Beleaguered Greece writes down its massive debt 2/3

Beleaguered Greece writes down its massive debt 2/3 ( Comment Whitehorse Star July 13, 2015 )

It is not a secret that the 2008 financial melt down and banking bail outs, their worsening destabilizing impacts and the suffering from it are far from over. 

There is no meaningful conversation about resolution for the Greek crisis without the question for the lessons of 2008. 

Among important figures, Angela Merkel unfortunately gives the sense she was not around, like a character that appears on stage from outside of the plot.

The big rotting corpse that was publicly unearthed since 2008 is the culprit of banking deregulation. 

We can tell by media and radio interviews, the Greek public at this point is much better informed on this one than many Canadians or Germans.

A lack of public banking control is the problem inside the problem and it had been understood and corrected during the Great Depression. 

At its centre is the crucial separation of commercial banking where people make deposits and carry out legitimate business transactions, protected from investment banking for speculator activities.

FDR broke ground for fiscal responsibility with the Glass-Steagall Act from 1932 which in variations of its responsible banking mandate was adopted around the world.

Before we look at who revoked it lets see how it works.

There may be those who feel that counterfeit money should be illegal also as electronic money. 

It turns out in a liberal society, it should be good enough if it's honestly labelled as such, just as GMO in food should be. 

Counterfeit money that is labelled, off course, is toy money that kids can play with. 

Carbon offset trade, inflated energy futures, electronic betting and gambling products and and other derivatives are not even stock. And all of it has no place in commercial banks to dilute regular, boring money that people and economy depend on.

The whole idea of going big with huge quantities of counterfeit money is, of course, to steal lots of valid money by mixing the two. 

And that is where our epic prototype of a neoliberal finance figure enters the scene -- Bill Clinton.

Other neoliberals like Reagan, Kohl and Thatcher had done their part and Mulroney’s financial services deregulation had already come in 1987.

Yes, 1999 Bill Clinton tabled and pushed through Congress the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which abolished the Glass-Steagall Act. 

He did it against the direct and dire warning of the brilliant banking expert Brooksley Born, then chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

Michael Greenberger, an official who had worked for her at the CFTC, recalled later what happened when Born finally realized that Clinton’s massive finance deregulation was going ahead in ‘damn the torpedoes’ fashion. 

"I walk into Brooksley's office one day; the blood has drained from her face, …”

On a little side note, I hope those who blame Jews for excesses in the field of banking take note that Bill Clinton is not Jewish. 

On second thought, we might not be able to rescue the hard antiSemites from the dustbin of history. 

However, it is not necessary for Angela Merkel to herd ordinary Frenchmen, Italians and others into fascist extremist camps by blaming the Greek people, when it is rentiers and banks out of control she fattens up.

The Greek finance disaster serves as a reminder that a big policy deficit eventually leads to real debt trouble, especially useful here in Canada. 

Here is another odious debt biggie from the Greek audit report which investigated the crime of “shifting private debt onto the public sector”. 

Some day we might read this line in a Canadian debt audit report.

CBC News/Business reported on April 30, 2012 with the headline 

“Support for banks 'more substantial than Canadians were led to believe': CCPA [Canadian Centre forPolicy Alternatives]report”

The 2009 CMHC securities bail out of hundreds of billions for Canadian banks is mentioned with lowball figures. Canadian bank bail out funds under the 2008 American TARP are not mentioned nor is the 2007 Asset Backed Paper scandal, with a $ 40 billion bail out for the big Canadian banks by our government.

Note, Asset Backed Papers are not asset backed in the real world but nevertheless were purchased by former premier Dennis Fentie's government to the tune of squandering and risking about $ 36 million of Yukon taxpayers' funds. The decision was reprimanded by the Auditor General as an illegal act.

Another finance gun powder keg Canadians and Americans share with Europeans is the stealth appearance of privately owned and controlled central banks. 

Interestingly to this day many in the public eye perceive central banks still as state-owned and government-directed national banks.

The Bank of Canada is a special case because it is at least partly owned by the public, but unfortunately has picked up the habit of acting mostly in accordance with the privately owned central banks' agendas. 

The European Central Bank, ECB, representing the individual EU member countries central banks in negotiations with the Greek government of course has a huge legitimacy issue.

There was a big change that had come in 1974, but it seems forgotten.

Starting with the so called Group of Ten countries in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision process, national banks were flat-out privatized. 

Typically this change was reflected in specific and general language solutions involving the term, central bank. 

The incredible daily strain of presenting a public image while acting on a private mandate shows in the sagging face of poor ECB president Mario Draghi these days.

Had today's privately owned central bank world been around then, Canada and other countries would still service interest payments on WW2 debt. Ellen Brown explains it really well in "Web of Debt".

FDR and his economic advisor, Henry Wallace, had it right: Band-aids for serious trouble make only sense together with structural reform. 

I am not making all this up, there are much smarter people to learn from like public banking advocate and educator Ellen Brown.

And then there is the state owned Bank of North Dakota where people's money is very save because it is not mixed with counterfeit money.

Will cooler heads prevail, such as, perhaps, that of IMF chair Christine Lagarde? 

The IMF position on Greece has evolved and now substantially agrees with the Greek government. 

Honesty needs to return to the table also from the other two Troika members' side. One way or the other, debt is written down as we watch.

Will Merkel blow up the table with more make believe politics, and will Greece pick up its old Drachma currency? Nobody knows. 

We do know the world owes a debt of gratitude to the hardworking and courageous Greek people whose life on the brink had not started with the amazing democratic referendum. 

Greece is helping Canada with a reminder to timely put public banking and finance safeguards back in order. 

It is frustrating and disturbing to see how much the CBC and others have distorted the context of the referendum towards their neoliberal elitist biases.

Lets act as Canadians with international solidarity and perhaps remember the wits and gumption of a Lester B. Pearson. 

Greek farmers just started large-scale direct actions and are trucking potatoes straight to market squares where they are sold at about 25 cents/kg.  

Non partisan greecesolidarity.org was founded by the late, legendary British MP Tony Benn. It provides trustworthy information and takes online donations for Medical Aid for Greece (MAfG).