Pot-addled blogger scoops New York Times by six months

More like seven months, but who cares?

The Times reported this week that a Cayman Island based bond vulture fund got almost half a billion dollars from the bankrupt Greek government.

The supposedly "secretive" Dart Group bought their Greek bonds at a steep discount and got paid out at face value. The Dart Group is run by Ken Dart, an American who lives in the Cayman Islands for tax reasons.

Here's what I wrote about bond vulture funds last October;

The euro-crisis; guaranteeing profits for Bond Vulture Funds


The regular folks in the streets of Athens haven't been too impressed with the "austerity measures" their banker over-lords have been shoving down their throats. Nor should they be.


Who owns Greece's debt and what did they pay for it? That is a question the public, and especially the Greek public, should be demanding answers to. Greece's public debt fiasco hasn't been a secret. Greek government bonds have been trading at a discount for years, and rightly so. If somebody consistently spends more than they take in, only an idiot would buy their promissory notes.


The big dogs in global finance may be a lot of unpleasant things, but one thing they're not is idiots. When they buy Greek debt they buy it at a steep discount because of the risks involved. Then they go on the 24/7 big-time propaganda blitz: OH MY GOD IF GREECE DEFAULTS IT WILL BE THE END OF THE FREE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT etc. etc. etc. It's on every news program and on the front page of every newspaper every single day.


The purpose of the propaganda blitz is to scare people until somebody somewhere guarantees the face value of the Greek government bonds they bought at a steep discount. Instant windfall for the Bond Vulture Funds. Years of austerity and deprivation for the people of Greece.


I say let them default. We'll sit back with an Ouzo and see what happens, and drink a toast to the people in the streets of Athens.