Galbraith on Greece

[don]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Stockman's happy

Good On You, Alexis Tsipras (Part 1)

by David Stockman • June 29, 2015

Late Friday night a solid blow was struck for sound money, free markets and limited government by a most unlikely force. Namely, the hard core statist and crypto-Marxist prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras. He has now set in motion a cascade of disruption that will shake the corrupt status quo to its very foundations.

And just in the nick of time, too. After 15 years of rampant money printing, falsification of financial market prices and usurpation of democratic rule, his antagonists—–the ECB, the EU superstate and the IMF—-have become a terminal threat to the very survival of the kind of liberal society of which these values are part and parcel.

In fact, the Keynesian central banking and the Brussels and IMF style bailout regime—which has become nearly universal—-eventually fosters a form of soft-core economic totalitarianism. That’s because the former first destroys honest financial markets by falsifying the price of debt. So doing, Keynesian central bankers enable governments to issue far more debt than their taxpayers and national economies can shoulder; and, at the same time, force investors and savers to desperately chase yield in a marketplace where the so-called risk free interest rate has been pegged at ridiculously low levels.

That means, in turn, that banks, bond funds and fast money traders alike take on increasing levels of unacknowledged and uncompensated risk, and that the natural checks and balances of honest financial markets are stymied and disabled. Short sellers are soon destroyed because the purpose of Keynesian central banking is to drive the price of securities to artificially high and unnatural levels. At the same time, hedge fund gamblers are able to engage in highly leveraged carry trades based on state subsidized (free) overnight money, and to purchase downside market risk insurance (“puts”) for a pittance.

Eventually bond and stock “markets” become central bank enabled casinos—-riven with mispriced securities, dangerous carry trades, massive unearned windfall profits and endemic instability. When an unexpected shock or “black swan” event threatens to shatter confidence and trigger a sell-off of these drastically over-priced securities, the bailout state swings into action indiscriminately propping up the gamblers.

That’s what the Fed and TARP did in behalf of Morgan Stanley and Goldman back in September 2008. And it’s what the troika did in behalf of the French, German, Dutch, Italian and other European banks, which were stuffed with unpayable Greek and PIIGS debt, beginning in 2010.

Needless to say, repeated and predictable bailouts create enormous moral hazard and extirpate all remnants of financial discipline in financial markets and legislative chambers alike. Since 2010, the Greeks have done little more than pretend to restructure their state finances and private economy, and the Italians, Portuguese, Spanish and Irish have done virtually nothing at all. The modest uptick in the reported GDP of the latter two hopeless debt serfs are just unsustainable rounding errors—–flattered by the phony speculative boom in their debt securities that was temporarily fueled by Draghi’s money printing ukase that is presently in drastic retreat.

So this Monday morning push has come to shove; Angela Merkel and her posse of politicians and policy apparatchiks were not able to kick the can one more time after all.
Instead, the troika’s authoritarian bailout regime has stimulated political revolt throughout the continent. Tsipras’ defiance is only the leading indicator and initial actualization–the match that is lighting the fire of revolt..

But what it means is that there is now doubt, confusion and fear in the gambling halls. The punters who have grown rich on the one-way trades enabled by the money printing central banks and their fiscal bailout adjutants are being suddenly struck by the realization that the game might not be rigged after all.

So let the price discovery begin. In the days ahead, we will catalogue the desperate efforts of the regime to reassert its authority and control and to stabilize the suddenly turbulent casino.

In riding the central bank bubbles to unconscionable riches the big axes in the casino have falsely claimed to be doing “gods work”.
As they are now being forced to liquidate these inflated assets, they actually are.

Last fall one of the most detestable members of the regime, Jean-Claude Juncker, arrogantly issued the following boast.

“I say to all those who bet against Greece and against Europe: You lost and Greece won. You lost and Europe won.”

This morning that smug proclamation is in complete tatters. Good on you, Alexis Tsipras.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

I have no clue precisely what Stockman is trying to say in that rant. There's a lot of words. But I can't suss out any substance. Maybe someone could fill me in.

Because right now, it reminds me of this.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

and that the natural checks and balances of honest financial markets are stymied and disabled

What honest financial markets??

[gnk]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Many rumors going around today. Some say the max withdrawal may go to 20 Euros a day from the current 60. For a while, it looked liked the Telephone Company's pensioners were not going to get paid tomorrow. Now I hear they will get paid. Banks open on Thursday, but only for pensioners that don't have debit cards - max 250 they can get from their pension.

The Greek government on Sunday asked for 6 Billion from the ECB - no go. That says a lot. That 6 billion figure shows how broke the government and banking system is.

I have contacts in Athens. They tell me it is unlikely the government can pay all salaries and pensions next month. Tax collections have plummeted.

Per Handelsblatt, the Greek Government today paid the ESFS fund 50,000 Euros to maintain its position. That, to me, is interesting as it shows the government is keeping its options open with the EU.

I have also heard that many large backers of Tsipras are deserting him. My contacts say he is "finished" yet no one can predict the outcome. They don't know how he is going to go.

Krugman and Stiglitz have no idea what they are talking about. On paper, in theory, yes, a new currency can do wonders for a country. BUT, this current government has lost so much credibility in the financial world, that they are in no position to successfully introduce a new drachma. Greece is also a net importer, that will have recently defaulted, with a Marxist government in charge... I wonder what the currency markets would think?

[shiny!]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Here's the real story for all you "bankster v. people" bloodthirsty viewers:

Greece is a net importer. If it goes drachma, what do you think the value of that drachma will be especially after the antics of this Marxist government? How will Greece pay for two of its biggest imports: petroleum and pharmaceuticals? Will we have price controls?

All you cheering the "bankster" conflict in Greece need to get a grip. It's much more nuanced, and Greece right now is not some David fighting Goliath. There are real repercussions here, and people will pay dearly for them.

So, to the the bloodthirsty viewers eagerly watching chaos unfold: get a grip, do something useful, and fix the country you live in.

This is the best take I have seen recently: http://www.bloombergview.com/article...e-of-disasters

If any of this comment was directed at me for my Iceland reference, I apologize if I gave you the impression that I'm bloodthirsty and callous to the suffering that is unfolding in Greece. I've been to Greece and fell in love with the place and the people there.

Apparently my understanding of Iceland's default and how they came out, compared to Ireland's acceptance of their debt how they came out, is insuffient to understanding why Greece cannot do the same as Iceland.

Is it because Iceland had its own currency, not part of the Euro? Or was the nature of Icelandic debt different from Greece's debt? Or... ?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ry-of-iceland/

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Greece has an interesting modern history.

Two periods that stand out to me:

Immediately post WWII, Greece was in turmoil with it's own internal political insurrection and civil war accelerated and catalysed as a very early Cold War battleground. Tens of thousands killed.

Greek military junta in 67-74 combined with it's long lasting domestic smouldering insurrection in the form of groups like 17 November.

Today, it seems like a less severe(but still worth closely watching) mirror image…with a left wing government(instead of a right wing junta) and a tiny hard right wing Golden Dawn movement(instead of a hard left 17N).

[don]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

In the Western World Capitalism Has Devolved Into Looting

…when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. – Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”

There’s no such thing as markets anymore – only interventions. – Chris Powell, co-founder and Treasurer of GATA

Ayn Rand is a pariah among those who believe that government is our benefactor. There are times and conditions when government can be a benefactor of the people. But not in the Western world at the present time. As Michael Hudson and I agree, Western central banks refuse to create money to finance economy recovery. Money is created only for the benefit of the oligarchs’ banks in order that the oligarchs can continue to control the governments.

In the US for the past seven years the Federal Reserve has provided cheap bank reserves for the banks to lend at a markup or to speculate with. Banks are no longer suppliers of capital for productive investments and employment. Instead banks invest in speculation, arbitrage, derivatives, financing corporate takeovers and stock buybacks. The Fed has made it unnecessary for banks to pay for deposits. Instead, the banks get free money and charge consumers with negative interest rates for making deposits. For seven years Americans have, thanks to the utterly corrupt Federal Reserve and US government, been deprived of interest on their savings. In the Western world today, savers are penalized, not rewarded.

In Greece and Europe the banks are the oligarchs’ method of control just as the Federal Reserve is in the US and the Bank of England in the UK and the European Central Bank in the EU. The same in Canada, Australia, and Japan. When an oligarchy controls the money, the oligarchy controls the country, so “Western democracy” is only a pretense. There is no democracy in the West; only manipulated democratic symbols, the manipulation of which has allowed the One Percent to acquire the lion’s share of income and wealth, depriving the economy of the consumer purchasing power necessary to maintain full employment.

I agree with Michael Hudson that southern Europe, not only Greece, but also Italy, Spain, and Portugal, are being crucified, because looting debtors is the only way banks can make money when jobs offshoring has destroyed productive investment opportunities in the US and Europe that would raise employment and GDP. The European Central Bank, Hudson writes correctly, “refuses to create money to finance economic recovery, but only to pay the oligarchs’ banks so that they can continue to control the governments.”

Below is Hudson’s article on the Greek debt situation. He explains Syriza’s strategy, which if successful will result in Greece’s departure from the EU and thereby NATO and begin the unraveling of Washington’s principle instruments of creating conflict with Russia.

As I said in my interviews with Investment Research Dynamics and with King World News, the leaders of the current Greek government possibly could be assassinated in order that Washington prevents the unraveling of the EU and NATO. In my opinion, Greece’s departure would be followed by Spain’s and Italy’s. It would be the beginning of the unraveling of Washington’s empire. It is unlikely that Washington would stand for this.

JUNE 29, 2015

A New Mode of Warfare

The Greek Debt Crisis and Crashing Markets

by MICHAEL HUDSON

Back in January upon coming into office, Syriza probably could not have won a referendum on whether to pay or not to pay. It didn’t have a full parliamentary majority, and had to rely on a nationalist party for Tsipras to become prime minister. (That party balked at cutting back Greek military spending, which was 3% of GDP, and which the troika had helpfully urged to be cut back in order to balance the government’s budget.)

Seeing how unyielding the opposition was, Syriza’s stance was: “We would like to pay. But there’s no money.”

This kept throwing the ball back into the troika’s court. The Institutions were so unyielding that Syriza’s approval rating in the polls rose by 13% by June. Greek voters became increasingly incensed at the Troika’s demand for further pension cuts and privatizations.

Tsipras and Varoufakis were willing to pay the IMF with the IMF’s own funds, in what V. called “extend and pretend.” But their only interest in keeping current on debt was to obtain additional funding that could be used to pay domestic pensions and other basic government budgetary expenditures.

The basic tactic in such tensions between creditors and debtors is clear: once debt repayments exceed new loans, stop paying.

So when The Institutions made it clear that no more credit would be forthcoming without Syriza adopting the old Pasok/New Democracy capitulation to Troika demands, Tsipras and Varoufakis decided it was time to call a referendum eight days hence, on Sunday, July 5.

Late Friday night and into the early Saturday morning hours, Greeks ran to the ATM machines to convert their checking and savings deposits into euro notes, expecting that the end game would involve a likely 30% depreciation of the drachma – and that indeed, the ECB would stop lending to support Greek banks (the only role the ECB wanted to play).

Syriza had no love for the banks. They were the vehicles through which the oligarchs controlled the Greek economy, after all. For a month, they had been discussing how to separate the banks into “good bank” and “bad bank,” either nationalizing them (wiping out stockholders) or creating a Public Option alternative.

Most important, once out of the eurozone, Greece could create its own Treasury to monetize its spending. The Institutions called this “scrip,” but the Greeks could establish it as their national currency. They would escape from euro-austerity – except, of course, to the extent that the ECB waged economic war on Greece by imposing its own capital controls.

By going through the sham negotiations with The Institutions, Syriza gave Greeks enough time to protect what savings and cash they had – by converting these bank deposits into euro notes, automobiles and “hard assets” (even boats).

Businesses borrowed from local banks where they could, and moved their money into eurozone banks or even better, into dollar and sterling assets. Their intention is to pay back the banks in depreciated drachma, pocketing a 30% capital gain.

What commentators miss is that Syriza (at least its left) wants to be transformative. It wants to free Greece from the post-military oligarchy that evades taxes and monopolizes the economy. And it wants to transform Europe, away from ECB austerity to create a real central bank. In the process, it demands a clean slate of past bad debts. It wants to reject the IMF’s austerity philosophy and refusal to take responsibility for its bad 2010-12 bailout.

This larger, transformative picture is at the center of Syriza-left plans.

I’m in Germany now (on my way to Brussels), and have heard from Germans that the Greeks are lazy and don’t pay taxes. There is little recognition that what they call “the Greeks” are really the oligarchs. They have gained control of the old coalition Pasok/New Democracy parties, avoided paying taxes, avoided being prosecuted (New Democracy refused to act on the “Lagarde List” of tax evaders with nearly 50 billion euros in Swiss bank accounts), orchestrated insider dealings to privatize infrastructure at corrupt prices, and used their banks as vehicles for capital flight and insider lending.

This has turned the banks into vehicles for the oligarchy. They are not public institutions serving the economy, but have starved Greek business for credit.

So one casualty apart from the credibility of the eurozone, the ECB and the IMF will be these banks. Syriza is positioning itself to provide a public option – public banks that will promote the economy, and a national Treasury that will spend government money INTO the economy, not drain it to pay the Troika for having bailed out French and other banks back in 2010-1.

The European popular press is as bad as the U.S. press in describing matters. It warns of “hyperinflation” if a central bank monetizes as much as one euro of government spending in the way that the U.S. Fed does, or the bank of England or any other real central bank. The reality is that nearly all hyperinflations stem from a collapse of foreign exchange as a result of having to pay debt service. That was what caused Germany’s hyperinflation in the 1920s, not domestic German spending. It is what caused the Argentinean and other Latin American hyperinflations in the 1980s, and Chile’s hyperinflation earlier.

But once Greece frees itself from the odious debts forced upon it at financial gunpoint in 2010-12, its balance of payments will be roughly in balance (subject to some depreciation of the drachma; 30% is a number I heard bandied about in Athens last week).

To mimic Margaret Thatcher, “There is No Alternative” to withdrawing from the eurozone. The terms dictated for remaining in it was to sell off all of what remained in Greece’s public sector to European and U.S. buyers, at insider prices – but not to Russian buyers, even for the gas pipeline that was to have been sold.

Evidently the eurozone financial strategists thought that Tsipras and Varoufakis would simply surrender, and be promptly voted out of power, thereby crushing their socialist policy agenda. They miscalculated – and are now hoping to create as much anarchy as possible to punish the Greek people. The punishment is for not continuing to support their client oligarchy, which has moved most of its assets out of reach of the government.

But instead of Syriza losing credibility, it is the ECB – which refuses to create money to finance economic recovery, but only to pay the oligarchs’ banks so that they can continue to control the government. This control is now being weakened precisely because their banks are being weakened.

Greece’s Parliament last week released its Debt Truth Commission report explaining why Greece’s debts to the IMF and ECB are odious, and were taken on without a popular referendum approving these loans. Indeed, Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy obeyed Mr. Obama and Geithner when the latter insisted at a G8 meeting that the ECB ignore the IMF economists’ analysis that Greece could not pay its debts, and bail out the banks. Geithner and Obama explained that U.S. banks had placed big financial bets that Greece would pay its private bondholders, so the ECB and IMF had to lend the government the funds to pay – but had to overthrow the country’s Prime Minister Papandreou who had urged a referendum on whether Greek people really wanted to commit economic and political suicide.

Financial technocrats were put in place to serve the domestic oligarchy and foreign bondholders. Greece was under financial attack just as deadly as a military attack. Finance is war. That is this week’s lesson.

And for the first time, debtor countries are realizing that they are in a state of war.

This is why markets are crashing on Monday, June 29.
* *
Eurozone financial strategists made it clear that they wanted to make an example of Syriza as a warning to Spain’s Potemos party, and anti-euro parties in Italy and France. The message was supposed to have been, “Avoid our austerity and we will cause chaos. Look at Greece.

But the rest of Europe is interpreting the message in just the opposite way: “Remain in the eurozone and we will only create money to strengthen the financial oligarchy, the 1%. We will insist on budget surpluses (or at least, no deficits) so as to starve the economy of money and credit, forcing it to rely on commercial banks at interest.”

Greece has indeed become an example. But it is an example of the horror that the eurozone’s monetarists seek to impose on one economy after another, using debt as a lever to force privatization selloffs at distress prices.

In short, finance has shown itself to be the new mode of warfare. Resisting debt leverage and financial conquest is as legal as is resisting military invasion.

[Woodsman]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

If any of this comment was directed at me ...

It didn't sound to me that it was, but nonetheless let's not allow ourselves to be hectored.

Greece is in a depression and the Greek people are being squeezed to death to feed the banks. It's called austerity and it's what's keeping Greece mired in this state. As for bloodthirty, remember that the bankers were more than eager to lend Greece all the money it wanted. Remember that they did so with full knowledge of the state of Greek affairs, understanding that the usual bailout would be arranged when the tide rolled out.

See, we're supposed to forget that the European elites and bankers of the Goldman Sachs variety concocted a fairy tale to enable Greece’s membership of the Eurozone and make no connections whatsoever between what happened then and what is happening now.

But what happened then was that until 1994 Greek deficits were at times higher than 10% of GDP. Entry into the Eurozone required a deficit below 3%, so the Greek government and the EU worked with bankers to cook the numbers. By 1999 the Greeks publish the magic 3% and in 2000 Greece enters the EU as its 12th member. Part of that magic included black accounting with derivatives of the sort that blew up the global economy in 2007. That crisis is the proximate cause of today's crisis.

And it wasn't some long-haired Marxist government who cooked those numbers. It was a respectable, clean-cut government made up of responsible, good European social democrats and neo-liberals who ginned up the story. It was a fiction that everyone agreed to believe because it was more convenient than reality. Greece never met the fiscal criteria for membership. The Greeks, the Europeans and the bankers all went along with the story and had a big party at the end to celebrate. Now the hangover comes.

In 2008 there might have been a moment of truth as Iceland recognized and you reminded us. Instead we had the classic dynamic of a lie spawning more lies. The banks that lent so freely were indeed bailed out and transferred their debts to European taxpayers and the IMF, along with their culpability in the story. And then they worked with the Greeks and Europeans to create a new fiction that Greece would simultaneously have its economy shrunk by the harshest austerity and still pay back hundreds of billions of euros. Everything must be sacrificed to maintain that fiction.

Banksters vs the people? Hell yes, it is. And we know who thirsts for blood in this scenario and who bleeds.

[don]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Nice, concise and clear, Woody.

Earlier today, John O'Connell, CEO of Davis Rea, spoke to Canada's BNN from what may be Greece's top tourist attraction, the island of Santorini, to give a sense of the "mood on the ground." Not surprisingly, his feedback was that, at least as far as tourists are concerned, nobody is worried. After all, it is not their funds that are capital constrained plus should the Drachma return as the local currency, the purchasing power of foreigners will skyrocket.

What he did point out, however, that was quite notable is the diametrically opposing views between old and young Greeks when it comes to Grexit.


Finally, his take on capital controls and tourism: "You are going to see a big, big drop off in tourism because people are not going to want to come here. People are going to worry that if people do come here with a lot of Euro, are they going to be allowed to leave with those Euros. It's going to have a dramatic impact on the Greek economy at some point, a lot of the people that live here are underestimating how bad it could get in the short term."e punchline:

There have been some people that worry that the military may actually get involved. It wouldn't surprise me - there are some people in Greece that have raised the whole prospect of potential civil war.


video at: http://www.bnn.ca/Video/player.aspx?vid=646246

[lektrode]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

....
Banksters vs the people? Hell yes, it is. And we know who thirsts for blood in this scenario and who bleeds.

Nice, concise and clear, Woody...

+2
and it isnt that the audience round here is bloodthirsty - its that we're sitting here watching this runaway train coming straight at us and can only watch as it gets closer and closer - wondren what the geniuses of lwr manhattan who took The Rest of US hostage on the ride here will do next to 'save us'

as we get ready to coronate their latest spokeswoman next year...

may the gods help us all.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

See, we're supposed to forget that the European elites and bankers of the Goldman Sachs variety concocted a fairy tale to enable Greece’s membership of the Eurozone and make no connections whatsoever between what happened then and what is happening now.

But what happened then was that until 1994 Greek deficits were at times higher than 10% of GDP. Entry into the Eurozone required a deficit below 3%, so the Greek government and the EU worked with bankers to cook the numbers. By 1999 the Greeks publish the magic 3% and in 2000 Greece enters the EU as its 12th member. Part of that magic included black accounting with derivatives of the sort that blew up the global economy in 2007. That crisis is the proximate cause of today's crisis.

Yup. The Goldman Greek Swaps Scandal. Was hailed as 'financial innovation' back in 2003 for Risk Magazine. Different deal was struck in 2001. Goldman made about a billion for every billion that was shaved off Greece's GDP.

I know people can get sensitive about outsiders looking at their troubles and discussing them. I get that way myself. But it's difficult to feel 100% divorced from Greece's trouble when an American firm was so deeply involved in setting it up.

Hell, Japonica - about an hour drive down the road from me - looks like it might be the biggest private holder of Greek debt right now.

It's really useful to learn what's happening on the ground. And I absolutely believe that the problems our resident Greeks see in Greek society likely do need addressing. But if anyone thinks for one second that the banks did not screw the people of Greece over, you're not listening to the rest of us enough. Sketchy Goldman swap deals complete with bribes that leave a corrupted small government bankrupt in reality but looking good enough on the books for a great credit rating is something we have some experience with.

And you ought to keep reading here in case of a default.

American hedge funds -- one of which is now the biggest debt-holder -- will follow you to the ends of the earth. If you default on them, they'll hire mercenaries to steal your naval vessels from the other side of the ocean. They will get summary judgements granting them the rights to literally pillage foreign countries from American courts. There is no appeal. And judges vote their way. That's how it went down with Judge Griesa and Argentina.

It's worth watching the bag of tricks they use over here. They pretty much try everything on us on a small scale first, then scale the scam up to hit foreign countries with it.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

+1

[Woodsman]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Yup. The Goldman Greek Swaps Scandal.

"It’s a scandal if it turned out that the same banks that brought us to the brink of the abyss helped fake the statistics.”

Angela Merkel

[gnk]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Sorry shiny!, but it wasn't directed at any specific individual. You have to understand I live here, and its a stressful time period. I'm the one seeing dry goods flying off the shelves. I'm the one watching senior citizens crying. I'm the one seeing a hospital run out of supplies.

Greece was going to crash one way or another, with or without a Memorandum. I explained the causes of that crash many times before.

The bankster meme applied in 2010. Not so much now. But I guess everyone wants to project their biases on what is going on in Greece. Especially economists that have never lived here.

Tsipras and the radical left have an agenda, that to me, is just as dangerous as the banksters.

What is going on in Greece right now involves a clash of cultures. Greece finds itself in the middle of three continents, and that has affected the culture here a lot. Is Greece anchored in the West? Should it have been part of the USSR? Should it "fight the powers" and go the Venezuela/Chavez route?

It's much more complicated and I hope you understand that when I see commentators only seeing this as a bankster meme, it elevates Tsipras and the anti-Europe crowd here in Greece. It is very complicated. The economists that have commented on Tsipras don't know what he really stands for.

Woodsmen loves the bankster meme. Woodsmen - have you ever considered living in Soviet Russia? Many members of SYRIZA aspire to creating that kind of country here in Greece. This is not hyperbole. This is Greece's internal fight, not yours, Woodsmen.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Greece / Suicide Rate Surges 35% In 2 Years

Woodsmen loves the bankster meme. Woodsmen - have you ever considered living in Soviet Russia? Many members of SYRIZA aspire to creating that kind of country here in Greece. This is not hyperbole. This is Greece's internal fight, not yours, Woodsmen

Moscow is the cleanest, most well maintained metropolitan city I have ever been in.