File this under "news they ain't telling you."

As many are aware, for the past six years, bailout funds, courtesy of the IMF/EU/ECB have been flowing into Greece, in return for "structural reforms" that involve privatization of public resources, cutting of public expenditures, and so forth. But Greece still struggles. Why?

Perhaps this is why: a recent study (from early May of 2016) from the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a Berlin university, showed that fully 95% of the allocated "bailout" funds passed frictionlessly through the Greek state and went back to the banks (German banks particularly) to pay off their bad bets. The private losses of the various Euro banks were thus transformed into public debt, with the bill deliverable to the Greek people in the form of loans that they now have to pay off. Because they do not have their own currency, they cannot, like Iceland, inflate their way out of the crisis.

Here is Deutsche Welle, covering this story all the way back on May 4th:

Less than 10 billion euros ($11.5 billion) from Greece's first two international bailouts ended up in the hands of the Greek treasury, according to new study by the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). Contrary to popular belief, the lion's share of the rescue money sent to Greece was used for debt repayments, interest payments, bank recapitalization and debt restructuring, ESMT President Jörg Rocholl told DW in an interview on Wednesday. http://www.dw.com/en/most-of-greek-bailout-money-went-to-banks-study/a-1...

It's a shocking number. 95% of bailout funds went to the banks? That's a screaming scandal, if ever I heard one, particularly when we are told that these monies are for a "Greek bailout" and not a "bank bailout."

Here is Scottish political economist Mark Blyth in a recent interview in Athens, making the point that the bank bailout could not be named as such by the neoliberal order (at 3:12 in the video):

Nobody wants to own up to a gigantic bailout of the European banking system that took six years. Austerity was a cover. https://youtu.be/rGvZil0qWPg?t=3m12s

Also, beyond our greater understanding of the deceptions taking place in Greece, it is interesting to note that the American mainstream corporate media has not covered this shocking story, as far as I can tell, at all. The only links to the story are either Greek, German (Deutsche Welle, or the business newspaper Handelsblatt), or alternative/progressive news sources. Can anyone cite an MSM source that has relayed this damning information to the public? Or is it too raw of a reminder of the socialization of loss that occurred after the crash here?

Think the New York Times would cover this? Nope. The most recent Greek crisis story I could find was a relatively breezy account of bailout funds being secured by a privatization deal:

Greece on Tuesday signed a major privatization deal that will fulfill a key condition for the release of further bailout funding, but it will also displace thousands of refugees. The deal, for a huge luxury real estate project on the site of the capital’s former international airport, was made in a memorandum of understanding between the state privatization agency, Taiped, and a consortium of Greek, Arab and Chinese companies. The land sits on a prime piece of coastline in Elliniko in southern Athens. [...] The deal was one of the few loose ends needed for creditors to sign off on 7.5 billion euros, about $8.5 billion, in bailout money after the approval of fresh austerity measures in recent weeks. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/business/international/greece-secures-...

Of course, because the NYT does not seem to be cognizant of the bank bailout deception, it cannot raise the basic question: setting aside the propriety of this privatization itself, how much of the "bailout money" that it will secure will actually stay in Greece? It's kind of, you know, an important detail, if Greece is being forced to privatize public holdings and not getting anything in return other than more public debt.

Just remember this information the next time someone wants to talk about the "Greek" bailout.