Armed robbery at Olympics

No, not the London Olympics.

Greek police are searching for two thieves who carried out an armed robbery of archaeological artefacts at Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games.

Two masked thieves armed with Kalashnikovs are reported to have broken into the museum, tied up the guard and made away with a large number of exhibits.

I guess this is what happens when your country is on the brink of bankruptcy - if anything is not bolted to the floor it is worth stealing so that you can sell it for hard currency (but probably not Euros).




Meanwhile, in Frankfurt, the ECB is also busy trying to steal from Greek people.

The ECB holds Greek bonds that it got as collateral for cheap loans to European banks. These bonds are worth less than face value because part of the bailout package requires private sector debt to be written down by 70%.

This is not acceptable to the European politicians though - they are perfectly happy for the Greek people to lose out when their banks and pension schemes lose 70% the value of their bonds but not for European governments to lose out on the very same bonds.

The ECB is swapping their devalued bonds for new bonds which keep 100% of their face value. This is being paid for by Greek tax payers . The profits are being distributed to European central banks.

Not very sporting, is it? It goes to show that not all robberies are by masked men carrying Kalashnikovs. Some of them wear nice German made suits and pretend to help you while picking your pockets.