Posted on 08/02/2011 9:06:23 PM PDT by Danae
In one of the biggest banks in the centre of Athens a clerk is explaining how his savers have been thronging to pull out their cash.
Wary of giving his name, he glances around the marble-floored, wood-panelled foyer before pulling out a slim A4-sized folder. It is about the size of a small safety-deposit box – and those, ever since the financial crisis hit Greece 18 months ago, have become the most sought-after financial products in the country. Worried about whether the banks will stay in business, Greeks have been taking their life savings out of accounts and sticking them in metal slits in basement vaults.
The boxes are so popular that the bank has doubled the rent on them in the past year – and still every day between five and 10 customers request one. This bank ran out of spares months ago. The clerk leans over: "I've been working in a bank for 31 years, and I've never seen a panic like this."
Official figures back him up. In May alone, almost €5bn (£4.4bn) was pulled out of Greek deposits, as part of what analysts describe as a "silent bank run". This version is also disorderly and jittery, just not as obvious. Customers do not form long queues outside branches, they simply squirrel out as much as they can. Some of that money will have been used to pay debts or supplement incomes, of course, but bankers put the sheer volume of withdrawals down to a general fear about the outlook for Greece, one that runs all the way from the humble rainy-day saver to the really big money.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
We can’t throw them out, they are the majority...and they rule us. Even our own side is on their side.
There are plenty out there who still believe in Krugman’s ‘spend your way to prosperity’ mantra. We have a lot of work to do.
We are heading down the same path, and apart from a handful of Patriots, no one seems to be serious about doing a damned thing about it.
We are going down hard.
I have been saying since the summer of 2010, it is the People against the Establishment. We know who we are, we know who they are. The Tea Party held OUR line in this latest battle. We know who are friends are. The Establishment is NOT our friend. Those who fought the debt increase... those are our friends. Let us cultivate those, and undermine the rest. We vote them out in Nov 2012.
This is the battle of OUR time. DO NOT GIVE UP THE SHIP. We have work to do my brothers and sisters. It will not be fast or easy, but it has to be done. That or freedom will die with us. Our children will never know it. That is NOT an option. I will go down fighting.
The Tea Party is the best hope we have for freedom.
Let’s roll.
/soapbox
Hear, hear Scott. Well said. Your words echoed the thoughts of our founding revolutionarys. I'm going to read your previous posts. You give good write.
Whisy Tango
I meant, "Hear, hear, Danae...
Don't try this at home boys and girls.
You’re so right - it’s appalling how many supposedly “intelligent” people (so many in power as well) believe in Krugman’s mantra - classic Keynesian economics (which is whacked - Hayek economics is correct, and these two diametrically opposed philosophies separate liberals from conservatives).
But here’s something even more appalling, and what we’re up against with the mass brainwashing of our youth - Paul Krugman received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. Besides being an author, columnist, and blogger, he teaches economics and international affairs at Princeton University.
That’s right - Princeton! Being a loud tv panelist and vile NY Times hack isn’t enough for him. No, he grabs a Nobel, then devotes his time to propagandizing young and old alike.
And there are thousands just like him out there, teaching students of all ages while getting accolades from the liberal intelligensia and MSM.
Did you hear that student loans will have to have payments made against them WHILE THE STUDENT is STILL in COLLEGE according to the new “debt” bill??? THAT may change those bastions of propaganda....
What? You mean pay the loan while still in school? Where did you read this?
The government should not be in the student loan business, anyway. It has permitted colleges to raise tutitions through the roof and become inane with pet causes and failed ideologies.
“Putting fiat currency away in a bank safety deposit box.”
That really characterizes the denial and lack of reality in their thinking, and frighteningly, Americans’ thinking as well (at least many millions of sheeple).
When I was reading that, I thought it would say they took their savings and bought gold/silver to put in the s.d. boxes.
But no - paper money (and their own country’s at that)!
Duh.
We are not Europeans here. WE are where the Europeans fled.
“Did you hear that student loans will have to have payments made against them WHILE THE STUDENT is STILL in COLLEGE according to the new “debt” bill??? THAT may change those bastions of propaganda....”
#####
Is that the huge collectivist-supported bubble of BigAcademia about to finally burst?
Anyone who puts assets away in a bank SD box is a fool. I disperse such things around my guns in the gun safe. Unfortunately, I lost the gun safe and all of the guns with it in a boating accident.
No, I haven’t heard that. But when BHO and the Dems ruled that there’d be no more private/bank student loans, but now only through the government, I’d also read somewhere that the student would be required to pledge several years (10?) of “public service” after graduation.
Haven’t heard anymore about it in awhile. But what comes to mind - often - is that speech BHO made before taking office, saying he wanted a civilian force as large and well-funded as our military.
Chilling stuff.
Banks in Germany are reporting the same problem with Safe Deposit Boxes, except the German people are stuffing their boxes with Gold and Silver.
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