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There are many reasons to keep our focus on Greece -- self-interest being one.  Dr. Paul Craig Roberts returns to disclose the backstory of the political-bankster collaboration that has brought Greece to its knees and threatens economies the world over, including ours. Ellen suggests a solution for how the Greeks can proceed from here. Matt Stannard takes a historical look […]

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We Are All Greeks Now

The poor and the working class in the United States know what it is to be Greek. They know underemployment and unemployment. They know life without a pension. They know existence on a few dollars a day. They know gas and electricity being turned off because of unpaid bills. They know the crippling weight of debt. They know being sick and unable to afford medical care. They know the state seizing their meager assets, a process known in the United States as “civil asset forfeiture,” which has permitted American police agencies to confiscate more than $3 billion in cash and property. They know the profound despair and abandonment that come when schools, libraries, neighborhood health clinics, day care services, roads, bridges, public buildings and assistance programs are neglected or closed. They know the financial elites’ hijacking of democratic institutions to impose widespread misery in the name of austerity. They, like the Greeks, know what it is to be abandoned.

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The fund they want Greek assets transferred to is managed by … Schäuble

 “Valuable Greek assets of [EUR 50 bn] shall be transferred to an existing external and independent fund like the Institution for Growth in Luxembourg, to be privatized and decrease debt.”

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Germans Demonstrate in 14 Cities Against Merkel’s Tough Stance on Greece

Germans, angry at their government’s handling of Greek debt negotiations and what they perceive to be unfair treatment against Greece, have organized demonstrations in 14 German cities, including a large one outside the German finance ministry in Berlin— seat of Dr. Wolgang Schauble.

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Will Greece's Tsipras Squander Precious Capital?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42345.htm

By Finian Cunningham

The new plans include commitments to implement economic reforms on pensions and taxes. –

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Despite a NO, the Greek government bowed to the demands of the European 1%.

Joost van Stennis

http://members.chello.nl/jsteenis

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Greatest disaster': Varoufakis says new Greek bailout doomed:

"This programme is going to fail whoever undertakes its implementation," he said. Asked when will it fail, he replied, "It has failed already."

http://www.rt.com/news/310182-greece-bailout-fail-varoufakis/

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What Stinks about Varoufakis and the Whole Greek Mess?

http://williambowles.info/2015/07/03/what-stinks-about-varoufakis-and-the-whole-greek-mess-by-f-william-engdahl/

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what-stinks-about-varoufakis-and-the-whole-greek-mess-by-f-william-engdahl

3 July 2015 — New Eastern Outlook

Something stinks very bad about Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and the entire Greek mess that has been playing out since the election victory of the nominally pro-Greek Syriza Party in January. I am coming to the reluctant conclusion that far from being the champion of the hapless Greek people, Varoufakis is part of a far larger and very dirty game. …….’

Suspicious friends

A man is known by the company he keeps, so goes the adage. By this measure Yanis Varoufakis keeps very bad company for a finance minister who claims to be defending the living standards of his people. Before becoming Greek Finance Minister in the January coalition government of Alexis Tsipras, Varoufakis spent time in the United States working for the Bellevue Washington video game company, Valve Corporation, whose founders came from Bill Gates’ Microsoft. In the late 1980’s he studied economics and game theory in the UK at University of Essex and East Anglia and taught at Cambridge. Then he spent the next eleven years in Australia teaching and even taking Australian citizenship. ………………………….’

Strange acts………………………….’

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/07/03/what-stinks-about-varoufakis-and-the-whole-greek-mess/

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Greece – What You are not Being Told by the Media

http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/07/05/greece-what-you-are-not-being-told-by-the-media/

Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can’t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given. It sounds quite reasonable, right?

Except that it is a big fat lie … not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades.

Greece did not fail on its own. It was made to fail.

In summary, the banks wrecked the Greek government and deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt so that oligarchs and international corporations can profit from the ensuing chaos and misery.

‘……From 2009 to mid-2010, the yields on 10-year Greek bonds almost tripled! This cruel financial assault brought the Greek government to its knees, and the banksters won their first debt deal of a whopping 110 billion Euros.

The banks also control the politics of nations. In 2011, when the Greek prime minister refused to accept a second massive bailout, the banks forced him out of the office and immediately replaced him with the Vice President of ECB (European Central Bank)! No elections needed. Screw democracy. And what would this new guy do? Sign on the dotted line of every paperwork that the bankers bring in.

(By the way, the very next day, the exact same thing happened in Italy where the Prime Minister resigned, only to be replaced by a banker/economist puppet. Ten days later, Spain had a premature election where a banker puppet won the election).

The puppet masters had the best month ever in November 2011.

Few months later, in 2012, the exact bond market manipulation was used when the banksters turned up the Greek bonds’ yields to 50%!!! This financial terrorism immediately had the desired effect: The Greek parliament agreed to a second massive bailout, even larger than the first one.

Now, here is another fact that most people don’t understand. The loans are not just simple loans like you would get from a credit card or a bank. These are loans come with very special strings attached that demand privatization of a country’s assets. If you have seen Godfather III, you would remember Hyman Roth, the investor who was carving up Cuba among his friends. Replace Hyman Roth with Goldman Sachs or IMF (International Monetary Fund) or ECB, and you get the picture.

Stage 4: Now, the rape and humiliation of a nation begin under the name of “austerity” or “structural reforms.” For the debt that was forced upon it, Greece had to sell many of its profitable assets to oligarchs and international corporations. And privatizations are ruthless, involving everything and anything that is profitable. In Greece, privatization included water, electricity, post offices, airport services, national banks, telecommunication, port authorities (which is huge in a country that is a world leader in shipping) etc. Of course, the ever-manipulative bankers always demand immediate privatization of all media which means that the country gets photogenic TV anchors who spew establishment propaganda every day and tell the people that crooked and greedy banksters are saviors; and slavery under austerity is so much better than the alternative.

In addition to that, the banker tyrants also get to dictate every single line item in the government’s budget. Want to cut military spending? NO! Want to raise tax on the oligarchs or big corporations? NO! Such micro-management is non-existent in any other creditor-debtor relationship……………………….’

‘……….If every Greek person had known the truth about austerity, they wouldn’t have fallen for this. Same goes for Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and other countries going through austerity. The sad aspect of all this is that these are not unique strategies. Since World War II, these predatory practices have been used countless times by the IMF and the World Bank in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

This is the essence of the New World Order — a world owned by a handful of corporations and banks; a world that is full of obedient, powerless debt serfs.

So, it’s time for the proud people of Greece to rise up like Zeus and say NO (“OXI” in Greece) to the greedy puppet masters, unpatriotic oligarchs, parasitic bankers and corrupt politicians…………………….’

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Greeks Vote NO To EU-Imposed Austerity
By Paul Craig Roberts

An inflexible EU creates conditions for Russia and China to act. -

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42311.htm 

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The Problem of Greece is Not Only a Tragedy: It is a Lie

By John Pilger

July 14, 2015 "Information Clearing House" -http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42358.htm - An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week’s landslide “No” vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a “bailout” that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world.

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Greece's Fight is for Democracy in Europe. 
That's Why We Must Support It

Greece remains in great danger. -

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42312.htm By Owen Jones

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More than a million Greeks may die.  People do not realize what an effective weapon of mass destruction of total deflation implosion is.  Greeks will be unable to provide for each other.  Hunger, panic rioting, looting killing are certain outcomes and the EU and international bankers know it.  They will end up privately owning all of Greece.  It doesn't matter whether you are silent because you are afraid or because you don't understand the situation -- what matters is that you are letting this newest holocaust in the world happen. [Dick Eastman]

 John Kountouris writes: ... my colleagues from Greece who are some of best journalists in Greece with first hand information on the truth about the Greek debt ... from sources within the Greek Statistical office, ELSTAT, who provided us with all the damning statistical data on how the who Greek debt was blown up on purpose as a pretext to get Greek under the control of the Troika. ... I am the actual legal translator who received first, before anyone else (the Greek press, the Troika, etc.), the Sunday before last, the original draft (in Greek) of the legislative act of the Greek government that called for a bank holiday and I can tell you all first hand, after reading and examining the drafts of this legislative act, just how the demonized communist "Greek" government didn't give a damn about the Greek people. I also have evidence from one of the biggest journalist in Greece, Stefanos Chios, how it wasn't the ESCB or the Troika that told Greece to shut the banks down, but the JEWISH SHAREHOLDERS (ROTHSCHILD) via the puppet of the Bank of Greece, Yiannis Stournaras. Also, the Austrian finance minister before his own parliament stated that the ELA money from Europe is actually capital that belongs to the National Bank of Greece–and so this whole bank holiday was a sham! The Greeks HAVE money–lot's of it!

These articles were written by us originally in Greek and here I have translated them and posted them to my blog:]

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3 reasons the average American may be worse off than Greece:

Americans actually have more debt relative to income earned

http://fortune.com/2015/07/09/3-reasons-average-americans-may-be-worse-off-than-greece/?xid=yahoo_fortune