Читать книгу Lies of a Century - Heiko Schrang - Страница 17

We have been living with the Euro since January 1^st of 2002, but only very few have ever thought about the true meaning of those letters and numbers on the bills.

On the example of Greece it is plain to see that the end of the Euro experiment is nearing its end, even if it was suggested that the Euro could survive by a series of emergency measures.

In the meantime many corporations are preparing for the case that Greece may leave the monetary union. In December 2011 the German travel giant TUI asked Greek hotel operators to sign new contracts. The following passage was cited in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung: „If the Euro should no longer be the currency (…) TUI reserves the right to pay the sum in a different currency. The exchange rate depends on what the government will provide.”[41]

As mentioned before, only very few people think about whether all the Euro bills are the same. Each Euro bill is allocated to a different country, and the deciding characteristic is the serial number that is located on the top right of the backside of the bill. This so-called “country code” lets the insider know which central bank has ordered the printing of the respective bill.[42] The letter X, for example, is for Germany, Y for Greece, M for Portugal, V for Spain and S for Italy.

Professor Dr. Max Otte wisely recommended back in 2009 that bills with serial numbers starting with Y, V, M, and S should be brought back into circulation as quickly as possible, according to the Financial Times.[43] [44]

Should Greece leave the community of Euro countries, what would happen to the bills of the Greeks (Y) that are in the hands of private individuals? There is a plan by the member of the scientific committee of the Ministry of Commerce, Charles Blankert, who also happens to be economics professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In a study (according to German tabloid Bild Zeitung)[45] he suggests that all bills with a Y before their serial number should be valid as the new Greek currency immediately upon Greece’s exit from the currency union and would therefore lose their value with immediate effect. Owners of bills of Greek origin within the remaining Euro zone would therefore be immediately affected, according to this study.

Regardless of the Y-bills, a much larger issue arises for the inhabitants of those Euro countries in that those who have gotten themselves into financial problems, as was the case with Greece and Spain, could have their cash withdrawn from their banks in large numbers.

The problem here is that there are substantially more entitlements to money among our banks than there is actual physical money.

In other words, there currently are about 900 billion Euros of bills and coins in circulation. With a German cash wealth of about 5 trillion, this means that there would only be about 2,000 Euros in cash at the disposal of every German citizen. Due to a range of assurances and supposed guarantees by politicians like Chancellor Merkel or Peer Steinbrück, etc. who live according to the motto: “It does not matter what was accomplished, but what is told to the public”, many citizens believe that they could at any time withdraw their savings from the banks.

That is not so since in reality we have a fiat money system (money created out of nothing), and that as a result of that, savings in our accounts do not physically exist. When it comes down to it, they are nothing more than a nice little piece of paper – an account balance – on which some numbers are printed.

Since we in Germany have already been in this position before, it is about time to learn from history and not believe in the statements of our politicians. Ultimately, most politicians are nothing but puppets with much greater powers behind them pulling their strings.