The Independent newspaper (UK) has a revealing article about wealthy Greeks and their current unease about Greece’s near-bankruptcy: “The wealthy citizens of Glyfada are worried – and plotting their escape.”
It is actually a sad article, showing quite clearly that many Greeks may have waited too long. They’re nervous about bank closures and capital controls – but as they have not planned well, it may soon be too late for them to escape the consequences of their procrastination.
One reads articles like this with a certain puzzlement. These are intelligent and wealthy people but they seem to have lived in some kind of bubble. The article states it well:
Crisis? What crisis? A Martian on a fact-finding mission landing in the Athens seaside suburb of Glyfada might wonder what all the fuss was about. Its restaurants and Italian-style cafés are full and the gleaming designer shops appeared to be doing a brisk trade yesterday morning.
But then there is this…  a dawning knowledge of trouble in paradise: “Beneath the surface, Glyfada’s wealthy citizens are worried, and they’re plotting their escape.”
NOW they’re plotting their “escape” … now? They didn’t notice that Greece has been in dire straits for three or four years now, that talk of a Grexit has been raised regularly in the mainstream Western media, that Germany has been growing grumpier and grumpier while the IMF has been growing shriller.
We learn that Frau Merkel is a topic of conversation now, as is the possibility of capital controls. But one really has to wonder about the human capacity for self-delusion.
What did Greek’s wealthiest think about the rioting on the streets, which has been going on – on and off – for years? It was merely some sort of aggregate emotional self-expression – just blowing off steam?
And what about Cyprus’s “bail ins” right next door? Was that just the result of confusion? Did the authorities mean to allow savers to take out as much money as they could – but just get bewildered and confiscate 50% of their funds by mistake?
Now suddenly Greeks are waking up.
“The passport-issuing office of the Greek police received a surge in applications … from people in the wealthy Kifissia, Ekali, Filothei, and Psychiko suburbs of northern Athens. … sport applications are so high that staff are having difficulty keeping up with demand. ’The queues outside the passport offices in the northern and southern suburbs are unprecedented,’ one police official said. ‘Wealthy families want to be ready to leave, depending on the country’s situation.’”
Wow. Here are people in some cases with considerable means and sophistication. Yet they never bothered to get their passports. They never bought gold or silver? They never bothered to secure a second residence. (If they had, they’d surely have their passports as well.)
“At a boulangerie in Glyfada’s main shopping street, Orestis Tsaglis, a 31-year-old lecturer, said well-off Greeks were rightly worried about their future.”
Tsaglis tells us that Greeks are worried that their debt-holders are not going to provide Greece with the “haircut” the country needs to remain uncomfortably solvent. As a result, Tsaglis says that while he doesn’t have a passport, he’s going to be applying for one!
“’There is a real fear of things closing in on you. There’s a sense the whole country could close in on itself,’ he said, ‘and it’s not so far-fetched.’”
Here at TDV, we’ve been warning about just this sort of occurrence – not for the Greeks (that was obvious to everyone but apparently them) but for many other parts of the West, even (or especially) places like the United States where depressions and monetary confiscations have happened before.
It’s human nature to procrastinate and take the attitude that “it can’t happen here.” But what if it does? There are such easy, common sense remedies to the kinds of fears that the Greeks are now confronting. Purchase and secure precious metals. Secure passports and keep them at the ready (and get a second passport as back-up if you have the means). Provide yourself and your family with a place or places to go if need be.
These and other simple, significant remedies are available here at TDV. We’ve collected the best solutions and most practical solutions and made them easily accessible and available at a low cost. We’ve warned our viewers continually that they ought to be prepared for the kinds of difficulties that Greece is now facing.
Our most recent warning has been offered via my Shemitah video which is now going viral – which you can see HERE.
Shemitah, a cyclical, seven-year disaster, may seem far-fetched but I am afraid it’s not. It’s a likely reality that will have many consequences. It is not far off, either. The Shemitah end-day is in early September and while that end-day may or may not harbinger a specific disaster, it’s hard to avoid or argue against the idea that the West’s solvency is increasingly fragile.
In fact, one can argue that the same power elite that created the current petro-dollar system is now actively willing to undermine it for the sake of building a worldwide, non-dollar currency. If that’s the case, then the West’s dollarized economy is permanently and increasingly at risk.
Ask yourself: If one WANTED to destabilize the dollar, wouldn’t one do almost exactly what has been done. Pile up debt, print money, engage in an endless, wasteful wars, sell gold stocks, and keep interest rates ruinously low for nearly a decade now.
And don’t forget what is almost never mentioned: A thousand-trillion dollar derivative market that is almost bound to unravel if the system experiences significant stress. Portfolio insurance was supposed to be the “magic bullet” of the 1980s, but the crash of 1987 (during the Shemitah) proved how wrong-headed and simplistic that strategy was. People will learn this lesson all over again if there is a significant market event that destabilizes the derivatives market.
Please take a look at what we have to offer. This is not the time to relax. SOMETHING is happening – and these summer months may well prove to be a calm before the final storm.
You can pretend nothing is going to happen – as Greeks have apparently done. Or you can take action. Since you’re reading this article, you may have decided on the latter course or are in the process of doing so.
If so, I applaud you. You’re taking the right decision and you’re going to save yourself considerable stress.
There is an old adage – “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” But in this case Greek behavior may be an invaluable gift if it rouses us to action. Let their behavior be a warning to us.