Crunch Time as Greece’s Terrible Deadlines Loom
Since the election of Syriza, the pressure on Greece has been cranked up to almost unbearable levels. The first shot across the bow came from the European Central Bank’s Master of Ceremonies, Mario Draghi, who warned that if Greece didn’t start behaving itself (i.e. stop all this silly talk about representing voters and restructuring or auditing the country’s wholly unpayable debt), the ECB would, as of February 11th, sever a large chunk of the country’s monetary supply lines.
Should Draghi follow through on his threat, Greek banks will, as of next Wednesday, have to get their daily dose of liquidity from the Bank of Greece instead of the ECB – and of course at much higher interest rates! Draghi’s threat is a stark reminder of just how dependent Greece now is on the whimsy of a wholly undemocratic, unaccountable, non-independent, Goldman Sachs-infiltrated banking institution – an institution that, thanks to the banking union hurriedly and stealthily rushed through last year, is now the sole supervisory force of over 80% of Europe’s banking industry.
If Draghi’s MAD threat is not enough to force the Greek government back into strict compliance of the Troika’s law, the Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem came up with his own 10-day ultimatum: if Greece did not apply for a bailout extension by February 16th, it would be cut off from access to Euro Zone funding. The ever-dependable US rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s then chipped in with even more negative than usual outlooks for the Greek economy.
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