Bloomberg: EU authorities colluded with Greece to mask its deficit for a decade

[ThomasSoerensen]

Guessing and working on a thesis are two different things.

Especially if you are someone with no vested interests.

Future economic is not very different from guessing. Too many variables and too many people involved. Unless your conclusion is something like "this will fail...at some point" then it is not a guess but a 100% certainty - but the conclusion has no value as it is too vague for anyone to act on. Everything fails at some point - at least when the Sun grows and swallows our tiny planet.

[Doggy Styles]

Wow, some people guessed it wouldn't work and are now claiming to be visionaries. Equally many people guessed it would.

Guessing and working on a thesis are two different things.

Especially if you are someone with no vested interests.

[Paddy]

My missus wrote her thesis 20 years ago on why fiscal union won't work for the EU.
Bless her, she never goes round saying "I told you so" because nobody's going to listen to a housewife from Coventry.
Begs the question, if she could work it out, WTF couldn't the politicos....?

Either they knew; in which case they are corrupt and should not be in office
Or
They were too stupid to understand; in which case they should not be in office.

It is normally the first case but many years ago I had a personal chat with a Conservative MP about some high level shenanigans which was openly and publicly , he honestly was shocked to find out.

[TimberWolf]

Wow, some people guessed it wouldn't work and are now claiming to be visionaries. Equally many people guessed it would.

Plus no monetary system seems to work for long, so it's going to be correct eventually.

[d000hg]

My missus wrote her thesis 20 years ago on why fiscal union won't work for the EU.
Bless her, she never goes round saying "I told you so" because nobody's going to listen to a housewife from Coventry.
Begs the question, if she could work it out, WTF couldn't the politicos....?

Wow, some people guessed it wouldn't work and are now claiming to be visionaries. Equally many people guessed it would.

[Dearnla]

My missus wrote her thesis 20 years ago on why fiscal union won't work for the EU.
Bless her, she never goes round saying "I told you so" because nobody's going to listen to a housewife from Coventry.
Begs the question, if she could work it out, WTF couldn't the politicos....?

[Paddy]

Why am I not surprised?

+ 1

Next month’s news = European officials received kick-backs from banks

Why am I not surprised

[ThomasSoerensen]

About a year ago we had a couple from the girls school over for dinner for the first time and I was politely conversing:
Me: So what do you do?
Him: I'm in banking
Me: Which bank
Him: Goldman Sachs
Me: What do you do there
Him: Derivatives
Me: What type
Him: Interest rate swaps mostly
Me: For Corporate or sovereing clients
Him: Sovereigns mostly
Me: So, did you make the product Greece was using to chage their numbers when getting into the EU
Him: Actually yes.

Then we changed topic in order to stay polite - the women were getting bored by now.

[petergriffin]

Who made a killing on Greece's entry in to the Euro? Maybe that's where pitchforks should be directed.

Goldman Sachs

[TimberWolf]

Who made a killing on Greece's entry in to the Euro? Maybe that's where pitchforks should be directed.

[bless 'em all]

You don't say.

Nobody will be punished for this though, except innocent citizens of EU countries.

So your saying there's an up-side to it?

[Mich the Tester]

You don't say.

Nobody will be punished for this though, except innocent citizens of EU countries.

[bless 'em all]

La, la, la I can't hear yoooouuuuu!

Everything will be fine. Stop worrying. International Finance is your friend. We love you.

Dave & Co.

[Doggy Styles]

Why am I not surprised?

[petergriffin]

EU Court to Hear ECB Greek-Swap File Suit as Euro Threatened - Businessweek

The files may help show the role EU authorities played in allowing Greece to mask its deficit for almost a decade before the nation’s troubled finances necessitated a 240 billion-euro ($300 billion) bailout and the biggest debt restructuring in history. [...]
“The documents may be proof that there was tacit collusion between the EU and Greece, that no action was taken,” said Georg Erber, a research associate at the DIW Berlin economic research institute. The lack of transparency has “weakened the credibility of the institutions, and the concern is that the same problem will repeat itself again and again.”