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Greece Rejects EU Terms
New submitter Thammuz writes: With almost all ballots counted, Greeks voted overwhelmingly "No" on Sunday in a bailout referendum, defying warnings from the EU that rejecting new austerity terms would set their country on a path out of the euro. Figures published by the interior ministry showed nearly 62% of those whose ballots had been counted voting "No", against 38% voting "Yes". "Today we celebrate the victory of democracy, but tomorrow all together we continue and complete a national effort for exiting this crisis," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address.
Solidarity. Yes. I love and up your comment. I live in Poland which by Greek standards is kind of poor. I see poor people everyday, I also face hard working people daily. The ones which build up the economy on which Greece can now bargain for details - please also think about us who lend you the money. We are a community.
The fundamental problem here is that Greek pay (in Euros) is disproportionately high compared to their productivity vs other Eurozone nations'. "Austerity" is simply reducing wages to bring that wages-to-productivity ratio back in line with the EU norm. The reforms the EU was asking for addressed the other half of this ratio - increasing average Greek productivity. The growing Greek debt is created by this imbalance - people were being paid more Euros than they were producing via their labor. Greece was covering up this imbalance by borrowing, which is totally the wrong reason to borrow money. You borrow it to purchase things which will help increase your productivity so that you will no longer be running a deficit. You don't borrow it to continue to operate in arrears.
By rejecting austerity and failing to implement reforms, you don't leave many choices. The simplest is to boot Greece off the Euro. Then they can do whatever the hell they want with their economy, pensions, and pay, and it will automatically balance itself out via the Drachma falling in value vs. the Euro. You can either take a 30% pay cut in Euros, or you can switch to the Drachma and the Drachma declines in value 30% vs. the Euro. The end result is the same - "austerity". (Ideally Greece would increase their average productivity by 30% - then wages wouldn't have to drop. But they seem hell bent on refusing to do anything the EU suggests that could improve productivity.)
The pensions and benefits thing is just a red herring that certain media loves to repeat. The reality is that Greeks who can't find a job, which is about a quarter of them, are extremely poor and the benefits amount to very little. Even those in work are low wages, part time hours and little hope that things will improve if they continue down the road they are on.
Their position is reasonable. Some of them voted for the irresponsible policies, but many of them, particularly the young, did not. Okay, the problem must be dealt with, but austerity is not the only way. Look at what Obama did in the US, he stimulated the economy with massive spending and is paying it off now things have recovered. Greece wants to fix its economy and get back on the road to recovery before settling its debts, so that ordinary people don't suffer unbearably.
If you want to vote "no" on your credit card bill go ahead, just declare yourself bankrupt. At some point that is a better option than trying to continue servicing your debt. No-one wants that, least of all the creditors, so why push you to that point if they can agree better terms and eventually get their money back?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC