Greece’s Liquidation while “Assets Strippers” dancing around

The boys have started long ago to lick their lips unbrakedly. Rubbing their hands with a relentless shaking. Their shoes hit the floor with nervous impatience. Saliva running at the same pace the nude dancers of Folies Bergere move in front of them before the discovery of the miracle Viagra. Their eyes are ready to pop out, while their electrocuted brain cells calculate in frenetic speed: What? – How much?  In half-fainted stage the greedy boys are ready to get their hands in Greece. To strip of Greece and rip it of with the blessing of the government. “To save the country” assures me the Greek PM, but I don’t understand the meaning of these words. Most likely, he doesn’t understand them either.

Some land by the sea here, profitable businesses there,  primeur fillets right down on the left

The list of Greece’s sell-off is long: 39 airports, 850 ports, railways, motorways, sewage works, a couple of energy companies, banks, defence groups, thousands of acres of land for development, casinos and Greece’s national lottery.

Also the list of ‘investors’ is long. Greek newspaper Proto Thema listed the German and French interests on Sunday.

According to these lists ,the Germans are interesting in buying the rest of the Telecommunication Company (OTE), Solar energy companies, Post bank, Athens airport, Airports of Thessaloniki, Heraklion and mykonos, the Electricity company (DEI), the Greek Postal Company.

Similar if not even longer is the list of the French bon vivants: Water Company in Athens & Thessaloniki, Athens Airport, Train-OSE, Thessaloniki Port, Greek Petroleum Company, Airport on Crete, Aeronautical systems, Tram network.

Of course, they will be given priority in grabbing the best Greece has. We shouldn’t forget it’s Monsieur Sarkozy and Frau Merkel who hit the deal to save Greece indirectly but their own banks directly.  According to Mid-Term Austerity Programme, adopted with threats and blackmails last week by 155 votes in the Greek Parliament, the liquidation of state assets will begin as soon as possible and with interval of 10 days.

Without a second thought and ngegotiation the Greek government agreed to sell off  equally loss-bringing and profitable enterprises. Sell-off to cover up inability of management.

Greece is for sale at spot prices so it can get 50 billion euro revenues and pay back part of its 110 billion euro loan. Of course, should a second bailout be approved -as planned- at a similar height of appr. 100 billion euro, I wonder what will then Greece liquidate and privatize to pay it back. Most likely a politicians’  underwear and my worn out shoes.

For the purpose of  a quick and lenders supervised privatization a “privatization agency” is needed,  similar to  ‘Treuhand agency’ that sold off 14,000 East German firms between 1990 and 1994, for a bretzel and a Pfennig and drove thousands of East Germans to internal immigration due to unemployment.

“Once the world’s biggest holding company, Treuhand was supposed to sell off state property at a profit but closed its books with a huge deficit and a legacy of bitterness among the legions of workers whose jobs it destroyed. Four million Germans were employed by Treuhand-owned companies in 1990 but only about 1.5 million jobs were left in 1994 when the agency closed. Instead of reaping profits to be distributed to all east Germans, as it was designed to do, it ran up debts of 270 billion marks ($172 billion) in the fire sale of assets.” (Reuters).