The Epic Collapse of Deutsche Bank

[MikeWB]

Brussels urgently needs a €150 billion bailout to begin a major recapitalization program for its banks, according to Deutsche Bank's David Folkerts-Landau.

In the aftermath of UK's Brexit vote, the focus of attention has switched to Italy's banking sector, which has accumulated €360 billion in bad loans, and growing.

A former member of the ECB executive board Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, and now chairman at Societe Generale, has warned the banking crisis in Italy could spread to the entire EU.

"Europe is extremely sick and must start dealing with its problems extremely quickly, or else there may be an accident. I'm no doomsday prophet, I am a realist," he said in an interview to Welt am Sonntag.

According to Folkerts-Landau, Brussels should follow Washington's steps that helped US banks with a $475 billion bailout.

"In Europe, the bailout does not need to be so large. A €150 billion program should be enough to help European banks recapitalize," he said.

The decline in bank stocks is only the symptom of a much larger problem, which is low growth, high debt and dangerous deflation, Folkerts-Landau added.

Over the last 12 months, Deutsche Bank shares have plummeted 48 percent. Another major European bank, Credit Suisse is down 63 percent since July 31 last year. All in all, the Bloomberg Europe 500 Banks and Financial Services Index has nosedived 33 percent in 2015 to the lowest level in more than seven years as of last Thursday.


However, the economist said a new global crisis is less probable, as the banks have grown more stable and have more equity. Despite this, they face "a slow, long downward spiral."

https://www.rt.com/business/350622-european-banks-crisis-deutsche-bank/



http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/deutsche-bank-fall-chart.png

[MikeWB]

Snapchat is worth more than Deutsche Bank!! A f*cking app that makes silly faces is worth more than the biggest bank of EU's biggest economy!



European banks are undergoing a real-life stress test in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union. Their share prices were already down 20 percent this year; since the referendum result was announced, they've doubled that decline. If the rot isn't stopped soon, Europe will have found a novel solution to the too-big-to-fail problem -- by allowing its banks to shrink until they're too small to be fit for purpose. The answer is found in the adage never let a good crisis go to waste.

The current situation should be both a motivation and an excuse to do what Europe failed to do after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers brought the financial world to its knees: fix its banking system. Here's a snapshot of this year's drop in value of some of the region's biggest institutions:

Deutsche Bank, which once had pretensions to be Europe's contender on the global investment banking stage, is now worth just 17 billion euros ($18 billion). When the biggest bank in Europe's biggest economy, with annual revenue of about 37 billion euros, is worth about the same as Snapchat -- a messaging app that generated just $59 million of revenue last year -- you know something's wrong. No wonder the billionaire investor George Soros was betting against Deutsche Bank shares this month.

Greece has recapitalized its banks three times, to almost no effect. Piraeus Bank, for example, is worth less than 1.5 billion euros, down from 4 billion euros in December after the last cash injection, and as much as 11 billion euros just two years ago.

UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank, has suffered particularly badly this year. It has a market capitalization of just 12 billion euros, dwarfed by its non-performing loans worth 51 billion euros. Italian banks as a whole have non-performing debts worth 198 billion euros, a total that's been rising ever since the financial crisis and is illustrative of Europe's failure to tackle its banking problems:

Add in so-called "sofferenze," Italian for doubtful loans, and the total value of Italian debt at risk of non-payment rises to about 360 billion euros. That explains why Italy has seized upon Brexit to justify trying to shovel 40 billion euros of state aid into its banking system, much to the annoyance of Germany, which views the move as contravening rules on state aid.

Rather than risk a messy fight at a time when the EU needs to at least pretend to be united, Europe's regulators should acknowledge that the region needs a functioning banking system more than it needs the hobgoblin of regulatory consistency. Otherwise, all of the European Central Bank's efforts to stimulate growth using monetary policy are doomed to failure.

So the authorities need to backtrack. To save face, Brexit can be classified as a force majeure event, echoing the legal clauses in many contracts that allow transactions to be suspended or standards ignored in the event of a game-changing catastrophe.

A looser architecture for letting governments bail out their banks is needed. And while it would be a mistake to scrap the bail-in rules designed to safeguard taxpayers by requiring bondholders and shareholders to share in the losses when financial companies get into trouble, some leeway in how those regulations are applied would seem to be sensible in the current febrile environment. In the U.K., the Bank of England is already drawing up plans to cut capital requirements for British institutions.

Jonathan Tyce, a senior banking analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, argues that the collapse in bank capital may give banking supervisors the justification they need to roll back regulations and relax the rules on state aid, especially if the ECB takes the lead:

    "It remains unlikely that Italy, in isolation, will be able to evoke exceptional circumstances to directly bolster the capital bases of its banks. Yet the ECB may look to liquidity conditions and dwindling capital build across the region as a catalyst to reassess its regulatory approach."

America sorted its banks out swiftly after the 2008 credit crisis. Balance sheets were recapitalized, the value of distressed assets was written down and the new regulatory framework was put in place. Europe didn't do the same. It should now seize this second chance that fortune has dropped into its lap -- otherwise, it risks turning the Brexit crisis into a financial catastrophe.
(Corrects fourth paragraph to show market capitalization of Piraeus Bank reached 11 billion euros two years ago, not 40 billion euros.)

[rmstock]

I categorize this as pure propaganda. In what way are Goldman Sachs,
George Soros and Russia Today connected in this smear campaign against
Deutsche Bank ?  It seems George Soros has some strange allies in his
fight to bring down Deutsche Bank and after it's take over, the take
over of the German economy. Allies seem to run from Jim Willie and Max
Keiser to several other economic/financial gossip gold/silver share
peddlers.

[MikeWB]

Deutsche Bank did a ton of bad deals at the urging of german government and ECB. DB has something like $21 trillion worth of exposure to various derivatives. Most are junk. That's why they're screwed.

[yankeedoodle]

These derivatives are figments of bankers' imaginations.  Ask yourself: 13 TRILLION?  Bookkeeping bullshit.

[abduLMaria]

Snapchat is worth more than Deutsche Bank!! A f*cking app that makes silly faces is worth more than the biggest bank of EU's biggest economy!

That's what I'm saying !

In 2008 I had an account with Washington Mutual, a large US bank with $300+ Billion in assets.

I had to drive 600 miles to close an account ... what motivated me to prepare for the trip was the WaMu market cap (stock price x total # shares).  When it fell below $10, I knew it was time to make the trip.

Closed the account Sept. 20 2008, withdrawing $20K.  Market Cap was down to $5 Billion.

WaMu closed September 25, 2008.  Sold to JP Morgan Chase, world's most honest bank  /sarc
for about $1.8 Billion.

So, between the time I closed it, WaMu was around $3 Billion Market cap.  So the Ratio, Market Cap to Total Assets, was about 1:100.


Guess what Deutsch Bank's Market Cap to Total Assets ratio is ?

Below 1:100.

WORSE THAN WAMU ... when it's collapse was a done deal.  I was still in town on Sept. 25, 2008 ... visited the bank that was WaMu, with the new "JP M Chase" sign.

They said, "oh yes, all our managers went for training this week."


When the prudent action is for EVERYBODY to close their accounts with Europe's largest bank, and start walking away from it ... Brussels, YOU have a problem.


It might be good for the printing business though - they will need new business cards ?


Anyway, my market cap/ assets ratio assessment method was a good way to spot a problem.

It was my "Canary" in 2008, helped me move savings out of the way of a crashing bank.


European banks are different, the situation is different ... but a lot of elements are the same.


The central question I would ask the "everything is OK" crowd is ... if DB is so SOUND and STABLE - shouldn't you be buying the stock now ?

They don't like that question.

2 weeks ago I gave DB 0 to 3 months before a BK.  2 1/2 months left.

[MikeWB]

abduLMaria, I now do all my banking at a local credit union. They're stable and they're not owned by merchants. Screw all these big banks.

I wonder what ECB do about DB's collapse. I think they will intervene but it's impossible to stop anything. DB has already gone beyond the point of no return.

I found this amusing:



Deutsche Bank's Shocking ECB Rant: Warns Of Social Unrest And Another Great Depression

In early February, in a post titled "A Wounded Deutsche Bank Lashes Out At Central Bankers: Stop Easing, You Are Crushing Us", we showed just how vast the feud between Europe's biggest - and ever more troubled commercial bank - and the ECB had become. As DB's Parag Thatte lamented then, "ECB rhetoric suggests additional easing measures forthcoming in March. While a fundamental tenet of these measures, in particular negative rates, has been to push investors out the risk spectrum, we remind that arguably the impact has been exactly the opposite." And while the DB analyst has been correct, and now NIRP is widely accepted as a major mistake, the ECB proceeded to not only ease even more just one month after this first DB lament, but in what may have been a direct affront to DB, launched the monetization of corporate bonds, something which as we documented earlier today has now led to the complete disconnect between bonds and underlying fundamentals.

It was also led to daily record low yields for government bonds around the globe.

Last but not least, it has pushed the stock price of Deutsche Bank to levels not seen since the financial crisis as DB suddenly finds itself unable to make money in an NIRP environment.

Which brings us to today, when overnight DB's chief economist David Folkerts-Landau released a scathing report titled "The ECB must change", one which blows DB's February lament out of the water, and in which DB accuses the ECB of putting not only its future at risk, but the future of the entire Eurozone, with its destructive policies.

A quick read of the executive summary of this epic rant reveals just how shockingly bad relations between Germany's biggest bank and the former Goldman partner have now become.

    Over the past century central banks have become the guardians of our economic and financial security. The Bundesbank and Federal Reserve are respected for achieving monetary stability, often in the face of political opposition. But central bankers can also lose the plot, usually by following the economic dogma of the day. When they do, their mistakes can be catastrophic.

     

    Today the behaviour of the European Central Bank suggests that it too has gone awry. After seven years of ever-looser monetary policy there is increasing evidence that following the current dogma, broad-based quantitative easing and negative interest rates, risks the long-term stability of the eurozone.

     

    Already it is clear that lower and lower interest rates and ever larger purchases are confronting the law of decreasing returns. What is more, the ECB has lost credibility within markets and more worryingly among the public.

     

    But the ECB's response is to push policy to further extremes. This causes mis-allocations in the real economy that become increasingly hard to reverse without even greater pain. Savers lose, while stock and apartment owners rejoice.

     

    Worse, by appointing itself the eurozone's "whatever it takes" saviour of last resort, the ECB has allowed politicians to sit on their hands with regard to growth-enhancing reforms and necessary fiscal consolidation.

     

    Thereby ECB policy is threatening the European project as a whole for the sake of short-term financial stability. The longer policy prevents the necessary catharsis, the more it contributes to the growth of populist or extremist politics.

     

    Our models suggest that in its fight against the spectres of deflation and unanchored inflation expectations the ECB's monetary policy has already become too loose. Hence, we believe the ECB should start to prepare a reversal of its policy stance. The expected increase in headline inflation to above one per cent in the first quarter of 2017 should provide the opportunity for signalling a change.

     

    A returning to market-based pricing of sovereign risk will incentivise governments to begin growth-friendly reforms and to tackle fiscal stability. Flagging the move should dampen adverse reactions in financial markets.

     

    We believe that normalising rates would be seen as a positive signal by consumers and corporate investors. The longer the ECB persists with unconventional monetary policy, the greater the damage to the European project will be.

And just in case readers don't have a sense of what "great damage" from a central bank looks like, DB is happy to provide the imagery: think Weimar hyperinflation and even another Great Depression.

    Central bankers make big mistakes too

     

    In the 1920s the Reichsbank thought it could have 2,000 printing presses running day and night to finance government spending without creating inflation. Around the same time the Federal Reserve allowed more than a third of US deposits to be destroyed via bank failures, in the belief that banking crises where self-correcting. The Great Depression followed.

     

    That was a hundred years ago but mistakes keep happening despite all the supposed improvements to central banking, from independence to better data and more sophisticated theoretical and econometric models. The so-called Jackson Hole consensus before the latest financial crisis tolerated credit growth moving out of sync with the real economy in many areas of the world. The prevailing dogma at the time was that traditional measures of inflation were low and those bubbles in asset markets shouldn't really exist.

     

    The popular dogma shared among central bankers today is that a lack of demand is the source of all evil causing sub-par inflation. Once such a conclusion has been reached, evidence becomes abundant. This is a phenomenon known as confirmation bias in behavioural economics. Other explanations for low inflation today are brushed aside.

     

    People who are convinced they possess the only correct analytical approach to a problem are labelled hedgehogs in the book Superforecasting by PhilipTetlock. Hedgehogs perceive all incoming information through their one seemingly correct lens, making them blind to alternative interpretations.

     

    In the case of the world's central bankers, strongly held views are then reinforced by group-think. It is no surprise therefore that ECB president Mario Draghi defends his policy by saying that all other major central banks are doing the same –which by the way does not hold for negative rates. And of course, if a problem persists – such as inflation undershooting yet again – this can only be due to further demand shortcomings rather than other factors such as an oil price shock.

     

    A united front, not to mention unparalleled access to data, means central bankers are hugely respected, or at least rarely accused. But criticisms of current policy is growing, particularly in Germany. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble allegedly blames it for half the AfD's success in recent elections. Two months ago parliamentary groups attacked the ECB for its zero/negative rate policy and suggested Berlin intervenes – in effect questioning the ECB's independence.

     

    Such a chorus shows that monetary policy lurching to extremes has consequences far beyond the realm of financial markets and the real economy. It is dangerous for central banks not to consider these wider consequences, especially since it might be argued that they lack the mandate to wield such influence on societies and individual citizens.

DB then points out the biggest logical fallacy of any monetary stimulus: by doing "whatever it takes", or "getting to work", central bankers merely remove the burden on politicians to do their job. Instead, everything becomes a function of monetary policy and thus, the stock market. No wonder then that every time Obama speak, his first boast is how high the stock market is. However, the good days won't last.

    The benefits from ever-looser policy are diminishing while the litany of distortions, perversions and disincentives grows by the day. Savers are punished and speculators rewarded. Bad companies survive while good companies are too scared to invest. Moreover, governments no longer fear that failure to reform their economies or reduce debt will raise the cost of borrowing. In fact, total indebtedness in the eurozone has been rising, with the reformed and re-interpreted Stability and Growth Pact as toothless as ever. Risk-spreads have all but disappeared fromgovernment bond markets. Badly needed labour, banking, political, educational and governance reforms have been slowed or abandoned.

     

    Another problem is that games of largess and moral hazard are hard to quit. The ECB has become the henchman of ever more demanding markets, with investors already braying for another extension of quantitative easing by September. There is also evidence that current policy reduces the pressure on banks to increase capital and to clean up non-performing loans (NPLs) and thereby keeping unprofitable companies in business.

Incidentally when DB says investors, it means firms such as Goldman Sachs, Mario Draghi's former employer. Back to DB, which proceeds to excoriate the negative aspects of the ECB's policies:

    While the ECB is right in saying that it is not running out of ammunition – in purely technical terms the recent debate about "helicopter money" suggests as much – it is on shakier ground arguing that policy has worked as intended....  For example, ultra-cheap loans are providing life support for companies which would not be viable under more normal conditions. This has lead to over-capacity – not to mention disinflation – across many industries in Europe, with revenues falling compared with assets. Last year 40 per cent of companies had no top-line growth. It is ironic therefore that many think productivity can be kick-started via even lower rates.

     

    Another clear negative is that savers have no income certainty over the longer-term, given that it has become virtually impossible to achieve real returns on interest bearing assets. Moreover, survey evidence suggests that consumer thinking has been seriously shocked by negative rates. Rather than rejoicing at free money, most see the move as a sign of distress rates – soggy spending data would support this view. Germans, meanwhile, think the central bank is encouraging indebtedness and profligacy instead of thrift and stability.

     

    Indeed, more institutions are beginning to voice their concerns. At its annual press conference, Bafin, Germany's financial watchdog, warned that low interest rates were a "seeping poison" for financial institutions dependent on interest rates and is concerned some pensions funds might fail to provide guaranteed benefits. BaFin reckons about half of Germany's banks have a heightened exposure to interest changes and may therefore have to hold more capital. Bundesbank board member Andreas Dombret warned that banks may have to increase charges to their clients.

     

    Yet another place to look if you question ECB policy is Japan. Its central bank introduced negative interest rates in January and they have been poorly received by financial institutions as well as households and corporations. This has been attributed to the surplus in Japan's private sector and the preference among households for deposits, bonds and principal-guaranteed products. An increase in projected benefit obligations (PBO) due to the decline in the discount rate also hasn't helped. The negative impact on Japanese financial institutions is clearer still, in the form of higher holding costs on their central bank current account deposits, narrower lending margins and constraints on credit creation. Ominously for Europe, these repercussions are the result of the simultaneous implementation of quantitative easing and negative rates. And this concurrent policy is also damaging to the Bank of Japan's own finances.

     

    * * *

     

    Longer-term the negative consequence of ultra-low rates and sovereign bond backstops comes from a lack of economic reform. It was not meant to be this way. Immediately after the crisis the implicit deal was that politicians would reduce public debt levels and implement the necessary reforms while the ECB provided them with the necessary time and monetary tailwind.

     

    Some ex-central bankers argue that early on a pattern evolved where governments did not deliver on their tasks so that the ECB, as the life-saver of last resort, was forced to step in ever more aggressively. But it is equally plausible, although impossible to prove, that politicians delayed making hard choices knowing that the ECB would "do whatever it takes", as it eventually said explicitly. With the risks associated with failure to reform their economies or reduce debt removed, courtesy of the self-appointed purchaser-of-last-resort of sovereign debt, elected politicians have not needed any encouragement to cater to national interests. In fact, six years after the onset of the European crisis total indebtedness in the eurozone keeps rising.

And now the conclusion to this epic rant:

    The ECB has – probably with very good intentions – manoeuvred itself into a position where market expectations are having an increasing influence on its policy. This is in part the result of the central bank's tendency to raise market expectations ahead of policy decisions, thereby putting pressure on council members to deliver.

     

    With its "whatever it takes" stance the ECB has removed incentives for governments to reform and has distorted the market-based pricing of government bond yields. Politicians are also stuck because unpopular reforms would probably see them replaced by more national and euro-sceptic politicians, which poses an even bigger risk for the eurozone.

     

    ECB president Mario Draghi has repeatedly said he cannot make the fulfilment of his job description dependent on whether other agents (that is, politicians) fulfil theirs. But real world is what it is – ignoring the wider consequences of monetary policy led to last crisis.

     

    The German Council of Economic Experts argues that a comprehensive evaluation of all consequences of monetary decisions is a prerequisite for a competent monetary policy. Today the balance of consequences points to areversal in ECB policy.

Why does all of this sound familiar? Oh yes, because we have been warning about all of this since the day the Fed launched QE, and we warned that there is no way such unorthodox policy ends well. Seven years later the chief economist of Europe's biggest bank admits we were spot on. We expect many more strategists and economist to make comparable admissions, if they don't already behind closed doors.

On the other hand, "groupthink" as DB calls it, surrounding Draghi and the central planners is impenetrable, and sadly all of this will be ignored. Which is why the only real way this final bubble is resolved, is when it bursts. Which is also something we have said long ago: instead of fighting the central banks, just let them achieve their goals as fast as possible.

Ultimately, it is now too late to change anything anyway, plus the economic, finacnial and social collapse will inevitably come, whether in one month or a decade. The best that those who are paying attention can do is prepare. As for everyone else... they can find comfort in their echo chambers which ignore the reality that their actions create.

That unpleasant truth aside, we find that the now official super heavyweight contest between Deutsche Bank and the ECB may be far more entertaining than even that between Hillary and Trump. Luckily popcorn is still plentiful and cheap. For now. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-08/deutsche-banks-shocking-ecb-rant-warns-social-unrest-and-another-great-depression

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-06/wounded-deutsche-bank-lashes-out-central-bankers-stop-easing-you-are-crushing-us

https://www.db.com/newsroom_news/2016/medien/deutsche-bank-s-chief-economist-is-asking-the-ecb-to-change-course-en-11591.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/08/desperate-ecb-risks-destroying-european-project-with-negative-ra/
https://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000407094.pdf

[MikeWB]

Here's What Deutsche Bank's Huge Problems Mean for It and for the Global Economy

Deutsche Bank  (DB) and its shares are under heavy pressure, and the bank's fate has serious implications for the global economy.

In a June 29 report, the International Monetary Fund said Deutsche Bank appeared to be "the most important net contributor to risks" in the global banking system. At around the same time, the Federal Reserve announced that Deutsche Bank's U.S. unit had failed its annual stress test for a second straight year.

Along with the victory of "Brexit" proponents in the U.K., those assessments from regulators have hammered Deutsche Bank's stock price, although the shares had been trending lower already. The stock is down 18% since just before the Brexit results and 43% so far in 2016. Earlier this month, Deutsche Bank's U.S.-listed American depositary receipts hit their lowest levels ever. Legendary investor George Soros made a $111 million bet that Deutsche Bank stock would fall in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Only foolish investors would think that now is the time to pick up Deutsche Bank stock on the cheap. Let's look in more detail at what this large German bank's problems are and what they mean for the world.

So what is Deutsche Bank's problem? Yes, the Brexit has had a hugely negative impact on its fortunes. Deutsche Bank has significant operations in the City and could see those operations adversely affected when Britain departs the European Union. In addition, the Brexit vote is just one more piece of economic news that has increased global financial volatility and shaken investor confidence.

But Deutsche Bank has been struggling well before the Brexit. It lost 6.7 billion euros last year. Its stock has fallen from the beginning of the year as noted above, and the bank has no real plans for how it plans to turn things around. Furthermore, Deutsche Bank appears to be overleveraged and may lack the capital to survive a financial crisis or recession. The Fed said "broad and substantial weaknesses" still existed in its capital planning.

Also troubling are the continuing legal issues. Recently Deutsche Bank was fined $6 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority "for failing to provide complete and accurate trade data in a timely manner." Although that's not a huge amount of money for a large international bank, it's only the latest in a string of fines that includes a hefty $2.5 billion fine in April 2015 for rigging interest rates and fines for breaking U.S. sanctions against countries including Iran, Myanmar and Cuba.

Some investors are suggesting that the Brexit may mean nothing more for Deutsche Bank than to transfer its headquarters from London to Frankfurt. But even if we assume that the Brexit will not be the long-term disaster that many believe it will be, that does not make the Brexit good news for Deutsche Bank. And Deutsche Bank needs some good news if it is going to recover.

All of these above factors should show that investors should absolutely not take a long position on Deutsche Bank shares. But if news gets worse with Deutsche Bank, could it start hurting other banks as well?

Let's return to the aformentioned IMF report on Deutsche Bank. The report slammed Deutsche Bank, saying that its overleveraging and lack of risk management could lead to problems that would spill over to other banks. A chart by the IMF showed that Credit Suisse, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas are three major banks that would be hit particularly hard.

But Deutsche Bank is not the only bank which could pose a problem for the global banking sector. The IMF listed HSBC and Credit Suisse as posing the second- and third-biggest threats, respectively. And all three of these banks are much more leveraged and risky than any U.S. bank.

The problem here is that when the problems created by these European banks is combined with the volatility created by the Brexit, there is a real concern that a new European banking crisis could explode. If Deutsche Bank can't recover, or if the other two banks go down due to the Brexit, this could have a cascade effect on the European and global economies.

In a sense, the 2008 financial crisis has had some positives for the American banking industry, as it led to reforms aimed at reducing and monitoring systemic risk. European banks don't seem to have learned quite as well, and some are much more leveraged than their U.S. counterparts.

Plenty to Worry About

Maybe this all blows over. Maybe the impact of the Brexit is overstated, and Deutsche Bank can recover and start making money.
But even in the best-case scenario, investors should stay away from Deutsche Bank stock. And the threat of a European bank failure should make investors worry about risky investments in general. Now is the time to be cautious until things settle down.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/13635711/1/here-s-what-deutsche-bank-s-huge-problems-mean-for-it-and-for-the-global-economy.html

[abduLMaria]

abduLMaria, I now do all my banking at a local credit union. They're stable and they're not owned by merchants. Screw all these big banks.

I wonder what ECB do about DB's collapse.

They probably won't be Honest.

I lived in Greece pre-EU.  They had beautiful silver Greek anniversary coins, as legal tender.

They could go back to a 1970's era currency - easily.

Most people who were alive pre-EU, well, I don't know the exact numbers - but obviously a lot of them are still alive.


It may seem like jumping into a tub of freezing ice water, but just as if the US people voted to stop the Drug War and to roll the drug laws back to, as they were before Prohibition.

The nation lived 160 years with that set of laws.


The point being, most useful social change these days involves simply admitting that what we are doing now works WAY WORSE than what we did 100 years ago.

Palestine, for example.


Speaking of Palestine - the EU was a CIA project anyway.  The CIA being one of the core institutions of American Judeo-Fascism.

So Greece declares bankruptcy and takes their last money and buys $2 Billion in Silver 100 Drachma coins.

They just have to realize - that would not be so bad.


One of the ways the EU seems to keep themselves in place is by welfare-with-a-string.

Now that reminds me of the US.