The 55-year-old Dutchman was stationed in Greece between October 2010 and September 2013. He originally lived in an apartment on downtown Dionysiou Areopagitou Street but moved to a house in Filothei, northern Athens, after his home address was leaked to the press.
Traa is a national of the Netherlands and has been with the IMF for 25 years. He holds a PhD in economics. His work for the Fund has focused on Latin America (including Brazil and Argentina) and Europe (including Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Greece), and spans both annual surveillance and program design and implementation. His background is in international monetary economics and his interests focus on integrating balance sheet analysis into fiscal policy making for improved macroeconomic and inter temporal balance.
He has often disagreed with those saying that the Greece EUR/IMF program was not successful, (even though the program proved to be unsuccessful later on).
Indeed, Traa is no one’s idea of a radical, quite the contrary. This Dutchman labors at the IMF, among the arcana of global debt statistics and let us not forget that he is also the one that wrote the (scandalous and damaging to our economy) reports that in return were damaging to our economy, One such report in 2009 influenced the rating agencies and lenders to be extremely nasty with our country's borrowing capabilities.
Quite suspiciously, immediately after that (scandalous and insulting to Greece) report, he produced another report with an even more damning analysis, which concluded that if Greece were a company, it would be bankrupt.
During that period, the IMF was so desperate to get its clutches on Greece that he probably would have continued producing damaging reports if given the opportunity until our nation surrendered to them.
(Quite interestingly, in the last report he said that the net worth of Greece was a negative 51 billion euros. Quite coincidentally he produced it right after George Papandreou came to power -and we all know that Papandreou was not working in favor of Greek interests and that he was also working underground with the former IMF head Strauss-Khann in order to get Greece into the IMF-. Funny how everything just begins to tie together once every piece of the puzzle begins fitting into place. So let us recap: The "elites and/or banksters" set up Papandreou to be their front man in office and at the same time were secretly negotiating with him underground to tie and gag all of Greece's reserves and banks under their realm. They then had people like Traa producing suspicious reports about the Greek economy which in return helped to escalate the rate of negative reports about the Greek economy making it hard for our country to borrow and they also had George Papakostantinou who obviously and without a doubt cooked up the statistics with several other buffoons -one of which is also coincidentally a former IMF executive- to work together with a plethora of other shameless idiots who are more or less tied to the same corrupt and rotten to the core banking institution. If one set about to destroy an economy and then move in and plunder the nation from all of its assets and reserves... Then certainly this is a good way to do it.)
Papandreou's PASOK party, which threw our country into the IMF's clutches never changed its ways. Instead of apologizing to Greek citizens for inflating the public sector in the late 80s and 90s they allowed their network of cronies to continue with business as usual once good old George came into power again, despite the fact that we were not permitted to in accordance to the Memorandums that were signed by Papandreou himself. Did the IMF know about this? Obviously it did and this is where the paradox begins because although they speak about cutting back on state employees they were overlooking all this during Papandreou's rule. At the time a Greek newspaper revealed that the government was increasing the rate of public servants -in a period when the government was supposed to be decreasing the numbers- and that threats were made against one particular journalist for bringing this story to light.
The Greek journalist received the support of the The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) which in return condemned the actions of a senior IMF representative who threatened to cut off official information from being made available to the Greek newspaper "To Vima".
Specifically, the threat was made to Greek journalist Zois Tsolis, He revealed how Greece had increased its number of public servants, despite the Troika recommending that numbers shouldn’t change. The EFJ reported that having been called into a meeting with a senior IMF representative, the journalist refused to reveal the sources for his story, at which point the threat was made to cut off official information and press releases from being made available to the paper.
And to think after being exposed like that Traa would alter his strategy or that the IMF itself would come up with another way to appear supportive. No chance.
Let us not forget that this man at one point literally laid down the law at an Athens business conference, and his every word at that conference was bellowing out the desires of the IMF itself. Speaking in a country that had at the time seen its official jobless rate nearly double since 2008, Traa more or less had the audacity to give vent of the eager anticipation of bankers and big investors on the immense profits to be made from the fire sale of Greek state assets.
“A lot of money is looking at Greece,” Traa said. “The privatizations program isn’t just structural reform but also a way to bring in foreign direct investment to get liquidity and capital.”.Did all this go unnoticed? No it didn't. On the contrary it apparently angered a few groups in Greece that are not really known to play fairly. More precisely, in December 2013, a report in Kathimerini claimed that Greek authorities had intelligence reports in their possession that showed that anti-establishment groups had been preparing an attack against Bob Traa. In that report, sources had revealed to Kathimerini that the intelligence service (EYP) was informed of plans to raid the Filothei residence that August. The report also noted that the attack would be carried out by 15-20 self-styled anarchists on motorbikes who would arrive at the spot from different directions in order to evade police patrols.
Following this, security was reportedly beefed up in anticipation of any threats. Of course a threat never occurred and all we know is that Traa left Greece only to be replaced by another suspicious character from the IMF. Quite conveniently, native American IMF rep. Wes McGrew began his assignment as resident representative on September 2nd, 2013, replacing Traa, whose three-year assignment had apparently come to an end. McGrew, a US national, has been with the IMF since 2004 and has worked on a number of countries including Ecuador, Turkey, FYROM and Cyprus
(Notice that there are geopolitical and political issues of play in all the above countries where this certain individual has worked, and notice the timing of his appointment in Athens. First the elites come in and plunder the nation, and then the imperialists come in and gobble up the country in a geopolitical sense).
Reports claim that before joining the IMF, McGrew even held positions at the NASDAQ stock market and at the US treasury department. Oh but wait... He also holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago. (Yes the university that has produced a plethora of fraud banksters who have helped Wall Street to dismantle and destroy numerous economies around the world).
(It's all starting to make sense now... isn't it dear Frappers. After a supposed threat from Leftist anarchists -who we know work for George Soros- one obviously deranged IMF official leaves only to be replaced by another IMF official who worked for the US government -or US treasury department-. If this does not scream out support for the petro-dollar at all costs... Then we do not know what does.)
And if you think that our rant about the IMF is personal, then think again. Richer nations that work through international institutions like the IMF and/or the World Bank almost never EVER help poor countries modernize and strengthen public services.
Look at the facts in hand. In most cases, they often push nations to privatize and commercialize public services, a move that they themselves would never make. Leading the tide of globalization, these specific international financial institutions are aggressively and undemocratically promoting an ideological agenda of privatization and commercialization.
We are convinced that the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization only care about dismantling nations and what is worse, they don't care who does it and what repercussions these actions will have on the country at hand and its people.
Global financial institutions claim that such reforms help reduce poverty, but in all reality the only thing that they are achieving is to promote the interests of multinational corporations that are involved in the sectors of water, telecommunications and you guessed it ENERGY. (It is always about the oillllll.....)
When countries suffer from financial crises or crippling debt like Greece did and/or are too weak to defend themselves, then these global banksters insist on privatization of state-owned enterprises, utilities and social services as a condition for financial help. They also push privatization indirectly. One example of this is that they typically require cuts in government budgets, public services and aid to localities and they press for the decentralization of public services, the dismantling of utilities into smaller units, the assessment of market prices for services and the elimination of cross-subsidies that can decrease costs for the poor.
In simple words every measure that the government has taken over the last four years.
(Frappers remind me to send a thank-you note to George Papandreou for making sure that his American banking buddies destroyed us!)
Following all these cuts and when municipalities are financially squeezed to the bone by all these brutal policies then they are easy prey. So easy that they almost immediately begin to privatize the decentralized services.
And once they do that, then the vulture multinationals dive in and pick and choose the most profitable companies. In most cases they choose the ones that are serving more affluent urban areas, leaving the government responsible for poor and unprofitable regions.
"Paradoxically, weak and corrupt governments, whose public services could most benefit from reform, are least able to regulate privatized systems. Often they sell public goods on the cheap to cronies and patrons, making privatization into something like "briberization," said one former World Bank chief economist by the name of Joseph Stiglitz.In all fairness there are instances such as in Chile where privatized public enterprises increased efficiency and improved service. But in developing countries, there also are countless horror stories of price gouging, poor service, meager investment and discrimination against the poor from every continent and in every arena of privatization. (Reference The IMF and WorId Bank continue to push privatization, in spite of its massive failures. by David Moberg In These Times magazine, March 2004)
If one sits and analyzes what the IMF and all these other global banking institutions have done over the years in tens of nations around the world then they would certainly agree me that this is not ‘Structural Adjustment’, on the contrary it is total -and without a doubt- social genocide.
Signed
Marina Spanos
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