The devil is in the details. In this case, the details require Greece to give up all 111 tonnes of its gold in exchange for the latest bailout. Which means that should Greece ever decide to do what they should have done in May 2010 and default on the banksters, they will now be SOL as far as international trade is concerned.
As far as the banksters are concerned, Greece with its 111 tonnes of gold are merely a practice run for the main event: Portugal with 382.5 tonnes of gold, France with 2,435.4 tonnes of gold and Italy with 2,451.8 tonnes of gold.
But down there in the small print of the Greek deal lies the nasty side for Greece. There lies a heavy penalty clause; Greece's lenders will have the right to seize the gold reserves in the Bank of Greece under the terms of the new deal. Greece has 111 tonnes of gold. In other words Greece has given up on its "money in extremis", gold. If they default they will have nowhere else to go.
Its international assets will be seized and it will not be able to trade internationally at all.
Today we are watching both Iran and the Sudan use their gold to buy food for their country as they have nowhere else and nothing else to get it with. Under the terms of this new deal Greece has effectively forfeited that last resort. And if they wanted to pull a last card from the pack by insisting on a Greek jurisdiction for any final arbitration, they have forfeited that too, by agreeing that future bonds issued will be governed by English law and in Luxembourg courts, conditions more favorable to creditors.
The option of leaving the Eurozone and surviving independently has now gone. If they do default [and many think the shrinking economy will force them down that road] they will have to accept whatever terms they can scrape together from the E.U. in order to survive! Greece is now a colony of the E.U. not a member!
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