Which "obligations"?

During last weeks, we often hear from various official mouths the cliché "Greece must fulfill her obligations". That is to implement the agreements signed between Troika and Greek government, and ratified by the Greek parliament.

Such 'savoir-vivre' advice sounds reasonable to the ears of many. But how exactly those "obligations" were created? Who exactly undertook them on behalf of the country, and with what sort of procedures?

Here is an illustrated chronicle that we should bring to mind each time a Mr. Scheuble or a Mrs. Lagarde teach Greeks 'how they should behave'.

13.2.2012:
Greek MPs (who were elected under Papandreou's false slogan "There is plenty of money" in 2009)
vote on the second austerity Memorandum. 

Mr. Chrysochoidis (minister for Citizen Protection) said that he voted 'Yes'
without having read the treaty "because he had other things to attend to". 
There were more like him who later admitted that
they had voted without reading what they were voting for.

On the same day the Greek people had their own voting
in front of the Parliament.

But the vote of the huge crowds was 'slightly' different than of their representatives.

  

There had been many more protests against Parliament decisions during the previous months.

Some dared shouting 'No' to the decision of the Parliament.
[the man with white hair is 90-year old Manolis Glezos,
who became famous when he tore down the German flag on Acropolis in 1941] 

The objections were finally muffled and so Greece's "obligations" were born.

Who cares about the opinion of 'hoi polloi'?

Our distinguished friends celebrated with relief the decision of the Greek Parliament,
probably taking the tear-gas effects as tears of joy for the triumph of democracy.

[the story continues -please come again]

No conspiracy theory: An elite controls the world!

[Google translation of German article]

Bankers apparently actually dominate the world. What we suspected for a long time, researchers in Switzerland have finally confirmed: In a scientific study showed that a small elite controls the entire world economy. Well something like that!

Of the Freemasons of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), to the Bilderbergers: What are many bloggers, independent journalists, filmmakers and authors writing for several years, desperate fingers bled, was now by a recent study by the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich confirms. The fact that the demonstrators "Occupy" movement is described as 99% while not as obviously wrong: From a database containing the 2007, the data on 37 million companies and investors around the globe have, researchers at 43 000 transnational corporations and their share ownership focused. The analysis showed clearly that within this group of 1,318 companies linked so closely together that they make up about 60 percent of global sales.

Within this very elite group of companies, there is still an elite, a so-called "super-unit" of 147 companies, which controls around 40% of the entire network. "In fact, less than one percent of the company is able to control 40 percent of the entire network," said James Glattfelder, one of the researchers of the study, on which the New Scientist reported. Included are, of course, again the usual suspects. And & the Bank of America Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co Inc and JP Morgan Chase Co are even in the top 25 within the "super unit".

The reality is so complex that one must get away from the call to such circumstances as a "conspiracy theory" as Glattfelder added. "Our analysis is the reality."

The study builds on earlier economic theories, which also was detected in that wealth is concentrated systematically on individual parts of the population. Thus, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 had found that in Italy some 20 percent of the population controlled 80 percent of the country. This study became known as the Pareto principle. Pareto also found out that in spite of different conditions in the country, the distribution of wealth remains always the same. Conclusion: Natural resources, independent of human performance, tends to accumulate to put on some, rather than being evenly distributed. Politicians and parties have therefore only the function, you sell it to the stupid foot soldiers humanely.

The top 50 "Super Unit", disclosed in Alles Schall und Rauch blog:

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 
29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company,
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. UniCredito Italiano SpA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

[see the original ETH paper in English]