posted on Aug, 22 2011 @ 07:43 AM
Here's a nice example of greed, manipulation of the rules and scratching the itches of the riches that got us in this mess.
This all deals with Proton Bank in Greece. Seems the Greek government (you know . . . the one that is too poor to pay attention and is taking
austerity measures through program cutbacks and the like) found it necessary to bail out this bank.
The government also made a €100m emergency transfer to Proton. The bank was however unable to pay back
€70m of this amount, after depositors removed funds amid reports that Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, its largest shareholder, was being investigated for
alleged embezzlement and money-laundering.
Allegedly, this Lavrentiadis guy controls 15 per cent of the bank in question. Nearly a third of the banks book of loans were to businesses controled
by Lavrentiadis' business group.
Just so you get the warm and fuzzy off this . . . the Greek goverenment seems to have learned nicely from their US colleagues in terms of generally
not giving a crap if it is legal, illegal or generally unsupported by the electorate
Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister, has faced criticism from opposition politicians for approving the €100m transfer to Proton in defiance of
a law banning the government from depositing funds with banks that face financial problems.
Go figure.
Wonder how much more of this kind of stuff will be unearthed as time goes on?
Here's the full storyedit on 22-8-2011 by
GoalPoster because: forgot my linkskie . . .