Greek default looms as voluntary debt deal looks set to fail
Source: Telegraph
European leaders are braced for the eurozone’s first ever sovereign default this week as Greece’s efforts to secure a €206bn (£172bn) “voluntary” bond swap looks increasingly unlikely.
Authorities in Athens are ready to enforce the controversial collective action clauses, or CACs, to impose the restructuring deal on all bondholders as the number of voluntary agreements look set to fall short of the required amount.
Credit rating agencies have warned they will declare Athens to be in default if the CACs are triggered which would be a dramatic culmination to a three-year rollercoaster ride for Athens, the eurozone and global markets.
While the markets have been ready for a Greek default for months, the move could leave Greece and its banks barred from funding from the European Central Bank (ECB). On Monday, Standard & Poor’s declared Greece to be in a state of “selective default” which led to the ECB announcing it would no longer accept Greek government bonds as security for new loans.
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9121151/Greek-default-looms-as-voluntary-debt-deal-looks-set-to-fail.html
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Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain. Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The IMF and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.
Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the Icelandic government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to IMF demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.
What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.
In the March 2010 referendum, 93% of Icelanders voted against repayment of the banker's debts. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country. But Icelanders didn't stop there: they decided to draft a new constitution that would free the country from the exaggerated power of international finance and virtual money. link
- Iceland has shown the whole world the way. Like the rest of us, they'd forgotten one doesn't reward thieves by giving them more of your money when they demand it. Then their memory came back and they picked up some rocks and had a little talk with their government. The bankers fled to England in horror. The Icelanders have remembered that you're supposed to arrest these kind of fraudsters and put them into prison where they belong. Because doing anything less just creates chaos in the system. We lose our sense of right and wrong.
If we just but took the time to consider the whole idea of Capitalism, totally unsustainable as it is, we'd conclude that this is always going to happen to everyone, eventually. This is what happens when you allow private interests to control your nation's monetary system. And worse, to allow them to create money out of nothing. Which is how fractional banking systems work. Of course, what they're really after, is the GOLD. So when the whole thing collapses in on itself, they'll be holding the most.
Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain (The PIIGS) -- in a debt-based monetary system, those with the most debt actually have the most power. And acting together, you could bring down the whole shebang. Which is an idea that should also not be lost on us......
K&R
~John Adams 1735-1826
Mr Micawber said "annual income £1 annual expenditure 19 shillings and six pence result happiness : annual income £1 annual expenditure 20 shillings and six pence result misery"
They done the latter. Maybe they should've read David Copperfield. 
