March 28, 2024

News Cymru

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Greece 2012 – Why Greek Government Debt Could Be Illegal, Null & Void – Fraudulent Conveyance

Wikipedia has a complicated explanation of fraudulent conveyance and why it is illegal but it simple terms it boils down to this.

I will use an example.

A bank knows you have assets, like a public power company.

The bank wants your public power company but you do not want to sell it.

So the bank does not take no for an answer and instead it allows you to borrow money it knows you cannot afford to pay back because it knows when you default on your debt it can seize the power company as compensation.

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– This video explains fraudulent conveyance – Video Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYW5Lxm_Kjs

That is basically fraudulent conveyance and it is illegal, at least in the USA.

It seems to me likely, that the Greek government was deliberately given loans that the banks knew it could not pay back with the goal of the banks being to seize government assets in the inevitable default. The very definition of fraudulent conveyance.

If a bank knows your finances are a basket case at yet still gives you a loan as a way of seizing your assets when it knows you will default, this is illegal in the USA and this is what has happened to Greece.

The Greek government has been made loans by international banks that these same banks knew that Greece would not be able to pay off.

But how did they know Greece would not be able to pay off these loans?

The trade deficit. I know I keep banging on the trade deficit but it really is the source of all Greece’s problems.

If you take a look at this page and set the time scale to start from 2002 you can see that Greece has a simply massive trade deficit.

Why 2002?

Because this is when Greece started using the Euro and when Greece gave up the right to coin its own currency. When Greece gave up its ability to print its own money the only way Greece could pay of its debts would have been to balance the trade deficit.

With the Drachma the Greek central bank could have simply printed money to devalue the debt, with the Euro, this was not possible, the debt could not be devalued so Greece had to pay back what it owed, more or less in full.

The ECB and the private banks knew this yet they allowed Greece to continue to run up simply massive debts without absolutely no indication that the Greek government would be able to pay this money back.

In short the people who were lending the Greek government money since 2002 must have known that Greece was going to default and they must have also have had a plan as to what they would get as compensation otherwise, why would they have made loans that they knew were going to go bad?

You may say it takes two to tango and you would be right but let us look at the dynamics of the situation.

One the one hand you have politicians, who let us be honest are pretty clueless otherwise they would be working in the private sector.

And on the other hand you have the central banks who control the currency and the private banks who control the economy.

I am sure, when Greek politicians were taking these loans that they highlighted the obvious problems, ie how the hell were these debts supposed to be serviced/repaid and I am also sure the Greek central bank and other private banks told the Greek politicians not to worry, that the Euro was going to be a boom for the Greek economy, they, the central bank were going to make sure this was so and that there were going to be no problems with taking out this debt.

And remember, it is the private banks and private central banks that control the economy. If they tell you things are going to be amazing and that you can take out this debt with no issues I am sure you are going to take their word for it.

I mean, why would they lie to you?

The Greek central banks must have the interests of Greece at heart right?

And why would they want to make loans that they knew were going to go bad?

I am sure the politicians thought the same thing which is why they believed what they were being told.

No I am not going to pretend I know the intricacies of the law, I am not a lawyer, but what has happened to Greece seems to be a text-book definition of fraudulent conveyance and even though, to my knowledge this is only illegal in the USA, a lot of banks who made loans to the Greek government were in the USA and that has to count for something.

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