In light of the recent “triumphant” return of Greece to the capital markets with its brand new 5 Year bond issuance (which much to the chagrin of the flippers is already trading below its breaking price), one of our Greek readers decided to provide his “on the ground” perspective on what is really happening in Greece.
To zerohedge team
Regarding the past two days in Athens, Greece
I follow your blog consistently. I am Greek and I trade on overseas (from my perspective) markets. I share a number of your views and would like to forward you my sincere thanks for revealing the ins and outs of algos all that time ago and managed to work my way around them. It was algos that caused to suffer a giant instant loss on “flashing Thursday”, which really awakened me as to the nature of the business and the markets. I doubt I would have ever progressed to get my head around certain concepts if it wasn’t for certain insights you provided.
I am writing you in an effort to get you to provide a more public and harsh(I mean realistic) description of what has been going on, for the past few days with relation to what’s left of my country. I doubt it will not take you long to discover its mostly spent on “political commissions” and interest payments (I’d bet only 6-7% actually flows through). I am sure you are aware that according to Greek law all political parties receive some kind of (substantial) financial support from the government budget. The government has not delivered. There are still over 900,000 people working for public and government related services, for a population of roughly 11 million. The banks still maintain negative real equity and have consistently defrauded investors over the past few years. In the second half of 2013, the recap programs they supposedly undertook, ended up causing even more losses or at least leaving the balances of investors enormously negative. No one stood up and said a thing, not even the Union of Greek Banks, whose job is essentially to help investors, not help banks defraud investors. The head of this organization actually happens to have an interesting history involving various scandals and frauds (I know what you are going to say, who isn’t at this point).
In all the panic and the lying, the current administration, a bunch of second generation hustlers who are professional politicians, (if there is such a thing…I think it was Plato that understood politics best. “leave politics to the philosophers” he said.) are parading our re-entry to the Fed sponsored EZ sovereign debt markets like it’s a triumph, when in fact what little is left of my age old country is being raped and levered. The guided media are applauding or better while the greater population which has no sense of what the difference between a stock and bond is, doesn’t know whether to cry or hang themselves.
But when Frau visits, the whole city has to stop what it’s doing. I think I saw several accidents on the way home. The entire traffic in the centre of the city has to come to a complete halt for over three and a half hours (I know because I was in the fucking car for two and a half and then another hour at least spent waiting at a single point in Zografou, some 3-4 kilometers away from the closed out area of the center.
Summoning as much naivety and faith as possible, I would love to see your stream of though and criticism concerning the true raping and pillaging being done in my country. And while we are “too small to matter”, sometimes all it takes is for someone to shed a speck of light in an otherwise blackened cave, in order to slowly find our way out, or in this case to show the true nature of things, which is lost in the eyes of the outside world, in what is effectively a third world society.
Sincerely and with Respect
G.K. Kolmer
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1kLUTAw Tyler Durden