Word: euro
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Last month, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou blamed his country's economic meltdown on "an attack on the euro zone by certain other interests, political or financial. We are being targeted, particularly with an ulterior motive or agenda." And according to Spain's El Pais newspaper, agents at the country's National Intelligence Center are investigating whether "attacks by investors and the hostility shown by some sectors of the British and U.S. press" amount to "collusion." "None of what is happening, including editorials in some foreign media with their apocalyptic commentaries, is happening by chance or innocently," Spanish Transport Minister...
...there just one alleged plot involved. The colorful Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos this week claimed that the Nazi theft of Greek gold during World War II was to blame for the country's ballooning deficit, which has shaken investors' confidence in the euro, causing it to plunge in value against the dollar in recent weeks...
...blame is certainly going around. Many conspiracists accuse "foreign hands," more specifically Anglo-Saxons, for the Greek and Spanish crises, arguing that they have always hated the euro and are now using their hedge funds and media operations to bring it down. Some suggest that speculators are attacking the euro to block moves toward tougher European Union regulation of the market. Others, like European Central Bank chief economist Jürgen Stark, suggest people are perpetrating a ruse to hide the U.K.'s budget deficit. "It's astonishing to see where most of the criticism of the euro is coming...
Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at the Breugel economic think tank in Brussels, says the theories reflect a virulent public mistrust of the free market in euro-zone countries, particularly in southern Europe. "There is a very long and deep suspicion of markets in these places," he says. But he adds that these countries are guilty of shifting the blame for their own problems. "It is absurd to imply a political purpose in this," Véron says. "This scapegoating is a distraction from the serious political reform that is needed and contributes to ingraining political prejudices...
...while most conspiracy theories are overblown, some experts believe there is at least some kernel of truth to them. "They are correct to say there has been massive short-selling against the euro," says Iain Begg, an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. "Speculation is what markets are about. It is simply an opportunity to make money. Financial markets are amoral, feral beasts. If they see a weakness, they go for it. And Greece was seen as weak." He admits that the role of Goldman Sachs and other major banks in helping Greece disguise its mounting debts...