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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 2/27/10

A Gravy Train with Biscuit Wheels

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Goldman Sachs and hedge fund manager John Paulson began massaging the numbers by using cross-currency swaps and cross-border bond swaps denominated in foreign currencies. These weren't payday loans, they were currency exchanges. So stealthily were they operating that Goldman didn't even officially have an office in Greece. It was all perfectly legal mainly; it was only a subversion of the rules and not a violation of the rules.

Despite high fees and transaction costs Goldman Sachs earned the reputation in Greece as the go-to guys. As I began reading about this my mind raced and I could imagine millions of Americans signing for home mortgages with high fees and transaction costs as the mortgage lender says, "Don't you worry, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we're your go-to guys. We'll get you that mortgage!"

Yet now in Greece it has all gone bad. The European Union advises a strict diet of higher taxes and lower wages, in other words the pain is to be borne on the backs of the working people. It all has a sickening, familiar ring to it. An unnamed European Commission official said, "You have the sense that banks have been playing all sides of this, making money whatever happens to Greece." Damn straight, buddy!

Here in the States the banks live the life of Riley; they have a virtual gravy train with biscuit wheels. Free money from the Federal Reserve, bailouts from the Treasury. Huge fourth quarter bonuses followed up by first quarter losses and nobody's the wiser. The British government imposed a 50 percent tax on bank bonuses, but our President laughs them off with a boys-will-be-boys remark. The banks practically have a highwayman's license to steal and the government's answer is to tinker in the margins.

Greece has a long and storied history of pointing the way forward, and today riots broke out in the streets of Athens. A nationwide general strike has shut down the economy. Half a million civil servants, air-traffic controllers, customs and tax officials, train drivers, doctors at state-run hospitals, and schoolteachers walked off the job in protest of government austerity plans. Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of the union GSEE said, "We didn't create the crisis."

Damn straight, buddy, neither did we. It is very clear who caused this worldwide crisis and it is also very clear who should be made to pay. The Jabberwocky of the banking industry must be brought to heel or be slain on the battlefield. It must be skinned and it's hide nailed to the courtyard door, for the two things a banker will never admit are that he's had enough or that he's made a mistake.

--

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

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I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obscures who it is that (more...)
 

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