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    *http://www.gregpalast.com/lazy-ouzo-swilling-olive-pit-spitting-   
    greeksor-how-goldman-sacked-greece/*   
      
    **************************************************************************   
    *Lazy Ouzo-Swilling, Olive-Pit Spitting Greeks Or, How Goldman   
    Sacked Greece*   
      
    by Greg Palast for /In These Times/   
      
    Here's what we're told:Greece   
      
    Greece's economy blew apart because a bunch of olive-spitting,   
    ouzo-guzzling, lazy-ass Greeks refuse to put in a full day's   
    work, retire while they're still teenagers, pocket pensions fit   
    for a pasha; and they've gone on a social-services spending   
    spree using borrowed money. Now that the bill has come due and   
    the Greeks have to pay with higher taxes and cuts in their big   
    fat welfare state, they run riot, screaming in the streets,   
    busting windows and burning banks.   
      
    I don't buy it.  I don't buy it because of the document in my   
    hand marked, "RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION."   
      
    I'll cut to the indictment: *Greece is a crime scene*.  The   
    people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam.   
    And, cover the children's ears when I say this, a bank named   
    Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.   
      
    ********   
      
    This is an adaptation of an excerpt from *Vultures' Picnic* Greg   
    Palast's new book,   
      
    ********   
      
    In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up $2.3 billion in Greek   
    government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then   
    immediately sold it back to Greece.   
      
    Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.   
      
    ...   
      
    Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power   
    then.  Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit.   
    Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.   
      
    Goldman would get repayment of its "loss" from the   
    government at loan-shark rates.   
      
    The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain,   
    Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend   
    its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.   
      
    ...   
      
    To give you all the answers would require me to write a book.  I   
    have: Vultures' Picnic   
      
      
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... Paul Ryan's budget: Ryan's vision depends an awful lot on unicorn sightings   
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