After applying leeches to the patient for two years, Berlin-am-Brussels finally admits it was all just a drugs trial. The Slog was right all along.
Time alone will tell us how much notice is taken of this, but towards the close of yesterday this little addition was being made to reports around the world in relation to the Spanish bailout:
‘reports suggest that packages are also being prepared for Greece and Cyprus’.
As late as 8 pm BST last night, the Daily Telegraph’s live crisis coverage was still noting (my italics):
‘Greece’s finance ministerhas scotched hopes that talks with the country’s international creditors over austerity measures will be concluded in time for this week’s European Union summit. Yannis Stournaras said the negotiations will continue after Thursday and Friday’s meeting in Brussels. Asked whether there could be a deal before that, Mr Stournaras said: “Were trying, but I don’t think so.” Talks with representatives from the troika centre upon a new package of cuts and an agreement is crucial to Greece receiving its next tranche of aid.’
Greek tragedy, French farce, Berlin expressionism, Spaghetti Western, Hollywood film noir….whatever you make of the eurozone debt crisis, it is for me like watching a movie where the continuity bloke was almost permanently spliffed. How can you on the one hand leak the existence of a new aid/repaymennt schedule package one minute, and then have the Troika demanding a 37-day week the next?
This is what I posted about the Greek situation on August 12 2012:
‘Another email from a regular Athenian media contact:
“Something has been agreed, and whatever it is has made the bondholders and the Troika irrelevant overnight. There are half-hearted references to repayment schedules, but they don’t have that sense of panic evident just a few short weeks ago. But you can see that Samaras is now pushing for more austerity progress.”
Now a close French diplomatic contact has told The Slog:
“Brussels or Berlin…or both…or others…have given Samaras a big reassurance that if he sticks with the [austerity] programme, Greece will not be thrown out of the euro. Those same people have given similar assurances to the key players in the IMF and bondholder groups…that if they take another haircut, the EU will pay off the balance and give them their money back. The secrecy is to do with Merkel being flayed alive at home if they thought she was doing this, and Draghi ensuring that his central bank doesn’t become an open door for insolvent States and panicky bondholders.”’
Four days later The Slog said this:
‘Earlier this week, Merkel spokesman Stefan Siebert said there would be no more compromise with Athens, but then made what I found an odd statement under the circumstances. He said that “further decisions will have to wait until after a report from the troika is released in October.”….Publicly, Greece can’t wait that long. The Athens bond issue raised more than enough to pay off the ECB’s maturing bondholding on August 20th. Several sources across the markets think it highly likely that Mario Draghi bought a fair chunk of them himself, in order to neutralise the potential insolvency. But having scraped through that hole in the wall, the Greeks are still left with only a week or more of money – by which time they will need the €13.5bn bailout tranche to avoid insolvency again.’
Two months later, Samaras is saying “This is it: find more cuts or we’re all dead next week”. But the reality is that Mario Draghi has bought bonds, shifted money around, and supported Hellenic banks quietly. Although not many people noticed, for example, he did a deal with the appalling George Provopoulos of the Bank of Greece recently whereby the slithery Provo is allowed to swap rotting nuclear waste barrels for crisp new euros on a regular basis – just so long as he remains discreet. And as I posted previously, ever since the crook Provopoulos arrived at the Bank of Greed, it’s been quietly printing money…again, with Draghi’s tacit approval.
I learned the hard way back in March that no deadline is real under the EU regime of Brussels dreamers and ECB schemers. I have a longstanding female friend – a great support to me over the years in bad times, and an amusing chum in the good ones. My strategy is to listen intently to every word of her advice, and then do the opposite. It’s a similar thing with the EU: hear what they say, and then assume the opposite is true.
A compromise is on the way – I’ve felt this from the outset – and now these sly little leaks confirm my view: there is no way you can give Rajoy a bulging Party Bag while leaving Greece doing handstands in a room half-full of sh*t.
But this isn’t really my point. The disgust that makes me want to recoil from the likes of Merkel, Venizelos, Van Rompuy, Obama and Schäuble is based on this simple reality: these folks with inhuman faces are really barely human faeces. They are playing poker here with innocent people’s lives on a hitherto unimaginable scale – and for what? A mad dream of systemic power and glory, that’s what. Another bonkers Tower of Babel where people speak in a plethora of forked tongues, while overpaid onanists go up and down in red-carpeted lifts and proclaim that all is well.
But all is far from well in Greece. Golden Dawn is doing well, which is good news on the same level that Herr Hitler has just been made Chancellor. In the coming days, I hope to try and wake up the idle Western MSM to just how deeply these Chrysi Avgi vermin have eaten their way into the mouldy cheese that is Greek society. Believe me, they are as dangerous as Chrissie Lagarde.
The Slog 