The U.S. Looks To Exploit The Greek Re-Default
A geopolitical drama driven by newly discovered oil and bad debt is unfolding around the eastern Mediterranean, and it may be a game changer for Greece. Preliminary estimates indicate there are 22 billion barrels of oil offshore of Western Greece below the Ionian Sea and some 4 billion barrels of oil below the Northern Aegean Sea, according to Global Research.
Former International Monetary Fund economist and Treasury assistant secretary Charles Collyns was in Athens and Rome the last week of July, along with Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner, as Greece’s global lenders – the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank – prepared for a new audit of Greece to see if its €130 billion bailout had any positive effect (see proposed reforms). The findings, due in late August, will determine whether Greece will receive fresh loans of €31.5 billion by September, according to Yahoo! news.
August 20, Greece faces another rollover of €3.2 billion of its existing debt. The expectation is this will be just one more shuffled deck chair on the Titanic as it borrows from one member the Troika (EFSF) to pay another (ECB). I am not so sure.