If actual invasion arouses people's patriotism which is the often passionate response to defend the place where you and your family and community live.. then this kind of financial invasion…using debt ( and debt that is as Hawkeye describes it "odious") might and I'd say should arouse just as intense a response.

The trouble is at the moment the German voter is not seeing it like this they see profligate Greece and good tax paying Germany propping them up.
Even a Guardian article today on the reaction in Athens never once made the point that Golem was making above ….in whose benefit is this default being delayed?.
And without being nationalist about it is time the German people recognized what their own banks were up to not just in Greece but in Ireland. And not just them but French and British banks too.
Maybe they do but its not the impression I am getting from the German Polls on the subject.
This is something that has to to take on international dimensions.

Yes, the asset stripping of a nation will likely lead to a resurgence in Nationalism.

The Wall of Illusions hides many inherent tensions:

http://forensicstatistician.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/wall-of-illusions/

"towards the end of the nineteenth century the world economy started to fracture. National resistance against the liberal state’s free-market methods was coupled with a breakdown of international finance. The first world war failed to address the inherent problems as many nations tried to kick start the Laissez-Faire agenda, culminating in the boom and bust of the late 1920s. In [Polanyi's] view protectionist policies emerged in the 1930s as a reaction to the failure of un-fettered Capitalism. In their own different ways the New Deal, Communism and Fascism were the social responses to the collapse of International Capitalism; a way for society to re-assert it’s primacy over the market."

" provides the banks with the delicious prospect of asset stripping an entire nation"

Asset stripping a nation!!
German banks asset stripping Greece!
I don't know but the thought that there can be economic invasion without the tanks would drive me if I was a Greek to some pretty un-euro vision extremes. I mean I was told for a long time Germans were not allowed to even own land in Crete. Memories may be short
( A friends daughter of 19 at University had not heard of Elizabeth Taylor!)
but not THAT short. Once the issue begins to take on that aspect I can see very real rioting and worse. And I could see it sparking similar trouble within Germany too among the young who have no appetite for emulating their grandfather's military exploits using bank debts as the storm troops.
ASSET STRIPPING A NATION!
Its a brilliant phrase because it is exactly what is on the cards… and yet the EU bureaucrats cant see what pure dynamite that might turn out to be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/17/greece-bailout-germany-private-banks

Markets recover…trebles all round!!!

That's what makes myths so valuable to those who by chance or design consider they benefit from it.

Jay is right and wrong! They are already in slavery. Debt bondage ends when the creditor is paid. But they cannot be paid. If anyone were to ascertain who these few creditors are, the net beneficiaries, they could be regarded as enemies of the Greek state and appropriate action taken. They are more conscious of this as they have read the Wizard of OZ.

The disease has left rotten flesh. The disease is borrowing excessively. Cap that and the problem disappears.

Thanks Golem, we don't mind the errors as we understand your anger. While things appear to be getting worse, more people are aware of the contents of Amos and that debts and laws mean slavery!

What happens is that the fisherman sells his children into slavery and then becomes one himself.

A good description of the results of this process in a society can be found in the Bible, the Old Testament book of Amos.

To me it seemed like madness. Like trying – on purpose – to make a bad situation worse. Surely the only sane course of action (other than total debt forgiveness but I don't see that happening any time soon under our lords and masters) is a partial re-structuring of the debt that involves writing some of it off.

Yes sure – that means some creditors take a hit – but much less of one than they'll take if the Greek population decide to just take down the government and force a full on, uncontrolled default right?

So why not hedge your bets and take a bit of a hit, give Greece a bit of wiggle room and hope for the best?

Why this hardline stance? Then it clicked. Of course if they let Greece off some of the debt – then no doubt they'll have Portugal and Spain and Ireland demanding the same. So they see their only option as playing hardball.

I'd like to know how you think this will play out Golem? I mean if the Germans do give in and don't force some haircuts on bondholders and the EU gives Greece yet more money (well not 'gives' as such as forces upon with intolerable strings attached but you know semantics and all that) how long do you think the markets will calm down for? Months, a year or two? Weeks?

I do believe that you can't cure debt with debt and I do believe Greece will ultimately default, I just wonder just how long they can stretch this out for?

Amagerbanken, Denmark, revisited…

Soon "bail-in" will be the buzz-word, to hell with "bail-outs" and "orderly defaults":

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-16/sweden-wants-bail-in-model-to-target-senior-bank-creditors.html

Maybe some of your Danish readers can give us an up-date on attempts to soften the wind-down rules that so disturb rating agencies and the financial class?

41 % "hair cut"? More like cutting everything away from the chest and up. Not even medicine has a word for that kind of surgery.

You think 40+ % may be indicative of the amount of rotting "assets" in European banks?

What a kind and generous thing to say. Thank you.