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Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment
jones_supa writes: Greece, the country which has been in extreme financial trouble and high debt for years, cannot make debt repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, unless it achieves a deal with creditors. 'The four installments for the IMF in June are €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion). This money will not be given and is not there to be given,' Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told Greek Mega TV's weekend show. Shut out of bond markets and with bailout aid locked, cash-strapped Athens has been scraping state coffers to meet debt obligations and to pay wages and pensions. With its future as a member of the 19-nation eurozone potentially at stake, a second government minister accused its international lenders of subjecting it to slow and calculated torture.
What does the rest of the Eurozone gain by keeping this kleptocracy afloat?
I would be surprised if this development speeds up the adoption of the Euro within the rest of the EU members that have so far decided to stay out of this little experiment.
It's that eventually, Germany is going to get tired of you riding on their back. If you borrow money, eventually the people you borrow it from want to be repaid. You can negotiate for more time, but only so many times before they get tired of it.
It might be better to let Greece default. It'll be painful, yes, but better deal with that pain sooner than later. The longer this goes on, the bigger the problem is going to get.
When a country is lead by stupid politicians who learn to cheat their citizen but are caught outside the country. The Greeks do not pay tax (or do not want), yet expect rest of the world to take care of them. Also, the President or PM was arrogant forgot that "those who have money have you under their balls". Let them fail and learn a lesson and others will at least try to minimize their stupid behavior.; look at the Spaniards who looted gold from South America and enjoyed their life, but now their progeny are paying a price. That is karma.
All they have to do is have 50% less deficit, or better, a 2% surplus. Solved. Can they do that? Not under their current "social contract". But is dead easy.
I am nervous as this feels like early 2008 all over again.
People though ack a few banks will be late paying each other for it's silly home instruments. Big deal let's buy banking shares now while they are cheap etc ...
We all know what happened next? Last year we finally came close to full recovery. The house of cards collapsed and is still being pumped up by the federal Reserve as we never had a full collapse!
Japan, America, and the EU may be next should Greece not to pay with skyrocketing rates and a great depression awaiting as the Federal Reserve won't be able to pump borrowed money to the banks, again.
Am I the only one who sees this?
http://saveie6.com/
And that is never going to happen because peace after WWII was settled on a basis to avoid the mistakes of the settlement of WWI which imposed a heavy financial load on Germany as reparation and led to WWII or social conditions in Germany for WWII. So, they did it differently for WWII. Nobody can tell what the situation would be today if the financial charges on Germany after WWII would have been comparable to those of WWI. This is then a theoretical and rhetoretical discussion to make the hypothesis Germany should pay war reparations for WWII to Greece.
Achille Talon
Hop!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73qPJAWqslc
the sun will likely come up tomorrow.
This default is not news.
The fact that they have gotten this far without one is the news.
It does not appear that they have any intention of putting their house in order until they have to.
A default may be a good thing.
The markets may actually like it.
Time to send an envoy to the iron bank.
Last time I count, the list of ingredient includes:
1. Greece
2. Money - rather, the lack of
3. Germany
4. IMF
5. WW2 reparation
Can someone please tell me what the above got to do with nerds?
Sovereign debt denominated in a country's own fiat currency (the US situation) is VERY different from sovereign debt denominated in some other currency (the Greek situation).
When they say sovereign debt is not like personal debt, that's because a sovereign country can use inflation as way to gradually default on it.
Greece, however, is not in that situation. Their debt is in Euros, the inflation of which is not under Greek control.
If you bail them out, Spain will want free money too, then everyone and it will be a race to see how little work can command the most free money.
You have to let them fail. Greece is tiny, 2.5% of Eurozone, it fails, it can't print money so it becomes one of these satellite countries that use the Euro as proxy currency, and when it gets its act together again, it can be brought back into the zone.
A bit of tough love is needed, let them fail.
I just learned that the fines for illegal activity paid by banks since the economic collapse have totaled more than a quarter trillion dollars which is more than the entire economy of Greece. And that number is from 2014, before the $13 billion from Citi and the recent $5 billion for the banks involved in the price-fixing scandal.
Coincidence?
One of the traders for those banks, who was part of a collusion group that called itself (I'm not making this up), "The Cabal", said, in an email to the group, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying." That's $5 billion in fines for activity that made them hundreds of billions of dollars and bonuses.
And so far, not one of the members of "The Cabal" have been charged with a crime, and they'll be keeping their record bonuses. In fact, no one from those banks will be facing criminal charges of any kind.
So if you want me to be mad at Greece for letting the IMF dangle, I'm sorry. There are much bigger fish to fry.
There's so much more to this Greece story than just, "Oh those lazy Greeks with their big pensions." The IMF and the biggest banks were basically doing what those sketchy "payday loan" places in the strip mall do. They were basically doing what the home-lending institutions were doing in the 2000s. They were giving big bonuses to loan brokers for making loans - any loans - to people because they knew they could flip them on the secondary and CDO market. Investors were chasing yield so the word went out to mortgage lenders to "just get it done" and they basically defrauded as many people as possible. That's what the IMF does in countries like Greece and many South American companies. I think we're going to start seeing more of these countries deciding to just tell the IMF to go eff itself and take their monetary policy medicine and just be done with it. Then you'll start seeing the CIA-backed and German-backed and UK-backed coups start to happen.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"subjecting it to slow and calculated torture"
STOP LETTING PEOPLE RETIRE AT 55 WITH FULL BENEFITS! It's not a sustainable economic model you arrogant, self-absorbed ass!!!! He makes the democrats in California look smart by comparison. Greece is like a tax and spend nightmare cycle but without the tax part. I'm starting to think the citizens are the laziest, most needlessly entitled people in the world. The government programs and benefits and pay are absolutely mental! Seriously, look them up on Wikipedia. They're absurd!
Maybe Greeks are different but in Germany, if you borrow money, you are fully expected to pay it back. As soon as possible. Greece can make as much racket as it likes, but the Germans still want their money back. And frankly, I agree. If Greece is not willing to pay back what they take, that's theft, and they can go without aid for all I care. Especially when the borrowed money doesn't actually go to fixing its major economic issues.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
apart from the fact that apart from UKIP's partisan share, Germany has most seats in the European Parliament (96 to Greece's 21 and the UK's 73) hence has the loudest voice when it comes to regional policy (incidentally, the UK might have 73 seats but every bit of primary legislation it has billed before the EP so far has been vetoed)?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The Greek government lied to its population, and the EU, about how much debt the country had. When the other party got into office they revealed the prior party's cover-up. So far so good.
The EU demands that Greece make deep budget cuts in return for aid. These cuts were made. Unfortunately, debt to GDP ratio is debt/GDP. Debt went down but GDP went down more. Austerity is like any other kind of easy answer, it sounds good but doesn't work.
Austerity is the reapers of nations. A country that tries to cut its way out of a debt crisis can end up in vicious cycle where each cuts drops revenue by more than it saves. Historically, either something happens to break the cycle of Austerity or things get to a point when the situation becomes unsustainable. Unsustainable situations often end in a situation where the people of a country must pull down the government out of a need for sheer self preservation. You want to pull a country apart, convince it's government to engage in Austerity until their is an uprising.
The Greeks, not wanting to have to pull their leaders out into the square and shoot them, elected an anti-Austerity party. Syriza has been pretty clear. They'll compromise if a demand could arguably help the nation. Selling off a port to Dubai Ports World? Well the government isn't going to like it, but if the purchaser will contract to improve the port, perhaps its a good idea. Ditto tax reform. If tax reform means going after rich tax dodgers, then the government thinks its a good idea.
Unfortunately, this isn't enough for many European nations. The EU is insisting that the Greek people collectively feel the pain as a result of their governments actions. It does not matter that making the people feel pain won't actually help. Remember, the issue here is debt/GPD. Making the people feel pain translates into things that cause GDP to drop. The EU has to pretend that pain is an economic reform. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva convention states that. "No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited." If the EU came out and said that it intends to hurt the Greek people to punish them for the crimes of the Greek government, then the EU would be committing a crime against humanity. As a result, retaliation has to be clothed in the idea of some kind of reform plan.
Making things worse, the Greeks are in a week enough position that they don't feel that they can leak the state of negotiations to the press. This means that all the press coverage so far has been one sided. On the non-Greek side, this is bringing about a self-reinforcing cycle of bad thinking. For example, a number of German politicians have called on the ECB to cut off support to otherwise solvent Greek banks to force the Greek government to capitulate. Let's break this down. Banks are private institutions. The Greek government is a public body. Attacking private institutions to force the Greek government to do something would be, in essence, weaponizing the banking system. Once banks become a weapon that can be wielded against a country's national interest they become a national security issue. Does anyone really think that turning banking into a national security threat is a good, long term, idea for the Eurozone? Self reinforcing cycles of bad thinking like this are how elites bumble their way to the Guillotine.
So now the game is up. A normally functioning country can roll its debt over. A rich country can, over time, pay down its debt (though this might not be a good idea as it can create a bubble in government debt by shrinking the supply of bonds). Almost no nation can pay off all of their debts right now. The Greeks are basically being told to either capitulate or find some way, without further borrowing, to pay off all of their debts in short order. To put this in prospective, what if somebody told you that you had to pay off all of your student loans
They obviously don't dive a fuck so neither do I.
As Dick Cheney famously said on the eve of the Iraq War, "Deficits don't matter".
He said that because sovereign debt really isn't like personal debt when the sovereign debt is in a convertible fiat currency. Because the difference between you and a nation is the power to issue currency. Do you know how many countries have ever actually paid off their debt? Take a guess.
The IMF is like a loan shark. They don't want countries to pay off their debts. They want countries to service their debts until such time as they can burn it down for the insurance (CDO) money.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All forms of welfare must stop.
So no raising children? No taking care of orphans?
Let's have private companies in charge of everything! That will work great - they will not try to make more profit than they have to and if they still do, we can vote them out in the next election.
So, I am sure that I won't have to pay $100000 in case of a fire, $20000 to have the police find the guy who beat me up (and another $20000 to have the court send him to jail) and $1M to repair a road.
I'd like to hear what the Slashdot economists think should be done about Greece.
Nothing at all. Greece is like Venezuela, but without the oil. There's nothing to be done until they decide to stop their social experiment. The world shouldn't subsidize that.
What's the real downside? Migrants? Western Europe is already experienced at stopping poor people on their borders, and it's not like Greece has a direct migration path. A Greek that wants to sneak into Europe has to cross the land of the vodka people, or try to swim to the south-east part of Italy. That's quite a convenient buffer, just like Mexico is a convenient buffer for the USA.
Europe managed to survive two world wars, plenty of civil wars, the plague, three Inquisitions, etc. I think they will survive the bankruptcy of a country that hasn't played a significant role in history since before the first edition of the bible.
lucm, indeed.
You think they're going to come up with 1600M euro in June? LO to the L.
Russia can't afford to help them with this payment, Greece is dead broke and Goldman Sachs who helped Greece lie about their books to get into the eurozone in the first place is long gone.
Liberty.
If Germany paid war reparations for the brutal occupation and raping of the country of Greece, it would amount to something like $150-200 Billion owed.
Scotland should also pay reparations to Italy for crossing Hadrian's Wall and looting Britannia. If you include 16 centuries of interest, it would be way more than a measly $200B.
That's what the economists on this very blog say, when discussing US debt. It doesn't matter how far into debt the US is, anyone can see this by comparing our debt to our GDP: the latter number is really big, while the debt is really small.
Sovereign debt is only different (unless you can inflate it away) when it is used as an investment to make the economy grow.
In 2009, Democrats followed this theory with stimulus spending, to help the economy recover.
In the 80s, Reagan used it to cut taxes. Whether that worked or not, the economy did grow, and the national debt shrank in comparison.
So, according to economists, debt to fund growth is different than debt to fund consumption. That is the primary difference (apart from inflation, which isn't entirely an option for the US with TIPS).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Companies shouldshould try to pay as little as possible. That's the system: it depends on human greed at every exchange. Any system that doesn't is purest foolishness.
BTW, if you expect the police to "find the guy you beat you up" today, lets me say from experience the police give 0 fucks about you as a victim. The problem many large cities face today is the propensity of the police themselves to beat people up for fun and profit. I doubt private policing could actually work, but lets not pretend the current system is some fucking utopia, OK?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So, I am sure that I won't have to pay $100000 in case of a fire, $20000 to have the police find the guy who beat me up (and another $20000 to have the court send him to jail) and $1M to repair a road.
Of course you wouldn't, you're being absurd -- I know a guy who'll do it for $15000, tops.
Treaty or no treaty, any Eurozone country can pull out just by declaring themselves no longer in the Eurozone and declaring that all existing sovereign debt owed by them is hereby converted into the new national currency and if the creditors don't like it tough on them.
Yes, there will be a price to pay. Technically, the other countries could declare war on Greece for breaking the treaty but that's not going to happen. Much more likely, they'll just stop doing business with Greece and its citizens and companies and possibly pass laws making it hard for their citizens and companies to do business with Greece or its citizens and companies.
The question for Greece is: What is your least-painful option?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The term slow torture is interesting. Eurozone "partners" indeed pressure Greece government to act against its own national interests.
The primary tool so far has been BCE supply of money to Greece's banks. While this mechanism has nothing to do with sovereign debt, it has been used as blackmail: "act as we ask, otherwise your banking system will collapse because of liquidity shortage".
The reforms they were not asked to perform are interesting. Greece has been asked to reduce salaries and pensions, and even to sell some territory. But when did EU "partners" did push for a tax reform so that the wealthier pay their share? When did EU "partners" asked for military budget reduction? When you have trouble paying debts, it sounds strange to let wealthy people's money leaking into fiscal paradises, and to buy submarines from Germany.
What business did Greece have joining the EU? It fudged its numbers to get in (while everyone turned a blind eye) so that idiot lefties could create a United States of Europe. Europe is made up of countries that are far to different in culture and economic prospects to ever fly under the same flag effectively.
Greece's weak economy was never capable of withstanding the monetary troubles of an entire continent. The single market/currency gives it no flexibility to do simple things like adjust interest rates and devalue currency to alleviate the debt.
Who gave it all that money anyway? What were they thinking? How much blame do they have for giving Greece infinite credit?
Fucking slashcode. Why the fuck do I even come back to /.?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
In my opinion the current system, while not perfect, is still better than privately owned police (who would only do stuff for money, therefor, only for people who have (lots of) money).
Companies shouldshould try to pay as little as possible. That's the system: it depends on human greed at every exchange. Any system that doesn't is purest foolishness.
Sure, however, while Free Market looks good in theory, so does Communism. The problem with both is that they are not achievable in reality, we can only have weird mangled versions of them.
This kind of ridiculous stunt is why the Germans are sick and tired of giving Greece money. They've been model world citizens and have been subsidizing Greece for decades, and trying to use this now is the ultimate in spoiled screaming teenager tactics. Nobody bankrupted Greece except Greece - as the Nordics, who actually got their shit together, very painfully, like to point out.
Germany are somewhat dour and grumpy parents, and a Grexit now is much less harmful to Eurozone than it would have been two years ago, so being kicked out of the house isn't out of the question at all. I wouldn't push it too hard.
I'm not German or Greek, but have been following this for years in the Economist and Bloomberg, and I know lazy scammers trying to wheedle more money rather than earn it.
STOP LETTING PEOPLE RETIRE AT 55 WITH FULL BENEFITS!
The US military and some US civilian jobs such as FBI agents let you retire with full benefits after 20 years of service. The US military allows you to retire at 100% of base pay plus benefits at 40 years of service (typically age 58 for those enlisting straight out of high school).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Just in case people missed the point, it means that Greece can't print more money to get out of this.
Maybe they should shake down Italy and Turkey too.
Funny how Poland isn't flat broke; anyone that thinks Greece came out of WW2 worse off than Poland is delusional or a member of the Greek Parliament. Oh, wait, I'm being redundant. :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...the entitlement societies cannot work long term. The government cannot carry your sorry ass from birth to death.
Kick them out of the EU currency. It'll keep other countries inline about being honest what's on their books.
So don't pay government wages for the next six months, like they did in few decades ago here in Finland. Fun times eating what you can grow in your garden, if you had one and sharing with the hungry kids of the area if you were in the position to do so.
The Greek government can never repay its current debt obligations, primarily held now by public sector international creditors that bailed out their own reckless and very poorly capitalized private banks to keep them on life support. (It takes two parties to accumulate debt: creditor and debtor. Greece's creditors shared at least as much blame as Greece's prior governments.) That's just a simple mathematical fact. The only remaining salient question in this tragedy is whether the European Central Bank (ECB), and specifically one very democratically unelected banker (Mario Draghi), will take affirmative action to destroy Greece's banking system solely because some other party (the Greek government) cannot and will not, in fact, repay its (euro-denominated) debts. As an approximate analogy it'd be as if the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to destroy Citibank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and BNY Mellon by terminating their loan facilities from the lender of last resort, even via nationalization, if the State of New York, where those banks are based, were to default on its bonds. Yes, that's *crazy*, that the Federal Reserve would act in such a way, yet here we are with the ECB.
You don't know anything. Germany has benefited tremendously from the Euro. Having the same currency as Greece has allowed German exports to remain disproportionately cheap, and Greece's exports disproportionately expensive. Greece has actually had a major account surplus for the last few years, but it's all bring drained into paying off impossible debts. They cut into their programs to pay off debt, which leads to more unemployment, which lowers government revenue, which forces more cuts, and on and on.
For the same reason a dog returns to its vomit, probably.
I thought this was a tech site. silly me.
Currently, inflation in the UK and US, is hovering around 0%..... YET, more and more people are living in poverty. This is contrary to what you say. The truith is, inflation is one of the only mechanisms that transfer wealth from the rich to the poor (mortgages and savings both end up less in real terms over time). Without inflation, there are no pay rises, no increase in available cash to spend. If you want the Dickensian model of work houses and food banks, keep spouting the 'Inflation is bad' mantra.
Sure. After the Normans, Anglo-Saxons and Danes are excluded from receipt, and after factoring in the English actions towards Scotland. The movie Braveheart was mostly fictional, but not entirely.
Greece is nothing like Venezuela. Slashdotters are so fracking economically ignorant.
The debt grew under Reagan. It was 907B in 1980 and 2600B in 1988. Even as a percent of GDP, that's an increase
Source: https://www.treasurydirect.gov...
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It's a tiny economy, 2.5% of Eurozone GDP, its less than when France sneezed recently.
So PR aside, it has no real value keeping it a-float.
On the plus side, Spain just elected a bunch of anti-austerity MPs, and if you bail out the bail out of the bail out of Greece (this is the third bail out, they didn't make the requested improvements from the previous two bailouts), then Spain can rightfully demand free money too without restructuring.
The Euro zone treaties made this situate inevitable. They prevent Greece from running a deficit or devaluing their currency in order to subsidize their economy during a down-turn.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
You are an idiot. Not all failures are equal. Some failures are born of circumstance and not personal ability. If you sir, were born to a family which abused and mind fucked you, burnt your eyes out, tore your limbs out, and cut your tongue off. Brutal. Get up lazy bum. Apply and compete. OK, so no one is hiring you, even though you turned in 1000 applications. Well fuck you hippie.
Poland has stayed off Euro so far. When this changes, prepare to be Greecefied.
'We' shouldn't be doing anything. 'We' means oppression and theft. You, as an individual can spend your savings however you want, run your charity all you want. Children should be raised by their parents or somebody feeling charitable to children. You can start and advertise an orphanage, that is your right. Nobody ever should be forced to participate.
You can't handle the truth.
Yes, but by the 2000 the economy had grown so much that it would have been insignificant (and still is, compared to the debt piled on during the Bush/Obama years). That was my point. Another way of looking at it:
The Reagan debts were small compared to the Bush debts.
The Bush debts were small compared to the Obama debts.
I'm not trying to blame here, I don't care whose fault it is, I only care who has a solution.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
German war spoils were forcibly taken back. Their country was divided in two and all the property gained by them taken away. This resulted in genocide in the newly created nation states whose political borders did not follow ethnic borders. Take Yugoslavia as an example. Or for that matter the Israeli Inquisition on Germany and their allies is still going on 60 years afterwards.
This was a repeat of WWI and was even worse, especially for their Axis allies. The Ottoman empire was effectively dismantled, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ripped apart to the devastation of everyone concerned. Again, the new geopolitical borders did not follow ethnic borders. That's why you have faction strife in the Middle East now, why countries like Hungary lost 75% of their land.
After WWII: Forced emigration - over 3 million Germans had to resettle, raging communist thugs, purges (Tito for example) of their own people, ethnic xenophobia. You name it. Yeah the Allies really stuffed it up badly causing isolation and terrible political unrest.
Those war reparations destroyed Central Europe and they're only just starting to recover.
Now some of you have the educated opinion that Germany should repay Ally losses? That is cruel and unreasonable.
Now Greece wants 303 billion dollars as full reparations when the matter was already settled on the eve of unification in 1990.
Greece's problems are relatively new and are not the result of WWII. It's just a money grabbing attempt by Tsipras.
Even if Greece and the EU can forgive the debt fully, Greece still needs to show that their economy is good enough to support themselves. So far there is no sign of that.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Maybe if the Greeks paid their taxes this would not have happened. Greece has a 32% rate of self-employed residents, the highest in the EU, and it is mostly these people that refuse to pay for the society in which they benefit. The current government is not helping matters, their extreme left ideology refuses to accept reality. Germany cannot keep on bailing them out. The nation is on a collision course and there is nothing any country can do if they are not willing to accept their own responsibility.
What has Greece to do with anything that another country that used to be on it's current geographical location to do with that?
OK so you are fine with personal welfare and charity then?
Or is your problem with institutional action on some forms?
Your post is based on nothing but stereotypes.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Good inflation is good, i.e. growth in money supply due to growing businesses and growing economy is good.
Bad inflation is bad, i.e. creating money and pumping it into random assets that benefit a few to create the inflation without the corresponding growth is bad.
That latter type of 'faked' 'knockoff' inflation is the problem here.
And inflation (both kinds) does not transfer money from rich to poor, wages are reduced in real terms, where as the new money goes into assets (which are owned by the rich). Wage rises are not rises if they're simply to offset an increase in money supply. They're corrections into the new diluted money.
Inflation does not transfer wealth from rich to poor, quite the opposite.
"If you want the Dickensian model of work houses and food banks, keep spouting the 'Inflation is bad' mantra"
When the Bank of England prints money and buys bonds driving up the true price of those assets, it is simply creating a false market in those assets. Such inflation is bad, because the wealth that money represents is taken from real business doing real work and making real products. In effect you're diluting their success, to subsidize bad business/government bonds.
The matter is settled, then. Thanks for your valuable input!
lucm, indeed.
Sounds good if your name is Crassus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
and start taxing. Cut what you need to cut. But start raising revenues. Biggest problem with most countries is that they are afraid to tax the people who have money. Where else are you going to get money.
If Germany paid war reparations for the brutal occupation and raping of the country of Greece, it would amount to something like $150-200 Billion owed.
Do you actually believe that, or are you a paid member of the Greek government?
Actually, I'm not such which would be worse...
Germany did pay, nearly 50 years ago, and settled its legal obligations at the time, money which Greece accepted.
The issue is closed, it doesn't get reopened every few decades for convenience. Frankly, most of the people alive in 1945 are no longer here, it has passed into history, let it go...
Germany stll pays Israel.
Germany "kinda" paid USSR that took most factories it came by.
Germany actually also paid Greece a while ago, although the scale of the payment was nowhere near what current government wants (and even (nominally) much less than they took from Greek bank)
In 1942, the Greek Central Bank was forced by the occupying Nazi regime to loan 476 million Reichsmarks at 0% interest to Nazi Germany. In 1960, Greece accepted 115 million Marks as compensation for Nazi crimes. Nevertheless, past Greek governments have insisted that this was only a down-payment, not complete reparations.[citation needed] In 1990, immediately prior to German reunification, West Germany and East Germany signed the Two Plus Four Agreement with the former Allied countries of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Since that time, Germany has insisted that all matters concerning World War II, including further reparations to Greece, are closed because Germany officially surrendered to the Allies and to no other parties, including Greece. On Sunday, February 8, 2015, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras appeared in front of the Greek parliament and officially demanded that Germany pay further reparations to Greece.[1] On April 6, 2015, Greece demanded Germany pay it the equivalent of $303 billion in reparations for the war. Germany replied that the reparations issue was resolved in 1990.[2]
German reparations for World War II/
The only reason the Reagan tax cut didn't destroy the country was because "read my lips" George HW Bush re-raised the top bracket and stabilized revenue vis-a-vis borrowing.
My grandparents were fallout of WW I - They left the Ukrainian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and came to the USA. I never met them, since they died young, working in shitty jobs like rubber factories (cancer) in Detroit.
Fast-forward... since I never met the "folks from the old country" and only knew my mom and a step father who raised me as American, with no particular culture, other than American, I don't have any animosity towards past aggressors, I am happy with my lot in life.
My take-away, as trite as it may seem, is "what you don't know can't hurt you", and if you forget your (possibly shitty) past and just go forward you will be fine.
If you think you are owed something from those who went before you, you are in for a big disappointment, since those people are dead, and those who are here today only want to know "what have you done for me lately".
Do something and stop whining.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Scotland most likely is not the full legal successor to the tribes of that time.
Germany, however, is. And has made a big point of it. Western Germany for decades considered itself morally superior to Eastern Germany because it announced itself loud and clear as the legal successor of the Third Reich and the Weimar Republic and basically the heir in the whole line of german states.
Can't have your cake and eat it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I dislike current populist Greek government (and live in Germany), but there is some injustice in what was done to Greece in my opinion.
Greece f*cked up big time by spending more than earning, there is no question about that.
The problem is, what happened afterwards.
And that was new loans AT INSANE RATES.
Last time I've checked check dept per citizen numbers, Greek was roughly on the level of Germany.
But interest rates they are paying (and that mostly to German banks), oh my goodness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
So there IS a combination of incompetent reckless government and unfair interest rates. (yeah, if you don't want the money, don't take it, yadayada, I know)
Also see (Charges of hypcrisy (Germany))
even though many died to end it, and most came after it was already over (because they were leaving their own shitty situations).
Really, all the countries in the Euro zone should be on their own currencies.
Responsible governments will have low inflation and low interest rates.
Irresponsible governments will have high inflation and high interest rates.
In this way, those governments can continue to borrow money as much as they want. The interest rates will just go up.
And the governments will respond by jacking up inflation rates basically making their own people pay higher taxes by lowering the value of their money.... that difference in value being mostly used to pay off debt from the borrowing.
What is fun about this tax is that it is regressive. It doesn't impact the rich or corporations because they don't keep large amounts of money in cash. They keep their wealth in assets which do not depreciate with the currency. It mostly hurts poor people or anyone that has their money in cash. And that is sort of fair because the very people the entitlements are going to tend to be people at the bottom of society in any case.
So you're sort of taxing the people you're giving benefits to and that's reasonable.
Something I'd like to see is for all governments to have two currencies.
The first being a trade currency which most people would use for buying things and wages etc... but then have a debt currency for the government to borrow in.
The idea here is that you don't what to give the government an incentive to inflate the trade currency. If the government can only lower its debts by inflating the debt currency than they'll be less inclined to inflate the trade currency.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yeah, force the Germans to pay reparations. What could possibly go wrong?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That is probably true but tangential to the point you were replying to.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nobody bankrupted Greece except Greece -
As I keep pointing out, weak economies have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they cannot control the production of their currency. The weakest EU member (currently Greece) will always be at a trade disadvantage if forced to use money not under their control. Weak economies use a mixture of both currency and interest rates to reign in a spiral. Greece can't do this if they're using the euro.
Grexit now is much less harmful to Eurozone than it would have been two years ago, so being kicked out of the house isn't out of the question at all.
Hah! The EU would be much more harmed by a country leaving than the country that leaves. The country that leaves instantly get's the ability to control their economy. All the EU gets, OTOH, is the danger set by a precedent. Only the rich countries benefit from a common currency. Should all the poor countries leave those rich countries would be in more than a little trouble.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I don't know. You just criticized another poster, then everyone that has ever not been greedy, then anyone that expected anyone to not be greedy, followed by criticizing the police, not the police, private police, whatever the current system is, slashcode, and culminating in an impressive retrospective criticism of yourself.
Seems you are only using your hammer when you really need a screwdriver.
Being greedy at every exchange means you stab the other guy to get your money back. Profits can be made at every trade without being greedy.
"Greece is like Venezuela, but without the oil." Funny thing about that: when American refiners finish retooling for light sweet crude, Venezuela will be like Venezuela, but without the oil. They'll be the first energy producer in history to have destroyed their own market.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
You make a convincing argument.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The German people have been subsidizing the Greeks because they have been unwilling to bail-out the German banks directly.
You cannot make generalizations based on a number. Self-employment currently in Greece means women making hand-made jewellery instead of a job on what they studied, people working without insurance at random jobs ad hoc and doing any work that can find, meaning living with 200 euros per month and free lancers trying constantly to pay their taxes to the point they give up their current jobs. The society in which they benefit provides poor public health with even basic medicine supplies missing, people loosing their homes to banks, public sector stripped down to essentials and a state that lies every minute. Clearly you have no idea about greek people, just reciting something you read and making shallow deductions from it usually lead you to false stereotype-infested opinions
If someone tells you he knows the whole truth with certainty, the only certainty is that he is a liar
Having the same currency as Greece has allowed German exports to remain disproportionately cheap
Except that Greece was buying things with money they borrowed from Germany.
The country that leaves instantly get's the ability to control their economy
How ? By printing money nobody wants ?
I've been following the Greek debt crisis for at least five years, Greece's problem is that they absolutely refuse to stop spending money they don't have. Remember: Greece has never practiced real austerity (cutting deficits to match receipts) since they joined the Eurozone. Not once. (By contrast, Estonia did eliminate their deficit, and as a result started recovering from The Great Recession quicker than other EU economies.) Greece merely slowed the rate at which they were going more broke (or at least pretended to). Despite being right at the edge of complete national bankruptcy, Greece continues to insist that there will be “no wage or pension cuts” for government workers.
Greece lied about their economic situation to get into the Eurozone, lied about it before the crisis broke, lied after it broke, and continue to lie now.
Keep in mind that the past four years of bank loans from the ECB have not been to save Greece. What they were really designed to do was to keep the card game running long enough to let EU insiders and favored national banks unload Greek bonds, and to reduce their exposure to Greek default risks long enough to put European taxpayers onto the hook in the inevitable event of a Greek default. They pretended to save Greece, and Greece pretended to reform. And now here we are.
The adoption of the Euro hastened and deepened Greece's crisis, but was not the central cause, which was their refusal to stop spending money they didn't have to prop up their extravagant (even by European standards) welfare state. This modern welfare state has now become more sacred to voters than the capitalist economics that make it possible. As Mark Steyn put it, "People’s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense."
The problem is that with declining demographics, the cradle-to-grave European welfare state is unsustainable. Greece and the rest of the PIIGS are discovering that first, but birth rates are declining all across Europe, and modern welfare states are unsustainable without a new generation to stick with the bill. Most economists believe that Greece will never be able to pay back what they've already borrowed.
Syriza was elected on a platform of ignoring basic economic reality, but they've finally run out of people willing to loan them money to spend. The risk of a Grexit is already priced into all the European markets, But leaving the Eurozone doesn't provide relief for any of the Euro-denominated debt Greece already owes, and there's no guarantee European markets would even be willing to exchange refloated drachmas for real(er) money. And since it's hard to see any sane institution buying Greek debt after a default, Greece's government would undoubtedly start printing drachmas like mad and trigger hyperinflation.
If Greece was willing to pare back its welfare state to much saner levels, they might have a chance to slowly dig their way out of the crisis. Since they refuse to, they're in for a whole lot more economic pain...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
If an individual, and now apparently a government, finds that it is cheaper to default than to perform, that is a moral failing.
If a corporation find that it is cheaper to default than to perform, well that's just good business.
I guess since a corporation is amoral it is immune to moral hazard.
People act as if they've only now discovered that Greek have terrible tax collection and that their bonds were a bad risk. Sure, let's say there should be some consequence for Greece if it defaults. However, there should also be some consequence for the German banks that invested in what everyone else knew was a bad risk. The whole idea behind a risk premium is that there's a chance that you will realize that risk. Well, the German Banks did realize that risk and like good Americans they have attempted to socialize the losses.
You are *severly* udnerestimating it. It is not only that greece wll have tod efault, but also that greece will still be noted as junk as far as bond goes so will not be able to borrow again at good rate EVEN after default, but also that now that greece is outside of the eurozone, it will have to either junk their own currency so far down the rabbit hole to make export / import not kill them that the inflation in the subsequent decades (note the plural) will take a long time to stabilize the economy. And once out of the eurozone , guess what ? Greece will STILL have to have cut back on cost or have extreme inflation , maybe hyper inflation and their own bank default, if they start issuing bond on their own currency and spend like no tommorow.
Greece is a warning to France or even spain, italy and other of the eurozone with ramping up debt : get your table cleaned or it might get burn down as a sanitisation process by others.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Here's some examples.
This kind of ridiculous stunt is why the Germans are sick and tired of giving Greece money. They've been model world citizens and have been subsidizing Greece for decades, and trying to use this now is the ultimate in spoiled screaming teenager tactics. Nobody bankrupted Greece except Greece - as the Nordics, who actually got their shit together, very painfully, like to point out.
If I remember correctly, it was the 3rd party auditors that made the economical recommendations that led Greece to bankruptcy. In a perfect world, the financial institutions and auditors that pushed Greece onto such a road would pay for the economical disaster that they directly contributed to. But I guess that they're busy giving bonuses to C*Os. If your financial consultant (or tax consultant) makes wrong calculations/projections/recommendations for you and puts you into default, wouldn't you seek compensation from him? You did pay him to give you realistic results. How can one country's rating go down from AAA to Junk in one day?
Germany are somewhat dour and grumpy parents, and a Grexit now is much less harmful to Eurozone than it would have been two years ago, so being kicked out of the house isn't out of the question at all. I wouldn't push it too hard.
You're claiming that it's not fair, but the IMF and ECB gave Greece loans at rates that are not sustainable. I can get an EURO credit at a lower rate than Greece has. Furthermore, for Germany it's win/win. They bought out a lot of Greek companies for pennies. Think of OTE that was bought by Deutsche Telekom. I personally feel like this is looting and not helping out. Private corporations from the US, UK and Germany (financial and audit) bankrupted Greece with bad advice, while earning serious money for it (think Deloitte, S&P, etc.). When the bubble burst, the Greek government received help at ridiculously high rates from a few countries and multi-national institutions. Then came the major companies from those countries and bought everything for pennies. Afterwards, they are still complaining that the Greek can't make the payments.
I'm not German or Greek, but have been following this for years in the Economist and Bloomberg, and I know lazy scammers trying to wheedle more money rather than earn it.
I see your problem right there: you're reading it from Economist or Bloomberg. How about checking out the bare survival conditions of a lot of Greek citizens? Should Greece abandon them because Germany said austerity is the way? The Greek government's responsibility is to it's citizens. P.S.: I'm not Greek or German either. I don't live in Greece or Germany, but I try to get my news from newspapers that aren't necessarily in New York, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo or Hong Kong.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
Yes, with interest, that debt can be 100% paid off yet still be bigger than it was before.
Germany could be wanting that money to keep austerity on the cards because they're sold on it 100% and don't want anyone else trying something different and, worse, succeeding, "eating their lunch" and showing them up as ideological morons, stuck to the wrong idea because they have blind faith in it.
The true bits being that Scotland and England exist?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A small portion of me is Black. As an aside, my family were slaves in the Dominican Republic, this is actually the more interesting (in my opinion) side of my much varied ethnicity, and the British brought them to fight in the Revolutionary war. They promised freedom and this promise was made in the name of the King. At the end of the war George Washington did not want to let them leave but the Brits already had them loaded on three ships in the harbor. They ran the attempted blockade and took them to Nova Scotia and dropped them off where they married into the Micmac tribe and stayed for quite some time (still there) while some came to seek their fortune in New England. My point being, well, the Americans don't owe me anything other than the rights afforded me due to the Constitution. I get better treatment in Canada anyhow and, as a dual citizen, I can move there and have been thinking about it for a while now. It could be (and is) worse - on the other half I am related to the Prescott family which makes me rather unhappy. Neither Canada nor Britain owe me anything as well. I was not "there" or harmed in any way. I have had fair treatment. So, no, any faults I suffer are of my own creation.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The US gave Greece $376 Million dollars to rebuild between 1949 and 1951. This was not a loan. The US just gave Greece the money. Given that the exchange rate back then was around 4 DEM per dollar, that is over 1bn DEM that Greece got.
The point that Germany surrendered to the US to the allies is a salient one. At least one of these allies paid back Greece two fold for its trouble. And Germany doesn't have that money it stole. That was either conscripted by the allies or sent offshore by Nazi's in hiding. It is why most claims to money and treasures stolen by Germany it WWII gets made to places like Switzerland and Austria.
This argument going back to Nazi German doesn't serve Greece. The rest of the world got over WWII years ago, and nobody is holding the current German state accountable for the Nazis. It is generally accepted that one of the last place one looks for the people responsible for WWII is Germany. Those Nazi folks either got killed, when into hiding, or got good jobs with the Americans or Russians.
What Greece should be arguing is that it was irresponsible for Germany to allow Greece in the Eurozone to begin with. Greece's addition had to do with Germany's greed. At the time, it just make it easier for Germany to export, while giving a very poor Greece a credit card it obviously couldn't handle. It is kind of the same story of all those mortgage banks lending to people with bad credit in the US. And all while, Germany was telling its citizens that they would never have to bail out Greece. What a crock.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Right, because they couldn't have depressed their currency any other way if they'd wanted to. No no no. *cough* Weimar *cough*.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I would like to take this opportunity to say, "Hitler." This thread needs it and that is all I have to add.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The country that leaves instantly get's the ability to control their economy
How ? By printing money nobody wants ?
Currency control is widely acknowledged as one of the levers used in directing the economy. Surely you are not proposing that currency control has no effect no the economy? After all, Greece probably won't care if no one wants their drachmas; creditors (like Germany) will have to either take it or forfeit the debt.
Managing the exchange rate is something a country can do if they print their own money. They can't do it if they have no control over the currency. Poor economies need weak currencies to enable profitable exports. Rich economies need strong currencies to enable profitable imports. Greece would do better with a weak currency than with a strong one at this point.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Greece wasn't forced to use the Euro. They went to great lengths (i.e. they cooked the books) to be allowed to use the Euro. And they shy away from no rhetoric to continue using the Euro. If Greece wanted their own currency, they could have it tomorrow. They don't.
The precedent that Greece would be setting by leaving the Euro and/or the EU would be a good one for the EU: It would show that keeping your house in order is mandatory, not just a recommendation that you can ignore forever, if you want to be in the EU. Greece leaving the EU would devastate Greece though. Without access to bond markets and all but cut off from trading with Europe, it would practically be forced to become self-sufficient over night. People would die.
Just a matter of time. All new EU member states have agreed to (1) get their economies to fulfil the euro membership requirements and (2) then adopt the euro as their currency. Which is good. The problem with Greece is that they were first granted exceptions so that the bar for joining was lowered at the very last minute and they still had to cook the books to get in. Now they pay the price for it and so do many other countries.
This kind of ridiculous stunt is why the Germans are sick and tired of giving Greece money.
By "giving" you must mean getting Greece on the same currency and then instituting a monetary policy that benefits German industry.
I'm not German or Greece either, but its hard to ignore Germany's responsibility here. It was incredibly irresponsible for Germany to allow Greece to be on the Euro. Greece wasn't solvent before they joined the Eurozone, but letting them in benefited Germany a great deal in the short term. This obviously wasn't going to end well, and the German government at best showed uncharacteristic wishful thinking when it told its people they wouldn't have to bail out Greece if Greece joined. Given Germany's cultural propensity for competency in areas of math and finance, it seems the population willing turned a blind eye towards the obvious while seeing the short term financial benefits come its way.
The German political establishment should have to pay the piper here. But they are doing this on the backs of the Greek citizens, who by and large, had no idea this even was going down until it was too late. Not that Greece shouldn't have to pay, but maybe the Germans should factor in a bit of austerity on their part. Maybe cut back to 4 weeks vacation per year or something.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
It's still 100% accurate to yell at your military "STOP LETTING PEOPLE RETIRE AT 55 WITH FULL BENEFITS!". Ever wonder why your military budget is so high? All those private companies retiring their CEOs on a million a year pension at 50 skimming from the US government.
The generous pension of your military and police are very much a problem too.
Poor economies need weak currencies to enable profitable exports.
Or they can use a strong currency, and lower their wages. One is psychologically easier than the other, but it amounts to the same thing in the end.
Poor economies need weak currencies to enable profitable exports.
Or they can use a strong currency, and lower their wages.
I don't understand what you mean by this (I'm serious, not being facetious): weak economies need to export goods and services/import currency. Greece doesn't need to worry about anyone wanting their drachmas - they should be trying to get dollars/euros/etc *in*, not drachmas *out*. Hence my reply to "printing money that nobody wants". Sure, nobody wants it outside of Greece, but a weak currency for Greece means that, for things Greece does not need to import, it becomes cheaper to live.
Sure - they'll pay more for iShinies and automobiles. But, they'll pay less for food (they *can* grow themselves) and a weak currency gives them more value on any goods/service surplus they possess. With the strong currency, it doesn't matter what austerity measures they take - they'll still drown.
PS. It's nice to have someone disagree on slashdot without first hurling insults about "crying manbabies", "clueless noob", "libertard/republitard", etc. Please keep up the good work :-)
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Greece should never have been part of the Euro, in the first place: http://tinyurl.com/yzj8tzo
However the 'enthusiasm' of Goldman and probably the rest of Wall Street + [intellectually dishonest] desire from the EU Commission to have a great deal of buy-in [whatever the cost] pushed them in.
To declare interest, I'm a Brit, I worked for the commission for nearly ten years and for an investment bank in London. I don't admire or believe in either of them. I'm not a big fan of the euro, it connects everything and puts it [south and north, large and small] into a straitjacket. Indeed I'm a supporter of community currencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... an idea that Bernard Lietaer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... also supports.
Greece is a mess, but basically this is warfare without guns. Maybe that's the future?
On y va, qui mal y pense!
but a weak currency for Greece means that, for things Greece does not need to import, it becomes cheaper to live.
For things that don't require any import, it stays the same when measured in the local currency. But even local stuff in the supermarket needs oil for transportation, and oil needs to be imported. So, even in local currency, many goods and services will go up in price.
I don't understand what you mean by this
I mean that if you get a paycheck in Drachmas, and the Drachma drops in value, your paycheck is effectively gone down when measured in euros. You can get the same effect by keeping euros, and just lowering the amount. The difference is psychological. People don't like it when the number on the paycheck drops. They don't mind it as much when the number stays the same, and the currency drops by an equal amount.
Goldman-Sachs was a major player in the destruction of the Greek economy. They set up unsustainable loan arrangements and then bet that Greece would not be able to pay them off.
They pulled the same scam on US home buyers that they pulled on an entire country. They originated loans that they knew were going to default. They made money doing that. Then they sold the loans to another sucker. They made money doing that. Then the bet that the loans would fail. They made money doing that as well. In the end, both the US home buyers and an entire country were left with unpayable debts.
Goldman-Sachs was monumentally predatory. As the article says:
If you read the full article it's full of excuses why Goldman was not really a bad actor, but you must remember the source is the Business Insider, and they would happily support selling children into sex slavery if it was legal because Profit!
It's a pure swindle. Goldman had the deck stacked and the cards marked. Even a sovereign government was not up to understanding how a huge banking institution was able to manipulate the financial system to squeeze them dry and avoid any responsibility.
Why is Snark Required?
Lets do that when you give the US back to the natives.
There is NO obligation to switch to euro. And there are no fiscal targets for countries that don't plan to do it, so Croatia happily stays with its Kuna, Hungary with foring and Poland with zloty. So far these countries fare much better than peripheral countries that adopted the euro (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc.)
Poland is by far the largest receiver of EU subsidies, so it is not funny at all.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Greece is not Running Out of Money, it's going broke because it can't pay the IMF for previous 'loans. And it isn't that Greece can't make the repayments. The problem for Greece is that in order to qualify for IMF debt rescheduling, the IMF wants to impose 'adjustment measures' on an already weakened economy. Measures such as cutting the public sector, reductions in wages and pensions, increase VAT rate on food, selling of remaining state assets and suppressing labor unions. The main beneficiaries of such measures being Wall Street and US banks.
The problem is that the people borrowing and spending the money are not the ones that have to pay it back. And, vice versa, the people having to pay it back are not the ones that benefitted from the borrowed money.
A simple example: divide the debt of the US by the number of people in the US. That is what you (yes, you personally) should pay back to get out of debt. Of course, you can't as it is way more money than you can possibly pay. Same for Greece: the government and cronies got a lot of money and now the people are expected to fill the gap. It can't be done, that money simply isn't there.
I agree with everything you said but will add this....
I have yet to see any country taking IMF funds come out any better in the end. The demands of the IMF are too extreme for any country it goes into to "rescue". Not to long ago the IMF went into South American countries and now they are in serious financial trouble I argue because of the IMF.
In my opinion, it would be better for Greece to declare insolvency, pull out of the Eurozone and begin again. It will be less torture than dealing with the IMF.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Let's put the government in charge of healthcare! And everything else! That'll work out swell for everybody!
It actually works out very well in most countries.
No, that William Wallace was an American and spent a lot of time in Ireland!
Want to know when are the French going to pay England for the Norman conquest?
Gee... where did the IMG get the money from in the first place?
They created it OUT OF THIN AIR, based on nothing. So Greece can tell 'the IMF' to go fuck themselves. Who are they? Did the people VOTE them into power? No.
Just another JEW shakedown, creating money out of thin air, and then 'lending' it to a country, so that country is then OWNED by the IMF.
And look at the number of idiots on here who couldn't even be bothered to go and look up what money actually IS and where it comes from, so haven't got a clue what they are talking about.
www.positivemoney.org
This kind of ridiculous stunt is why the Germans are sick and tired of giving Greece money.
Germany is not giving money to Greece. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Germany has a balanced budget because of the crisis in southern Europe. Even if Greece is bankrupted, Germany will still have a net profit.
Also quite some of the debt of Greece comes form buying German weapon systems. The have been rumors that new credits have been tied to those deals in the past.
I know we speak about very large sums of money here but one wonders how much unneccesary money has been paid to Microsoft in this shape of economy while Germany etc. are all switching to Linux/ sponsoring open source projects where possible.
There is a small possibility that they can uncover dirty tricks Microsoft and similar does to "convince" goverments to "choose" their software while Linux and even *BSD does the job perfectly.
Ok, is it the case that you are no longer saying all forms of welfare must stop, your issue is with "oppression" by the mob or state and you are stating that nobody should think they have "entitlemement for institutional theft and redistribution"?
What do you mean by oppression? What do you mean by mob? What do you mean by state? Or did you mean "state of the individual" ? That last phrasing is a bit odd.
Also you said "Nobody should be forced under any circumstances for any reason and for anybody to give up their time and or savings." What does this mean?
Are you aware that your statement means contracts could not be enforced, and that individuals could not be bound by their word or any other agreement? That no redress could be made for injuries?
What do you mean by entitlement for institutional theft and redistribution? Are other forms of entitlement acceptable?
How is this on the site? Oh, now I know, it's time for the EU to fine MS or GOOG again so it can help pay for its shite I suppose...
Indeed, the Greeks should have made ends meet instead of continuing to increase the deficit.
Please realise they were paying a very low interest on this Euro depth, had it been in Drachmen it would have been much more expensive.
They took this low interest as an excuse to borrow more than their economy could support.
Devaluating a country out of depth is a trick Souther European countries used a lot but it never brought them the prosperity NW European countries gained by taking the pain of a depression and saving up for the future.
The renewed claim for German war reparations is stale, the Germans (and Americans for them) repaid long ago, the Greek economic woes are much more recent and to a good extend due to their own mismanagement.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Very well put.
A weak currency is only a temporary relief, not a solution.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"I'm not German or Greek, but have been following this for years in the Economist and Bloomberg, and I know lazy scammers trying to wheedle more money rather than earn it."
And I can sniff a bigot.
Dick Cheney was wrong about the Iraq War too. Destroying the west via deficits will ultimately have taken a long time, but it's happening.
Debts almost always spiral out of control, just like gambling or alcoholism... You start off small, but you become addicted and the problem just grows... Whoever replaces Obama will likely have much larger debts still.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The intention of the IMF is not to help those it gives money to. The intention is basically to control them.
When Franz Josef Strauss, a German politician who was renowned for being hardcore anti-communist and would generally fit well into the right edge of the current US Republicans, was asked why he offered a billion Marks loan to the GDR, he pretty much said "We have to make them dependent on our money like the addict to the drug".
And that's basically the IWFs function now. Though FJS could not even dictate how they may spend the money, unlike the IWF now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Companies shouldshould try to pay as little as possible. That's the system: it depends on human greed at every exchange. Any system that doesn't is purest foolishness.
ANY system which represents humans as a single datapoint is frankly idiotic and doomed to failure.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Can't have your cake and eat it.
Good point. I think war reperations are an excellent idea! What's the worst that could happen?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
As Dick Cheney famously said on the eve of the Iraq War, "Deficits don't matter".
He said that because sovereign debt really isn't like personal debt when the sovereign debt is in a convertible fiat currency. Because the difference between you and a nation is the power to issue currency. Do you know how many countries have ever actually paid off their debt? Take a guess.
The IMF is like a loan shark. They don't want countries to pay off their debts. They want countries to service their debts until such time as they can burn it down for the insurance (CDO) money.
What you are using a Dick quote as something other than a joke? What are you, a moron?
You realize that if a big chunk of the population are the ones that want that welfare, they might overthrow the government to impose a welfare state, turning you in...wait for it... Venezuela.
I don't know. You just criticized another poster, then everyone that has ever not been greedy, then anyone that expected anyone to not be greedy, followed by criticizing the police, not the police, private police, whatever the current system is, slashcode, and culminating in an impressive retrospective criticism of yourself.
Seems you are only using your hammer when you really need a screwdriver.
Are you implying he should just screw himself? Or also another poster, then everyone that has ever not been greedy, then anyone that expected anyone to not be greedy, followed by the police, not the police, private police, whatever the current system is, and culminating in an impressive metaphysical screwing of slashcode?
Any day now, I expect China to ask Greece if they can buy a Greek island for $30 billion or so. The island would need to be close to a NATO base. Of course, China would also need Greece to give its ships permanent permission to go through Greek waters, in order to get to that island. Then I expect China to put a listening post there.
So China would get a new source of information regarding the US military, and would gain the gratitude of Greece.
If Greece were desparate enough to avoid default, it might sell China one if its islands.
If that happens Greece should pay back the US.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Yeah, looking out my window it totally looks like Mad Max right now.
And it started with Ronald Reagan.
Remember, the fuller Dick Cheney quote was, "Ronald Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just a few years ago Poland was looting retirement funds and pensions, so it can't be far behind Greece.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
And by American, you meant Australian. I can see how you got those two confused, being that they are almost on the opposite sides of the world and are near polar opposites in every other way.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Taken back implies they were returned their rightful owners.
The vast majority was actually stolen by the Russians.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We have ouzo, tsipouro, sun, sea and broadband
Tomorrow who lives who dies ("Aurio poios zei, poios pethainei").
We also believe in afterlife, so who gives a fuck if this one ends bad
deltaS>=0 (c.s.)
You say that the IMF and ECB gave loans to Greece at rates that are not sustainable.
I say that Greece accepted loans offered to them at rates that are not sustainable - and they should have known better.
Love sees no species.
Error #02DNP Does not parse.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
You must be an American, because most Australians I've met say he's American: he only lived here till he was nine, he never comes back, etc.
He's the trans-pacific equivalent of that elderly aunt who smells of piss.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Do you think Germans didn't stole anything from Russia while being there between 1941 and 1944? Not to mention destroyed.
So, no, any faults I suffer are of my own creation.
Ok, I'm willing to accept your assertion that's you, and your individual circumstance, and that your statements are true.
Now what the inhabitants of Rosewood, Florida? The black inhabitants of Tulsa, Oklahoma? What about the litigants in Pigford v. Glickman? What about Ed Johnson? What about George Stinney? The Scottsboro Boys? Freddie Gray? Tamir Rice?
Can you speak for them?
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_fi...
They even highlighted it for you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...Greece probably won't care if no one wants their drachmas; creditors (like Germany) will have to either take it or forfeit the debt.
Wow - is that ever simplistic. That kind of thinking leads to foreign investment dropping to absolute zero, tariffs and sanctions from your biggest sources of tourism (which makes up something like 20% of the Greek economy) - that's a bright future for Greece you're advocating. If they play all their cards right, maybe in a hundred years or so they'll be back at the level of Portugal.
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Britain, 1970s.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Should Greece abandon them because Germany said austerity is the way?
This is a false dichotomy. What is often overlooked is that fiscal 'austerity' is only a small part of the bigger issues afflicting Greece. If half your economy is dependent on government spending, and government spending goes down, well there goes your economy. So what happened to the rest of the Greek economy? They are crippled by a huge list of counterproductive regulations from some dreamland they have been in for decades. I don't mean regulations like 'dont dump poison in the river' I mean regulations like 'there can only be one pharmacy in each town' or 'all freight has to be driven by a Greek driver'. Getting rid of all that garbage is the other half of the austerity program that is typically overlooked.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
"The problem with Socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people's money".
Isn't Socialism great, you Silicon Valley leftists?
The Euro zone treaties made this situate inevitable. They prevent Greece from running a deficit or devaluing their currency in order to subsidize their economy during a down-turn.
Actually they only really stop Greece from devaluing their currency. If they stopped Greece from running a deficit there would not be this huge debt which is causing the greeks all these problems.
...Greece probably won't care if no one wants their drachmas; creditors (like Germany) will have to either take it or forfeit the debt.
Wow - is that ever simplistic.
As simplistic as you think it is, it's happened before and it will happen again.
That kind of thinking leads to foreign investment dropping to absolute zero, tariffs and sanctions from your biggest sources of tourism (which makes up something like 20% of the Greek economy) - that's a bright future for Greece you're advocating. If they play all their cards right, maybe in a hundred years or so they'll be back at the level of Portugal.
You appear to be under the impression that this doesn't happen often, of that if it does the results are as dire as you say. In actual fact it happens so often with few highly negative consequences that there is even discussion about how to stop countries simply inflating away their debt.
Yes, it is that common, and countries regularly do this with few highly negative results, mostly because they are already at the bottom and can only go up. Greece is in this position - bowing to the EU pressure for certain austerity policies might hurt far far worse than simply telling the creditors to fuck off and printing their own money.
Regardless of how simplistic you may think this is, the only chance they have might be to print their own money, albeit in a responsible manner. The austerity measures proposed seem to be punitive at best; such measures would definitely result in almost perpetual debt (Some other poster elsethread posted a very informative and insightful breakdown of *why* the austerity measures are worse for greece than simply printing their own money).
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
What benefit would an individual Greek receive that would make him voluntarily agree to pay taxes to fund this "debt"? This whole mess stinks of socialism, and much of it enforced by non-Greeks as well. What you need to do is show each and every Greek how his sacrifice to others will be rewarded with profits in the near future.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The US always pays its debts when they are due. I think perhaps the problem is you don't understand how US debt works, and why it is a bit special:
So the most important thing to understand is the US doesn't go and beg people to give it money, rather it auctions debt. People come and purchase the debt. You can do it yourself on their Treasury Direct site. The US sells debt instruments to interested buyers. They are bid on, and whoever bids the lowest interest rate wins. The upshot is the US sets the terms of the debt instruments sold. They have a variety, some are as short as 4 weeks, some as long as 30 years. When you buy something, the terms of repayment are stated up front: What it'll pay, and when. There is no provision to cash out early, and you don't get to dictate any terms, you just choose what note you want to buy (if they are available).
This is how public debt works in a lot of countries, but it isn't how things go when you are getting loans from the IMF.
The other important thing is that all US debt is denominated in US dollars. A US debt instrument specifies how many dollars it'll pay out and that number is NOT inflation adjusted, except in a few very special cases. Well the US government also controls the US mint, which makes US dollars. So the US government can literally print money, and inflate its way in to payments. There are negatives to that, of course, but it is perfectly doable. The US controls its fiscal and monetary policy regarding its debt. Since all its debts are in US dollars, and since US dollars are the world's reserve currency, the US cannot face a crisis where it can't pay, unless such a crisis is internally generated (via the debt limit).
Not the case with Greek debt, it is in Euros and Greece doesn't control the Euro.
Finally, there's the fact that the US has great credit. Doesn't matter if you disagree that it should, fact is it does. Investors are willing to loan the US money for extremely low interest rates because they see it as a very safe investment. 4 week T-Bills have been going for between 0%-0.015%. 30-year bonds have been going for 2.5%-3.75%. Investors bid the interest rates very low because they desire it as a safe investment.
Yugoslavia existed prior to WWII. It was invaded and dismantled by the Axis. Those disparate ethnic groups had been living peacefully together as Yugoslavia since the end of WWI, when it was formed, and even before that under the Austria-Hungary empire.
The only thing resembling genocide in that region occurred in the 1990s, unless you do some mental gymnastics and believe that imperialist aggression and Serbian nationalism leading to WWI was genocide.
The Greek payment due is about 1 week's Apple profit (not revenue). Perhaps the Prime Minister of Greece should use an Iphone to give Time Cook a call.
This..... IS...... Sparta!
Being greedy at every exchange means you stab the other guy to get your money back
That's not what the word "greedy" means, outside maybe of a technical term for algorithms.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The true bits being that Scotland and England exist?
And the existence of the persons of Edward I known as the Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, his son, Edward II, who was married to Isabella of France, William Wallace, who rebelled against English onslaughts upon Scotland, Robert the Bruce, and his father, among others. There were also battles at Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn.
Really, a lot going on.
You really should look at what happened to Argentina when they defaulted in 2002. It's still causing problems today.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
They don't have to forfeit the debt. See what's happening to Argentina today, more than a decade after they defaulted. Also, Greece wouldn't be able to manage the exchange rate - if they set it unrealistically high, nobody will trade hard currencies for their drachmas. And the lower they set it, the higher the cost of imports, leaving them with a trade deficit.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
it's not like Greece has a direct migration path. A Greek that wants to sneak into Europe has to cross the land of the vodka people, or try to swim to the south-east part of Italy.
Or take a short walk across the border to ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
So continuing to pay unsustainable pensions, hiring back civil servants who are not needed, not going after tax fraud, etc - how long will that last either within the EU or on their own? They originally had to cook the books (and the Greek government went along with the scam) to make their economic situation better than it was because of all the corruption, tax avoidance, public employee padding, and crazy pensions. They didn't change the underlying causes, and until they do, all they'll end up doing using their own currency is to see it rapidly devalue. Down the road a wheelbarrow of drachmas for a loaf of bread isn't going to help them one bit.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
With its future as a member of the 19-nation eurozone potentially at stake, a second government minister accused its international lenders of subjecting it to slow and calculated torture.
Well, yes, that is what the IMF does to the developing nations when it gets its hooks into them, why wouldn't they do the same to Greece? Germany's final solution of austerity to cure all ills caused by the banksters isn't going to help, either. Line the banksters up against a wall, withdraw from the EU, tell Germany and the IMF to go fuck themselves. Or roll over and take it up the stereotype.
If Germany paid war reparations for the brutal occupation and raping of the country of Greece, it would amount to something like $150-200 Billion owed.
Of course, that is never going to happen.
Do you want another world war? Because that's how you get another world war!
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
While it's true it's a painful thing for the citizens of Greece, fact remains Greece has borrowed money and everyone knows you have to pay your debts back. Everyone also knows Greece has been outright lying and manufacturing up its numbers to get into the EU and be able to loan like this. Furthermore Greece has been, and still is, spending more than they get as income. And mind you, Greece is a democracy, and the government is chosen by the people, and when the economy was booming (which is easy to do, if its from borrowed money, especially if you don't think about paying it back), none of the people made any objection.
But once the 7 fat years have passed, and the hard times come along, the Greece populace as well as the government screams foul and don't want to pay their debts back anymore. Well, that isn't how it works, sorry. You can't beg they lend you money AND at the same time demand that they ask nothing in return, as if it's business as usual. I mean: you guys knew what the deal was *before* you got money lent, right? So why complain now?
It's painful for the individual, just like it's painful for the individual if he can't pay his debt to the bank and his house got seized as a consequence - but no-one is to blame for that except yourself. You KNOW you're going to loose your house if there is a mortgage on it and you can't pay your debt back to the bank, do you not? Well, this is the same.
Greece has two choices: or they continue to pay the debt back, and then the EU/IMF loan will continue, or they don't, and then they won't be able to loan ANYWHERE (because what fool would lend billions to a country which already has proven it won't pay his debt back?). In which case the only option is a Grexit, and you guys deal with it on your own. In that case, you can easily decide not to reform your old pension-system, continue to pay your corrupt bureaucracy, and do the hell you like - but not with our money. I'm sure we don't know all of the Greece people, just like the Greece people do not know all about other EU-citizens, but that doesn't change the facts. That it's hard on the populace neither. Grind your teeth and get through it, knowing it's the result of your earlier spending spree in which you had the good life, thanks to borrowed money. Or don't, and keep doing what you want to do, but then with your own money.
While it's no doubt a difficult time for the populace itself, I do think this system is pretty straightforward and fair. Otherwise, any country could continue to be a black hole swallowing up money while other countries have to pay for it from their own to sustain the others' life-style. You would not blame any other country because they are getting fed up with the continuous loans of billions they have to put in Greece, while Greece does not want to do the reforms we ask. Yes, it may be you do not agree to the reforms *but then don't ask for money knowing in advance those reforms are one of the conditions to get it*! After all, as an analogy, if you don't like the conditions the bank asks for loaning a sum money to you THEN DON'T LEND THE MONEY. It should be obvious it's NOT for the one borrowing the money to set the conditions, no?
As said, if you don't agree, make a Grexit. Then you can do what you want on your own, and we will cut our losses too. No one likes to have to pay their debts back - take Iceland as an example - but if everyone refused to do so, the whole economic fabric would collapse, and no-one could borrow money anywhere. And just as you can't blame the bank for seizing your house if you can't pay their loan back, you shouldn't blame other countries, like Germany, if they ask for their returns. It's a popular thing for the Greece people to blame Germany for the problems they themselves created, but that doesn't fly. The people of Greece suffer now, true, but they have only themselves and their governments to blame for it. As said, grind your teeth and be prepared to live in poverty for the next 7 meagre years while we pump even more billions in your economy, or don't, but then have a Grexit and see if you fare better.
Good idea! But let's be consistent! During the ancient Roman time, many, many countries were invaded by the Romans, and many people were killed and habitats were destroyed. I propose that half of the current EU countries now demand retribution from Italy. That will solve everything, and clearly, is the most rational and fair thing to do!
No - companies (and all taxpayers) should try to pay as little as legally possible. Good luck getting that to happen in Greece.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Fascinating how Keyesian-something-for-nothing thinking continues to rule the day even as the end game for ALL the Central-Banking economies looms ever larger in the front windshield.
How long did it take the Euro scheme to set the stage for eventual bankruptcy in virtually all member states? You cannot borrow money into existence AT ZERO COST and loan it out WITH COMPOUNDING INTEREST into perpetuity without eventually having to deal with the reality that trees don't grow to the sky. It's simple enough math, but for some reason government schools and vassal institutions around the world continue to teach that economics is somehow exempt from the rules of algebra.
And in the case of Europe the Ponzi has run extraordinarily fast. Maybe because there was US "help" from G.S., etc. Maybe because - unlike in the US - citizens can't move from one depressed geographic region to another in order to side-step the resulting extraction; there is that little issue of language and accent+culture which restricts Greek citizens who might otherwise escape their plight (in droves) by moving to Germany and "blending in".
Anyway, it isn't that complicated. So it's kind of surprising that I'm reading so many "traditional" and unimaginative entries on this topic receiving 5 star rankings.
The sensible thing to do right now is to just print up all the money required pay off all the debts and hand it out according to need. Or at least "loan" it at zero percent into forever and *pretend* it will be repaid some day. Or just call it game over and upend the board.
If I could speak for them my comment would have included that. Thus I included only my own observations and history.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Estonian economic problems have nothing to do with switching from kroon to euro. Why? Because Estonian kroon was fixed to euro (at first it was fixed to German mark, and when German went euro, kroon was fixed to euro). Fixed. Thus Estonian kroon was currency of it's own only by name, it was euro before the switch too.
Estonian problem is that after Russian market was cut off in 1991 when Estonia declared independence, Estonia systematically killed off it's industry. There's almost nothing left in here. For awhile being a transit hub worked, but then those businesses started to merge and a lot of them are now owned by big/rich Russian (companies) which means that locals do not get any benefits from the transit.
For awhile there was some financial sector buzz, but then (nearly) all banks were sold to Nordic banks, and now financial sector is owned by foreigners (with some exceptions), which again does not help locals when profits are funneled to Nordic countries.
Then for some time people were buzzing about the great IT sector... but fact is that there's little more than the hype. Yeah, OK, the dirty work of coding for Skype was done in Tallinn, but owners were foreigners. And what else is there? Can't parrot to infinity that "but but we helped to make Skype!"
Signed: an Estonian from Estonia
How does the absolute value of the currency matter? I don't understand this assertion. I completely agree that Greece would be far better off with the ability to control their own currency (all EU countries would be). But I've never understood why exchange rates matter from a macroeconomic perspective.
As I keep pointing out, weak economies have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they cannot control the production of their currency.
This is only true IF AND ONLY IF this weak economies country can get the loan in local currency. If you have a local currency and weak economy, you will get a) higher interest rates (bad) and b) the loans will be granted in, say, euro. And then you can't really gain anything from inflation, because you have to pay back in euro.
Obama debts don't compare to the Bush debts. Certainly Obama has been shrinking the deficit every year he's been in office, while Bush took a surplus and blew it up into a multi trillion dollar debt.
People keep saying this, as if driving your currency down requires some sort of special arcane skill that only the Greeks have. There are plenty of ways to do it - one of which is to run your economy in a completely irresponsible manner.
Not that devaluation is the magic bullet people are claiming anyway.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What's that got to do with the point at hand?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wi...
just saying.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The Euro zone treaties aren't what prevent Greece from running a deficit during a down-turn.
Running a deficit during an up-turn is what does that.
> How about checking out the bare survival conditions of a lot of Greek citizens?
Well, fuck you.
Average net wage in (FYI: the two countries are neighbours and members of the EU; one is not in the Eurozone):
Greece: 1004 euro
Bulgaria: 356 euro
(the discrepancy in pensions is even bigger)
Have you noticed the 2.82x louder whining coming from Bulgaria? Have you noticed its national debt? No?
Once again: fuck you.
The same can be said for American Douchebag Capitalism.
And yet in 2008 the world paid the price for a bunch of greedy American assholes who decided to swindle the world.
Fuck America and their current 'libertarian' fantasy economics which is founded in fantasy and not fact.
Now you're trying to look for blame. I consider you to be a partisan and part of the problem.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Greece has one major (and IMHO, their greatest) socio-economic problem: massive tax evasion by the rich and super-rich. Greece is a thoroughly corrupt country, and the elite has greatly benefitted from this corruption, at the expense of everyone else.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The EU allowing countries to join who should not, as you point out with the word usury, is at this time looking like a fairly obvious game plan.
Pawn shops do it all the time.
Why not entire countries?
When will it end? That is my question.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I am not sure how people keep coming to the conclusion "war reparations are bad because they caused WWII."
WWII wasn't caused by reparations. It was caused by a mad man that whipped a nation into a frenzy over reparations, and the allies that sat by idly while he built his military back up.
If Germany had put put into other areas the money it out into its military, it would have been better off.
I, for one, am all for holding a country responsible for the damage it does when it attacks others. As long as the details are worked out when the surrender is done and people aren't still trying to make them pay over a half century later...
What a joke. Parents who act like that won't have even a house trailer for "financial retribution." And it's not likely they'll be able to earn enough making license plates in jail to make any further contributions either.
We have a social safety net so that we can help what you call "edge cases" (which are much more frequent than you seem to think), not just to live, but where possible to fend for themselves rather than being charity cases. It's called investing in people, and it's a valid form of investment. Consider it as an insurance policy that everyone pays into that helps those that end up in need.
Or we can go your route, and some of those will "fend for themselves" - maybe by bashing your head in and taking the shirt off your back. Or car-jacking. Or burning your place of employment down after looting the food out of the cafeteria. It's happened before, and if we go your route, it will happen again (heck, it's happening now - look at the Somali pirates).
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Countries that go to the IMF expecting to have to make the sort of changes to their economy that Western nations would expect in order to consider them for a "payday loan" level credit offering will do just fine. Just like a "payday loan" if you can survive without it, you should, and clearly almost everybody that applies doesn't need it and will harm themselves by taking on credit. But what if a person really did have an unexpected lump expense, and they'll actually get back "on their feet" if they can just make it through the next round of payments? Rare, but possible.
The whole point of an IMF loan is to loan money to countries who have trashed their economy and credit so bad they can't get a normal loan. These aren't supposed to be charity, or bailouts; anybody applying would squander any charity provided. They already squandered their good money, so you know they wouldn't be responsible with free money.
If an IMF loan isn't going to force a country to do what it doesn't want, and be fiscally responsible, then there is no reason for these other countries to provide the money. Just look at Greece and how much the "bailout" money helped them; it basically did not help them. And it was a huge sack of change; I'll bet if Germany had kept that money, they would have spent some of it on investments that have a real return. They gave up real treasure, for Greece to squander it; and then blame Germany, demand more sugar-candy, stop their feet, and threaten to go home. Which is where they will have ended up in a few months as the "Grexit" starts to take shape. And then they'll realize, they didn't have a ball to take home, or even their own socks. They got all their swag on loan, and didn't pay.
When times are hard, people tend to go back toward the "community" , group together to weather better the storm, a group is less likely to fail if individuals fails if other fare better and compensate. Thus the trend toward socialism/communism and other similar politics which tend to favorize the group and the lowest worker classes. It is just plain logic on the individual level.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Devaluation only benefits if business people in other countries consider you to be stable enough in the 5-10 year range for them to enter into contracts on the time scale of a generation of new factory equipment.
Greece's threatening to commit financial suicide to try to manipulate their creditors is ill-considered, because it will scare off the people they would need to turn to in order to make lemonade. Plus, Germany doesn't need to negotiate for Greece's life; Grexit isn't the end-of-the-world the Greeks would like the world to believe. Just ask the UK if Europe can survive with more than one currency. ;)
The Euro zone treaties made this situate inevitable. They prevent Greece from running a deficit or devaluing their currency in order to subsidize their economy during a down-turn.
This presumes that Greece could not be financially responsible. You consider it so impossible, it isn't even included in your equation.
What makes Greek collapse inevitable is simply their own selves, these irresponsible behaviors you claim are guaranteed when dealing with Greece.
The intent of the Eurozone treaties is to make those behaviors undesirable, so that countries won't do those things. If it is impossible for Greece to comply, it just means it was impossible for Greece to be a long-term Eurozone member. That actually implies those parts of the treaties are functioning as desired. This behavior is not being accepted, and so the system is working.
If Greece is the "weakest" member, and dirt-poor Bulgaria and Romania are doing just find muddling through, and in fact doing much much better than when they joined, then this myth is busted.
There are lots of countries with less who are keeping their heads above water.
This nonsense about the "precedent" that would be set by an exit is absurd. The premise of Eurozone was never that it is inevitable and that countries don't have a choice. That is absurd! If that is your position, then refusing to kick Greece out would set an even worse precedent; that your invented premise had become true!
The premise was actually that if a bunch of countries use a common currency and manage it collectively then the fiscally responsible parties will tend to maintain control, and countries that want responsible management will benefit. Individual countries will be less able to manipulate their currency to screw over their neighbors. Like the whole gimmick of wanting to devalue currency to avoid debt repayment. That is just fraud! If the currency devalues naturally, okay, debtors pay less in real money and can celebrate. But intentionally devaluing currency to avoid debt repayment, that is not something you have some natural right to. That is straight-up screwing your creditors "because you can." So in the Eurozone system, you can't. It is just one less way to screw your neighbors. If Greece ends up getting kicked out, the very positive precedent will be, "these treaties are real, these rules are real, don't borrow what you don't indent to pay if you want to be part of the modern Europe.
"They will have to pay back every dime or they will never borrow money again...."
Maybe it would be better if THE GOVT never borrowed money again. Maybe (gasp) it would be vastly better for humanity as a whole, and even society in the small, if governments NEVER borrowed money again!
Sounds radical ... until you actually think about it and look more at history.
The money banks are "loaning" is coming from nothing at this point. GS loans money to Greece which it gets for effectively nothing due to its political connections and simply because most "loaned money" is actually loaned CREDIT which isn't really backed by anything but bluff, pretense, and Ponzi to begin with (see the recent Money creation in the modern economy - Bank of England www.bankofengland.co.uk/ publications/ Documents/ quarterlybulletin/ 2014/ qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf for some enlightenment.)
If a government needs money it might as well print the money nakedly, without PRETENSE of a "loan". Yes, that will create devaluation in the currency...so what...better to face the ugliness of what is going down straight up when it can be pinned to the politicians who do the foul deed and the public which allow it. The overall cost would be lower.
It would be nice if the cost of printing money from government were that all politicians and high level (at least) "public servants" were summarily fired...but REAL public servants, as opposed to the norm of public SERPANTS, would do the right thing and take their lumps.
Anyway, humanity has been falling for the same stupid pet tricks for thousands of years. In the age of the internet lets see if humanity can develop a little more of a collective memory and a lot more wisdom.
Whether the currency is Drachmas or Euros is irrelevant. The only difference is that in a weak economy, their own currency means that the difficult decisions are made by the marketplace rather than the fortitude of politicians. (Oxymoron?) You get a pension with a large apparent value when you retire, but 10 years later, the effective purchasing power of that pension is miniscule.
The intention of the IMF is not to help those it gives money to. The intention is basically to control them.
If you accept money from someone, don't be surprised if they try to put conditions on how you spend the money. When you're begging for money in the international market because no private investor will give you a loan due to your reckless spending behaviour, don't be surprised that donors ask for conditions on how that money is spent. If the Greeks didn't want conditions, they could always radically cut expenses to meet tax revenues and not be dependent on any handouts to make the budget balance.
When it comes to credit, because it happened before and the creditor didn't get their money, that doesn't make it the status quo that can be expected. The expected result is actually lowering of credit outside the bottom of the range where loans would even be made at all, and the resulting status quo is that Greece is broke and can't borrow money. And to borrow money now, they have to make short-term payments of past debts, which is hard for them.
The amount of austerity they'd have to agree to in order to get more loans now, well, that is a lot more austerity than they would have had to accept before threatening default.
Trashing your credit is not useful when your financial plan is to run your whole country on borrowed money. If that is your plan, you have to put your credit rating ahead of everything else, because the plan is more expensive than just balancing your budget in the first place.
If only they had hired a single accountant to actually show up and calculate what they needed, right?
Their defense seems to be that they're a backwards country bumpkin with no economics degrees in government, who have been taken advantage of by these clever Germans who were plotting to... lose billions on unpaid loans. Those clever, clever Germans!
With interest. In dollars.
Excellent point. Not only was Poland more devastated by WWII, they suffered from Communist rule for 44 years afterwards, and yet have recovered pretty darn well since 1989. Meanwhile, Greece has gotten themselves into this hole because they still cling to failed socialist economic thinking.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
There is an article from Greece's finance minister - Yanis Varoufakis for the current negotiations: http://www.project-syndicate.o...
"In a perfect world, the financial institutions and auditors that pushed Greece onto such a road would pay for the economical disaster that they directly contributed to."
So in your perfect world all anyone has to do is find one consultant that advocates for a policy and then they have the scapegoat to blame? No personal responsibility for the elected officials for the decisions they made? It's all the analysts fault?
Maybe if the Greeks paid their taxes this would not have happened.
Ah, the old "if only the government had more money, it wouldn't be bankrupt" idea. But of course it doesn't matter how high your revenue is, if you constantly spend more than that. See also: the United States.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Finland lost 10% of her territory, had to relocate 15% of her population, and pay reparations for a war she didn't start. Despite all that, they've built one of the most successful countries on the planet, by any metric.
It's truly sad to see how far the cradle of western civilization has fallen. On the bright side, tourism there will be dirt cheap when they finally get booted out of the Eurozone.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You really should look at what happened to Argentina when they defaulted in 2002. It's still causing problems today.
In all fairness, I said they'd get the *ability* to bring the spiral under control, I didn't say they'd actually exercise that ability :-) The way things are now they don't have the option of currency controls!. If they get the option there is still the possibility that they abuse it.
From Greece's PoV, it's better to have the ability to control and not need it rather than needing the ability to control and not having it!
The austerity measures proposed would leave them with indefinite debt that can never be repaid. If the option of staying in the EU means that they'll be debtors for the rest of time then they may as well take their chances and default on the debt instead - defaulting at least gives them a chance.
Think about it this way: Let's say you are in debt, and the only penalty for defaulting is lower credit rating. If your creditor asks you to sell your means of earning money (say, sell all your computing equipment, car and house) as part of "austerity measures" before they give you any more money, you are better off defaulting on the debt. Their austerity measures will handicap your ability to repay the debt anyway, so why not default?
This is the state that Greece finds itself in, and the EU knows full well that if a precedence is set regarding defaults then just about all the weaker/debtor economies in EU will consider defaulting as well. After all, countries leaving the EU can still trade with China, Middle East and the whole of Africa for essentials - maybe the Russians too. It won't be perfect, nor better, but it will be an option. Trading with the strong economies do not work so well when you don't control your own currency.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
drop yourself off a bridge, asshole.
20% of Germans have been Ethnically Cleansed as a result of WW2. Millions of Germans have been killed cold blooded by the victors.
Hopefully you contract cancer before you commit suicide.
did the blacks kill millions of white americans, just like millions of Germans were killed, raped and maimed cold-blooded ? Also, how many millions of white Americans were ethnically cleansed ?
Where are the Rheinwiesen camps, where pows were systematically killed by the ex-slaves ?
Making Germany pay is an act of slavery by the US Imperium, because they want to continue to own Greece as part of the Empire.
The war reparation demands are just one part of their blackmailing strategy. The greek as simply lazy, reckless people, all socialists. What they essentially want is to live like Diogenes, just with a nice house and servants instead of a barrel.
So they blackmail EVERYBODY they can blackmail, instead of going to work. Instead of honestly paying taxes. You bet they have already sold F16 fighters and German submarines to the Russkies for some shekels. All with the latest radar and other electronics.
If you send the Greek to hell, the devil will come as an asylum seeker to your home and will promise to lie low all day. He will do all to please you, if he has not to endure the Greek.
Whatabout millions of Germans ethnically cleansed, killed, raped maimed or let die in the cold COLD BLOODED.
How do we account for THIS ?
Indeed the British and the Serbian government funded and organized Terrorists who successfully killed the Austrian heir to the throne.
That would be like Germany funding and controlling the IRA to successfully knocking over Charles Battenberg.
The Austrians took the bait and Russia, France and Britain were all too willing to join the Schlachtfest. All of them were bled white, because rotten morals do not make for military success.
People would die because they dont have access to iphones and bmws ? What a load of tripe.
Certainly many neighbour states would send food aid and we can expect these fuckers to be able to distribute the aid without corruption. If they actually COULD NOT, well then they are screwed either way.
Which is a real possibility - Greece is a Rotten Nation. Cure by civil war and military rule.
The IMF is nothing more than the worlds collection agency. Like any efficient collection agency, it starts with ruining credit and ends with breaking kneecaps.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Maybe they have a similar broken ethics like the Greek ? All I know about them is corrupt socialist Presidentes and their even more crimimal wifes running as Presidente Fatales (or whatever they say in catholic).
Why do you think the latin world is weak ? Because their morals are rotten. Too much catholicsm and the authoritarianism which comes packaged with that.
You rail on devaluing currency as fraud, but am I really supposed to cry a year for these creditors? If they think this possibility might exist then they should account for it. Seriously, ccreditors took a gamble and they lost! If it is too risky then don't loan these countried any money. It is that simple. They got exactly what they deserve.
What a nice romantic story you repeat here. Boy, adjusting the exchange rate is a LEGITIMATE NATIONAL MEASURE. America does it ALL THE TIME, when they change the interest rates and all the other funny mechanisms which they have created. Switzerland does it and they are rightfully a nice and prosperous nation of hardworking people. Instead of Communists Bastards.
The entire Euro system was shitted out by the French "as the price for German unification". They thought they could live off hard working Germans and their DM, always being the Gallic Communist. Who certainly prefers the VW over the shitty Renault if he can afford.
Now some of the commies realize it does not properly work out. But they still have not grasped that the idea of "lets steal from the hard working" does not create wealth and optimism; rather it creates a system of depressing pauperism.
So they continue to promose "we will thiefe our way into the future and you do not need to work honestly for modest money. trust us, we are Marxists - the stepchild of banksterism". Of course the London Banksters are highly sympathetic with the Greek, because they realize the Greek way of life is basically the same as the way of life in London.
Most German politicos are naive and/or corrupt idiots and almost all of them serve the Anglo Imperium (by means of the Atlanikbruecke org) instead of serving the German people.
People keep saying this, as if driving your currency down requires some sort of special arcane skill that only the Greeks have. There are plenty of ways to do it - one of which is to run your economy in a completely irresponsible manner.
Not that devaluation is the magic bullet people are claiming anyway.
You are kind of missing the point.
Its not like the Greek economy wouldn't have just continued business as usual without the Euro... If Greece never joined the Eurozone, it would still have the screwed up economy it has today, we just wouldn't be hearing about this being some "crisis".
The only reason this is a "crisis" is because Germany - a major economic power - is involved as a major creditor. And the only reason why this is a "crisis" for Germany is because the German political establishment promised its people that Germany would never bail out a country on the Euro. But that was BS. The UK knew it was BS - crap like this is why they are still GPB and not Euro - and they warned Germany.
Before talk of the Eurozone, the financial markets traded the drachma as if it were the artificially inflated currency it was, then when Germany started talk of adding Greece, the drachma spiked, Greece then had money to buy goods from German companies, and some select currency traders cleaned up. But it was a short term con job. When the credit card ran up, it came time to pay the bills. And Greece has never been that good at paying bills. If it looks like a duck....
Germany didn't have to let Greece in. Greece couldn't even make the minimum requirements for the Eurozone, they were given a bunch of economic exception to join. Allowing Greece in was a real bad financial decision by the German politicians and banking industry that backed Greece's inclusion. Now they are whining about losing money on a risky proposition.
Time for Germany to quit whining, suck up the losses and move on. Its not like the German economy will collapse over this, just some Germans get a haircut. Take it as lesson learned.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Wrong, you are a joke, I am being 100% serious about everything I say on the issue of economics and individual freedoms. Your ideology leads to the outcomes that you are supposedly horrified of, the reality is that you should be inspecting your own judgement and motivation and be horrified with yourself once you realise that your own ideology causes the massive suffering as the end result. Your ideology is ideology of destruction of individual freedoms which inexorably leads to destruction of the economy and thus society and then the people who you pretend to care about suffer the most. The solution is of-course actual individual freedoms, but it goes against your idiotic notion of social justice that negates individual freedom both as general concept and as specific implementation.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Vojvodina - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Apologies for suggesting that Yugoslavia was created after WWII - In my head at the time I was thinking of Vojvodina.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
When you go bankrupt personally, you don't get to keep all your stuff anyway. Better to sell it and clear the debt, than to lose it and retain the debt because it sold for pennies on the dollar at auction.
They also do have the power to impose currency controls to prevent the outflow of capital.
Some other countries might trade with them, provided they can then sell the drachmas for another currency - but not too many people are going to want to hold drachmas.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
There is an obligation to _try_ to get economy ready for Euro. We just need not to try really hard. There are no deadlines, so we can try, and try, and try, and hopefully we'll never succeed.
What Greece should be arguing is that it was irresponsible for Germany to allow Greece in the Eurozone to begin with.
The problem with that is joining the Eurozone has the equivalent of one of those "you must be this tall to ride" signs when it comes to debt. Specifically you must have a debt/GDP ratio less than 60%, and an annual deficit/GDP ratio of less than 3%. These rules were designed to prevent situations like what is happening with Greece. Unfortunately the Greek government simply lied to get in. It turns out that when Greece joined in 2001, its debt/GDP ratio was near 100%, and its deficit/GDP ratio was ~4%. So I think it's hard to say it was irresponsible of Germany when there were pretty clear criteria spelled out.
You keep making this comment but nobody is really sad about dead Nazis. Invade other countries twice in a century and they will teach you a lesson you will remeber.
"It doesn't matter how far into debt the US is, anyone can see this by comparing our debt to our GDP: the latter number is really big, while the debt is really small." You must be mentally handicapped. GDP is less per year than the entire debt: $18.5 trillion.
the banks OWN the fed? The Fed is NOT part of the Federal government (though it was deceptively named to give that impression).
You mock basic logic when you say the Fed is not to blame but the big banks are... that's EXACTLY what the scheme was intended to fool the gullible into believing. The Federal Reserve Bank is a private institution owned and run by bankers, to which the federal government has granted extraordinary powers in exchange for the President getting to appoint the Fed President. Neither the US President, nor the US congress has control over the Fed, and neither has even been allowed to look at "the books"; this is WHY there is a political drive to pass a law to let the congress audit the Fed. Nobody outside that small circle of bankers truly knows what they own, what they are doing to the economy, etc. We have only their word for it, and they refuse to let anybody outside the organization see any of the documents.
The Fed is probably the only actual conspiracy that need not be accompanied by a foil hat - because, unlike nearly all others, this one is both TRUE and an actual secretive conspiracy. Most American know little or nothing about this group, and yet there is a HUGE revolving door of people (in BOTH parties) going back-and-forth between working at the Fed and working in the Federal government and policies being set in secret using secret criteria at the Fed with cooperation with the Treasury (which IS part of the Federal government)
..."pensions"
There's part of the problem...just as bad as unions...
If the economic modelling you use does not have a recession as one of it's possible states. It is not a model of the economy.
If your model of how individual agents interact is not consistent with the rules of double entry book-keeping, you do not have a model of the economy.
If your model of a firms profits don't line up with empirical evidence... you get the idea.
When you impose that model on an actual economy, and it fails to follow your expectations. It isn't the real world that is at fault.
Paraphrasing Hyman Minsky; The natural instability of capitalism is upwards. When firms take small risks and they pay off, they learn to take bigger and bigger risks. Bankers have an incentive to fund larger and larger risks. Asset prices climb. It becomes profitable to speculate on assets without having the income to cover your interest payments. Until the debt level peaks and the whole process works in reverse. A boom becomes a slump. There's a period of pain, when bankers and firms reduce their willingness to take risks. The economy recovers, firms take small risks and they pay off....
But everyone starts the next cycle, still carrying some of their debts from the previous cycle. If there's high inflation, who cares. You can easily pay off your debts with your increased income. But when the mountain of debt in the system gets too large, inflation is impossible.
Once inflation turns to de-flation, the cycle is broken. What starts as a period of tranquility. A "Great Moderation" if you will. Suddenly turns into a crisis. Debtors go bankrupt, money is destroyed. Distressed sellers discover the market is much smaller than they thought it was. Even low risk projects fail as the economy suddenly shrinks.
But if the government sector taxes more in the good times, and runs a deficit during a slump. They can dampen the cycle. They can lessen the pain of the inevitable crash. But do you really think that the people will allow high taxation during a long period with very little trouble?
Do you really think the government caused this? A government run by economists who haven't learnt the right lessons from history. Economists who misunderstand and ignore the role of money and credit. Economists who codified their model of a perfect economy into law. A model which has nothing to do with how the real economy actually works.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
that sounds like the United States....
I mean that if you get a paycheck in Drachmas, and the Drachma drops in value, your paycheck is effectively gone down when measured in euros. You can get the same effect by keeping euros, and just lowering the amount. The difference is psychological. People don't like it when the number on the paycheck drops. They don't mind it as much when the number stays the same, and the currency drops by an equal amount.
No it is not psychological, you are forgetting a few details:
- If you own the bank $$$ Drachmas and the Drachmas drops in value, the amount you own also drops, while if you drop your paycheck and the $$$ amount you own the does not drop YOU are literally worse off.
- If you are rich and have a lot of Drachmas and the Drachmas drops in value, you are literally worse off. On the other side if If you are rich and your employees take a pay cut, that is good for you.
- Also, when the Drachmas drops in value the German cars become more expensive and the Greeks will buy less of them while some local goods keep their relative price. That is not good for Germany. Worse, some other EU countries can get the same ideas...
Getting money from abusive parents who are sitting in jail is not going to work. You can't get money from someone who doesn't have any, and no assets to speak of. So if you're 100% serious, your notions are not just a joke, but tragic.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
When you go bankrupt personally, you don't get to keep all your stuff anyway.
That's why I qualified it with "only negative consequence is lower credit rating" - Greece gets to keep all their existing stuff if they default.
Better to sell it and clear the debt, than to lose it and retain the debt because it sold for pennies on the dollar at auction.
They also do have the power to impose currency controls to prevent the outflow of capital.
Some other countries might trade with them, provided they can then sell the drachmas for another currency - but not too many people are going to want to hold drachmas.
Trade goes both ways - even if others don't want drachmas (they don't want to sell to Greece) they may still buy goods/services from Greece which is a net win for Greece.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
"Socialism always fails because, in the end, you simply run out of other's people money" - Margaret Thatcher. And, here we are.
Georgia (Republic of) did came of better, thanks to IMF.
After war with Russia in 2008 and subsequent econimical crisis all over the world, Georgia got money to compensate for harsh decline in foreign direct investment and quickly recovered.
I live in Romania, which has a similar situation to Bulgaria economically, so I know one or two things about average net wage, so fuck off.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
Are they going to actually collect taxes to get some funds? - From what I've heard most citizens pay nothing in taxes or there are so many loopholes that they can avoid actually paying the taxes.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
You see the problem in terms of debt, but this isn't the real problem. The problem is lame, unqualified, prone-to-corrupt-and-clientelism politicians which are elected by uninformed citizens. The money of EU should be spent to increase economic and political awareness of the Greek people instead of just paying back debt or wages. The whole Greek public sector should be rebuilt from scratch. This doesn't require any "bright minds"; just copying successful (sub)systems from other countries. EU was available for help a lot during the last decades, but this wasn't leverages by the Greek system.
Fortune Rota Volvitur
Exactly how much do you think anyone is going to value a Greece currency? They can control it all they like. But if no one wants it, what good is it.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
That's how Russia was devastated in 90x: austerity. IMF demanded to cut budget spending without caring about real situation, Eltsyn's government caved in and thus police and judges went for many, many years without adequate pay. Guess, who really rule in Russia now? The same people who HAD to exploit their position or just starve on their $10/month salary. Those who did not want to be corrupted HAD to leave law enforcement, court system and other most important positions in government -- or lean to take bribes and to extort money from population.
Not millions, but post civil war Union leagues had organized blacks terrorizing much of the white south. The Wikipedia description of union leagues vs what actually happened is one of those hilariously disconnected descriptions that nobody is willing to put their name on correcting. It's unpopular politically in this country to ever say that organized black people have done something wrong.
Instead what we hear about is the white people who organized to stop the union leagues called terrorists and murders, as if there were no provocation. Doesn't make any of it justified, but it's not the one sided southerners are simply racist narrative that most of the country prefers to believe.
Countries that go to the IMF expecting to have to make the sort of changes to their economy that Western nations would expect in order to consider them for a "payday loan" level credit offering will do just fine. Just like a "payday loan" if you can survive without it, you should...If an IMF loan isn't going to force a country to do what it doesn't want, and be fiscally responsible...I'll bet if Germany had kept that money, they would have spent some of it on investments that have a real return...
German citizens were saving too much money. I saw the posters urging people to dig the Deutchmarks from their back yards and exchange them for Euro. Yes saving is good, but Euros buried in back gardens to not lead to new businesses or a vibrant economy. So Germany used their influence and encouraged the ECB to print money and lower interest rates. This worked brilliantl... for Germany. Their sluggish economy began to pick up. But the one-size-fits Germany fiscal policy punished savers and rewarded debt in all Euro countries including Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal. All this free money was floating around the EU, punishing savers in Greece and Ireland and blowing asset bubbles all over Europe. By time young Irish people had 10% down of a mortgage, the house had doubled in price. Everyone knew this was a bubble but saving was punished so severely that even those who opted for the fiscally responsible path are in worse shape then the 90% who spent money at a time when ECB policy punished fiscal responsible behavior.
The ECB, US Fed and other central banks use their tools to help themselves and those with first access to the money (wealth, banks, corporations). A wiser economic policy in the computer age would allow for a variety of currencies in different economic zones within a country. Lower Alabama and East Saint Louis should not have the same monetary policy as Manhattan and Beverly Hills. Germany shouldn't have the same monetary policy as Greece. The fictional fiscal world we create is punishing the young and poor The austerity already adopted by Ireland (the EU's golden-child) has a severe mis-allocation of public resources, rapidly increased homelessness and deaths. The fact is that people were punished for saving and then later punished for not saving.
"Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." -John Maynard Keynes
How is it better? They lost most of their industry shortly afterwards.
No, Germany needs to conquer Greece... all problems solved.
The big question is what happens if/when greece tries to pay it's debts with their new currency, converts balances held in greek banks to the new currency and retroactively declares contracts written in euros involving at least one greek party to be converted to the new currency and so-on?
If they don't do that then the introduction of a new currency would seem pretty pointless, noone (including greeks) would want it. If they do that then I can't see the rest of the world (and in particular the rest of europe being very happy about it).
Will they say "pay in euros as agreed or we roll the tanks"?
Will they say "sure that is fine"?
Or something in between? (e.g. kick them out of the EU and impose tarrifs)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Whats the point of charging them interest. Just let them pay-back the loan when they can and within a reasonable time-frame. Why are we trying to profit from an obviously terribly run country. No-one wins in a default situation, however if you extend the horizon of the loan and offer 0% then they wont be in as much hot water.
Might as well try to mitigate as much of the damage as possible
The difference is that there are Greeks still living TODAY from when Germany invaded them in WWII.
Look, we actually have documents (go look at wikileaks, no I won't do your work for you) that prove that Germany has been instrumental in making sure that Greek milliionaires avoiding taxes aren't followed to their Swiss deposits and other tax frauds.
The only problem is that the German Banks might have to suffer a loss for Liar's Loans they made under the Goldman Sachs "promises" that Greece could be in the EEC (EU monetary combine), which even internal German audits show was known to be a lie.
The banks losing their money is what is supposed to happen when they make bad loans.
That and the lack of repayment by Germany for the war looting of Greece during WW II, which has never been repaid.
Does Greece have a strong economy? No, but it never has.
Is there massive tax fraud in Greece? Yes, but there always has been.
Is this a major risk for the EU? No, because .... wait for it ... Greece is less than 0.1 percent of total EU GDP. Total.
All the rest is sturm und drang by Reichsmarshalls in Den Stadt.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You design systems to be robust in terms of the components behaving badly. Any fool can design a system that works if the components all work the way you'd like them to.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The lenders have a responsibility to check if the person they are loaning money to can afford to pay as well. A lot of bogus money was loaned to Greece knowing full well the Greeks could not pay with the intent of colonizing Greece in the future by owning their transport infrastructure, water supply, and other natural monopolies which should not be in private hands to begin with.
They were buying things from Germany with money they borrowed from Germany.
Germany is one of the most corrupt nations in Europe.
Why doesn't the US do similar kinds of transfer payments to the states?
they have already payed . Germany was devastated after WWII and they had a deep depression . however they should help if they can because is the right thing to do
Not millions, but post civil war Union leagues had organized blacks terrorizing much of the white south. The Wikipedia description of union leagues vs what actually happened is one of those hilariously disconnected descriptions that nobody is willing to put their name on correcting. It's unpopular politically in this country to ever say that organized black people have done something wrong.
Instead what we hear about is the white people who organized to stop the union leagues called terrorists and murders, as if there were no provocation. Doesn't make any of it justified, but it's not the one sided southerners are simply racist narrative that most of the country prefers to believe.
Old southerner here. I kinda agree with you, but for one thing.
"Not millions, but post civil war Union leagues had organized blacks terrorizing much of the white south. "
Regarding your statement, do you have any historical references for this statement?
My problem is oppression by the mob and or state of the individual. Personal charity is personal matter. Nobody should be forced under any circumstances for any reason and for anybody to give up their time and or savings. Anybody can make a case for private charity and people are often generous. Nobody should think they have entitlement for institutional theft and redistribution.
I've heard your ravings before, and it's a fantasy world you live in.
You seem to be talking about redistribution of assets through taxation.
That's not "oppression by the mob and or state". It is how our government works.
It is the way it is in the USA because we voted for the representatives that passed the laws that we have.
It is this way because we in the USA made it that way. It's our country, and these are the rules we made.
If you don't like it, get off our lawn and move to the Congo where you can live out your fantasy in the jungle.
It is not "institutional theft" either. It's how the system we made works.
I also demand that you stop using the English language for your ravings.
You misuse the words. We have rules for those as well.
"A government run by economists"
That's the problem. They're run by unqualified, unexperienced hacks who play at economics and got the position because they greased the right palms during election campaigns.
There may be economists in the civil service but their advice is generally ignored in the chase for votes.
Not the same thing. Lowering the value of the currency erases private debt. What you propose makes it harder to pay.
- If you own the bank $$$ Drachmas and the Drachmas drops in value, the amount you own also drops, while if you drop your paycheck and the $$$ amount you own the does not drop YOU are literally worse off.
This is the exact reason why the creditors need to take a writedown. Or what will happen eventually is someone will leave the euro. Greece could be the first.
They only matter in that they make long term planning of prices easier.
So a few months of Greeks paying salaries to gardeners at government building that have no gardens?
Germany did pay war reparations. Money that Greece accepted as compensation. They can't come back now for more.
The correct name for Greece is Hellas, and for the Greeks it's Hellenes, and for the Greek language it's Hellenic language. Greek is a name applied to us by the Romans against our desires and it had negative connotations in ancient times. We call ourselves Hellenes and our country Hellas, and our language is Hellenic. Please don't use "Greece" to refer to our country, use our correct name which is Hellas. Christina Neofotistou
It was all about the failed 'capitalism' model we see around the world since 2008. The most failed and bankrupt businesses aka banks are the most benefited ones. Too big too fail So they rule the political decisions and tax payers have too pay for loans that never touched the real economy and they can never hope to make by working hard. These casino money don't exist and therefore cannot be paid back http://m.slashdot.org/story/276409/newcomment
The intention of the IMF is not to help those it gives money to. The intention is basically to control them.
...
And that's basically the IWFs function now. Though FJS could not even dictate how they may spend the money, unlike the IWF now.
Your 'M' got turned upside down in this last paragraph. ;)
International Wildlife Fund? Heheh
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
http://www.forbes.com/sites/st... must be understood to see the lunacy of the "medicine" prescribed to Greece.
Using historical names is not equivalent to being historically accurate.
I am being 100% serious about everything I say on the issue of economics and individual freedoms.
Just like me. You would think this would be self-evident but for some reason you have to explain to people how serious we are about OPPRESSIVE fiat paper theft money.
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".