BS labs

From Twelfth Bough:

A13 has covered the Armageddon Virus and the big "debate" over whether or not to publish the research,because some terrorists could get their hands on it, so it is an ethical question. EVEN THOUGH they totally admit that you can't reassort deadly viruses in CAVES.

"These are not easy viruses to reconstruct," Professor Diane Griffin of Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health said in 2005. "You're not going to do this in a cave in Afghanistan."

That's a half-truth. It's true that they don't conduct bioterrorism research in caves. The work is done in labs. Where are the bioterror labs?

The Netherlands has some BSL-3 labs.

How many BSL-3 and BSL-4 (even safer!) labs are there in the world?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level

DOZENS.

And where do they conduct bioterrorism research?
Not in the caves if Afghanistan.

Scientists developed a mutated virus that has the high mortality of H5N1 (60% mortality in humans) PLUS the high contagion of H1N1 (easy to spread as the common cold). A killer virus. The scientists would like to publish the study in academic journals, but what if some bioterrorists replicate their work?

Some fear the virus, if it fell into the wrong hands, could be modified by bioterrorists into a weapon that kills billions of people.

ASSUMPTION #1: The virus is not in the wrong hands now.

ASSUMPTION #2: The virus cannot now kill billions of people.

The Good Scientists made the killer virus BEFORE the Bioterrorists could do it. And the Good Scientists will presumably keep the virus from falling into the wrong hands.

We question those assumptions.

Because let's remember that this is not the first time scientists have done this research. They did this research before, and they had a problem with the BSL-3 lab.

HERE IS THE LINK to the original article from January 2004: CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study, CIDRAP

We don't know who did that research in 2004. But five years later we had the Swine Flu pandemic.

Here is a backup copy that we posted on April 28, 2009. We always thought it would go down the memory hole.

The very next day after we discovered this old but important news, some clever woman at Natural News "broke" the story.

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves—in the name of preparedness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.

CDC officials confirmed the plans for the research as described recently in media reports, particularly in a Canadian Press (CP) story.

That very same day, April 29, 2009, the WHO raised the pandemic alert to level 5, warning of widespread human infection from the Swine Flu. 

Does anyone remember Jane Burgermeister, who was fired from her job after filing criminal charges against some powerful people?

She was European Correspondent for the website of Renewable Energy World, a position from which she was suddenly dismissed in July 2009 after filing a series of criminal charges against Baxter, WHO and others.

She started up the birdflu666 blog to alert people about the fact that Baxter had contaminated 72 kilos of seasonal flu with the bird flu virus in an Austrian lab in Feburary 2009, nearly sparking a global bird flu pandemic, according to the Times Of India.

Baxter made this "mistake" in a BSL-3 lab.

Jane Burgermeister sent this information to the FBI in June of 2009:

The amount of material was 72 kilograms.
This material was sent to 16 labs in four countries under a false label.
The 72 kilos of live bird flu virus was destined for the seasonal flu vaccine.
The deadly mixture of live bird flu virus and human flu viruswere mixed in a Biosecurity level 3 facility, where basic protocol and procedures would make it impossible to ever mix a live virus bioweapon with vaccine material by accident.
The mixture was a super-wide spectrum combination H3N2 seasonal flu virus and live, unlabeled H5N1 viruses. If both strains were to incubate and recombine in a human host, a virus could mutate  via "reassortment" into a virulent airborne weapon that would cause a pandemic.
The material was not radiated before it was sent out, leaving the deadly virus alive. It was only detected when a lab member in a lab in the Czech Republic tested a portion on ferrets and these died.
Lab staff in Austria and the Czech Republic were subsequently given preventative treatment against the bird flu in hospitals in Vienna, Austria.

The CDC begged scientists to reassort the viruses before, in 2004, and presumably they did, "in the name of preparedness," although we don't know who did the research.

And then, five years later, Baxter mixed some seasonal flu virus with LIVE UNLABELED H5N1 virus, in a huge batch of vaccine sent to 16 labs in four countries. Luckily, and we mean it, someone tested the material on ferrets, which have a respiratory tract very similar to humans, and the ferrets died. So the material was recalled. But, no one was held accountable. Jane Burgermeister filed some criminal charges and Jane became targeted.

All of this has apparently been shoved down the memory hole now that we are having a big ETHICAL DEBATE over the "Armageddon virus" research.

The debate sets up a problem. Some people love setting up problems because it allows them to come up with solutions.

The problem is censorship, according to the article. Censorship is bad, as everyone knows. It is anti-freedom. Thus the question becomes: Should the science be censored?

Well we have news. Science is already censored. Lots of secret science is conducted, and has been conducted. Secret science and technology has been kept hidden to create a huge technology gap, and this huge technology gap allows evil people to play God with you and your loved ones.

How many ways can we say it?

See: use your imagination to fill in the gap
See: disaster memory hole 
See: miss chimera virus
See: filling the gap
See: white horse or spaceship
See: more regrettables
See: alien fail
See: something is missing
See: getting away with murder 
See: Acts of God? depends on who you worship

Why isn't the debate: What kinds of life-saving technology has been kept from the world? Who allowed that to happen?

Why isn't the debate: Why are scientists allowed to do bioterrorism in the first place? The last time this happened they nearly sparked a global pandemic. No one was ever held accountable. Why were scientists allowed to do the research in the first place, and why are they doing it again?

But no, those debate would be very inconvenient. So instead we have a convenient little debate over censoring the science. And, naturally, they have a solution. Returning to A13's post:

But what about the scientific ideal of freely sharing information and ideas? Shouldn't scientists refuse censorship by governments?

Dr Selgelid said censorship should occur only in exceptional cases, but that precedents have already existed for decades in the nuclear industry.

"In nuclear physics, discoveries with weapons implications are automatically born classified in the United States whether or not the research is funded by governments."

To ensure that any such censorship is justified and verified, an international body similar to the NSABB and under the auspices of the WHO could be set up, with a panel of experts in both the science and security fields examining research that could lead to potentially severe impacts on public health, Dr Selgelid said.

The body should also have the power to impose binding decisions under international law, he added.
"This study reveals that biological sciences are now in a situation similar to that of atomic physics at the time when key discoveries were made that enabled the production of the first atomic weapons," he said.

"This is a key moment in the history of biology."

Other controversial studies in the past decade:

By the way, you will not find the 2004 CDC-sponsored research or the Baxter Incident in the list.

But you see, the SOLUTION to the PROBLEM of all this controversial scientific research is a New International Body under the auspices of the WHO, staffed with EXPERTS, who have the POWER to impose binding decisions under international law. And this body would be the Trusted Authority between YOU and the Good Scientists doing their research.

The Good Scientists would conduct their research, such as bioterrorism, and then send it to the New International Body, who would review it and decide whether or not the information can be shared.

THAT would make us safe from bioterrorists, so the theory goes.

Military Spending In Perspective [Infographic]

From: Military Education (clik on the image to enlarge it):

Kevin Zees: Turn the Occupy Movement into a Neighborhood Handyman Service – Yeah, that’ll show the fat cats

From American Everyman 

by Scott Creighton


Kevin Zeese’s “Ode to Giving Up” is the blueprint for turning the Occupy Movement into a useless, spineless political mechanism like MoveOn dot org or the toothless and hijacked Tea Party. It is an effort by current self-proclaimed leaders of the movement to display their value to the elites by steering the angry and dispossessed back into the fold so to speak, back into the pen with the rest of the flock of sheep.
Occupy DC is dead. For all the boasting and promises by the gaggle of professional dissidents like Kevin Zeese and David “buy my books” Swanson, Occupy DC did not in fact remain in their little free speech zone until they forced “CHANGE” on the corrupt policy makers in Washington. But not too worry, in true spin doctor fashion, Zeese says that it’s still a major victory that they won but that after about two weeks the Occupy Movement (and thus the occupiers themselves) becomes a “diversion from the political objectives” that they sought in the first place. What is the nature of that diversion according to Zeese? “poverty, homelessness, inadequately treated mental illness and addiction“
Junkies, loonies, and those pesky poor people, that’s the “diversion” that got in our hero’s way.
Bill O’Reilly couldn’t have said it better himself.
Kevin went on to remind people that movements take years and even decades to affect change and he did suggest a new tactic though: lawn care.
Go talk to your neighbors and rake their yard for them or shovel their sidewalks. Whatever they need. According to Zeese, doing menial manual labor for free will show those fat cats in the dusty halls of the financial industry that “WE CAN” stick it to the man.
Here’s a hint for the Occupy Movement: yes you need come up with a Plan B now that the Department of Homeland Security got together with the mayors and police chiefs to coordinate your expedited removal from their fine cities but I would seriously think twice before letting Kevin come up with it.

In Kevin’s “Ode to Giving Up” (which is being splattered all across the interwebs this morning like so much fake blood in a slasher film) he is voicing the merits of abject failure as if his audience is either to naive or simply too stupid to understand what has happened.
People don’t need smoke blown up their asses, they don’t need to be told they won when they didn’t.They need a fire lit under them. They need to be told to come back even stronger and more resilient than before. If they are still occupying, they need to be told to stay and others need to be told to go to their aid. They need buses lined up to move them to where the fight is. They need to be told that help is coming. That this isn’t over by a long shot.
They need direction and courage from those rare few with the conviction of spirit that it takes to lead at such a time. Someone who understands the complexity of the moment.
This is why Chris Hedges says that when movements like this take shape it is impossible to predict who and what will rise to power out of them. That’s because most of the time the “professional” dissidents don’t have the nature to rise up and take charge when it is needed. They are accustomed to weighing their options, to playing for the long haul, to compromise for the sake of longevity.
Professional dissidents are simply politicians on the outside desperate to get in.
They loath real revolutionaries and do whatever they can to undermine them and to alienate them from the movement because they fear being left out in the cold, they fear their cowardice and complacency will be exposed in the light of a new shining rage.
In short, they fear change that they can’t direct to serve their own selfish interests.
Whether or not that is a fair description of what Kevin Zeese thinks is hard to say. He has a long career in political activism (and by “political activism” I mean he has tried several times to get his foot in the door in DC: in 2004 he was attached to the Nader campaign and in 2006 he ran for office himself) and since 2006, Kevin is a founding member of a group called Voters For Peace which pretends that by getting a bunch of people together and pledging them to vote the way they want them to vote, they can force an end to the illegal occupations of places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
They started VFP in 2006 long after many of us understood that electronic voting machines were stealing elections and your “peace voting block” meant nothing to no one of any consequence.
Most Americans want an end to these immoral occupations being conducted in the name of the trumped up Global War on Terror (read as “Global Free Market Wars”) and so an organization like the one Zeese helped form would seem to me to be a rather sly way to start to build a voter block that would ultimately help get someone in office. The Occupy Movement would also seem to help in that regard as well, wouldn’t it? Especially if it were to be diluted into a fractured mailing list of local groups of potential voters taking their marching orders from someone like Kevin perhaps.
So why turn the Occupy Movement into a free lawn care service? Why did Kevin in his article demean the very kinds of people that the Occupy Movement should have been set up to defend? Why does Kevin seem to support the fantasy that we can vote our way out of this? Why did Kevin completely understate the exponentially growing threat of the elites in this country and the death-grip they hold on the burgeoning one party political system we have here in America?
Do any of these actions of Kevin’s point to an ulterior motive like something Kevin’s past points to, that Kevin just wants to get his foot in the door of the political elites before the shit really hits the fan?
In a word, yes.
In the one party system it is imperative that the fake leaders on the supposed left are capable of directing their constituents and followers in directions that are contradictory to best interests. In the case of the Clintons and Obama the mantra has always been that we must “move to the center” in order to gain political power and thus the dynamic shift to the far neoliberal right was justified and openly displayed and talked about. Now it is what’s called the Washington Consensus, though it is hardly our consensus.
The Obama administration and a couple of hand picked bi-partisan senators came up with a program called theServe America Act back in 2009. They wanted to force every poor or working class American into a year of community service in AmericCorp or some other NGO type for profit scam.  5.7 billion dollars was pledged and the Obamaites had yet another feel-good moment.
But the legislation had a darker side. The idea was that they would impose on the very people who were about to be the hardest hit by the designed implosion of the economy and the hikes in education pricing, a kind of mandatory communal connection, though in reality most of the community has long since given up on these kinds of kids.
Here is what Kevin Zeese just said in his article:

“Develop plans for house-to-house campaigns where you knock on doors, provide literature, ask what you can do to make their lives better.  Do they need snow removed?  Clothes?  If so, get the occupy team to fulfill their needs, find used clothes, clean their yard – whatever you can do to help.  This shows community and builds relationships.” Zeese

And this is what Orin Hatch said of the Serve America Act:

“During a tough economic time for our country, it is important that we do not rely on government aid to solve every problem. This bill is founded on the fundamental belief in the power of the American people to improve their country and communities at the local level; it will increase opportunities for Americans to serve and, thus, increase personal and community responsibility.”Orin Hatch

If you can get people to redirect their energy and their anger during times of economic hardship, then you have done a lot for the financial elites running the country. Especially young people whom have already displayed a propensity for dedicated resistance like those in the Occupy Movement have.
Another aspect of this “plan” of Kevin’s is the fact that while these young people are out going “door to door” with their literature, I wonder who’s non-profit organizations will be stamped on those leaflets? Yep, you guessed it, Kevin’s and his fellow self-proclaimed “leaders” of the Occupy Movement. Imagine, you can’t buy that kind of press. A bunch of young nice energetic people come to your door, rake your yard, sweep your walk, paint your porch for free, and all they want to do is give you a few leaflets with Kevin Zeese’s smiling picture on it?
That’s not the Occupy Movement, that’s the Church of Later Day Saints.
You can decide for yourselves why Kevin chose to demean the homeless and jobless the way he did in his article by calling them a diversion of the movement. Personally I think people like Kevin actually loathe the more unfortunate in our society just like the Glenn Becks and the Bill O’Reilly’s of this world do.  Or it could simply be a ham-handed attempt to redefine the movement into a more politically affiliated direction something like MoveOn. I don’t know. It’s tasteless and cowardly to blame the most vulnerable and deeply effected in our nation for Kevin’s failure, that much I do know.
More important is the direct lie Kevin Zeese writes;

“… We may be in for a sprint, or more likely, a marathon with hurdles. If you are hoping for a sprint, note that the deep corruption of the government and the economy has left both weaker than is publicly acknowledged. It may be a hollowed out shell ready to fall.” Kevin Zeese

Nothing could be farther from the truth and every single day the corruption in place in Washington digs itself in deeper and stronger.

• There is a “progressive” administration providing more than adequate left cover for the elites. Millions would have been in the streets years ago had a republican been doing what Obama is doing in the White House and Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Iran. Of that there is NO DOUBT
• Citizens United. Do I need to say anything else?
• Obama’s “tax break” plan is an attempt to undermine Social Security by reducing the amount deducted from your paycheck (those of you with paychecks) from 6.2% to 3.1% and that neoliberal attack on the social safety net is moving along at a fine pace.
• Section 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA of 2012 will be re-written by Clinton and Panetta to give them more authority to fight their GWOT and use the military to arrest and detain “belligerents” in America. And the ALCU is helping them do it.
• Obama claims the right to kill U.S. citizens as he sees fit.
• It has come out recently that the Pentagon has been giving local police departments weapons of mass destruction for the past year so that they can better “serve and protect” the citizens.
• The financial elites who destroyed the economy are sitting on trillions of dollars without investing any of it to put us back to work, we have 3 new NAFTA type free trade agreements signed (one sparked a riot in the South Korean parliament)
• No one is held accountable for crimes against humanity of the previous administration and no bankers are held accountable for demoing our economy.
• The DHS was able to orchestrate a nationwide assault on the Occupy Movements using chemical weapons and thugs dressed up like stormtroopers who beat and dragged and shot peaceful protesters on a regular basis and NOTHING was done to hinder them or call them out for their actions
• The MSM is even more in the pocket of the globalist elites these days printing and “reporting” on one false story after the other in an obvious attempt to foster support for illegal invasions and forced regime changes throughout the globe… even poking Russia right now with yet another “Green Revolution” destabilization campaign.
• ect ect ect

Does this seem like the corrupt system is getting weaker and “hollowed out” like Kevin suggests?
Of course not. Only a fool or a tool would say that, and Kevin is not a fool.
Someone once said that power only yields to more power and that is absolutely correct. Sitting around in drum circles and marching around dressed like billionaires on parade is not power, it’s embarrassing.
In one of the last weeks of the Occupy Wall Street protests, a strange thing happened; they almost occupied Wall Street.
There was a huge upsurge in their live streams while bloggers like myself and activists took notice and waited for something real to take place.
A large group had made it to within a block of the stock exchange and the police didn’t know what to do. The crowd numbers started surging and people were looking to find out what the next move was.
Suddenly there were reports that the Teamsters were on their way down to join them. The Teamsters were coming down in mass to help the OWS protesters push through that last block and actually OCCUPY WALL STREET
Within 5 minutes of hearing that, the self-proclaimed “leaders” of OWS New York started leading the protesters somewhere else… back to their little “free speech zone” in Zuccati Park, well away from Wall Street and well away from anything that would really make a difference.
They turn tail and ran as soon as it looked like they really had a chance to force change. The fake leaders snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and they did it one purpose.
Some in the crowd, once they got back to the free speech zone, shouted that they needed to go back to Wall Street, that they had something developing, something happening, that they had to take advantage of.
They were shouted down by the self-proclaimed professional leaders of the movement, the one’s in charge of all that money that poured into OWS. They said they had “won” already by forcing Wall Street to delay it’s opening bell by 15 minutes.
15 minutes.
That was their victory.
No one bought that. People knew they had been hijacked by professional disruptors just like the Truth movement and the anti-Globalization movement was before them. They had been hijacked and  steered back into the kettle of meaningless drum circles and droning chants.
And this is where Kevin Zeese is offing to take the movement yet again. Back to the free speech zones of “political activism”, VoteForPeace donation pages, and useless email address lists which will only ever be used to ask for more money and to show the elites how effective people like Kevin Zeese can be to them.
If ever an organization needed to get rid of anyone, the Occupy Movement needs to get rid of the people who steered them back to Zuccati park and others like Kevin Zeese who are steering them into a longer term kettle. Unless of course, the Occupy Movement is ready to sign up for the Serve America Act and “HOPE” that their vote counts in a country where there’s not a dime’s difference between one candidate and the other.

Russia Protests Western Media Lies- What the media says and what the media doesn't tell you

by Tony Cartalucci 
Saturday, December 10, 2011 

1. What the Media Says: 

From CNN: "Between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters had gathered in the capital, Moscow, Ria Novosti said Saturday, citing police. There have been no reports of unrest and security has been tight. 
Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, said 40,000 people had massed and some 10,000 were headed to the main protest venue, the news agency reported." 

What the Media Doesn't Tell You: 
Vladimir Ryzhkov is a member of the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) "World Democracy Movement." NED was also financing the very poll monitors Ryzhkov is citing as his justification for filling Russia's streets with unrest. 

2. What the Media Says: 
From CBS/AP: "Hundreds of people, were arrested in smaller protests earlier in the week. Some, including prominent opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, were sentenced to 15 days in jail." 

What the Media Doesn't Tell You: 
Alexei Navalny, defended by Neo-Con, Fortune 500 think-tank (page 18) Henry Jackson Foundation, was the co-founder of US NED-funded "Da!" or "Democratic Alternative." Fellow co-founder Mariya Gaydar would coordinate activities with another US NED-funded movement, the Moscow Helsinki Group which heads the "Strategy 31" campaign led by another "prominent" activist mentioned throughout the Western media, Ilya Yahsin. 
3. What the Media Says: 
From the London Telegraph: "Russian elections: Boris Nemtsov calls for vote rerun. Boris Nemtsov, a high profile figure in the country's liberal opposition movement, was one of those arrested during an anti-Kremlin protest on Tuesday night. He has since been released." 

What the Media Doesn't Tell You: 
Boris Nemtsov leads the Russian "People's Freedom Party" with the above mentioned, US-NED collaborator Vladimir Ryzhkov. Besides being in the same party, Nemtsov's political adviser Vladimir Kara-Murza (of Solidarnost), recently took part in a September 14, 2011 NED-sponsored event titled, "Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives." 

4. What the Media Says: 
From the Guardian, Comment is Free: "Having worked for Golos, Russia's only independent election monitoring organisation, for more than eight years, I never dreamed the president's administration would engage in an open campaign against our organisation – especially in the week running up to the country's Duma elections last Sunday." 

What the Media Doesn't Tell You: 

Golos is funded by the United States government-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Stated on the official NED.org website: 

"Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties “GOLOS” $65,000 
To carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agita¬tion, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of elec¬toral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections. GOLOS will hold local and national press conferences and publish reports on its findings, as well as pro¬vide detailed methodological advice to its monitors and other monitoring agencies." 

Conclusion 
The inseparable common thread between the patchwork of opposition groups now filling Russia's streets is their funding and support courtesy of the United States government and the National Endowment for Democracy. The mainstream Western media refuses to acknowledge this, and has been muted over the fact that the poll monitors reporting "corruption" and "election rigging" in the first place were also US NED-funded, including the frequently cited "Golos." When admissions are made, they are down-played, and words like "independent" are still used despite Golos' foreign-funding by a government clearly siding with Russia's opposition being a matter of record and illustrating an obvious conflict of interest. 

When the media systematically omits the ties of the Russian opposition with the United States government who is facilitating their networks, NGOs, and political activity, a very real conspiracy exists. To uncover the ties between the US government and Russia's opposition is the duty of every journalist, to provide the unequivocal truth and to truly inform the public. Only with a properly functioning, honest, and dedicated corps of journalists can "democracy" actually function. While the US State Department squawks about promoting "true democracy" in Russia, the blinding hypocrisy emanating from the Wall Street-London financier occupied governments of the West gives it the hollowest of rings.
_________


Related:

US Clumsily Covers Tracks in Russian Sedition

YAWN. DUMA ELECTIONS AND THE PREDICTABILITY OF WESTERN OUTRAGE

US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections. Putin compares US funded NGOs to Judas the betrayer. 


Colored Revolutions Primer.. A MUST KNOW

The eco-fascist NWO conspiracy failed again at Durban. Yet still undead (like a freaking zombie vampire)

_______

 Related:

World Government Climate Deal Fails In Durban

The Climate Change Revolution Will Not Be Funded

Global Warming Hysteria: Pushing Rights of Nature at Durban

The ECB Is Taking On Massive Risks That Would Make Even Ben Bernanke Blush

From The Business Insider:

 
In his latest weekly letter, hedge fund manager John Taylor says that for all the experimentation and aggression that Ben Bernanke has exhibited, the risks to the Fed don't hold a candle to the risks facing the ECB right now.
He writes:

Even the name European Central Bank should catch in our throats as there is no Europe.  There is no
country, no Treasury standing behind this bank.  The only thing that unites its seventeen member
countries is their common currency and that is a fabrication totally dependent upon the bank itself. 

As a result of this the ECB is running three major risks while the Fed is running about 1.2 of them.  The first and least problematic of those risks is the same one that the Fed has: the duration risk in owning long- term European government securities.  Before they mature, their market price could drop because of an increase in interest rates. 

The second risk is the credit risk, and for the ECB this is a gigantic one.  There is no guarantee that the Greek government is going to be able to repay its Bonds when they mature because they cannot print euros.  Arguing that these Bonds posses no risk of default is clearly ridiculous, but the ECB loaded with them, has to do that.  The third risk is the currency risk.  Certainly, no good Eurozone-phile would ever admit this risk as the national currencies of Greece, Italy, Spain and all the others vanished forever, but they are not necessarily gone.  Even Angela Merkel said that Greece could be expelled, and that outcome seems more than a distant probability.   So, the ECB within its SPM mandate has loaded its balance sheet with risky paper that might not pay off and might be dominated in as yet unnamed and unknown currencies. 

If the plans being hatched by the Merkozy duopoly come to pass, the ECB will have a portfolio of junk sovereign debt that will overwhelm its capital when the first country leaves the euro.  At that point the Eurozone members will be dunned to add to its capital and the amount involved will be far more than the number of the loans that have gone bad.  The ECB is a building built on sand – quicksand – and pushing this institution into a critical role is a major policy blunder that could eventually destroy the euro.

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Join the conversation about this story »
_________

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