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Pro Kiev militias are an existential threat to Ukraine’s ruling oligarchs

This week Ukraine’s police has been engaged in heavy fighting with nationalist militias in Mukacheve, near the Hungarian border. Ukrainian nationalist militias see the pro Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine as the their enemy, but they also despise the ruling oligarchic elite that is still in charge in Ukraine. Most of the pro Ukrainian fighters, like the AZOV battalion, in East Ukraine want to get rid of the current government that still consists of the same elite that mismanaged and has plundered Ukraine for more than two decades.

The political landscape in Ukraine is divided in three groups:

The pro Russian separatists who have a close economic, military and political  relation with Russia are fighting a war against different irregular Militias that have been brought under the umbrella organisation in April 2014, now known as the Ukrainian National Army.

The second group is the most powerful political force in Ukraine, it is made up of the ruling oligarchs that have been mismanaging Ukraine since its independence in 1992. After the Orange revolution and the 2014 Maidan protest the same oligarchs, like Poroshenko, who have ruled Ukraine for more than two decades are still in power. The bloody Maidan protest did not broaden the political base and legitimacy of Ukrainian political system.  The “Yalta European Strategy Conference” and “Pinchuk Foundation” are the platforms used by the oligarchs to discuss their policies for their businesses and Ukraine. These political platforms and organisations are established to discuss Ukraine’s future between Ukrainian oligarchs. These platforms do not have any participants from the Ukrainian working class and are a great example of how the Ukrainian political future is shaped by the arguments and fights between oligarchs among each other. The “Yalta European Strategy conference” and “Pinchuk Foundation” are uniting the Ukrainian oligarchs like Yanukovich, Yatsenyuk, Kuchma and Poroshenko with western business and political leaders like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Richard Branson. Continue reading →

A Greek exit will establish Berlin as the new geopolitical player to reckon with

If European Monetary Authorities could prevent a Lehman moment in case Greece has to leave the Euro we expect the euro to surge the coming months. Greece exiting the European Monetary Union will establish Berlin as the new geopolitical player to reckon with.

  • We noticed that the euro did not move since news from Greece went from bad to worse. The Greek referendum has even had a negative effect on the Dollar compared to the Japanese Yen.
  • Without Greece, the EMU forms a much tighter political and economical block.
  • It seems that markets are not able to push the Euro much lower.
  • If the ECB is able to manage a Greek exit, an EMU without Greece will strengthen the euro.
  • Greece exiting the EMU will be a victory for German elite and establish German dominance in the European Monetary Union.
  • A Greek exit will expose the relative weakness of the BRICS Bank versus European financial institutions like the EMU. The BRICS Bank fund will not be sufficient to rescue Greece. A BRICS bank not being able to help Greece will expose its relative weakness in comparison to the European financial institutions.
    EuroDollar

    Euro Dollar exchange rate since the Euro introduction in 2002

    It will be clear that only the ECB and the EMU have the financial capacity to solve problems of the magnitude of Greece.

  • If Germany does not save Greece, it will be a blow to the IMF that will render irrelevant as a paper tiger (紙老虎) unable to solve modern financial problems without the help of the European financial institutions. The IMF is not able to solve Greece’s financial problems and turned out to be ineffective in Ukraine, having an embarrassing tradition of failures in this country. A Greek exit will be a huge blow to the standing of the IMF.
  • Without Greece, Germany could concentrate on Ukraine, which has more value for Germany’s power elite.  Germany, Poland and Ukraine encompass an area of 160 Million inhabitants.
  • Germany will push the EMU in a continuous trade surplus creating a much higher demand for euros world wide. We do not believe the dollar can maintain its dominance by creating a continuous deficit.
  • A Greek exit will be evidence that the US and IMF influence on Berlin is waning.

We do not express our opinion on the validity of Germans policy nor the moral implication of the EMU policy.

Who ordered Tsipras and Varoufakis to change their course?

The US and the IMF are in the driver’s seat again in the Europe political arena. Berlin has no alternative besides accepting the US-IMF proposal for Greece. After Sunday’s referendum in Greece, the country leaving the Euro seems immanent, but since Monday some very odd and unexplained things have happened.

It could be that Tsiparis and Varoufakis suddenly started to understand that the greatly hailed BRICS bank only has a fund of 100 Billion, which is a fraction of the 700 Billion ESM fund. The ESM fund was created by the European Monetary authorities to stabilize the Euro.

The 53 Billion euro Greece urgently needs will immediately drain the BRICS bank fund by more than 50%. Russia and China do not like to see their hailed BRICS bank fund being halved within the same week of its creation.

It is also possible that someone with higher authority than the Greek populace has explained Tsipras and Varoufakis that they are treading in dangerous waters and have to change their course.

After the referendum it seems some invisible hand forced Varoufakis out of office. The same Varoufakis who vowed to resign in case of a “Yes” vote, surprised everyone as he promptly resigned after Greece overwhelmingly voted the opposite.

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How the ECB can dissolve the Greek debt while keeping the full amount on its balance

European Central Bankers should look at their counterpart at the other side of the Atlantic to learn how you can cook the books and solve the problems.
The European Sovereign debt crisis could be solved in the same manner as the US’ Mortgage Crisis.

The ECB is not able to apply a haircut to the Greek Debt because this would erase a part of its balance sheet. The European Central Bank has to dissolve the Greek debt obligation, while at the same time keeping them on their balance sheet.
The FED was confronted with a comparable problem, it started to buy 40 billion dollar Mortgage-backed Securities per month in 2012, while it had already accumulated 834 billion dollar Mortgage-backed Securities. One can wonder if the collateral, the underlying houses of these securities still exists and how bad the cash stream of these securities are.
But given the structure of the MBS, nobody cares.
For the FED it is no problem what the real value of the individual mortgages is, because these securities are mark-to- market and as the FED is the biggest purchaser, it sets the market price. The price of these securities are whatever the FED wants to pay for them when it buys these products and whatever it asks for it if they want to sell them.

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There is no juridical solution for Greece, no matter what they vote

Politicians and geopolitical strategist have to realize that independent Central Banks do not exist, central banks are an integrated part of geopolitics. 

“There is no plan for Greece”, explained Gefira Foundation associate in the European parliament. The mood is split between the Liberals and Socialist. The Liberal faction believes that there is only a solution possible if Greece votes yes, however the Socialist do not believe in a solution whatsoever. They see a yes-outcome as terrible as a no-outcome and fear for the future of the Euro Area.

According to the latest IMF report, Greece needs a much bigger financial support than is assumed by European creditors. Greece is not only in arrears in relation to the IMF, but “the (Greek) government has been accumulating arrears, including unprocessed pension and tax refund claims. The estimated stock stands at over 7 billion and will need to be cleared”. The IMF concluded that Greece will need an other 50 billion Euro Bailout to be able to repay its massive debt, the debt they accumulated during the European economic wonder years. We have noticed that Greece currently is running a public budget surplus.

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Egypt on the edge of a full blown civil war

In the past days there have been dozens of separate attacks in Egypt, from the Sinai up to Cairo. Probably more than 60 people have died, when the Egyptian army used F16 fighter jets to protect itself against it disgruntled population.
It is clear that the Egyptian rulers are not going to be able to contain the current situation, today could be marked as the start of Egypt’s civil war.

Democratic elected governments have been violently overthrown, in Algeria, Egypt and  Palestinian territories. In Algeria the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front)  had won the first held elections with a convincing majority in 1990 and 1992. It has been removed from power in 1992 by a coup d’etat that was highly approved by the West. Probably 150.000 people died in the civil war that followed these events up.
HAMAS winning the 2006 elections in the Palestinian territories resulted in a war among Palestinians and ended up with a split of Gaza and the West Bank
In 2011 Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood won the first free elections in Egypt.
In 2013 the first elected president of Egypt was removed by the army. There are clear signs that anti-democratic forces were deliberately destabilizing Egypt before the coup d’etat in 2013. In the running up of the July 3th coup by General Sisi an artificial oil shortages was created that contributed to the mass protest against the elected president of Egypt.
The new army coup was financially supported by the Saudi rulers while the West was mute, the only vocalized opposition came from Turkey’s ruler MrErdoğan.
Washington was silent about Egypt’s coup and even resumed the delivery of military hardware to the Egyptian rulers, at the same moment Morsi received the dead penalty during a mock process.  The situation in Egypt will be much worse than the situation that we saw in Algeria in 1992.

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Greece’s forthcoming financial collapse will not be without consequences for the Euro

This week 11.3 million European citizens will discover that their Euro’s have disappeared overnight as a part of Europe’s Banking system collapse.  Not only private banks in Greece are unable to cope with the situation but also a part of the European System of Central Banks has stopped functioning.

The fallout will not be restricted to direct loses but also include indirect loses due to political upheaval.

The Greek debt of around 370 Billion Euro’s is primarily held by institutions as the IMF (10%), Euro-Area Governments (62%) and (8%) by the ECB.
16% is probably held by private investors like Japonic Partners and Paulson & Co.
The direct loses of banks outside of Greece are limited, however the indirect damage will be tremendous. Investors and bankers will discover that the public and political support for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) has been evaporate.
The indirect fallout will be immense and could trigger a worldwide financial and political crisis.

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