of mercy. Euro membership must be seen as a
somewhat exclusive enclave, where participation means the support of the
group as a whole, but only up to the point where every member state must be
expendable if they fail to maintain the financial standards required. The
strength of the whole is preserved through a minimum threshold among its
parts. Its physics 101.
Tsipras, instead of bowing to the pressure, reneging on his election
commitment to the Greek people in the process, should have jumped on the
chance to renege and rebuild the Greek Drachma after the crisis. By acquiescing
to terms degrees more onerous than when he commenced his charade, he has
compounded the retribution factor of the Germans accordingly. Either way,
austerity is a natural outcome of financial mismanagement, not a condition
willfully imparted by vindictive creditors.
While the opinion of right wing analysts trends toward the successful
impart of an important lesson, that of the left mourns for the absence of
compassion. Compassion has its place in humanity, but mathematics and physics
are devoid of compassion, and destruction, in the real world, is the agent of
true and lasting change.
Just as allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse in 2008 catalyzed a global
liquidity and wealth transfer event, where highly leveraged assets were moved
up the financial foodchain in settlement of outstanding and withdrawn credit,
Greece’s near-default has triggered a wealth transfer and liquidity event for
Greece’s creditors. And so anything that can be carted away will be, and the
Greek people enslaved for generations to the creditors in Berlin.
China’s Turn
So if we see assume by these examples that debt is in fact a financial
weapon wielded by the global elite as a primary tool of wealth concentration
and agglomeration, then what do we see in store for China? Remember that the
crisis of 2008 was preceded by first stock market record highs followed by a
market rout. In China, it would appear to be a Chinese replay of the events
of 2008 in the United States. China is not so integrated into the global
banking fraternity, however, and so the wealth transfer now underway is a
national event more so than an international one.
The most persistent feature of the ‘debt as enslavement tool’ racket is
that the people at the lower end of the economic scale fail to perceive that
the actions of their government are the cause of a perennial deepening of
financial hardship as prices rise thanks to a weaker currency, and taxes rise
to help defray the debts, and the average citizen is thus left with less
purchasing power per hour worked.
In China’s case, however, the massive and dense population could easily be
tipped into rebellion, especially as the internet facilitates the exposure of
the depth of corruption and collusion among Chinese government officials, who
routinely enrich themselves at the direct expense of the people. The fact
that China’s recently reported gold holdings demonstrate inconsistencies with
numbers reported independent of the Chinese government further underscore the
persistence of such corruption.
It the wheels really come off the bus in China, it might be tipped into
the revolution we all know is coming that will force democracy into
government. And thus will end the enslavement of the Chinese people under the
mantle of communism. But they will still be enslaved by debt.
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