Lazy Ouzo-Swilling, Olive-Pit Spitting Greeks Or, How Goldman Sacked Greece

[think]

Lazy Ouzo-Swilling, Olive-Pit Spitting Greeks
Or, How Goldman Sacked Greece

Sunday, November 6, 2011
by Greg Palast for In These Times

Here's what we're told:

Greece's economy blew apart because a bunch of olive-spitting, ouzo-guzzling, lazy-ass Greeks refuse to put in a full day's work, retire while they're still teenagers, pocket pensions fit for a pasha; and they've gone on a social-services spending spree using borrowed money. Now that the bill has come due and the Greeks have to pay with higher taxes and cuts in their big fat welfare state, they run riot, screaming in the streets, busting windows and burning banks.

I don't buy it. I don't buy it because of the document in my hand marked, "RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION."


I'll cut to the indictment: Greece is a crime scene. The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam. And––cover the children's ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.

********

This is an adaptation of an excerpt from Vultures' Picnic, Greg Palast's new book, out next week, an investigator's pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates and high-finance fraudsters. Read the first chapter or just get the book here.

********

In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.

Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.

Is Goldman that stupid?

Goldman is stupid—like a fox. The deal was a con, with Goldman making up a phony-baloney exchange rate for the transaction. Why?

Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then. Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit. Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.

Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates....

Full article:

http://www.gregpalast.com/lazy-ouzo-swilling-olive-pit-spitting-greeksor-how-goldman-sacked-greece/

[mikeysnot]

1. Just by the subject of your post I knew it was Greg

thanks...

[think]

2. It needs to be said and Palast says it best

[mikeysnot]

4. He is the man!

I donate to him when ever I have extra cash...

[Demeter]

3. Eurozone is basically a fact-free mind prison

I used to think of living there...now, I've narrowed my choices down down to Russia or Iceland. Everywhere else is a zombie nation in thrall to the Vampire Squid and its hangers-on, chained by the euro and doomed to a painful and long misery.

[tech3149]

6. Don't rule out Costa Rica!

It' not just beautiful but you can fly as far under the radar as is possible and your dollar can go quite far.

[Demeter]

8. I have thought about it

but South America is too close to the Great Satan.

Maybe if we do some regime change around here before I retire....I might not have to leave at all!

[ToxMarz]

15. Who is the Great Satan?

And Costa Rica isn't in South America.

[magical thyme]

19. the US is the Great Satan.

[underpants]

14. Don't forget Poland

It's W's birthday today so I thought I'd throw that in here

[Demeter]

22. My ancestors left Poland for a good reason

Haven't seen anything to make me think it's improved since.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Has Greece arrested and or prosecuted the government officials involved in this con? n/t

[think]

7. Apparently Goldman Sachs knew the legal loopholes so everyone went away scot-free

When is a Fraud Not a Fraud? (Greece-Goldman Edition)

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Yves Smith

The short answer to the question in the headline is “When there are no rules.”

A headline in a current Bloomberg story illustrates the problem: “Goldman Sachs, Greece Didn’t Disclose Swap, Investors ‘Fooled’.”

“Fooled” is an unusual choice of words, particularly when applied to to presumed grown-ups like institutional investors and international overseers. Bloomberg seems to be mincing around the more obvious F-words, like “fraud” (as in defrauded) or “fleeced.”

~Snip~

The latest twist is that Goldman managed $15 billion of debt sales for Greece after the debt-disguising swaps were in place, and (needless to say) there was no disclosure of the existence of the hidden debt (Bloomberg was able to obtain only six of ten prospectuses in question and found no mention of the swaps; it seems pretty unlikely that the others disclosed their existence). That means investors were hoodwinked. It goes without saying they would have seen Greece as a worse credit risk if they had been in full possession of the facts, and would presumably have required a higher interest rate.

~Snip~

In order to exonerate GS, one must do what they have done: create one abstraction upon another, redefining the purpose of both currency (to represent underlying value of something) and agreement, w/each level of abstraction further obscuring the reality of the previous.

AFAIC, they have done nothing but metastasize alchemy as predominate “principle” in finance, w/legal loopholes not only giving them a pass, but those loopholes setting standards for financial doings...

Full article:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/02/so-when-is-a-fraud-not-a-fraud-greece-goldman-edition.html

[Enthusiast]

18. This is why we don't want Goldman Sachs to have untoward influence over our Democratic

candidates or office holders.

This is not rocket science.

[OnlinePoker]

9. Greece was fiddling with the books long before Goldman came along.

They wanted in the Euro and Goldman helped, but after that they kept up their scam on their own. You cannot build an economy on borrowed money forever, especially when 1/4 of your employed population are government workers and 1/3 of the rest are self-employed with a penchant for underreporting income. Here's a good presentation of how Greece got into this mess.

http://qz.com/440058/the-complete-history-of-the-greek-debt-drama-in-charts/

[mother earth]

10. Hey, thanks, I really love Palast, and as usual, he brings home nothing but the truth! nt

[Turbineguy]

11. If they can't steal other people's wealth

they'll be forced to steal ours.

If I were working for GS I would consider my position in that the only thing standing between me and thousands of armed gun nuts is Fox News and RW hate radio convincing them to shoot poor people and people of color instead.

[Enthusiast]

17. +1

[pansypoo53219]

12. how much money has goldman sux made over the greece/euro issue?

[cstanleytech]

13. So the Greeks were already in debt, we knew that but how much more of the current debt

is the fault of Goldman Sachs for helping the Greek government back then? 1%? 10%? 30%? 60%?

[think]

21. The debt more than doubled while the Goldman Sachs shenanigans were going on.

Sure the Greek government that was in power should shoulder the majority of the blame for their actions.

And yes. The actions of Goldman Sachs were "legal" even if they were sleazy and unethical.

As to the amount of culpability that lies with GS that is certainly debatable.

What isn't debatable is the fact that a major US bank acted in such an unprofessional and inappropriate way that completely exacerbated an already monumental problem.

Yet the actions of Goldman Sachs are now ignored by the MSM in the discussion. And this is after the bank walked away with over a $250 million in profits for their efforts in colluding with the earlier Greek government in its efforts to hide its debts.

Yay....

[Enthusiast]

16. K&R! This post deserves hundreds of recommendations!

It's reasons like this that would prevent me from lending my support to a candidate or administration that was under the influence of the too big to fail banks.

Ethics have to mean something.

Or we're fucked. Fucked as a nation. Fucked as a species. Fucked as a planet.

[Demeter]

23. Hear, Hear!

[d_legendary1]

20. You can always blame American Banks for the downfall of foreign markets

Its one of the problems that the Eurozone faces since they can't arrest the Americans responsible for their collapse.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79e21576-20a2-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3f9GoOMt6