Doing Everything Possible To Force The Greeks to Leave Or Just Surrender All To the Plunderersr

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mark-grant-greek-annexation

Mark Grant On The Greek Annexation

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/25/2012 14:30 -0500

• Creditors
 
• Eurozone
 
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• Germany
 
• Greece
 
• headlines
 
• International Monetary Fund
 
• Nancy Pelosi
 
• Netherlands

Submitted by Mark Grant, Author of the Financial Commentary: "Out of the Box"

"He also said that the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, would be installing its own officials at Greek ministries to provide technical assistance and monitoring on a permanent basis on the ground in Athens." 

This is a quote from the article attached. I think it can be now said that Greece has been annexed by Europe. There is a separate article today where Germany is going to send some of its tax collectors to Greece. As Germany is refusing to increase the funds for the ESM or the EFSF; the IMF is demanding it as a precondition of additional aid. The G-20 meeting appears not to provide any further funds for Europe until Europe has provided more themselves. It is getting down to a "shut-up or put-up" moment for Germany as there is obvious serious dissension in the German Parliament on the next round of the Greek bailout package and also difficulties in the Parliaments of Finland and the Netherlands. 

My advice is to put all of the headlines aside because they are not accurate. No deal has actually been struck and there is just the possibility of one at present. The PSI is also nowhere near certain. There has certainly been a proposal made with innumerable and probably impossible conditions to be met by Greece including a demand for a Constitutional change, which under the current Constitution, cannot even be voted on until 2013. I often wonder if Europe really wants to bail Greece out or if Germany is not forcing so many conditions that they are trying to have them exit the Euro on their own so the Germans are not seen as the Lord High Executioner; to quote Mr. Gilbert & Sullivan.  

[ZH: close - Germany is likely hoping that Greek creditors holdouts,as discussed here a month ago, will block the PSI transaction, and as a result push Greece into insolvency. This would achieve the German goal, and further shift the blame on "evil speculative hedge funds" (we can already see the Nancy Pelosi statement), who however will receive assurances from the proper channels that nothing bad will befall them even as they are blasted in public.]

The debt payment of March 20 looms for Greece while the IMF now says they will not discuss their part of the Greek loan until March 13. If the IMF only funds $17.4Bn as suggested by the German Finance Minister then the Eurozone will have to come up with even more money which no nation in Europe has yet approved. At then end it is going to get quite messy in my opinion with so many forces converging at the March 20 juxtaposition. You may hold what opinion you like about all of this but I urge caution and some additional cash on your table as this may not play out how anyone expects it.

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and......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9106264/German-cabinet-minister-calls-for-Greek-euro-exit.html

Becoming the first member of Germany’s cabinet to openly call for a Greek exit, Hans-Peter Friedrich told Der Spiegel magazine that Greece’s chances of restoring its financial health would be greater outside the euro.

“I’m not saying that Greece should be thrown out but rather to create incentives that it can’t say ‘no’ to,” he added.

His comments came as eurozone leaders faced calls to increase their own efforts before any more money is made available from the IMF. Fresh from agreeing a second €130bn (£110bn) bail-out for Greece, there were hopes that this weekend’s gathering of G20 finance ministers in Mexico City would achieve a deal on how to ramp up the IMF’s own European war chest by as much as $600bn (£378bn).

UK Treasury officials made it clear that any new deal with the IMF was now likely to be delayed until meetings in April. Eurozone leaders have been negotiating with the US, China and Japan to contribute more to the IMF to build a “financial firewall” that would shield the likes of the Spanish and Italian economies from any intensification of the region’s crisis this year.

Despite fears in Washington, Tokyo and Beijing that Europe still poses a real threat to the wider global economic recovery, they want to see Europe take further steps first. America’s opposition is fiercest, with the White House making clear it won’t contribute more to the IMF. “What we don’t want to see is the IMF substitute – and it really cannot substitute – for a stronger European response,” US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said.

Other major contributors to the IMF are insisting that Europe must combine its two existing bail-out funds as a pre-condition of any extra money from the IMF. The European Financial Stability Facility, which is worth about €250bn, will be joined this summer by the €500bn European Stability Mechanism.

“We have to take a hard look at the firewall,” said Angel Gurria, head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “The bigger, the thicker, the deeper and the taller it is, the more credible it will be and the less likely it will have to be used.”

European leaders will discuss whether to weld the funds together at a summit in Brussels this week. But, Germany has so far refused to say whether it would support such a move.

Mr Weidmann hit back at criticism that Europe’s largest economy was not doing enough to solve the Continent’s crisis. Germany bore a “disproportionately large share” of the financing of the two bail-out funds, he said, adding that there was a misconception the country had managed to “dodge the flames of the current crisis”.