"Too little for too many. Too much for too few." - J. F. Sullivan

Introductory overview
– The Grid Book
– European Economic Community
– BRICS Nations
– Euro-zone observers speak out
– Bank Robbery: The way we create money, and how it damages the world
– "Helicopter money"

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself– and you are the easiest person to fool. ... The idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another." – Richard Feynman Cargo Cult Science

Euro-zone observers speak out
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2014 George Soros speaks out The Tragedy of the European Union George Soros, March 11, 2014 Despite the considerable perils of this period, George Soros maintains his faith in the European Union as a model of open society. >>> more Remarks delivered at the Festival of Economics George Soros, June 2, 2012, Trento, Italy EXCERPT ... It took some time for the financial markets to discover that government bonds which had been considered riskless are subject to speculative attack and may actually default; but when they did, risk premiums rose dramatically. This rendered commercial banks whose balance sheets were loaded with those bonds potentially insolvent. And that constituted the two main components of the problem confronting us today: a sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis which are closely interlinked. The eurozone is now repeating what had often happened in the global financial system. There is a close parallel between the euro crisis and the international banking crisis that erupted in 1982. Then the international financial authorities did whatever was necessary to protect the banking system: they inflicted hardship on the periphery in order to protect the center. Now Germany and the other creditor countries are unknowingly playing the same role. The details differ but the idea is the same: the creditors are in effect shifting the burden of adjustment on to the debtor countries and avoiding their own responsibility for the imbalances. Interestingly, the terms “center” and “periphery” have crept into usage almost unnoticed.

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What Happened to Greece – and Italy and Spain? A Christmas Message From America's Rich by Matt Taibbi Dec. 22, 2011 Rolling Stone magazine EXCERPT . . . Chase “helped” countries like Greece and Italy mask their debt problems for years by selling a similar series of swaps to those governments. The bank then turned around and worked with banks like Goldman Sachs (who were also major purveyors of those swap deals) to create a thing called the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which allowed investors to bet against Greek debt. In other words, banks like Chase and Goldman knowingly larded up the nation of Greece with a crippling future debt burden, then turned around and helped the world bet against Greek debt. ... Just listen to Cooperman, the former Goldman exec from that country club in Boca. According to Cooperman, the rich do contribute to society: Capitalists “are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be” and the wealthy aren’t “a monolithic, selfish and unfeeling lot,” Cooperman wrote. They make products that “fill store shelves at Christmas…” Unbelievable. Merry Christmas, bankers. And good luck getting that message out. >>> more 1. Bankers Join Billionaires to Debunk ‘Imbecile’ Attack on Top 1% by Max Abelson December 20, 2011 Bloomberg Excerpt: Jamie Dimon, the highest-paid chief executive officer among the heads of the six biggest U.S. banks, turned a question at an investors’ conference in New York this month into an occasion to defend wealth. “Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) CEO told an audience member who asked about hostility toward bankers. “Sometimes there’s a bad apple, yet we denigrate the whole.” Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. (HD) co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” according to the group’s website. He said he isn’t worried that speaking out might make him a target of protesters. “Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?” >>>more 2. Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis By Louise Story, Landon Thomas Jr. and Nelson D. Schwartz Feb. 13, 2010 Available on NYT Archived page Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts. As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels. Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting. The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards. It had worked before. In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said. That deal, hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan, helped Athens to meet Europe’s deficit rules while continuing to spend beyond its means. Athens did not pursue the latest Goldman proposal, but with Greece groaning under the weight of its debts and with its richer neighbors vowing to come to its aid, the deals over the last decade are raising questions about Wall Street’s role in the world’s latest financial drama. As in the American subprime crisis and the implosion of the American International Group, financial derivatives played a role in the run-up of Greek debt. Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere. In dozens of deals across the Continent, banks provided cash upfront in return for government payments in the future, with those liabilities then left off the books. Greece, for example, traded away the rights to airport fees and lottery proceeds in years to come. Critics say that such deals, because they are not recorded as loans, mislead investors and regulators about the depth of a country’s liabilities. Some of the Greek deals were named after figures in Greek mythology. One of them, for instance, was called Aeolos, after the god of the winds. >>>more 3. Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide By Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash Feb. 24, 2010 Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin. Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group, the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers. These contracts, known as credit-default swaps, effectively let banks and hedge funds wager on the financial equivalent of a four-alarm fire: a default by a company or, in the case of Greece, an entire country. If Greece reneges on its debts, traders who own these swaps stand to profit. “It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house ? you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich. >>>more

Bank Robbery
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Bank Robbery: The way we create money, and how it damages the world by Ivo Mosley Triarchy press, 2020 Summary Our money system is a toxic left-over from a time when theft on a grand scale – war and empire-building – was glorified. Today, we need to move on from a system that allows and encourages the worst in us (and the worst among us) to prosper.   We take the money system for granted. • We accept that banks have the right to create, rent out and then destroy money. • We accept that banks have a right to charge us (and our government) interest on this money. • We accept that the system enhances inequality, drives climate change, degrades our planet, promotes war and conflict, and has always led to eventual disaster. But why do we accept this manifestly undemocratic money system, which serves only to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of organisations and individuals that have profit – not our collective interests – at heart? Curious to find the answer, researcher and writer Ivo Mosley set out to uncover – and tell – the story of how money-creation works and how it came to be this way. Many years in the writing, this book is not an attack on individuals or a rant against bankers. Rather it’s a remarkably clear and comprehensive examination of a system that supports unaccountable and destructive power. It also points the way to the simple reforms that are necessary if we wish to create a more just and equitable world. >>>more

"Helicopter money"
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