IMF

Greece Pays IMF Back with IMF Monopoly Money

rafifarber Eurozone Crisis, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

This is great! I love it. It’s so insane even I didn’t think of this. So apparently, all IMF countries have this account of IMF monopoly money, its own IMF currency, that is actually the IMF’s money that I guess can be exchanged for currency at an agreed exchange rate upon joining the loot ball.

The money can be used in emergencies as effectively an IMF loan, and must be replenished within 30 days (June 11) by the IMF rules. I would guess the funds are supposed to be used for emergency defense, or natural disasters or whatever. But Greece drew down €650M in IMF monopoly money to repay…

the IMF itself.

As Zerohedge puts it:

In sum: the IMF paid itself on behalf of Greece and will now be forced to pay itself back for paying itself later this month. Or, put differently, Greece has prepaid the IMF with IMF money it doesnt have.

This isn’t any more crazy, really, than the idea of the IMF bailing out Greece so Greece can pay the IMF.

Here’s a piece out this morning even more instructive of the Klein Bottle of finance that the Greek State just did:

Earlier today, we learned that, contrary to what Greek government officials had been implying for the better part of a week, Athens did not have enough money to make a €750 million payment to the IMF on Tuesday. Instead, Greece borrowed most of the money (€650 million according to unnamed officials) from its IMF SDR reserves. This money must be paid back within 30 days. This effectively means that the IMF paid itself and it sets up a hilariously absurd scenario wherein assuming Greece manages to convince creditors to disburse a €7.2 billion tranche of aid later this month, the IMF will send money to Greece, who will send it right back to the IMF to replenish an IMF fund, which was drawn down by the IMF to pay itself back for money it loaned to Greece a long time ago. Put simply: Greece has taken circular funding schemes to a whole new level.

But that’s it though. Greece has about €50M in cash left, and after that, it’s game over people. The IMF has said it is not going to participate in another Greek bailout just so it can pay itself for even longer. By the end of the month, the first domino, finally, falls, and the chain reaction begins.

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How Many Sex Parties a Year is Too Many? Apparently, It’s Five.

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is that former International Monetary Fund head guy who was arrested for raping some girl in a hotel some years back, but it turned out he was only sleeping with a prostitute so it was fine.

The IMF, if you Google it, will be puffed up with flowery language about how it “fosters economic cooperation” between nations and creates peace on Earth and good will towards politicians and so forth. If it were a voluntary organization pooling together voluntary contributions then indeed it would be a pretty cool thing. But all it is, is a bunch of heads of State pooling together piles of tax loot in case one of its members spends too much of its own. It is a huge money pit worth something like $800B that was made to bail out governments after they borrow too much money and can’t pay it back.

The IMF has bailed out 41 countries as of 2013, and the two top contributors to the fund are the United States and Japan. The US is $18,000,000,000,000 in debt. Japan takes the record for highest debt to GDP in the world at somewhere between 240% and 500%, depending on which source you want to believe. Who knows.

Something is seriously wrong with global finance when two of the most indebted countries in the history of the planet are funding the world’s biggest bailout fund.

Klein BottleIt’s like a Klein Bottle of finance, wrapping in on itself and flipping anyone who goes through it 4th dimensionally.

Enough about the IMF. What about Dominique Strauss Kahn, who once oversaw the world’s biggest pile of pirate booty? This is really great stuff. He is now being charged with “Aggravated Pimping”. Aside from being a good name for a band, aggravated pimping is when somebody buys you a prostitute and you have sex with said prostitute.

This, apparently, is illegal in France, where the venerated head of the largest bailout fund in the world was participating in a libertine (not libertarian) sex party at the time. Prostitution is legal, but aggravated pimping is not, so you can pay for the girl yourself, but once you accept a girl as a gift you’re a criminal.

Hey, it makes about as much sense as prostitution being illegal but pornography being fine. A third party can pay two people to have sex with each other in public, but once you pay for someone to have sex with you, you’re a criminal.

This is what DSK said in court:

“When one reads about this, one gets the impression that this was frenetic activities, the dates are so mixed up. It was four times a year for three years, nothing more.”

Three or four times a year, not frenetic. Just an orgy every now and then, give me a break.

I’m not judging DSK on moral grounds here for taking part in a sex fest. I’m judging him for being head of the IMF. Does it surprise you that a 65 year old man in charge of the largest taxpayer funded bailout pile in world history would act like a bonobo chimpanzee?

Bonobos do not form permanent monogamous sexual relationships with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by sex or age, with the possible exception of abstaining from sexual activity between mothers and their adult sons. When bonobos come upon a new food source or feeding ground, the increased excitement will usually lead to communal sexual activity, presumably decreasing tension and encouraging peaceful feeding.

But not frenetically.

By the way, DSK’s business partner Thierry Leyne is the guy that committed suicide right here in Tel Aviv last October, jumping off the 23rd floor of a building my wife once taught private English lessons in. There’s a makeshift dirt parking lot right by that building, free if you can find a spot. Highly recommend it.