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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Greek Bailout Explained

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the
visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the
supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the tavern.

The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute
drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to
the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money and leaves town.

No one produced anything.

No one earned anything.

However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that is how the bailout package works!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Its much more dismal than that! The money in a bailout is more often LOANED....with interest. That means that the German businessman loaned the money to the hotel owner with interest.....who took the money and paid a 100 dollar loan off - but he too was charged interest and never repaid that interest. The same is true for every person to whom credit was extended. That means that while money was borrowed during a bailout it left them further in debt than they were. They were borrowing money to pay debt so they wouldnt be in default of loan payments...making their debt load larger. Most countries in this position are so far in debt they cant service the interest on their debt - let alone make P&I payments (principle and interest). The only way for these countries to ever be clear of their debt is to have those to whom the countries are indebted forgive the debt. Wipe it away - permanently. This means that people will have consumed goods and services for which they won't have to pay. Like welfare. That blows the entire capitalism model apart. The fact is....when nations began printing fiat currency and printing money to monetize debt, it was the beginning of the end. Every measure implemented to ease the inevitable pain resulting from the implemetation of a central bank exposed by the great depression - from the new deal to QE I & II, and every war in between, was only a measure to kick the can of debt further down the road. There are no measures left. only printing more money - which means more debt. People earning more than they're worth or receiving goods for free are the real culprits - greed. Greed leading to crimes perptrated by high ranking government officials and companies profiting from laws passed by these same officials. Democrats or republicans - it matters not. The end of our financial status is coming. Be able to sustain yourselves and your families. Be able to defend what you work for. And may God Bless America.