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Will Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Support Cryptocurrency In Greece?
giulioprisco writes New Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, former Economist-in-Residence at game developer Valve Corporation, sees something like Bitcoin — or, more likely, a state-controlled "Fedcoin" — possibly playing a role in the (necessarily creative) rescue of the Greek economy. "The technology of Bitcoin, if suitably adapted, can be employed profitably in the Eurozone," he said.
Will Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Support Cryptocurrency In Greece?
No
As obvious as the question is stupid.....
Most of Europe does, actually, seeing as he is negotiating with the rest of the Eurozone to make a deal that will save Greece's car crash of an economy. If Greece implodes, it could take the entire Eurozone with it by causing domino defaults, because Greece owes a lot of money to other nations that are already in dire fiscal straights
an ignorant American might not care, but President Obama has already weighed in to support Varoufakis in seeking debt relief, as he does not want a major trading partner to collapse
Yes, they will. Good for them. I'd rather see a nation state profit from financial fraud than the usual consortium of bankers.
Iceland seems to be doing just fine, despite not honoring their debts.
Greece doesn't need a currency, it needs liquidity - a crypto currency won't bring that. The entire current issue is not about which currency to go for, its how Greece keeps paying its creditors - if they can't service their current debts, their ability to borrow goes through the floor, and a crypto currency isn't going to reverse that. Greece can't back its own crypto currency with anything it has a monopoly on either because it doesn't have anything that valuable.
The government of this game developer wants to re-employ many of the laid off people so fixing the tax system is probably the only option they have left to keep the country from again falling over.
And such a currency can include many safeguards to ensure taxes are going to be paid.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The European economy is contrary to 5 or 6 years ago presently plenty strong enough to absorb the exit of Greece from the Euro.
But for the EU it is a matter practicality and also of honour to keep the lot together, it is the difference between a continuing struggle and complete failure for the Greek economy and people.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I'm not sure you understand the matter.
If Greek economy implodes, it does not invalidate debts (there are no default system in loans between nations). It is possible, that other nations who borrowed the money come across, understand that interests have made situation for them unbearable, thus gives up parts of the loan (not the capital that was loaned, but showing understanding and giving up most of the accumulated interest), that would be very understandable act. I'm all for that. I wish Greeks to stay within EU. The problems there are not (mostly) do with ordinary people, it's just darn reckless management of state business what happened there. (Falsifying statistics and covering up real numbers, to keep nose above surface.) Nobody in their senses would have loaned money there if they had known how bad situation was.
I'm from a country that has loaned them money, billions of euros, and if you think we will just let them say "sorry, we don't have money, we're not going to have money for some time and we're never going to pay anything ..." is just bullshit. They will not be able to escape the loans, no matter if they detach from euro zone and have drakmas again. It will only make their situation worse. They need to start working with the plan that was made for them to clear up the mess and other nations will help them. It's their country and nation it's their job to get it done, we can't and won't even be able to do it if they don't cope with the facts.
... continuing a bit.
The reason the can't escape completely the loans is simply, if they dare to say that they don't pay, then who's going to loan them money after that? Right, nobody.
How they would be able to do trade with other nations after that? Right, paying everything in front in euros or dollars, nobody else would trust them otherwise.
So, where would they get those euros / dolallars? Now, that's the real tough guestion, and I don't have an answer for that. Nor I think has Mr. Varoufakis either, and that's the reason even as he trying to play tough guy will have to thing seriously before spewing "We don't pay our loans" or anything that could even remotely be understood like that.
I just hope they hold up and tell the banks and Germany to go to hell. That is what they were elected for. Now, if they do, there could very easily be another military coup ordered by those banks. Unfortunately, it looks like compromise for the benefit of financial institutions is still the only thing on the menu. This 'crypto-currency' thing looks like a diversion.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They will not be able to escape the loans...
So what are your plans? Call in the generals and take over? Wouldn't be the first time...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If Greece implodes, it could take the entire Eurozone with it by causing domino defaults, because Greece owes a lot of money to other nations that are already in dire fiscal straights
Two years ago maybe, when the whole euro-zone was in a depression and there weren't plans in place but now they've prepared and the Greek economy is only about 2% of the total. Germany has been very ready to play hardball and let Greece fall on their sword if they don't stick to the rescue plan. You have to remember that once you've made sure the other dominos won't fall many want to make Greece an example of what happens when you spend irresponsibly. So does their new PM really want to go "all in" and find out if they'll really get kicked out of the-euro zone? That's some real high stakes poker there if he gets called they tell him to get out.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm pretty sure the River Styx freezing with Aphrodite and Helen of Troy ice skating naked while Dionysus hands out brews and bags of trainwreck is less mythological than the possibility that Greece's economy will start looking up with the current megasocialist nanny state political mindset going on over there. "Crypto" currency is right, like...literally.
For the same reason that it wouldn't work in Argentina. Any successful cryptocurrency gets its tradable value from the perception that the money supply is strictly limited, as in the days when currencies were based on the issuing country's gold reserve. For a cryptocurrencies,money supply is limited by some publicly available and testable mathematical formula.
For any government whose dreams exceed its revenue, this means instant and long-lasting austerity. It would be like the Euro, but even stricter.
Grow up? Do you have any idea why military coups happen? Apparently not! You appear to be some kind of idealist.
And learn about the editorial 'you'. It might come in handy in the future.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Once the possibility of someone exiting the Euro becomes real other countries will be tempted or pushed out basically making it pointless.
It was an economic marriage. And like in any marriage there are good times and bad times. Unfortunately some in Europe don't think of it this way.
The Eurozone is still in a depression. Even Germany is in a situation of under-employment as a large fraction of the people they count as employed only have part-time low paying jobs.
In other words cryptocurrencies are a Ponzi scheme. Plus Bitcoin is deflactionary like the man himself said.
Tempted? Are you an ill-informed euro sceptic? If it weren't for the need to bail out Greece, the euro would've been a tremendous boost for the economies of all countries that have adopted it. The absence of currency fluctuation has increased B2C trade between eurozone countries with at least an order of magnitude compared with trade prior to the adoption of it. Now the benefits only slightly outweigh the problem with Greece. Greece was admitted into the euro with a last minute lowering of the bar and despite that Greece had to cook the books. Besides, as an entry condition all new EU member states have committed themselves to adopting it once their economies fulfill the criteria.
The Greeks have done nothing but cook the books and lie to get into EU, get loans to spend on handouts and now they blame everyone but themselves.
The public in Greece voted for every single one of these crooks and are to blame.
I think the best course of action is to toss them out, they were never fit to be in. They even hid public debt in their train company to pass EU requirements all to be able to borrow cheap with no intention of paying back.
Sorry, I don't want to pay for the Greeks early retirements.
There are two problems with making Greece and example: they did not spend irresponsibly, they became insolvent only after Germany forced them to shrink their economy, and secondly, because once out of Euro Greece can pay back their loans with newly printed bitdrakhmas, and Germany will take the biggest hit of that being the biggest creditor.
Ok, three problems, since even the term "punishment" makes it also obvious that EU is not a cooperative looking for the common good of it's citizens, but tool for the German financial elite to have their way regardless of things like democracy.
The Euro had all sorts of problems. That spurious inflation on the beginning was one. As for the increase in trade it went mainly in one direction and actually exacerbated the current problem.
Do you know what caused the inflation? Germany printed a bunch of DMs before the Euro came into the market. In order to keep their inflation low, and fullfill the ERM convergence criteria, they kept the DMs stashed in the banks and kept them out of the market. Once the Euro came online they converted all these bogus DMs into Euros and flooded the market with them causing the inflation, and loaned them to countries like Greece. So effectively the Germans loaned bad money to countries like Greece and are asking for good money in goods and services as return now.
Also whoever had the idea of making a monetary union with free bank transfers with a eurozone wide deposit insurance scheme was bonkers.
What do you mean? If I knew my bitcoin wallet doubled its value every year, I would spend/invest NONE of it. And since everyone else would do the same, the value would grow even further and further, until it wouldn't. Then there is incentive to spend, thus flooding the market with bitcoins, which results in inflation, which forces to spend even more, before value is lost even further. Sounds like solid economical base to me.
I'm not in favour of making Greece an example; most Greece people didn't ask for the mess they are in and are hardly to blame for being ruled incompetently in the past. That said, it's complete nonsense to blame the unfortunate financial situation the country is in on Germany or the remainder of the EU. Greece has been completely incompetent in raising taxes and clientelism and corruption are widespread. I can imagine the austerity measures to be impopular, but let's not forget that the EU has been dumping hundreds of billions of euro's in the EU, in an attempt to help Greece.
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A rose by any other name...
... do you have a source?
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None of that explains why military coups happen, nor why it could easily happen again in Greece. In fact you're not addressing anything I posted. The bankers will get their piece of flesh, through blood sacrifice if needed. And it does no good to bring up the US/UK imperial war in the Middle East. It does not relate to this here discussion, aside from the financial sources.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yes, just like we wiped out North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and just how we've just about wiped out ISIS and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
This, and it's kinda obvious:
When in danger
When in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout
Even if it's a useless fucking idea, it's an idea.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Absolutely, it's all Germany's fault.
Your problem is that you don't have to convince yourself of that, but since you want Germans to pay for the mess the Greece are in, you have to convince the Germans. And knowing how they are pissed off with the Greek and have had just about enough of it, you'll have a hard time doing that.
Once the possibility of someone exiting the Euro becomes real other countries will be tempted or pushed out basically making it pointless.
It was an economic marriage. And like in any marriage there are good times and bad times. Unfortunately some in Europe don't think of it this way.
Not pointless - there's real economic benefit to a single currency for Europe.
If it's a marriage, then Greece is the abusive, cheating spouse. They've gone from irresponsibly spending more than they could ever repay (since they can't inflate their way out of debt), through a brief attempt at surviving austerity (terms of the debt relief they got - everyone knew it would suck), to saying "screw you, we're too big to fail, we're gonna spend spend spend, what are you gonna do about it?"
Greece was in a better economic position than most of Eastern Europe at the start of all this, with a better standard of living (even had they chosen to live within their means) than many later entrants in to Euro. But they chose to spend vastly more than they were making, running up the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in Europe, inflating that standard of living artificially until they could borrow no more.
What the US thinks of that isn't very relevant, but those Easter European countries that made real sacrifice to join the Euro, and who have been keeping their debt down and surviving with a much lower standard of living than Greece and directly paying for Greece's first bailout in some cases aren't impressed with Greece's excuses. At this point, a "Grexit" will be less disruptive than continued bailouts.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Like I said before, They need to do like Iceland. The 'debt' is a result of bankers fraud and is not legitimate. And yes, a lot more nations should do the same. It's time to put things in the proper order and make the banks serve and not rule. That would mean instituting a public bank, through their post office or whatever.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There is little chance of Greece leaving the Euro. For a start it would take at least a year to set up a new currency to use. A year of limbo with Greece still using the Euro but having no interest in its future.
Of course, setting up a new currency wouldn't even begin before months of negotiations to agree a procedure for an exit. There is currently no mechanism for a country to leave the Euro. Then there needs to be a new treaty to set it up.
Neither side will wait that long, there will be an agreement in the ~18 months it will take to happen.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Prediction is Greece will exit the EU because of inefficient use of all forms of resources. They have been pseudo-socialist giveaway state for so long w/1 in 3 workers working for the state's institutions, they've collectively forgotten market economics is what runs countries effectively.
Venezuela is the prime example of wasteful redistribution policies by a government which collapse a society (military takeover is next.)
Greece will change fairly soon and it will be somewhat painful or they will deteriorate toward Venezuela's position, in which case it will impoverish Greece's working class.
Greece and the EU are currently like two poker players going all-in with their mortgage money, knowing that if the other one doesn't fold they can't pay and lose their house.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Eurozone might be able to absorb a Greek exit in purely financial terms, but in psychological terms it would be a disaster. If Greece leaves, then that provides a precedent for countries leaving. Investments in Euros are based on the premise that the Euro is backed by a large economic base and if countries can leave that base then there's a lot less of an incentive to use the Euro. That's likely to lead to a drop in liquidity in the rest of the Eurozone, which would make leaving an even more attractive bet for some of the weaker economies.
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secondly, because once out of Euro Greece can pay back their loans with newly printed bitdrakhmas, and Germany will take the biggest hit of that being the biggest creditor
Normally you have to pay back loans in the currency that they were given. If you only have another currency, then you have to find someone willing to exchange them. The exchange rate isn't likely to be very good for a little while. That said, it would probably be great for the Greek economy, as a very weak currency will make exports very easy for them.
The other problem that you're not mentioning is that, if Greece leaves the Euro then Putin will be very happy to extend trade deals to them to get around sanctions and to piss off Germany and no one wants Greece to become a satellite state of the new USSR.
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Nearly every EU country has a couple of conspiracy nuts claiming *.* screwed them during or before unification.
The problem is not someone loaned bad or good money to Greece, the problem is Greece wasn't and isn't able to hold up it's own pants, all due to their own lack of courage to fix their tax and economic imbalances.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Sounds great, we should join - UK, I look forwards to a much lower standard of living.
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As it will be worth less than the paper it is printed on if they default on their debt which they plan on doing.
http://saveie6.com/
The fact that the Troika hasn't been willing to give one iota on the Greece issue should be enough of a reflection on how little consequence they think an exit of Greece from the eurozone would be. Germany in particular doesn't want to give any ground (I imagine all of the nazi-name calling has played no small part), but they're hardly alone, many countries are taking a very hardline stance on Greece. Most parties feel that the consequence of giving way to Greece could be significant, but the consequences of their exit - while not completely painless - would not be that dramatic.
On the other hand, in Greece, there's only one route for exit, and that's capital controls (or a rapid conversion over the weekend) where everyone's assets are converted to some kind of new-drachma, which instantly devalues to half its value or less. Which is why everyone is taking their euros out of the banks, they're not stupid (unfortunately, thieves aren't stupid either, breakins have become an epidemic as they look for people hoarding money at home).
I can't see a cryptocurrency helping in any way... if anything I'd guess it'd only serve to unnerve markets even more and lose even more value as a consequence. I could picture it maybe as a simultaneous and rate-locked currency to a physical New Drachma, maybe. But it sounds IMHO like an incredibly risky move even then. I mean, one presumes for example that there's a government-controlled master key to "print" more cryptocoins? Then that means that your entire economy can be crushed overnight by someone hacking, physically stealing, misusing, cracking, or whatnot your master key. Isn't that an unnecessarily big risk to take? And on an individual level it seems full of problems as well...
Don't get me wrong, I don't think cryptocurrencies are inherently an evil or shouldn't exist. But I would have serious second thoughts about such a massive nationwide rollout on a country that's already in chaos.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
Success? Please!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Or you've for the past ~15-50 years been living under a rock.
Had you not been living under said rock and like me been travelling the world and the EU you would have had first hand experience of the vast steps forward we've made.
Oh yes, because you live under a rock you've likely not heard the populists in France and Denmark are after the recent attacks by domestically bred terrorists keeping VERY quiet with their stale demands to close the borders to keep out trouble.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It's easy for Americans who've never had to live with a weak, low circulation currency to say "EURO BAD!". But they've never seen the consequences. How even in a good economy your money steadily becomes more and more worthless because inflation of such currencies is almost always worse than that of stronger currencies. How you pay out the nose for loans because of the higher risk of inflation or currency swings. How many companies won't even work with transfers to / from your currency.
Big, strong currencies offer serious benefits. America has been given a *massive* economic boost due to the widespread usage of the Greenback. Their economy would be nowhere near what it is today if each state had its own currency.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
No, we must take back the money they stole and close their accounts. It can all be done with the push of a button. You do remember when the banks directly robbed account holders to pay off the Russian Mob accounts, right? Let's reverse that.
Now, here's the thing, if the Greeks and others actually resist, there will be war. That is a guarantee. If Russia attacks first, it will be a big war.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There's also this big lie that "Greece has been saddled with debts that they could never pay". Greece's state assets are worth an order of magnitude more than their debts. They could sell off a tenth of them and have all of their debts in the clear right away.
Obviously, they don't want to privatize everything, and I don't blame them. But the concept that this debt is impossible to service is simply a lie. They just don't want to. Heck, they could do it without excessive pain to the middle class or extensive privatization if only they'd go after their wealthy - there's a couple dozen Greek billionaires and countless more in the next eschelons. And these are the biggest tax dodgers who don't pay anywhere close to their fair share. But Greece is apparently either unable or unwilling to go after them.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
If I were an investor, I'd be glad to see the Euro kick out any countries that undermine the currency.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
You do realize that to import goods, you have to pay for them, right?
You do realize that without international trade Greece would resemble Somalia, right?
Yes, Greece can declare itself another North Korea and cut itself off from the world if it wants to give the global financial system the middle finger. But hey, good luck with that...
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
I don't think anything that bad will happen Greece defaults, sure the government may not loans, for a while, that will just force them live within there means, while removing any interest burden. Who in their right mind lending more money to Greece anyway, and simply not trying to recover as much money back as they can. Private companies will still get loans, the wouldn't have defaulted.
If you lend people money to take on a risk (Isn't that the justification for charging interest), and if you lend too much money to people and they can't pay, well like any investment you can loose, and I don't feel sorry for the lenders. These are large banks and countries that have lent to Greece and as such should have done due diligence.
Maybe if Greece defaults, It will teach these people, don't lend to people who can't afford to pay (even countries), and it will not allow countries like Greece to get into these situations, in the first place.
At some point going bankrupt, is the only sane choice, probably better than having your entire economy crippled by interest repayments for the foreseeable future.
There are two problems with making Greece and example: they did not spend irresponsibly, they became insolvent only after Germany forced them to shrink their economy
LOL you must be from Greece, their debt-to-GDP ratio was poor to begin with increasing every year through budget deficits. They went insolvent because the market understood they had no chance of paying their debts and interest rates skyrocketed. It's rather hilarous to blame Germany and the EU for the terms of the loans when the market would sooner lend money to a drunken hobo than to Greece, it was either that or bankruptcy.
You can of course argue that they're now trapped in an evil circle where the austerity measures are killing the economy and they should default sooner rather than later, but they're just where everyone deep in credit card debt are - they spend what little income they have paying interest and don't have any surplus to improve their situation. What you're blaming Germany for is doing just enough to keep the Greek economy from dying, but not enough to cure it. That's right, you rich uncle isn't going to come in and solve all your problems. From all the gratitude they're getting I'm guessing that the next time they'd rather not bail anybody out at all.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Secrets lead to excessive speculation. If there is something to hide, then something is wrong with the project, especially if it involves public funding. And besides, how does it match up with infrastructure that was destroyed by the war? Sorry, sounds like shtick to me. Even vampires don't enter a house uninvited.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Greece, as my high school history teacher would put it, is a basket case. It survives only on the handouts from the EU.
I worked on an EU funded research project, where Greeks were involved, the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the Athens Technology Center (ATC). Although some of those folks had PhDs, none of them were even close to being productive as a US high school student.
Whine, moan, bitch and complain, someone else was responsible for their failure. I couldn't even hear it any more.
Yeah, great, a funky new currency . . . but Greece needs some more radical reform . . . and not some leftist bullshit.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
For what? The money printing?
https://www.richmondfed.org/pu...
Figure 6 pg 41. Also that chart conveniently does not show the amount of DMs they printed when they absorbed Eastern Germany. They converted Eastern German currency to DMs on a 1:1 basis when black market value was 10:1!
Greece has problems. But the talk they were the only ones that cheated their way into the Euro is just plain bunk. Basically everyone cheated their way into it. Germany set the rules and they were the first to break them when they started running up a deficit followed by France. Just because currently they are running up less of a deficit doesn't mean they won't the future. Do the German government think China is going to buy their stuff forever? Good luck.
The Chinese high-speed rail buildup is a good example why the Germans won't get what they want. They are always running to try to find new markets in Africa and Latin America but they will bump into already installed Chinese interests when they try to get there.
Ask the Czechs and Poles why they're dragging their feet so they don't get in the Eurozone.
Fact is anyone with an economy that matters has tried to steer well clear of the Euro for quite some time now ever since the troubles started. And if countries start being ejected it will only precipitate the destruction of the Eurozone.
Perhaps. I'm of the opposite opinion - that if countries start being ejected for financial mismanagement, the skeptical might be encouraged that the Euro is a currency run by grown-ups. But we have no actual data either way - perhaps we'll see the experiment performed, and then we'll know.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If you have the patience, can you please give me a short explanation how to read the chart? Thank you in advance.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Don't forget your incredible victory against drugs!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
More people would be using Bitcoin?
A crypto currency would be like buying gold to hedge against the inevitable inflation or devaluation of the currency. It wouldn't be a matter of printing more, it would be a matter of will this dollar still buy a dollars worth of something if the value is cut in half. But with a crypto currency, the initial scarcity could be negated if there was a one time creation of enough currency to cover the expected load and the key would be destroyed (or useless) and unlike investing in gold to hedge the value, it wouldn't temporarily increase demand and costs initially. I'm guessing that instead of creating a new currency, they would just create an exchange with the help of other exchanges.
So during and after the fallout, some currency could be exchanged back into whatever dollar system is in place as needed and it would be at the exchange rate in comparison to a more stable dollar (like the euro or USD) instead of holding a dollar that is worth only 25 percent of it's value 10 or even 2 years ago. OF course this will make purchasing more crypto currency units more expensive as you would need to spend 4 times as much but it would lessen the shock of whatever is to come. And on another note, if the finance minister adopted and used a specific crypto currency through their exchange, they would also have records of who can be taxed and perhaps those records would be more complete than what they have now (I hear tax avoidance in Greece is rampant).
" it's about how much the ordinary people of Greece should suffer for borrowing excesses of it's previous government in the past."
It's about how much the ordinary people of Greece should suffer for the lending excesses of German banks.
I don't hate Germany. I hate near sighted politicians. And I don't know why you think I'm Greek.
And if they did leave the Euro, wouldn't the new currency be weak and make it practically impossible to pay off a debt that is Euro based. I don't think people who want Greece to leave have considered the consequences. / I could be wrong, I'm no currency expert.
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Whatever they convert it into, New Drachmas or Cryptodrachmas, it's still going to devalue like crazy. Both, being backed by the same entity (the state) will have the same credibility problem. Except even moreso for the cryptocurrency because of all of the concerns that carries with for many investors.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
I don't think you understand the concept.
If they create an exchange with a current crypto currency and conver all their money to it except what is needed from day to day, then drop out of the Eurozone and create their own dollar, each crypto dollar will be the value of the crypto currency used. If their created dollar is worth 1/10 of a Euro and each crypto dollar or coin is worth 2 Euros, it will bring in 20 Drachmars when cashed out.
The key is a current crypto currency. It will be backed by something other than the state. the other option which is virtually identical is to convert it to a foreign currency then convert it back. Except the later is subject to manipulation and fees imposed by the banks- some of which will be butt hurt over the defaults when they leave the Eurozone.
They need to start working with the plan that was made for them to clear up the mess and other nations will help them.
Wrong. I wouldn't work with a plan that forces me to cut my own legs (sell state-owned, important infrastructure to the likes of Telekom, Vattenfall, etc.) either, instead I'd look for a proper way out (grow - not shrink).
The oil markets will not accept local currencies; it has to be dollars or in some cases, euros.
You're forgetting Rubles, which is a serious oversight currently.
Also, Greeks do have their own oil, if they start drilling. They have their own electricity too. It'd be difficult, but possible.
They could also pivot towards the EEU and/or SCO, who'd both probably be welcoming Greece with open arms.
have had just about enough of it
Who cares?
Fortunately, these days Germans don't have an army capable of attacking anyone, unless it's with broomsticks. So they'd have to live with it.
Germany is an export economy and so does very well out of a weak Euro. It is in Germany's best interest for countries who drag down the value of the Euro to not get kicked out as it lowers the cost of Germany's exports for the rest of the world. If only strong export based countries used the Euro then it would increase the price of those countries exports for the rest of the world.
I helped cleanup & docs on a GPL project called Integral Community Exchange System (ICES) just approved as full drupal.org project module suite https://www.drupal.org/project... . It is already used by Ecoxarxes (econetworks) around Spain specifically Catalonia to provide timebanking/time credit and needs/offers listings. It feature-replaces closed source CES software used in places like South Africa and Australia.
I think that getting basic needs connected and covered for people and enhancing trust among a web of people, without need for deflated (or low velocity /liquidity fiat currencies like Euro in depressed Spain or Greece), with either timebanking or basic services listed, already helping a lot of people. Exchanges: https://www.integralces.net/ce... developer docs https://docs.integralces.net/ Thanks for considering something practical. No fancy blockchains, but an OAuth / OpenTransaction implementation to exchange crossovers is working in dev. If anyone would like to plugin or translate please check it out...
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Call me EU-biased, populist, fourth Reich apologist or whatever, but I don't see how the Euro has been bad for Belgium by looking at its GDP growth. It isn't spectacularly different before/after the Euro, but it seems there is a lot more economic stability after than before.
Belgium:
Before Euro: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
After Euro: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
As for France, the tendency of diminishing growth has been there since at least the oil shocks, nothing in the chart I see that would point to the introduction of the Euro as the culprit.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/france-gdp-growth-annual.png?s=frgegdpy&d1=19500101&d2=20151231
Actually I think more the opposite, Greece being pushed out would show the healthy countries that the EU is not just wealth fare system for countries that mismanage their economies while at the same time scaring some of the more troubled countries into doing something to rectify their own issues. Greece staying in the Euro and NOT fixing their economy I think is far more likely to shatter the EU than them being ejected.
If they leave the Euro they will most likely default on their Euro debts anyway. The only point of leaving is to abandon those debts.
Actually defaulting might be a good option for them. It worked out okay for Argentina. Not brilliant but better than what they have now. The other Euro countries would obviously prefer that that didn't happen though, so I think in the long run will accommodate them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Sorry, but unless there's hard assets behind it, it's going to float. And the float will be way down, just the same as any other Greek currency. Greece's creditors and exporters don't want New Drachmas, CryptoDrachmas, or anything of the sort: they want dollars and euros. To get dollars and euros, Greece has to make and export goods and services at a rate competitive with their rate of imports. For their government to get dollars and euros, they actually have to stamp out corruption, tax evasion, and so forth. Greece's inability to do these things is the reason they're in the bind they are today.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
If you can read the opposite of what the charts actually say, it is pointless to talk to you. Go feel sorry about yourself somewhere else.
You've read too much propaganda.
The crisis in Greece has many reasons. Inefficiency is a problem, but not a crisis cause. The fact that the country had a strongly interconnected (not to say, inbred) web of corruption between politics, administration and business is much more likely to have been a leading cause.
The greek "giveaway state" is such a cheap myth. They don't even have social welfare the way that those who cry loudest (e.g. Germany) have.
The real problem is that Greece was heavily in debt to foreign banks. Instead of giving them a way out, the governments of the countries of those banks pressured them into paying their debts and interests, and cutting spending. When your economy is in a crisis, every economist who's not a total idiot knows that cutting government spending will deepen the crisis. What a surprise, that's exactly what happened.
And now comes the magic trick: The amount of debt that the EU, European Central Bank and IWF consider "acceptable" is calculated based on a countries GDP. Greece actually cut spending a lot and last year ran on a balanced budget, something that our own Mrs. Merkel didn't manage to do with our country. Greece debt has actually decreased. However, due to the magic trick, Greece debt ratio has become worse, not because of more debt, but because of less GDP.
It's like telling you that because you're in debt, you need to sell your car to pay me. And after you've done so, telling you that because your net worth has now declined, you've now got a different credit rating and owe me more money for the higher risk.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But Greece is apparently either unable or unwilling to go after them.
The old government was, because of the strong ties between the old parties and the business moguls. The new government has no such ties, and has, in fact, announced steps to do exactly what you say they should do.
But, of course, since they're evil communistsocialistliberalevilcommitraitors, it doesn't matter what they actually do, does it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Germany in particular doesn't want to give any ground
Because it's been running an internal class warfare for the past 20 years. Germany is strong right now because all of the burden has been shifted to the low and middle classes, with real wages being stagnant for over 10 years, more unemployment than at any time since the war, and massive amounts of the workforce employed in temporary or part-time jobs.
In other words: The cost of labour has been systematically driven down. The problem for Germany is that this system is unsustainable, unless you can always shift off the cost to someone else. The austerity is not new, it's the same recipe that Merkel and her predecessor cooked Germany with. They cannot allow another country to shake off this yoke without their home country asking why the fuck they need to justify spending 12 Euros instead of 10 Euros on a sports club for the kids when the rich have doubled their income in the same time everyone else has only lost.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Germany is playing hardball exactly because it can not afford Greece to step out of the austerity program.
If Greece does it, and survives - even if badly, it just needs to survive - then Spain, Portugal and Italy will certainly follow, with Cyprus, Ireland and others close behind.
Merkel has presented austerity as "without alternative" in the same way she has run her own country (disclaimer: I am german). Every major decision in her entire reign was never justified by being the best option or shown to be productive, the primary argument has always been that there are no other alternatives and that's it.
If the new Greece government can demonstrate that there is an alternative, the whole house of cards will come crashing down. Merkel will fall, because her entire political system (she's even made sure that there is no alternative to her within her own party, guaranteeing that they will not win the next election after she steps down) is based on this "without alternative" premises.
And if you don't think that politicians are willing and able to ruin whole countries or continents over their personal ambitions and powerplays, you've slept through all of history class.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
While based on some extremely limited understanding of the world this is technically true, you do understand that a) you'd all die in nuclear hellfire as Russia and China retaliate (because if you start a nuclear war for no reason, you can't be trusted not to do it on a whim to them) and b) "you americans" can do squiddly doo. 0.0001% of you can do. I think on a metaphor your small brain will understand, compared to your body that is about the equivalent of those three hairs on your balls you don't like.
Also, "those greasers" had democracy when America was ruled by buffaloes. They already were over with a full civilization, artists, philosophers and scientists included, when "USA" became spellable because latin letters had just been invented. They laugh on your history of 300 years, because they can add an entire order of magnitude to that. Those "greasers" invented the logic that is the foundation of the math that is the foundation of the computer science that is the foundation of the hardware and software you unwashed redneck use to spit out your mental sperm into the world.
In many respects, Greece is the seed and core of everything that you admire in your world, but it would be stupid to ask you for some respect, because people like you don't know what that is.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Maybe they can't sell the stuff because no one knows who actually owns it. What chance do they have without even a proper land registry? I heard about this in a comment on The Economist, and couldn't believe it, but then found more details here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...
Nobody is going after those who took all this money? Its not magic, it went somewhere.
The new government officials are cozying up with the kremlin which is a kleptocracy. In may western nations puts them on par with communists. You know the ones currently driving tanks west across the Ukraine.
Clearly stepping on the economy while hoping it will improve to pay back the loans is a bad idea. But are the people mad enough now, to go get the stolen money back? This will require a lot of people going to jail or giving it back. If they aren't then its not going to get better.
Like that happened by itself, or like the fact that banks had bought the government bonds somehow makes the situation more troublesome than if individuals had bought the bonds.
It does, because banks are big players and can trick or coerce governments into deals that are bad for them. There's a reason many governments are buying back properties they privatized in the 80s and 90s when corrupt consultants convinced them that selling state property was a cute idea.
There are long articles by actual economists on this topic, but the basic idea is that for any debt crisis, you need not only an irresponsible borrower, but also an irresponsible lender.
Oh, now it's Greece's achievement that the reforms which were demanded of them actually worked?
Are you fucking kidding me? They balanced their budget, by crashing their economy. Your definition of "worked" is far out there.
For the getting-the-money-back part, the balanced budget is happening soon.
One way for us to balance our budget could be to sell all those people who are so willing to give away our money to prop up other nations who hate us for it.
You mean our banks? I'm against selling them into slavery, they belong into jails.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Nobody is going after those who took all this money? Its not magic, it went somewhere.
To foreign banks, mostly. And if we've learnt anything at all during the past seven years, it is that Iceland is the only european country with enough balls and not enough corruption to actually go after those responsible for the whole clusterfuck.
The new government officials are cozying up with the kremlin which is a kleptocracy.
True, but since the US basically doesn't give a fuck about your country if you don't have oil, and europe is in the firm grasp of a woman who gets pleasure from re-introducing levels of poverty we've not seen since the world wars, there really aren't many places to go to for support.
You know the ones currently driving tanks west across the Ukraine.
That's a completely different topic, so I'll only say that the europeans actions in Ukraine will probably be in the history books of the 22nd century as examples of unbelievable stupidity and ignorance.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The battle cry of socialists and communists world-wide: We'll do it and the world will follow. Never seems to work, does it?
Step out of the binary world for a second. There is communist dicatorship soviet style, and oppressive hypercapitalism USA style, but there are also worlds inbetween. For 50 years, Europe had a successful social-economical system called social market economy. It worked really great, and gave us the prosperity of (almost) the USA with the social security systems of (almost) socialism. The gap between rich and poor was much lower than across the atlantic, while productivity and freedom were much higher than in the east.
The new greece government makes demands that 30 years ago wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in Europe. You want people to be able to actually survive on the wages of a full-time job? Yeah, so what? Everyone wants that. You want to spend money to help the unemployed and create jobs? Why are you even saying that, this is what we all expect from a government.
Also, how many times do you have to watch handout economies fall back versus competitive economies to LEARN THE FUCKING LESSON!
"fall back" in what metric? The USA looks great on paper, but your richest 0.1% are taking in 50% or 90% or whatever incredible share of all the wealth and profits.
Do you want to live in a country with an average wage of 5000 or 10000? Sounds like a simple question. But if the average is just statistics, and most people actually collect 10% of it in the "richer" country, living in the poorer one is the better choice for most people.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How Hitler Defied The Bankers?
http://open.salon.com/blog/gor...
Casteism
The Greeks can build their socialist utopia if they like
Are you retarded or what? The plans of the new greece government are as far away from "socialist utopia" as a Ford Model T from a flying car.
All sustainable advancements towards more participation and social insurance in Europe have been made from a position of economic strength
Not really, no. But don't let facts spoil your ranting. Especially social changes often came about in times of crisis, because it is then that the ugly truth of the current system shows itself in full splendor.
If you can't even see how competitive economies are far preferable to economies which create all the "right" disincentives,
If you don't understand that all extremist positions are evil, you've not paid attention in history class. Competition is good, but hypercompetitive environments are disasters to physical and mental health, society, culture and every aspect of humanity other than profit, profit, profit. On the opposite end, social security is good, but nanny-states (the real ones, not the "omg, the government actually moved a finger" hyperbole of american right-wingers) cut into innovation, progress and motivation to do anything at all.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
lol.. Not really. It would be no different then them buying US dollars, exiting the Eurozone, creating a crap currency, then converting back into their crap currency. It needs nothing hard at all. Any paper or fiat currency will work.
Greece will not have to export anything, all they will have to do is find someone willing to sell. That's where a bit coin operation would work. They purchase bitcoins from whoever sells, when they exchange them back out, it's the current exchange rates. Whoever sells them can purchase hard assets or take the loss or do whatever their scheme allows.
Greece could purchase gold and do the same. Using a crypto currency only allows that to happen without having to purchase the asset themselves.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Greeks ever done for us?
discussions with communists
Americans. Everyone who disagrees with them or who thinks that letting people starve on the streets might be unbecoming of a civilized nation must be a communist.
You're not very different from ISIS. For them everyone who disagrees with them is a to-be-slaughtered satan worshipper. Different words and details, same approach. Bush Jr. summed the american mindset up very good: If you're not with us, you are against us. In the small box that is your world, there is only space for two opinions, and nothing inbetween or to the sides.
I would pity you, but ignorance is a choice and not an accident, and I never pity people for self-inflicted misery.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
For the record, a Cryptocurrency isn't called so because it's hidden (indeed it's not).
It's called so because is relies a lot on *Cryptography*: digital signature, public keys, message authentication, etc. All these are necessary for the distributed nature of cryptocurrencies to work reliably.
As for "state controler Fedcoin": Sorry, no. It doesn't work that way. The whole point of cryptocoins is to be distributed accross the network, so that there isn't a signle entity that has single hand control over everything else. That's *why* they rely on a transaction ledger (Blockchain) distributed accross the whole network. State control is impossible this way.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]