Last year, when problems in the Greek economy first came to public attention,
there was a spate of articles in the Guardian, the Huffington Post, the New
York Times and other publications, describing the role of Goldman Sachs in
fleecing the Greek people.
This year, as Greeks once again take to the streets to protest their economic
woes, there is little mention in the Mainstream Media of the role GS has
played, yet I wonder if the effects of the company's piracy are still being
felt in Greece. It would seem so, since no mention is made of any heroic
efforts being made in the past year to solve those problems.
Here is one article from March, 2010. To find others in a similar vein,
google, "Greece + Goldman Sachs."
Romi
March 4, 2010
How the Monsters at Goldman Sachs Caused a Greek Tragedy
Greece's crushing debt has exploded into a full-blown
crisis, with the country on the precipice of the unthinkable: the
default of a sovereign nation. Thanks Goldman Sachs.
Another Greek-based
cargo ship and its crew was recently hijacked by Somalian pirates,
costing the Greek owners an undisclosed amount in ransom.
Such
ongoing acts of brazen piracy off the coast of Somalia have riveted the
establishment media's attention. But the same news hawks have missed
(or ignored) a much more brazen, longer-running and far larger robbery
in Greece by Gucci-wearing thieves who are more sophisticated than
common pirates -- but lack a pirate's moral depth.
I refer to -- who else? -- Wall Street financiers. Specifically, Goldman Sachs.
Goldman,
a global financial conglomerate and America's largest banking fiefdom,
is notorious in our country for its arrogant, anything-goes corporate
ethic that is astonishingly avaricious, even by Wall Street's dissolute
standards. The firm is villainous enough that it could be its own
reality TV show, perhaps titled, "Bankers Behaving Badly." A few
highlights:
-- During the past
decade, Goldman's wizards were particularly inventive monkey-wrenchers,
devising much of the investment gimmickry that enriched crafty Wall
Streeters like them, even as it led to the wrecking of our economy.
--
In 2006, Goldman's CEO was considered such a whiz that he was elevated
to treasury secretary and soon was handed the task of fixing the very
economic mess he had helped create. His "fix" was the cockamamie,
self-serving, multitrillion-dollar taxpayer bailout that did save Wall
Street ... but has left our economy in shambles.
--
Rather than apologizing for their failures and using their bailout
funds to rush loans to America's credit-starved businesses, Goldman's
debauched financiers immediately went back to playing the same old
global game of high-risk craps that caused America's crash, this time
rolling the dice with the backing of our tax dollars.
--
Juiced by an infusion of federal funds, Goldman executives declared a
profit this year and promptly lavished more than $16 billion in bonus
payments on themselves.
-- To
keep the fun rolling, Goldman is now lobbying furiously in Washington to
kill regulatory and consumer bills that could rein in its destructive
greed.
-- Moving from mere
greed to naked narcissism, Goldman's current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has
proclaimed that his bonus bonanza is warranted because he is "doing
God's work."
Perhaps he was
referring to one of the Greek gods. It turns out that, for the past
decade, Goldman has also been practicing its ethical flimflammery in
Greece, a nation long mired in a sea of debt.
In
2001, Goldman's financial alchemists formulated a scheme to allow the
Greek government to hide the extent of its rising debt from the public
and the European Community's budget overseers. Under this diabolical
deal, Goldman funneled new capital from super-wealthy investors into the
government's coffers.
Fine.
Not so fine, though, is that, in exchange, Greek officials secretly
agreed that the investors would get 20 years' worth of the annual
revenue generated by such public assets as Greece's airports. For its
part, Goldman pocketed $300 million in fees paid by the country's
unwitting taxpayers.
The
financial giant dubbed its airport scheme "Aeolus," after the ancient
Greek god of the wind -- and, sure enough, any long-term financial
benefit for Greece was soon gone with the wind. By hiding the fact that
the government's future revenues had been consigned to secret investors,
Goldman bankers made the country's balance sheet look much rosier than
it was, allowing Greek officials to keep spending like there was no
tomorrow.
Last month, however,
tomorrow arrived. Greece's crushing debt has exploded into a full-blown
crisis, with its leaders disgraced and the country on the precipice of
the unthinkable: the default of a sovereign nation.
So, who is getting punished for the
finagling of Greek politicos and Goldman profiteers? The people, of
course -- just like here! Greeks now face deep wage cuts, rising taxes
and the elimination of public services just so their government can pay
off debts the people didn't even know it had. Meanwhile, Greece's
financial conflagration is endangering the stability of Europe's
currency and causing financial systems worldwide (including ours) to
wobble again. All of this to enrich a handful of global speculators.
Thanks, Goldman Sachs.
To
find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators
Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page
at www.creators.com. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer,
public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a
Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly
"Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145884/how_the_monsters_at_goldman_sachs_caused_a_greek_tragedy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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