.Executive Intelligence Review Online
Greek Government Is Right:
The `Debt' Is a Swindle
by Paul Gallagher
Feb. 21—The core of the fight over Greece and ``its debt,'' is that the new Greek government, with huge public backing, has been asking the European Union to shut down a tremendous Wall Street-London bank swindle and make economic growth possible again in Europe. If that doesn't happen, the worsening bankruptcy of the whole trans-Atlantic banking system will continue to generate desperate confrontations with major powers Russia and China, with the threat of world war. The rest of Europe, so far, has refused to shut down that Wall Street swindle, and on Feb. 18, Obama's Treasury Secretary Jack Lew backed up that refusal, including by a threatening phone call to the Greek finance minister. The refusal to write down unpayable debt, by Europe's bankrupt giant banks and governments, is the fundamental reason the economies of the whole European Union have been dead in the water for seven years. Since the 2008 financial crash, these banks have sat with EU2 trillion of toxic real estate debt on their books, tangled in tens of trillions in derivatives contracts—unable and unwilling to lend into the European economies, through year after year of economic recession and depression. Anything suggesting bank reorganization to deal with these dead debt securities under Glass-Steagall principles, has been refused, and Europe's bankrupt megabanks lie, like undead monsters, blocking the road to productive credit, investment, and recovery.
Now, the battle over whether Greece can adopt an economic recovery strategy has exposed the fact that large amounts of government debt, ... is also unpayable ...
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From the Editors


This Week's Cover

  • Greek Government Is Right:
    The 'Debt' Is a Swindle
    The debt piled on Greece is significantly illegitimate in regard to its causes and relationship to the real economy of the country. It cannot be paid in the next half-century, and it cannot be paid by continued cuts in employment, pensions, wages, health-care services, and selling off national income and infrastructure.In fact, 'Greek debt' exists only on the basis of the Wall Street practice for unpayable debt, known as 'extend and pretend.' Its interest and repayment terms have been so dramatically changed by the creditors that in debt-market terms, it is nearly worthless.
  • Ecuador Declares Partial Debt Moratorium
    A case study of 'bankers' arithmetic,' reprinted from EIR, Dec. 26, 2008.

Economics

  • Will HSBC Scandal Sink Wall Street's Obama Presidency?
    At stake in the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as U.S. Attorney General is the Obama Administration's protection of Wall Street at all costs. It was Lynch who negotiated the Deferred Prosecution Agreement with HSBC, the British banking giant that has been at the center of global money laundering, tax evasion, and criminal enterprises involving the world's drug cartels and terrorist organizations.

International

  • Neo-Nazi Factor in Drive for War on Russia Exposed
    Some news media in Europe and America are finally waking up to the danger posed by the neo-Nazi militias in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The spotlight is on U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, their biggest booster.
  • AU-China Infrastructure Deal Makes African Unity Possible
    The Memorandum of Understanding between the African Union and China marks a shift in Chinese policy toward Africa that has been emerging since Xi Jinping became President in March 2013. The focus now is on developing the entire continent, including countries that do not have resources that China needs.
  • Thailand's Kra Canal:
    A Crucial Link on the New Maritime Silk Road
    Pakdee Tanapura, a member of the National Committee for the Study of the Kra Canal in Thailand, and a longtime contributor to EIR, spoke on the proposed Kra Canal at a forum in Quanzhou, China, titled 'Collectively Building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and Building a Community of Common Destiny.'
  • Argentines Celebrate Atucha II Reactor

National

  • Why the Jeb Bush Candidacy Must Be Squashed Now
    Jeb Bush speaks for the evil Bush family dynasty which, from grandpa Prescott Bush's support for Hitler, through George W. Bush's disastrous record of pre-emptive war, has acted to destroy the true United States tradition on behalf of London/Wall Street financial interests.

Science


Editorial


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