Greece: Watching the Wheels Come Off

• The Greek Coast Guard recently arrested a “refugee” coming from Syria, who had 200,000 euros in cash. Apparently this Syrian “investor” did not think that Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon — countries that border Syria — were safe for his “investments.” He preferred to deposit his money in Greek “zombie banks.”
• The network of Greek police officers and intelligence agents, cooperating with human traffickers from Turkey in transporting illegal migrants into Greek territory, had such access and influence that police officers and intelligence agents could be transferred from one city to another and from one department to another, to sideline honest officers who stood in the way.

When you visit Greece, the customs officers will put in your passport the stamp of the Greek Republic. You will see the Greek flag waving at Athens International Airport; taxis waiting for customers, gas stations still in operation and public infrastructure being kept at a mediocre level. This, however, is just an illusion. Greece is a collapsing country.

The Austrian Black Swan Claims Its First Foreign Casualty: German Duesselhyp Collapses, To Be Bailed Out

Precisely one week ago in “A Black Swan Lands In Southern Austria: The Ripple Effects Of “Mini-Greece Going Off In The Heartland Of Europe“, when analyzing the consequences of the collapse of Austria’s bad bank, we noted perhaps the biggest paradox of Europe’s emergency preparedness response to the Greek collapse and imminent expulsion from the Eurozone: namely that the biggest threat to German banks was no longer in some Mediterranean nation, but in its very own back yard. To wit:

Irony #2, and the biggest one of all: while German banks had spent the past 3 years preparing for the inevitable Grexit and offloading all their exposure to the now insolvent Greek state, it was a waterfall chain of events which started in Germany’s own “back yard”, courtesy of auditors who decided it was unnecessary to mark losses to market until it was far too late, and the immediate outcome is that one ninth of until recently Aaa/AAA-rated Austria is now also insolvent. And that is just the beginning.

Greek banks would have collapsed in days without deal – Irish finance minister

(Reuters) – Greece’s banking system would have collapsed within days had Athens not compromised significantly and struck a funding agreement with euro zone ministers, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Saturday.

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“The biggest threat to Greece was that their banking system would go belly up next Wednesday,” Noonan told national broadcaster RTE at his Fine Gael party’s annual conference.