Bilderberg meeting in Greece

[Joanne98]

Thursday, 14 May 2009

Don’t tell anyone, don’t breathe a word, but the world’s most powerful men are meeting secretly again to save the planet from economic catastrophe or destroy it, not sure what is on the agenda. Oh, and their address, should you want to send them your opinions, is: c/o Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel, Apollonos Avenue 40, 16671 Vouliagmeni, Greece.

Bed space is a bit tight there for the next two days while the Bilderberg illuminati hold their private conclave in the five-star Greek hotel. Every year since 1954 a club of about 130 senior or up-and-coming politicians gather at the fireside of a secluded hotel with top bankers and a sprinkling of royalty to discuss burning issues, to trade confidences and just stay abreast of the I-know-something-you-don’t-know circuit. No lists of participants are disclosed, no press conferences are held; spill the beans and you’re out of the magic circle, for good.

For those of us standing outside the locked gates all that is left is to hope that they will sleep well, avoid jet ski injury and solve our problems for us. For the Bilderbergers it is a little like that recent MI5 recruitment ad: “See all your best work go unnoticed!”

Each country delegates two people to the steering committee that is the intellectual hub of Bilderberg. In the past Kenneth Clarke, the Shadow Business Secretary, and Martin Taylor, formerly head of Barclays Bank, have had their hand on the British tiller.

This year the club is going to talk about depression. “According to the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees, Bilderberg is looking at two options,” says the Bilderberg-watcher Daniel Estulin — “either a prolonged, agonising depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty — or an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with much less sovereignty but more efficiency.” For those who wonder why the EU was created... could be to strip all European countries of their sovereignty, which will happen with passage of the Lisbon Treaty.

Since Bilderberg does not officially exist, it cannot deny anything and is therefore manna from heaven for the conspiracy theorist. Eurosceptics are convinced that the future development of the European Union was plotted here — EU commissioners have always been welcomed into the coven, with Peter “We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” Mandelson a particular favourite. Margaret Thatcher, it is said, was a shy debutante at a Bilderberg meeting in 1975.

Jim Tucker, veteran stalker of the Bilderberg club meetings, claims that Mrs Thatcher was ordered “to dismantle British sovereignty, but she said, ‘no way’, so they had her sacked”. Left-wing conspiracy theorists believe that Bilderbergers form a capitalist nucleus, and there is a germ of truth in this. The meetings were started in the Netherlands, in the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem, by the Polish exile Joseph Retinger. He was worried about growing anti-Americanism and the advance of Communism in Western Europe. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands agreed to sponsor the idea, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Walter Bedell Smith, threw his weight behind it and so did the White House.

The Bilderberg consensus is that national problems are best solved by an internationally oriented elite, that a global network of decision-makers should have a common language and that the boundaries are fluid between the monied and the political classes.

And so there has been a natural bias towards inviting conservatives and market liberals. The only socialists invited are those who “understand money”.

Continued>>>
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6721/53/

The last paragraph.........Geithner is going......

Whether Lucifer will be down there on the sun-loungers remains to be seen. But what we have been able to establish from a World Bank spokesman, Alexis O’Brien, is that the organisation’s president, Robert Zoellick, will be in Athens on unspecified business on May 14. And that US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s public schedule is mysteriously empty for the next two days. Jo Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, will be travelling “somewhere in Europe”. Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, will not be around until the end of the week.

[rcrush]

1. k&r

[graywarrior]

2. Interesting about Geithner's schedule.

I wonder who else from the US is attending. Think they have any sacrificial lambs?

[Joanne98]

4. World bank president Robert Zoellick. He's a big deal.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Oh barf...I just looked him up on Wiki....

He goes way back, to Poppy Bush, served as Deputy Sec. of State, also involved in Goldman Sachs, to Pres. of Fannie May, in and out of the Treasury, succeeded Wolfowitz at the World bank, and generally is a financial Snidely Whiplash.

Also creepy:

[Joanne98]

10. Here's his muck map. Super insider

http://www.muckety.com/Robert-B-Zoellick/4343.muckety

[notesdev]

26. Scary

any civilized society would long have done away with such people.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. In his signed letter of ethics, Geithner resigned

from the "baby Bilderbergs" :
Trilateral Comm.
Group of 30
Council on Foreign Relations
but the Bilderberg Group is noticeabley absent from the list.
Link:

http://documents.propublica.org/obama-administration-ethics-agreements/page/146

Obviously interesting that he was a member of so many groups that just a few years ago no one wanted to admit existed.

[elleng]

25. Very Important that geithner will be close.

.

[nichomachus]

3. And a good friend of mine

is on his way to Athens as we speak. He said it was "vacation," but now...sheesh . . .I don't know what to think.

[Joanne98]

5. Why did they pick Greece? The Greek left has been kicking ass on capitalists and police.

Aren't they afraid of a MAJOR protest?

[rcrush]

13. They got their protection from the greek Navy.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200905140722dowjonesdjonline000365&title=bilderberg-group-meets-in-athens-amid-tight-security

snip

A Greek navy launch and boats carrying elite divers could be seen a few meters off the coast of the peninsula where the hotel stands. Greek newspapers said the group had also asked for the protection of two F-16 warplanes and a police helicopter.

Reports say U.S. State Department number two James Steinberg, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands are among those attending the Bilderberg meeting.

snip

[Ghost Dog]

15. Easily-enough protected on a peninsula; but close enough to the Capital

to attract attention and provoke some of the local hot-headed resistance. Perhaps deliberately so: They could easily have sequestered themselves on some small luxury island...

[peacetalksforall]

21. They could have done it all for free paid by the U.S. if they had gone to Diego Garcia.

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. My first thought! Have they been advising on Iraq and Afghanistan, as

well as the economy?

[RandomThoughts]

6. Why do they need secrecy

What are they saying, that if known, would cause them problems.

We should find out, and make it public... Now that would be interesting wouldn't it...

[Joanne98]

7. Guest Post: Will Bilderberg Sink the Global Economy?

Roughly once a quarter, I get together with some leftist professors at Alep restaurant in Montreal. As always, the food was delicious but Tom Naylor forgot to order the lamb dish, one of my favorites. He did make sure the wine kept flowing so I will forgive him.

It was a full house tonight. Even Robin Rowley, my econometrics and history of economic thought professor at McGill University, showed up and so did Jonathan Nitzan who just finished writing Contours of Crisis II: Fiction and Reality with Shimson Bichler.

There were many other distinguished guests tonight, including Sam Noumoff who will soon leave us to enjoy his retirement somewhere on the coast of Spain (I am so jealous). Presiding over tonight's festivities was our esteemed President, George Archer, a man who knows how to say a lot with few words. El Presidente was at his best tonight, making sure his loyal servants were obedient. He allowed Naylor to have a few of his classic outbursts but nothing too anti-capitalistic.

A long time ago, I use to work with Jonathan and George at the Bank Credit Analyst, a private macroeconomic forecast firm based here in Montreal. Unfortunately, both Jonathan and George are not neo-classical economists so their views were too off course for traditional macroeconomic forecast firms who believe in the religion of economics.

As for Tom Naylor, well, he has long given up on economic theory saying "it's all a fraud." I think he has given up on humanity as well stating that the "real swine are humans as they took a perfectly clean animal like the pig and mistreated it. Now it's the pigs' revenge."

Tom also took swipes at me for believing in President Obama and his message of change. "His administration is basically the extension of the previous Republican administration pandering to the banksters on Wall Street."

When I asked him whether he believes real change is possible, he replied: "How can it happen when 99% of the population is electronically lobotomized and beyond redemption?"

A classic Tom Naylor response. Tom made a career writing on international money laundering, white collar fraud, and all sorts of economic crimes in between. His current interest is the ecology and he is getting ready to publish a satirical book on class warfare. He is an economist with an excellent grasp of history.

Now, if you would like to be part of the Men's Club, you have to submit an application to El Presidente. You have to be a man (sorry, we do not accept women in our private club) and you have to repudiate all traditional economic theories you were taught in university.

The second criteria really limits our membership because most people accept neo-classical economic theory and all its precepts as religion. Interests rates cannot be negative and profits are the only measure of progress in society.

But no matter how exclusive our club sounds, we are nothing compared to the shadowy Bilderberg Group which is reportedly meeting in Athens tomorrow. The Guadian's Charlie Skelton has been busy pursuing the world's most powerful cabal, but so far with the annual secret meeting of the global elite only hours away, the shadowy corporatocracy remains tantalizingly elusive.

So what is on the agenda for the world's rich and powerful? According to Daniel Estulin, author of the book, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, elitists are divided on whether to quickly sink economy and replace it with new world order, or set in motion a long, agonizing depression:

On the eve of the 2009 Bilderberg Group conference, which is due to be held May 14-17 at the 5 star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, investigative reporter Daniel Estulin has uncovered shocking details of what the elitists plan to do with the economy over the course of the next year.

The Bilderberg Group meeting is an annual confab of around 150 of the world’ s most influential powerbrokers in government, industry, banking, media, academia and the military-industrial complex. The secretive group operates under “Chatham House rules,” meaning that no details of what is discussed can ever be leaked to the media, despite editors of the world’s biggest newspapers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Financial Times, being present at the meeting.

According to Estulin’s sources, which have been proven highly accurate in the past, Bilderberg is divided on whether to put into motion, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

The information takes on added weight when one considers the fact that Estulin’s previous economic forecasts, which were based on leaks from the same sources, have proven deadly accurate. Estulin correctly predicted the housing crash and the 2008 financial meltdown as a result of what his sources inside Bilderberg told him the elite were planning based on what was said at their 2006 meeting in Canada and the 2007 conference in Turkey.

Details of the economic agenda were contained in a pre-meeting booklet being handed out to Bilderberg members. On a more specific note, Estulin warns that Bilderberg are fostering a false picture of economic recovery, suckering investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market again only to later unleash another massive downturn which will create “massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” according to a Canada Free Press report.

According to Estulin, Bilderberg is assuming that U.S. unemployment figures will reach around 14% by the end of the year, almost doubling the current official figure of 8.1 per cent.

Continued>>>
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/05/guest-post-will-bilderberg-sink-global.html

[Ghost Dog]

11. "talking points and concerns for this year’s meeting"

According to Estulin’s sources, here are a few of the talking points and concerns for this year’s meeting:

* The future of the US dollar and US economy: The plan is for the Bilderberg Group players, through their allies in Washington and Wall Street to continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead. The bank “stress tests” now being conducted by Washington are little more than a shameless hoax: Based on the irrational assumption that the economy won’t get as bad as it already is!

* US unemployment: Solutions and assumptions (Stated as such in the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees.) Bilderberg is quietly assuming that US unemployment numbers will hover around 14% by the end of this year, far higher than the official numbers released by the US government.

* Depression or a prolonged stagnation? (Stated as such in the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees.) Bilderberg is looking at two options: Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline, and poverty ... or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less (national) sovereignty but more efficiency.

* There will be a final push for the enactment of Lisbon Treaty, pending on Irish voting YES on the treaty in Sept or October.

/... http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10854

[RandomThoughts]

12. The problem with groups like Bilderbergs

Is not world government, it is that they meet in secret and are not representatives of people.

A cooperation between nations, or a world government that was based on people voting for representatives, and economies managed by those groups in the open makes sense.

But secrecy and self appointed members, or inclusion by wealth or status within a group is wrong in my view.

If those meetings were just, they should be able to be televised. Just like peoples communications are many times monitored, leaders that make policies or agendas for government should be streamed to the Internet to give the citizens the same methods to monitor governments, that governments have to monitor citizens

[Ghost Dog]

16. Yes, some kind of properly representative world governance

addressing global issues and protecting local rights would be a powerful step for human civilisation to take at this juncture.

Government by a cabal of aristos and bankers and an inner circle of nominally capitalist hangers on, I think not.

[rcrush]

14. Apparantley a bomb attack went off already.

A bomb attack by the "Revolutionary Struggle" has already been reported at 3:30pm on Tuesday 12 May on the Vouliagmenis Avenue in the Greek capital within the vicinity of the location of the Bilderberg meeting on the Greek Eurobank branch with a 5 kilo bomb.

The President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick and Tim Geittner the US Treasury Secretary are reported by sources in The Times report as having "unspecified business" in Europe for the next two days.

The agenda of the Bilderberg Group this year is reported to be looking at a "prolonged agonising depression that dooms the world for decades of stagnation decline and poverty, or an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency".

The UK is sending representatives from the government, who may include it is reported past participant Lord Mandelson. Other past attendees of the Bilderberg Group from the UK have included Ed Balls (2006),Tony Blair (1993),Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (Steering Committee member) Kenneth Clarke (1993, 1998,<23> 2006<24> & 2007<25>), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey (founder and Steering Committee member) George Osborne (2006)<26> (2008) Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 2004-Present; member of the opposition 2001-Present, Eric Roll (1964, 1966, 1967, 1973-1975, 1977-1999) (Bilderberg Steering Committee),<27> Department of Economic Affairs, 1964, later Bilderberg Group Chairman, Edward Heath, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher <29>.

A London Daily News correspondent based in Athens Evangelos Andreotis who is based near the Athens Astir Palace has said that "security in Athens is especially tight with Anarchist groups and protests already mobilised to try and disrupt the meeting of this group. Greek police and the government have ordered a no tolerance ethos to policing the event, with heavily armed soldiers and police in the streets of Athens".


A bomb attack by the "Revolutionary Struggle" has already been reported at 3:30pm on Tuesday 12 May on the Vouliagmenis Avenue in the Greek capital within the vicinity of the location of the Bilderberg meeting on the Greek Eurobank branch with a 5 kilo bomb.

The President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick and Tim Geittner the US Treasury Secretary are reported by sources in The Times report as having "unspecified business" in Europe for the next two days.

The agenda of the Bilderberg Group this year is reported to be looking at a "prolonged agonising depression that dooms the world for decades of stagnation decline and poverty, or an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency".

The UK is sending representatives from the government, who may include it is reported past participant Lord Mandelson. Other past attendees of the Bilderberg Group from the UK have included Ed Balls (2006),Tony Blair (1993),Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (Steering Committee member) Kenneth Clarke (1993, 1998,<23> 2006<24> & 2007<25>), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey (founder and Steering Committee member) George Osborne (2006)<26> (2008) Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 2004-Present; member of the opposition 2001-Present, Eric Roll (1964, 1966, 1967, 1973-1975, 1977-1999) (Bilderberg Steering Committee),<27> Department of Economic Affairs, 1964, later Bilderberg Group Chairman, Edward Heath, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher <29>.

A London Daily News correspondent based in Athens Evangelos Andreotis who is based near the Athens Astir Palace has said that "security in Athens is especially tight with Anarchist groups and protests already mobilised to try and disrupt the meeting of this group. Greek police and the government have ordered a no tolerance ethos to policing the event, with heavily armed soldiers and police in the streets of Athens".

[Joanne98]

17. Picking Greece was just asking for it.

[Vidar]

23. A pity it wasn't more successful.

[Demeter]

18. I Hope They Ordered a Big Load of Lemons to Suck On

These "Masters of the Universe" Puppet Masters

[Joanne98]

19. UPDATE: New comedian report........

I want to talk about Bilderberg 2009. But beyond a simple "yes, it's happening, it's real, the leaders of the world are hanging out here for the weekend", what can I say? It's a private meeting.

I don't know if they're discussing global financial unification or the season finale of Grey's Anatomy over their prawn cocktails. I don't even know what the vegetarian option is for starters. Butternut squash?

You're going to have to forgive me for speculating, but that's all I can do. I'm not a proper reporter. I don't have the foggiest of my rights (if any) to stand on public footpaths and point cameras. I don't even have a proper camera. But what I do have is this: a sense of something rotten in the state of Greece. To my nose, there's not a healthy smell wafting down from the Astir Palace. Or maybe that was the egg and pepper roll I had for breakfast.

Sorry if some of these speculations are wrongheaded, but I'm doing a lot of this thinking for the first time and I've only just shaken off my police escort. Sorry if I sound shrill or petulant, self-righteous or precious, sorry if my perceptions have been tilted by anger … sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry for bothering you Mr Bilderberg. I've spent the last three days apologising to everyone. Sorry to the staff at my hotel for having plainclothes officers loafing around in their lobby. Sorry to the plainclothes officers themselves for having to drag them around Vougliameni on a wild goose chase (I bought them some chilled water, and took it to them while they shuffled awkwardly behind a tree). Sorry then to the desk sergeant for bothering her with my predicament: "I'm being followed around like a criminal, I wonder if you wouldn't mind asking them to stop? I'm not doing anything wrong, and it's getting … well … a bit annoying."

I'm going to stop apologising now. I'm going to try and make sense of my experiences. It's not easy; I don't want to sound feeble-minded, but this has been a lot to take in. I feel a bit like I've driven down the wrong alley and suddenly don't recognise anything, and people are staring at me and not simply to admire my hair. I'm jumpy. I think someone has been in my room and moved my laptop. I know this sounds bonkers, I know it does, but I took a photo of it before I left the room and it wasn't where I left it.

Listen to me. I sound like a fruitcake. Three days and I've been turned into a suspect, a troublemaker, unwanted, ill at ease, tired and a bit afraid. And I haven't even walked up the road to the Bilderberg hotel since the whole "get in the car!" incident. I've been trying to stay out of trouble, but trouble has followed me down the hill.

So – to make sense of it. I'm going to begin here: with the face of the first Bilderberg delgate I saw in the flesh. I was trying, lamely, to get a snap of some delegates as they swooshed through Vougliameni in their mirrored limos with their plainclothes motorcycle outriders and police escorts. And one of them had their window open. I was so excited I forgot to bring the camera to my face and took a photo of the hubcap. What I saw I won't forget. It was a 40-something man with his head thrown back, laughing and laughing, the perfect photograph that only my retina will ever see.

And you know what: no wonder he was happy. It must be WAY COOL to be sirened through Greek streets in the back of bulletproof limo on your way to the COOLEST party in the world. You've been invited by the coolest of the cool kids to hang out for the weekend. Your cool cousin's über-cool older brother and his way cool friends have got a keg of beer and a pool in the yard, and their parents are away and you think Jessica might be going. THIS IS THE BEST PARTY EVER! Turn on the sirens! We're coming through! Woohoo!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/15/bilderberg-charlie-skelton-dispatch1

[Ghost Dog]

27. Spot on writing. Just the right tone

heh heh.

... What I saw I won't forget. It was a 40-something man with his head thrown back, laughing and laughing, the perfect photograph that only my retina will ever see.

And you know what: no wonder he was happy. It must be WAY COOL to be sirened through Greek streets in the back of bulletproof limo on your way to the COOLEST party in the world. You've been invited by the coolest of the cool kids to hang out for the weekend. Your cool cousin's über-cool older brother and his way cool friends have got a keg of beer and a pool in the yard, and their parents are away and you think Jessica might be going. THIS IS THE BEST PARTY EVER! Turn on the sirens! We're coming through! Woohoo!

And your life is already pretty cool. You already own a newspaper or head a thinktank, or you're the UK secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, or you run Fiat, or you're chairman of the Federal Reserve or Queen of the Netherlands, or president of Shell Oil. You run stuff. You have big ideas. You're in control, and control is fun.

Bilderberg is all about control. It's about "what shall we do next?" We run lots of stuff already, how about we run some more? How about we make it easier to run stuff? More efficient. Efficiency is good. It would be so much easier with a single bank, a single currency, a single market, a single government. How about a single army? That would be pretty cool. We wouldn't have any wars then. This prawn cocktail is GOOD. How about a single way of thinking? How about a controlled internet?

How about not...

[Joanne98]

20. Bilderberg is a CAPITALIST conspiracy. The RW keeps lying about that.

Though I don't think that will work much longer since any examination of who goes is just banksters, ceo's and the pols they control. It's just common sense.

It's not a One World Government, It's a One World CORPORATION...

But that doesn't stop the right from LIE LIE LIE.......

[rcrush]

24. ++++1

:toast: :thumbsup: :yourock: :headbang: :fistbump: