The G20 summit was held here this week, and consequently, you couldn’t spit without hitting a high-powered international finance expert. I don’t suppose I will be surprising many of the people who read this Web log, therefore, if I note that I have (with due politically correct apologies to persons with disabilities) been busier than a one-armed paper hanger for the last seven days. In fact, I even had to work Saturday the twenty-fourth, as well as yesterday, too. Not only that, but, as the conferences all over town reached a fever pitch, Gretchen and I put in about fourteen hours each on both days. Since I pay Gretchen double for overtime, she’s been quite enthusiastic, actually, while I, as might be expected, have been gleefully raking in the greenbacks hand over fist. It seems that, when they’re in Washington, there’s nothing international financial experts like better than my advice. So life is good, and what’s more, I love my job. Hell, how many folks can say that nowadays?
It was barely after sunrise Saturday morning when Skatanafas Archimalakas, First Economic Secretary to Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, strode into my office bearing a bleary look and a face full of stubble which, taken together, clearly indicated he had pulled a international macroeconomic all-nighter. Firing up my office espresso machine, I quickly supplied him with a quad shot hazelnut latte, after which he was ready for coherent conversation.
“Mr. Collins,” he softly wailed from the seat he took, right next to mine at my desk, “I have been in non-stop negotiations, first in Greece, then in Brussels, and now here in Washington, for over a month.”
“Such dedication,” I remarked, “is highly commendable.”
“Only,” he proclaimed with a heavy sigh, “if I produce some results. And those, unfortunately, have proved quite elusive. The nation of Greece, Mr. Collins, is, as I am sure you know, just about as broke as Lehman Brothers.”
“You’re what…” I mused, “fifty-three billion Euros in debt at the moment?”
“Closer to sixty,” Archimalakas corrected.
“Right,” I responded, “and that’s about… one hundred thirteen percent of the Greek GDP?”
“Well,” he shrugged, draining his coffee, “it’s probably closer to one hundred and twenty.”
“That’s quite a predicament,” I observed in a somewhat elevated tone as I ground him another four shots of coffee beans, “I imagine that Moody’s and the International Monetary Fund, to say nothing of the other members of the Eurozone, must have been extremely disconcerted to learn that. Right now, I’d imagine Greece is about as popular as a member of a high school chess club with acne.”
“More,” he replied, “like a pom-pom girl with herpes, but, yes, we’re at… how do you say it? We’re at the bottom of the pricking order.”
“Pecking order,” I clarified.
“Exactly,” he moaned over the sound of the espresso machine. “Even countries like Portugal, Ireland and Spain won’t talk to us anymore.”
“Could you, perhaps,” I inquired as I steamed the milk for his second quad latte, “give me some idea how in the world a nice country like Greece ended up in a situation like this?”
“Oh, that,” Archimalakas groaned. “It’s… sort of… complicated. Rather involved, you know?”
“Not a problem,” I assured him as I handed over another steaming cup of caffeinated courage. “My listening skills are legendary. Please – expound as necessary.”
“Um, yes, well…” he stuttered, searching for the right words to begin, “it all started about three years ago, when our Prime Minister Papandréou received an e-mail from a certain Bonzo Bungholubongo, King of the Uougabuogaboos, native to the Central African Republic, who presently resides in Lagos, Nigeria. At that time, His Majesty King Bungholubongo informed Prime Minister Papandréou that he, King Bungholubongo, is the only surviving scion of a family which had participated in extensive diamond, ruby, coltan, tungsten, bauxite, titanium, silver, rare earth, tantalum and platinum mining… ah, arrangements… with various… uh, international organizations under the former regime of Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa, beginning in 1966 during a period in which the country was first known as the Central African Republic, and later, beginning in 1976, as the Central African Empire. Bokassa’s control of the country ended in 1979, and since that time, it seems, an extremely large amount of money has remained in many secret bank accounts held in Switzerland, accumulating, it should also be noted, significant interest, compounded at an annual average basis rate exceeding twelve percent, not to mention the considerable increase in the value of those deposits due to over forty years of inflation within the international monetary system. But, for various reasons involving his status as an asylum seeker with the government of Mozambique, combined with the rather complicated internal politics of the Uougabuogaboo tribe, however, His Majesty Bungholubongo required the support of a financially sophisticated, well-connected and experienced person to assist him in liquidating an amount, now valued at two trillion, seven hundred fifty billion, nine hundred sixty-two million Euros from those aforementioned Swiss bank accounts. For such services, His Majesty is prepared to remunerate the qualified candidate with a ten percent fee. And, of course,” Archimalakas pointed out, “when you do the math, that works out as more than two hundred and seventy-five billion Euros. So naturally, our Prime Minister Papandréou immediately seized the opportunity. Just think, Mr. Collins, what Greece could do with all that money! We’d have Germany and France snickering out the other sides of their perpetual sneers, wouldn’t we?”
“But is Greece,” I implored as I sat down with a steaming quad cappuccino of my own, “really that beset by such intense feelings of inferiority?”
“What do you think?” Archimalakas huffed. “Here’s Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization, poor as… what do you say… a church mouse? Yes, poor as a church mouse, with everybody laughing at us because our men dance with each other! And all those jokes about… you know… ‘watch out for the Greek wearing sneakers’ and all that. Then there was that military dictatorship we had for all those years – also very embarrassing; people constantly whispering ‘So what makes them any better than the Turks, then?’ and so forth.”
“My sympathies,” I offered, in my best commiserating voice. “So, I take it, Mr. Papandréou has encountered some problems in his dealings with His Majesty, King Bungholubongo?”
“Yes,” Archimalakas allowed with curt nod, “but nothing he and the king couldn’t work out. As you might well imagine, these things are very complicated. But I have attended numerous telephone conferences with Mr. Papandréou and Mr. Papaconstantinou, where we conversed at length with King Bungholubongo, and I can assure you, His Majesty is incredibly astute with respect to the affairs of international banking.”
“Such,” I discreetly probed, “as what?”
“His understanding,” he explained, “for example, of what it takes to move two and three quarter trillion Euros out of a plethora of Swiss banks: transaction fees, prepaid taxation, consolidation charges, transmission assurances, terminal costs, underwriting insurance, cooperation exchanges, the list goes on and on!”
“And how much,” I gently insisted, “did all that sort of thing add up to?”
Archimalakas knit his brow tightly while thinking, pursing his lips in concentration. “Ah, that would be… approximately twenty-eight billion, three hundred million Euros.”
“Which,” I glibly surmised, “Prime Minister Papandréou wired to King Bungholubongo’s own bank accounts quite willingly, since His Majesty promised, on his Royal Honor, that every single Euro of those unfortunately necessary expenses would be repaid to the government of Greece as soon as the principal sum became available?”
“Exactly,” Archimalakas confirmed.
“And,” I confidently continued, “as this process unfolded over a period of many months, I trust that His Majesty also brought to your attention a number of other expenses, did he not?”
“Why, yes,” Archimalakas readily admitted. “There were, as we Greeks could readily understand, a number of… gratuities that needed to be paid in order to allow vital paperwork to pass from the Central African Republic to… ah, various… intermediaries in Malta, Tunisia and Namibia.”
“For a total of?” I prodded.
“Um… let me see…” he mused, “that would be… approximately nineteen billion Euros.”
“And, then,” I pressed on, “what did King Bungholubongo tell you?”
“Uh, well, naturally,” Archimalakas stammered, “it being Africa and so forth, it was hardly unexpected to learn that the secret bank account numbers were held by many members of the Uougabuogaboo nobility, to most of whom His Majesty owed ritual debts, customary dowry contributions, religious tithes, filial obligations and, as might be expected given his situation, quite a few ordinary loan debts – but all of whom, by virtue of the rigid and ancient traditions of their culture will be absolutely duty bound to divulge the secret bank account numbers, just as soon as the necessary payments are made.”
“Totalling?”
“About fourteen billion Euros,” Archimalakas shrugged. “It’s nothing, really, in comparison with two and three quarter trillion, of course; and, anyway, His Majesty, as you so correctly deduced, is going to pay all of these fees out of his share, thus leaving the fair Nation of Greece with every single Euro of the full ten percent due her.”
“Sure,” I cordially humored. “So tell me – what should Papandréou to do with that eight billion, five hundred million Euros Greece is getting from Brussels and the IMF week after next to pay off those ten-year Greek bonds coming due on May nineteenth?”
“Ah-ha!” Archimalakas exclaimed, clunking his coffee mug down on my desk emphatically. “That! That’s what I came here this morning to ask you!”