Vocal Voices

In the halls of the IMF, the bloodletting has been extreme. All along the IMF wanted to treat the PIIGS as 3rd world failed economies rather than western democracies. They wanted deeper debt relief and a tighter control on changes in the countries to ensure that the recovery would be short and healthy.

The ECB and the EU, which held most of the debt, did not want that. They wanted pain and suffering over a protracted period of time to gain control over these economies which were "out of control" in terms of EU control.

The IMF did not want to do it and DSK forced them to. The ECB overruled everything they said and all the advice which was given. Witness that the USA and UK private banks hold more debt from Greece than the IMF, interesting that nobody talks about that.....

So, this time, a report has been circulated stating that Greece will need another €60bn in bailouts AND significant debt relief in order for the country to get back on it's feet by...... Circa 2050. Of course the EU don't want this. They want Greece to be drip fed for the rest of this century. After all, if they keep inflation low and keep feeding them small amounts of money, Greece cannot devalue the debt so they will be paying back for 100 years with more and more austerity forced on them during that time.

It is not a matter of if the people of Greece eventually default, but how many decades before they can't take it any more....


So the EU tried to squash the IMF report. The "European" members of the IMF were voted down (clearly they tried to squash the truth too). I must admit, I wonder how the UK "European" member voted????

This may have an impact on the referendum and it might not. But the truth has finally been told and, hopefully, it will make the Yes camp realise that their hopes are vain and that their whole country will be destroyed if they do not vote to end this nightmare now.

We shall see. I suspect that the next head of the IMF will not be European. I'm sure the smaller members were tired of Americans, but I'm also sure that they are now tired of the EU using this power to fix their own internal problems. Problems they could pay for themselves (mostly are), but won't....

EU bailout loans from Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the ECB cover more than 65% of Greek debt. They are about 9x the amount of IMF loans. It is no wonder the IMF is treated as a minor partner by the EU regardless of the fact it wants to see itself as the major player.

The US and UK are not exposed, as such, to the Greek saga as it is only their private banks involved with loans: €11.3bn and €10.8bn, respectively. Why those private banks got involved is anybody's guess, but as the € falls against their currencies so does the value of the debt.