Greece Says "No" to More IMF Austerity; Europe in Limbo

This post is being written before all the votes in the Greek referendum on the IMF’s austerity program proposals have been counted, but it is clear that the Greek people have voted “NO” to the IMF/EU austerity proposals in what is shaping up to be a landslide victory for the “NO” vote faction. It appears that 60-62% of Greek voters voted “NO” to the proposal (first link and second link). The Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is touting the vote as a victory for Democracy as the people made the decision in their own behalf.

Now many aspects of European politics and finances are entering into a period of limbo. The IMF has suffered a major loss of prestige, power and influence. The Greeks clearly will accept no tighter austerity measures, so if Greece is to stay in the Eurozone and/or the EU, the EU negotiators are going to have to offer the Greek negotiators a better deal. If they offer only a slightly rearranged version of the previous austerity package, the Greek leaders have had their hand strengthened to say “No” to such terms. European leaders are clearly not reacting in a united fashion. The third link quotes the German Vice-Chancellor as saying that any further negotiations with Greece are “barely conceivable,” (third link) and the Polish Prime Minister stated that the “No” vote means that Greece has “no choice but to leave the Eurozone” (fourth link). However, as you scroll down on the fourth link, you will see very divergent European viewpoints. The head of the Socialist bloc in the EU Parliament called for new negotiations in which the creditor bloc and the Greek government should both show new flexibility. The Belgian government issued a statement that was so solidly in favor of new negotiations that it said such negotiations could start “within hours.”

Clearly, there is no current consensus within the Eurozone or the EU in how to react to the Greek vote. However, if hardliners succeed in driving Greece out of the Eurozone, Greece is likely to leave the EU as well. If an angered Greece is driven out of the Eurozone, they may leave in a way which sees Greece disavowing all its Eurozone debts and starting over essentially debt-free with a new drachma currency. That could turn into a Godsend for Greece and a disaster for the EU. I also think that the European Defense Ministers ought to urgently try to cool down the hardliner talk among the European financial and political leaders. If Greece leaves both the Eurozone and the EU, it may leave NATO as well. If that happens, NATO’s southeastern region collapses as Turkey is already barely in NATO with Erdogan setting Turkey on an Islamist course. Greece’s Prime Minister already consulted with Russia’s Putin during the talks that led up to the Greek referendum. In a sign that Greece may already be checking out new alliance partners, the Greek Foreign Minister has just begun a three-day state visit to Israel even before the votes are all counted in the Greek vote (fifth link). Greek-Israeli military and political ties are already close (a post on this fact can be located in my blog archives). Germany and Poland are issuing hardliner statements in the aftermath of the Greek vote; however, those two nations could be among the biggest geopolitical losers if Greece is driven out of the Eurozone and the EU and leaves NATO as well. If Russian warships can exit into the Mediterranean Sea without any hindrance by Turkey and Greece in the future, NATO’s assets will have to pivot southward, leaving fewer military assets to defend either Poland or Germany. Do you think Putin would use the Greek situation to drive a wedge within the NATO/EU alliances to divide the European nations from each other? Of course! “Divide and conquer” is one of the oldest strategies in the military history books.

Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail, and the EU nations offer Greece a better deal that keeps them in the Eurozone, the EU and NATO. A deal which renegotiates Greek debt and has the creditors take an acceptable “haircut” would seem to be a workable arrangement. To make feelings more soothed, perhaps the EU nations should negotiate directly with Greece and leave the now-rejected IMF out of the matter. The EU has a huge incentive to work this out amicably. If Greek is driven from the Eurozone and Greece responds by disavowing its Euro debts, think what this will do to the solvency of all major European banks and to the entire derivatives market which will see many derivatives contracts disintegrate under such a scenario. This could lead to a cascading derivatives crisis/collapse which could pull down all fiat currency and sovereign debt markets in a global fiscal crisis. While it is not likely that this crisis will be allowed to develop that far, this would be one more potential triggering event that could lead to a global financial crisis unfolding, literally, within one hour, as prophesied in Revelation 19:10 and 19.

So who is really responsible for the current Greek/EU/Eurozone crisis? Look no further than the Wall Street mega bank of Goldman Sachs. The sixth link, from Der Spiegel, exposes the role of Goldman Sachs in helping Greece to hide its true debt burden and financial situation from the EU at the time Greece joined the Eurozone. It was Goldman Sachs which helped dupe the Eurozone into admitting Greece in the first place. Do you suppose Goldman Sachs would profit from its insider knowledge of the real state of the Greek finances to go long on the US dollar and short the Euro because they knew such a crisis was inevitable? The seventh link will give readers a long list of media articles to review to document the extent of Goldman’s chicanery in setting the stage for this crisis. The European governments all know about Goldman Sachs’ level of responsibility for this crisis (I’m sure they’ve read the media articles in the sixth and seventh links). This can only serve to intensify the rage of the European governments vs. the Wall Street manipulators of what Revelation 17-18 calls “Babylon the Great.” When the “seven heads and ten horns” tear down the current global financial system of Babylon the Great and replace it with one of their own making, I expect that a number of those “seven heads and ten horns” will have European addresses.

Greece Says “No” to More IMF Austerity; Europe in Limbo

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