It seems that the arrested is a Norwegian right wing extremist? Is it certain that he is responsible for the bomb too? This is awfully sad. One thing is to have some foreigner do this, another having one of your own… So many people dead. He must have had army trainning or paramilitary (at least hunter), because an ordinary man will run out of ammo before he can kill 80.

Condolences to the Norwegian people… 🙁

There was a web message (in a forum) by jihadist group that they hit Norway for being in Afghanistan and for insulting Mohammed… But was later denied.
Best wishes to your folks in Norway and solidarity to the people there.

Well, NOW we can say that the greek debt is on the knive’s edge. The haircut was a meagre 12%, a world record for small haircut while defaulting, peanuts really, but that’s the price of a “velvet” default where the bankers make part of the decision…

Greece will be on austerity for 30 years and if keeps budget surpluses, it could repay the debt… Theoretically. Probably in the meantime the eurobond will come along too, so judging this only with economic criteria and not political too would be wrong.

Now the “civil war” inside Greece will begin stronger between the leftists that continue their catastrophology and request to default whatsoever, the populist right wing opposition and the rest. Which ultimately comes down to 2 sides: Those that want Greece to reform and those that don’t. Unfortunately, the anti-reformist propaganda has been reinforced very much in the past year, because the country had to follow a program that was leading nowhere and was increasing the debt. This has also caused the pro-reformist to lose much credibility and political capital. The other unfortunate thing is that the 2 ruling parties have lost confidence of the voters. Right now each of them gets only 20% in polls. This means that in order to pass new austerity measures, none of the 2 can do it on its own. This plan should have happened last year, but Mrs Merkel was more worried about Bild magazine and saving her banks not thinking about long term solutions.

If Greece can return to growth and sustain it without deficits, this will work. If not, there will be bailout mk3 or default mk2. If the haircut was bigger, this would not be an issue. But Mrs Merkel chose to cut only the strictly necessary out of the debt, as to give a 50-50 chance to Greece.

Interestingly Varoufakis predicts more turmoil:

Europe’s Faustian Bargain
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2011/07/22/europes-faustian-bargain-on-the-latest-attempt-to-resolve-the-greek-debt-crisis-and-its-repercussions/

Also interesting notes:

1) The ECB will probably bend its rules once more and accept greek bonds as collaterals while Greece will be in “selective default” rating from the rating agencies.

2) Despite the best effort of rating agencies that will downgrade Greece, the ISDA will probably NOT accept that there was a credit event, making the CDS holders losing their bet and so mainly US and bit EU banks won’t have to pay for the CDS.

3) Varoufakis makes good points about why speculators will retreat shortly, but afterwards regroup and attack again. I believe that sooner or later, the eurobond will become the only option. Or at least, increase the funds of the EFSF so much as to be able to “burn” many attacks swiftly and massively.

4) The bigger part of the “private contribution” will come from the greek banks. 😀 But all in all, the total of the banks get to lose only 13 bln euros. Not much of a surprise considering that half of the bankers where in the EU meeting together with the politicians.

Good summary article:

The euro-zone crisis summit
Russian or Belgian roulette?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2011/07/euro-zone-crisis-summit

Ah, a nice graphic that explains the situation:

Note: The greek state collects from taxes about 52 bln per year.

How do you pay 74 bln with 52 bln euros? Wages and pensions alone cost 22 bln euros. “On the knife’s edge”. Talk about ******** and understatement…

“”The Greek debt is sustainable but it is, as we say, on a knife’s edge.”, said IMF’s Harry Houdini. 😀 😀 😀

“The Main purpose of the program was to give time to the banks to cover their ****!” Say it, Harry!

Flouting EU regulations is what most members do. The UK, sad to say, plays just about everything by the rules – more fool us.

Yes, the problem is that EU regulations are made mainly on the lines of what Germany and France want and of course they can also bend them without anyone shouting scandal.

You are cornered by Germany today, exactly because you find yourselves isolated, while Germany is delimitating its playing field and the rules. It’s the Battle of Britain once more, only without aircrafts this time.

While you play by the rules, they play by their own:

http://www.propublica.org/special/the-world-wide-web-of-siemenss-corruption

A 1,6 bln $ fine is a joke in comparison to what Siemens gained. In Greece alone, they took the contract of renewing the entire greek telecoms network, the public phones, even if you were ordering a new telephone set from the pubblic phone company, they were bringing you Siemens. The traffic lights in Greece are Siemens. The electronic devices for the Olympic Games of 2004, were Siemens. They got contracts about army comms. The best part. After the greek state paid the money to Siemens to upgrade all the phone network (with optical fibers and all), then came Deutsche Telecom and bought the greek phone company. Basically we invested a fortune in a company that was sold right afterwards. 😀 Multiply this by the countries on the map…

You know why they let Greece in EU? Not because they were the small, naive Germans, that the cunning Greeks managed to fool. But because they were submerged by contracts and found easy way to their briberies. Even the EU cohesion funds, went largely to german companies. Out from the left pocket, in to the right one. Today, the german companies are even in the toll stations that collect the very salty tolls in greek roads. They manage several airports which they built, including the Athens one. Oh, they did leave a bridge to the French though, truth be told. So the French got the money for the bridge and now the tolls.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fdTn4uR4rcU/TLiclGgDEpI/AAAAAAAADYw/KuGZhbdav7s/s1600/γεφυρα+ριου+αντιρριου.jpg

Pretty nice, isn’t it? Together with Carrefour supermarkets, that’s pretty much all the Germans have left for the French. 😀

The greek city buses are constructed in Greece on license by MAN. The greek army bought Mercedes and MAN trucks. Of course the army is full of german equipment. Greece is by all means a german province. Wouldn’t you want your province to your club???

That’s what the EU is about. Because you know how it is. Corruption is like whoring. For every whore, there is a client. The client may be protesting in disgust about prostitutes in the morning, but seeks them in the night, promoting prostitution.

Here’s another example of how much useful the PIGs are (note the last paragraph and also that the deal was signed by Barroso’s gov… It gives the answer to Ms Gomez).

http://euobserver.com/9/31297

Without pigs, who are they going to take over and bribe? The French? The Dutch? They have bridges already. You? You have your own subs…

Yes, you ‘re losing the war and this time USA has its own troubles…

Professor Varoufakis is more pessimistic about Thursday, although i don’t know on which point.

Missive from the Libyan Sea: Thursday’s meeting, if it takes place, will add to the litany of gross failures

18
Jul

Still on holidays, and still under-informed about the goings on (I just manage to read snippets of the news on my mobile phone, whenever a signal miraculously appears on its screen). And yet it seems certain that the Thursday EU summit (of which I got a brief whiff in a few tweets I stimbled upon), if Mrs Merkel chooses to honour it with her presence, will prove another flop. For from what (little) I read, the preparatory work that is being done (and whose success Mrs Merkel is treating as a prerequisite for attending), is moving steadfastly into the wrong direction: that of a debt buy-backs in the secondary markets. In short, our leaders are committed to the same-ol’ calamitous view that this is a debt crisis of the periphery to be dealt with in a manner fitting to a parent reluctantly paying for the prodical children’s sinful debts. Unable to write more on my mobile phone (without risking blindness and the combined wrath of my family), I shall end this missive thus: The more they persist with this fantasy, the closer we are edging toward the euro’s τέλος (end).

PS. Tragically, our holiday is ending on Thursday morning. Which means you can expect this blog to return with a vengeance that reflects not only anger at the EU’s unbounded idiocy but also frustration at having had to abandon southern Crete.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2011/07/18/missive-from-the-libyan-sea-thursdays-meeting-if-it-takes-place-will-add-to-the-litany-of-gross-failures/

Varoufakis was right all along, even when he was predicting the spreading of the disease, because unlike Merkel’s wishful thinking, this wasn’t “greek” crisis only, but Greece was the weaker link of a chain with several other weak links. He has also underlined that it is also a banking crisis. But there is saying that EU will announce on Thursday that all banks will be helped if in trouble. So i wonder if his suspicion is about the more long term european future, to which i agree that can’t go on like this or whether he thinks that the haircut won’t be enough (in fact if Greece is left with 120% debt, it is still marginal). I want to HOPE that Mrs Merkel won’t allow only for a buy-back from the markets, because this is the more unsure way of reducing debt. Prolongation of bonds with a haircut is more certain. Well, in the worst case, we can always default again… This i think is the 6th default since 1830, we can safely say that we are good at defaulting, we know how to do it, how to restart and default again.

I’m happy to await the FACT of the judgement in September.

Being a citizen of a big country, you are less accustomed of how cynically big countries can behave. You will see. These bail outs are blatant violations of the “no bail out” clause. The ECB had also said that for 1 year they would accept bonds with lower grading than the usual “A”. Guess what. We ‘ve passed the year and now they even accept “junk rated” bonds of the PIG countries. A greek newspaper had a list of how many EU rules were actually violated in this story, i can’t find it, but it was hilarious.

Here we ‘re talking about major politican and economic issue. Germany has invested heavily on the EU and Merkel is in all effects the “PM of Europe” today. Everyone waits for Merkel. Merkel doesn’t want something? It doesn’t happen. Van Rompuy, Baroso, etc, can say all they like, but if Merkel doesn’t agree, it’s like talking about air. No Court will dare demolish that (well, unless the EU will be disintegrating before September because of Italy not healing).

When it comes to serious matters with high political risk, Germany IS Greece and you will see it. German courts will say it’s constitutional… We will both be here when they say so.

You should have seen how nice and gently german courts closed the bribery cases of many german weapons industries in a way that nothing is disclosed about who was paying whom. A fine and all forgotten.

Having money doesn’t mean that some things work in a different way. Do you know how OFFICIALLY german enterprises were writing down to their accounts their bribes? Something like “running expenses”. Everyone knew what they were, but didn’t do anything untill a scandal came up at around 2003.

They even refused to extradite the main greek contact who was bribing on behalf of Siemens the greek politicians, because he had dual citizenship (a greek really) and while the first degree german court agreed to extradiction, the appeal court saved him. This way all hush hush on who was bribing whom. Ironically, the father of that greek, was tried as collaborationast of the germans during WWII during the greek occupation (unbelievable but true) and acquitted because of “doubts”, thanks to the testimony of a minister who was later convicted for bribery himself. He now enjoys his life in Munich. He avoided the trial altogether. But the troubles with bribery and courts and germans run in the family apparently.

Interestingly, there is some EU regulation, according to which, if i remember correctly, companies caught in major bribering, should be ousted from european bids for some years. Mercedes was caught in USA for bribing, closed the deal with a fine. Ferrostaal was bribing for submarines from Greece to Portugal and abroads, MAN caught too, nobody thought to raise that issue. Nor politician, nor judge. A fine and hush hush.

We know alll too well the german courts:

Max Merten was Kriegverwaltungsrat (military administration counselor) of the Nazi German occupation forces in Thessaloniki. He was convicted in Greece and sentenced to a 25 year term as a war criminal in 1959. On 3 November of that year, Merten benefited from an amnesty for war criminals, and was set free and extradited to the Federal Republic of Germany, after political and economic pressure from West Germany (which, at the time, hosted thousands of Greek economic immigrants).[6] Merten’s arrest also enraged Queen Frederica, a woman with German ties,[7] who wondered whether “this is the way mister district attorney understands the development of German and Greek relations”. [8]

In Germany, Merten was eventually acquitted from all charges due to “lack of evidence.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantinos_Karamanlis

Go ask a greek Jew, what happened to the 65000 Jews of Salonika and he will tell you about the “lack of evidence”. If there is a lack is that of 65000 Jews, whose butcher was acquitted in German courts. And even the stones know that in Greece. He bulldozed even the jewish cemetary.

As it has been for many weeks, but still the EU coughs up, as any thought of endangering the Euro is unthinkable.

On Thursday the charade should be over. Unless Merkel is crazy enough to go once more for half-way solutions. Which i doubt, because all european newspapers from Spain to Poland are shouting “time for decisive measures”.

I reckon the unthinkable will have to be thought by the end of the year.

The unthinkable will occur only if the contagion of Italy isn’t halted by the Thursday measures.

If the German Constitutional Court rules against further German support in September the project will be on very rocky ground, as it deserves to be.

The German Constitutional court will vote in favour of the support, at limit it will put a political limit of more parliament control for the future. Courts are made of people and these people do have links with the politicians although in theory they shouldn’t have… Just like the greek Constitutional Court rejected a case by the Athens’ lawyers branch that was asking to declare the bail out mk1 as not constitutional , like several constitutional professors were saying…