State and banks, hidden aspects of a historical hold up
Conference by Myret Zaki and Etienne Chouard
Moderation: fabio Lo Verso (La cité)
First conference
"The State, Hostage of the financial sector"
By Myret Zaki
I'll stay here taking notes because there will be an article about this topic in the next issue of
newspaper "La Cité" coming out next week
we'll come back on tonight's discussion
Thank you very much Fabio, and good evening to all of you
I am delighted to be here with professor Chouard
and to discover "l'usine Kugler"
and to work in collaboration with "la cité" newspaper
I personally work for an economics magazine called "Bilan"
I've written a few books denouncing the
drift of the financial sector
these last years
I've been following the evolution of finance the last 15 years
and I've seen how they played a central role in what we now call "the crisis"
so we are in the middle of a crisis as you probably noticed
But we don't really know why now
we suddenly said that Greece was in crisis
Can anyone tell me why, according to them,
what triggered the "Greek crisis"
that is a enormous crisis since end of 2009
What started all of that in the first place
if you tell me it is because of its debt
I will tell you that Greece has the same debt level since several years
who decided there is a crisis? does anyone know?
Nicolas Brillet who knows all the answers :-)
The bad advices of Goldman Sachs and the way they've hidden
a part of their debt has contributed greatly
ok good thread. The advices of Goldman sachs
contributed to the crisis. I agree
everything started when at the end of 2009 the notation agencies
have said that Greece was having little financial difficulties
as several countries of western Europe
Their debt rate had slightly declined lately
and that they needed to improve the way they manage their finance
that's all
rating agencies never said that Greece was in bankrupt
All they said ...(sorry I am speaking too loud in this mic)
In the coming years Greece should
try to have a better management of its finances
and that was in 2009
what did really trigger the crisis is that
there was a meeting between 5 hedge funds
american hedge funds in a restaurant in new York
an american newspaper told that story
this is not a fiction
one of the speculator present that day was Georges Soros
the man who hit the bank of england several years ago
and earned 2 billion dollars on an operation to devaluate
the british pound.
in the seventies
So george Soros and a few other american speculators have decided
now the subprime crisis is over
they needed to find a new prey to make a lot of money
It was in february 2010 precisely in a New Yorker restaurant
And those people have decided together
to attack the euro first through
Grece and then through small outlying countries
the idea is that if you sink a small countrie such as Grece,
there will be a phenomen of panic on the markets which will involve that the other neighbours countries will be contaminated too
because the investors will sell their titles too on those countries
and that those speculators we were talking about, will be able to grow rich in the infinity
on, in reality, the bankruptcy of Europe's periphery and even of the whole Europe
somewhere, G.Sorros was trying to creat the same blow
he had done and that made him billionaire in the seventies.
It hasn't been told a lot, it doesn't interest a lot of people
when you speak about it to personns working in the financial and banking sector
they say no, all this is very marginal and isn't for something
But we know very well that
those hedge funds have then massively
selled the debt
speculator earn money on the drop
of the debt or the actions of a country
you can really make money on the drop if
you bet with derivatives on the collapse of
of a market and this is how
loads of millionaires and billionaires have form themselves
during the last years with the european crisis.
It is the facts and the figures
We know which hedge funds are involve, which managers
We know them, there are mostly British and Americans
and they know perfectly the art of spectulation
They have accumulated sell positions, during end 2009 and on the begining 2010 against Grece
The Greek economic minister was touched about it
Indeed Greek gorverment can see the moves made on their debt: they asked themselves what is going on
our debt is suddenly the subject of a fierce downward bet
effectively what are these attacks going to induce
How can these attacks really sink a country
Because when you sell massively the debt of a small country like that
the interest rates that this small country must pay on his debt are explosing
Because if the country's obligations drop dramatically of its value
the interest rate increase itself automatically
this is then how suddenly Grece have to pay 7% and up to 20% recently
This is how Grece have been expulsed of european capital market
She couldn't finance herself anymore on the international debt market
It comes from markets. Grece has been in crisis through
the anglo saxon speculatives attacks.
As have Nicolas, here by present, noticed:
So, Goldman Sachs had advice Grece to adopt very complex financial tools
that Goldman Sachs had set up
to mask their real indebtedeness situation to the rest of the E.U
Goldman Sachs had in a first time from the years 2000
help Grece reduce their real debts only in appearances
What has Goldman Sachs done meanwhile?
Godlman Sachs went to see some hedge funds which were their clients
(these speculatives funds for whom they work)
and said: Hey you know what I have a very good information to share with you
Grece is much more indebt that she is in reality
'Insider trading' this is how it is called
Goldman Sachs has shared this information with her clients
which allowed speculative funds
to attack this debt by advance
knowing that the real balance figures of Grece were going to be revealed beginning 2010
So you motivate Greece to adopte misleading instruments
which will bring her to have more debts than she had
then you benefit of the problems
that are caused and you share the information with other hedge funds
And then took place a kind of butchering of the greek debt
the hedge funds went straight on it
and the other investors, like the sheeps that they are
because finnally the investement world is very herd
when they saw that there was a kind of "alert" on the Greek debt market
they all started to sell.
If you want, speculative funds act like an elite cavalry
which comes first and destabilize a country
Then come pensions funds and investissors from all over the world
who, though they do not understand anything about this story, start selling as well when they saw the risk rising up,
That is how you ruin a country.
Because a country seeing is debt collapsing like that, and which have to pay some 20% interests
can only enter in quasi-default and get out of the capital market
So, seeing that they made a so nice strike, the edge fodns didn't want to stop on a so good way,
they carried on. Then, the same happened to Portugal, then Irland, then Spain. Then it came to Belgium, then Italy.
And the last new ones have been: France, and even GERMANY. Germany which is the more solvent country in the world, the stronger country in the word
has been more or less attacked on the international debt market.
What are we talking about now? We are talking about a phenomenon which is: If you are a country which have his debt quoted on a market,
you are completely vulnarable to some attaks, some RAIDS I would even say
some real raids from some scrupleness financiers,
and, especially the most important is that these people are not regulated at all.