Opinion – Bad Faith. Why Real Debt Relief Is Not On The Table For Greece » James K Galbraith – Social Europe – John Gelmini

International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whilst I understand this narrative from Dr Alf and James K Galbraith, of malevolent French and German banks and people at the IMF being the culprits, I cannot simply absolve Greece and its Government of culpability.

The UK and America and every country in Europe bailed out the banks and those who controlled them 3 times, yet in the UK not a single banker went to prison and none of the money laundered through hedge funds and secreted in up to 40 different tax havens has been recovered. America is still trillions of dollars in debt, yet not one penny of the $400 billion which disappeared when Lehman Brothers collapsed has been recovered.

The world’s super rich doubled their money before the LIBOR rate rigging scandal, during the period between it and the original banking crisis but everyone else took a substantial and painful “haircut” as a direct result of this “controlled demolition” of the world financial system perpetrated by criminals at the upper end of the “food chain”.

The rest of us could engage in the blame game, riots and civil commotion, just like the Greeks, but we take our medicine with a sense of weary resignation and profound irritation with the authorities, the banks and now the Greeks must do the same.

The criminals are still in position, seemingly untouchable and able to do what they like and short of divine intervention and the actions of an Icelandic style super-bailiff aided by forensic accounts, computer hackers, international lawyers and recovery experts, our money is permanently stolen.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Can rating agencies ruin Russian economy? – English pravda.ru – John Gelmini

Dr Alf is correct. The Russian people will be made to bear the brunt of any credit rating agency downgrade, just as people in the UK were when we lost our AAA credit rating courtesy of Moody’s and then the others.

Clearly, the credit rating agencies can damage the Russian economy but this is limited by the fact that the world is now so interconnected that trouble in one place can and does create a knock on effect, as is happening with the Eurozone, which is still failing to deal with its problems.

Russia can make Germany and Italy suffer if it is pressed too hard and can stir up trouble in the Middle East, on which the West would have to spend money on.

In the end, it is not possible to simply isolate one country of that size and power and make it pay for its actions, without any consequences for ourselves in the West.

Life is now a series of messy and sometimes unedifying fudges, not something clear cut where we can deliver a solution wearing spotless “white gloves” aloof and untouched from the consequences of our decisions.

John Gelmini