Facing the threat of a delay in the disbursement of bailout installments from the Troika, Greece’s caretaker government has suspended rebates and payments to suppliers of the public sector. All loans by banks to any business, regardless of viability, have been stopped. In the absence of safe ways to sell, 74% of Greek companies are focused on debt reduction. And foreign companies importing to Greece are demanding money up front. The Troika’s crazy austerity and repayment schedules demand a Greek economy going at Full Ahead Both. It is now on Silent All Stop.
Thanks to cut-off threats from Berlin-am-Brussels, the Athens government has stopped paying suppliers, foreign importers will not ship until upfront cash has been received and confirmed, and banks have been instructed to lend nothing to either domestic or business borrowers.
The personal loans ban has been framed in the light of a rush for ‘credit’ alongside massive withdrawals. Loans by banks were running at €11bn euros a month. From here on they will be zero.
Meanwhile, the insolvency and supply problems for drugs at retail level in Greece has predictably backed upstream. Greek GPs are owed €620m. The provision of primary medical care and medicines to about 9 million people is very close to collapse due to the accumulated debts of the National Organization for the Provision of Health Services (EOPPY), as the government has reneged on its promise to settle all arrears to private suppliers of the old insurance funds (that now make up EOPPY) by the end of March. The money involved – a total of around €1.7 billion – spookily isn’t there any more: it went to pay off the last of the bondholders.
For damned are those who will not pay The Bondholders.
As the Mad Woman of Monetary Funding launches nanny-fury at Greek citizens, even New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras is now saying that he wants the Troika bailout schedule suspended.
But weigh these up as a measure of the disconnect between the financial sector, Brussels, and Real Earth:
‘Stocks rise as Greek euro exit fears wane’ (FT at 8.20 am).
‘The euro bounced off two-year lows on Monday after Greek conservatives topped opinion polls ahead of another general election’ (Reuters at 7.17am).
And the final (if predictably) irony. the IMF’s cheeky minx Pristine Lowgrade told Bloomberg she was ‘sensitive’ to the plight facing Greece, and she was misheard by those who didn’t catch her real meaning, viz – that the wealthy must pay their fair share of taxes.
Well Prissy, the wealthy Greeks are buying London properties, the Eurozone is sinking fast, and Greece is close to anarchy. It’s a little too late for mendacious, back-handed apologies.
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