EPTThe European Debt Crisis and the Euro - Page 18
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eStoniaNBoY
Switzerland439 Posts
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nothingbutzerg
Greece626 Posts
On May 14 2010 22:06 eStoniaNBoY wrote: nothingbutzerg - in your opinion how corrupt your government officials are? Corruption rules this shitty country | ||
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nothingbutzerg
Greece626 Posts
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reki-
Netherlands327 Posts
On May 14 2010 21:53 nothingbutzerg wrote: What is the lower monthly income in Netherlands? what do you mean | ||
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Ganondorf
Italy600 Posts
On May 13 2010 04:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So does this bailout only pertain to Greece, what happens if Spain, Italy, Portugal, or Ireland needs money? Is it spread out, or does Germany and France go back to the drawing board? You know if you sum all those debts, and those countries default like Greece, no bailout plan is going to work and the banking system will crash globally ? Greece might be a regional problem but don't think Obama's interest was of humanitarian nature. The EU is the first economy in the world by GDP and also has the biggest public debt of this planet, a default of that proportions would signal the end of the modern banking system. It won't happen so fast so don't just run to buy gold today but it's the most likely future scenario. I know Italy's debt alone is around 2000 bilion euros. That's 2 trilions right ? Greece got 750bilions in 5 years, and at relatively high interest rates, around 5% i think, while most countries can sell their debt at 1-1.4% interest rates. Even Italy manages to get a good 1.3%. So my country for example will profit from Greece a nice 3.7%. Germany gets a profit of 4%. It's easy to make these countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium) default, they count on the market to get currency at low interest rates, should the market think it's too risky and they want a higher interest for covering that risk, they will just default. If we had the gold standard in all those countries, there wouldn't be a risk of collapse, since then you can't just spend money you don't have. A state could still default but since you have a global currency linked to gold, it would not be affected at all. Some banks who loaned too much money to a corrupt government would fail without dragging the whole system down, which is the current scenario with our stupid paper-debt-money. Now if we had a better element instead of gold it would still be ok, you can link it to any limited natural resource to have a more stable and rational resource based eocnomy. Personally i think the best solution is to just have a resource based economy with no currency at all for the future (abolition of currency ftw), but that's just science-fiction for now (see Star Trek economy). | ||
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nothingbutzerg
Greece626 Posts
Simple question,and here is why.you blame the protesters of Greece for getting pension too early (i already have answered to this 3 times but everyone seems to read as they like),for wasting europe's money (i guess citizens of Greece don't pay for the EU,we are an exception yes),and apparently with the lowest wage at 700 euros (540 with the new rules from IMF) and an average of 1200, everyone is building swimming pools.Fantastic! So 200000 people who protested are hypocrites because they want people who led this country to bankruptcy (politicians,high ranked government officials,some banks and major corporations) to pay for the money they took and instead they are cutting from the pension of a guy who receives 600-700 euros a month (enough only for his meds and rent), or a public service employee because after 25 years of job he barely reaches 1400 euros!Nice rules from the IMF,would you like me to open my legs so that it would make it easier for you mr. Stross-Kan? People who protest protest because they see no potentiality although they are willing to pay although it is NOT their fault. Debt was not created by simple citizens(even those who pay their doctor under the table,otherwise they would get no treatment),but from people who ruled this country 30 years now. So once again what is the minimum wage in Netherlands? | ||
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Jenbu
United States115 Posts
On May 14 2010 19:18 Not_A_Notion wrote: Why should anybody act responsibly when they can get bailed out? If one looks at Greece right now you have to ask, what government would deem that a desirable state of affairs? General strikes, riots, people getting burned to death, this looks set to continue and all this happened post-bail-out. Not many governments would say, hmm yeah that's for us. Of course this doesn't really address what I said, what I had said was that people (here) are failing to differentiate nations' policy responses to alleviate structural deficits which is disingenuous, at best, blanket statements are not helpful. Sure, but the politicians in Greece don't want to cut their citizen's benefits and they don't want to raise taxes because they want to stay in power. Remember, the Greek people started rioting because Greece was suggesting it will do what it should have done - take their medicine and restructure their debt. Any countries citizens would be upset if they took a massive pay cut so that their creditors will get their money. If Greece really does restructure after this then kudos to them, but if you look at history, specifically recent history here in the U.S., countries don't cut welfare and raise taxes, they expand government because they blame the lack of government for the problem. Especially now that they get a freebie, who knows what will happen. | ||
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nothingbutzerg
Greece626 Posts
On May 15 2010 02:17 Jenbu wrote: Sure, but the politicians in Greece don't want to cut their citizen's benefits and they don't want to raise taxes because they want to stay in power . Politicians though, cut all benefits from the mid-low wages and pensions and increased taxes twice within 4 months.These of course did not apply to companies and people working in the parliament.and of course themselves.You can make your conclusion as to why people is frustrated. The thing is though that as i have said earlier in this topic people get the politicians and the society they deserve. What Greeks and turkeys have in common?they won't be alive until christmas time  | ||
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Gunhed
Germany11 Posts
http://inflation.us/fiatcurrencysystemriskscollapse.html Meltup http://inflation.us/videos.html May 10, 2010 The World's Fiat Currency System Risks Collapse On February 12th, NIA released an article entitled, "Greece Distracting from Real Debt Crisis in U.S." in which we said, "We hope that Greece doesn't get bailed out, because a bailout would cause foreign investors to become more irresponsible than ever and create even greater moral hazards. Unfortunately, not only is it likely that Greece will get bailed out, it's possible our own Federal Reserve will get involved. The U.S. Federal Reserve has the ability to make loans to foreign central banks without disclosure to the U.S. public. European banks have already benefited $50 billion from the U.S.'s bailouts of AIG, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that the Federal Reserve will intervene due to euro-zone countries being key U.S. trading partners." NIA was right, late Sunday evening the Federal Reserve announced the re-establishment of U.S. dollar liquidity swap facilities with foreign central banks, as a part of the European Union (EU)'s nearly $1 trillion bailout plan. The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized swap lines through January 2011 with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB), the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Japan. While the Federal Reserve may say these swap lines are necessary "to help improve liquidity conditions in U.S. dollar funding markets and to prevent the spread of strains to other markets and financial centers", NIA recognizes that this is nothing more than another transfer of wealth from the American middle class to bankers around the world through inflation. This program was originally enacted in 2008 when the Federal Reserve loaned $582.8 billion to foreign central banks without any disclosure of which central banks got the money. NIA believes it is unconstitutional for the Federal Reserve to make loans to foreign central banks. Most likely, the Federal Reserve was pressured by Wall Street to re-establish the swap facilities because Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have about $2.5 trillion in exposure to Europe, and Wall Street doesn't want to see their bets go bad. Not only will Americans now be exposed to the European debt crisis through the Federal Reserve's swap lines, but the U.S. will be giving money away to Europe through the IMF. The IMF is contributing up to 220 billion Euros as a part of the bailout, which equals $283.1 billion at the latest exchange rate. The U.S. represents approximately 20% of IMF funding, which means the bailout is costing U.S. taxpayers $56.7 billion, not including the potential losses from loans made by the Federal Reserve and the inflation it will create. The moral hazards of the EU bailout are immeasurable. It sets a dangerous precedent that the ECB won't allow any eurozone nations to fail, just like the Federal Reserve won't allow any major financial institutions on Wall Street to fail. Eventually, if you don't allow the free market to punish countries and financial institutions that recklessly speculated and made poor financial decisions, the financial crisis we are preventing will turn into a currency crisis that the western world will never be able to recover from. Although NIA still believes the U.S. dollar will win its race to the bottom with the Euro, we are now at risk of a total collapse of the world's fiat currency system. Imagine if baseball teams weren't allowed to fail. You probably remember playing t-ball as a kid and at the end of every game, both teams were declared the winner. Think about what would happen if Major League Baseball declared there will no longer be losers at professional baseball games, both teams will be declared the winners of every game. Would you still pay $300 for a ticket to see a Major League Baseball game? Of course not, the value of the tickets would collapse to nothing, similar to how fiat currencies will soon lose their purchasing power if we don't allow countries and financial institutions to fail. NIA is almost done producing its nearly hour-long documentary 'Meltup'. We spent quadruple the time and money producing Meltup than we did producing our previous critically acclaimed documentary 'The Dollar Bubble', which has already surpassed 710,000 views since November 23rd. We believe Meltup will be the best economic documentary ever produced in world history and a must see for yourself, your friends, and your family. Last week, NIA conducted an hour-long interview with Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute. We can honestly say that our interview with Mr. Celente was the single most shocking, insightful and informative interview we have ever witnessed or heard. NIA will be using footage from our interview with Mr. Celente in Meltup. We highly recommend that you visit Mr. Celente's Trends Research Institute and subscribe to his Trends Journal. We just got done reading his latest Trends Journal and it is one of the most compelling pieces of journalism we have ever come across. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7955 Posts
On May 15 2010 00:36 nothingbutzerg wrote: Simple question,and here is why.you blame the protesters of Greece for getting pension too early (i already have answered to this 3 times but everyone seems to read as they like),for wasting europe's money (i guess citizens of Greece don't pay for the EU,we are an exception yes),and apparently with the lowest wage at 700 euros (540 with the new rules from IMF) and an average of 1200, everyone is building swimming pools.Fantastic! So 200000 people who protested are hypocrites because they want people who led this country to bankruptcy (politicians,high ranked government officials,some banks and major corporations) to pay for the money they took and instead they are cutting from the pension of a guy who receives 600-700 euros a month (enough only for his meds and rent), or a public service employee because after 25 years of job he barely reaches 1400 euros!Nice rules from the IMF,would you like me to open my legs so that it would make it easier for you mr. Stross-Kan? People who protest protest because they see no potentiality although they are willing to pay although it is NOT their fault. Debt was not created by simple citizens(even those who pay their doctor under the table,otherwise they would get no treatment),but from people who ruled this country 30 years now. So once again what is the minimum wage in Netherlands? Yeah, it's what I have been told also. I feel so sorry for Greek citizens. Apparently, European countries will now have to submit their busget to the Comission's approval. I am a bit scared of what EU is becoming. In the one hand, if Europ wasn't there, Greece would have probably felt into pure bankrupty as Argentina did a decade ago, which is a fucking disaster. Despite Merkel's magistral fuck up, I guess this plan is better than nothing for Greece. In the other hand, it seems that the Union is taking more ane more important decision councerning what countries should do and not do... towards ultraliberal policies, wihout people to have the possibility of having their word said. EU is really not a democratic structure. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Elbee
United States224 Posts
On May 21 2010 02:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Damn the stocks are getting the piss kicked out of them. Yeah they are. | ||
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Smorrie
Netherlands2925 Posts
On May 15 2010 00:36 nothingbutzerg wrote: Simple question,and here is why.you blame the protesters of Greece for getting pension too early (i already have answered to this 3 times but everyone seems to read as they like),for wasting europe's money (i guess citizens of Greece don't pay for the EU,we are an exception yes),and apparently with the lowest wage at 700 euros (540 with the new rules from IMF) and an average of 1200, everyone is building swimming pools.Fantastic! So 200000 people who protested are hypocrites because they want people who led this country to bankruptcy (politicians,high ranked government officials,some banks and major corporations) to pay for the money they took and instead they are cutting from the pension of a guy who receives 600-700 euros a month (enough only for his meds and rent), or a public service employee because after 25 years of job he barely reaches 1400 euros!Nice rules from the IMF,would you like me to open my legs so that it would make it easier for you mr. Stross-Kan? People who protest protest because they see no potentiality although they are willing to pay although it is NOT their fault. Debt was not created by simple citizens(even those who pay their doctor under the table,otherwise they would get no treatment),but from people who ruled this country 30 years now. So once again what is the minimum wage in Netherlands? Minimum wage (monthly) is 640 if you're 18. It goes up each year up to 1400 for 23 and older. Obviously people in the Netherlands are making more money than people in Greece, but we pay A LOT of tax. I'm not too educated on all of this but I know people in Sweden and France for example pay a shitload on taxes as well. However, the costs of living in all these countries are a lot higher as well. (And in the Netherlands people have to pay for an obligatory health insurance.) As you pointed out, whenever any government screws up it'll always be the lower class that will get hit the hardest. Obviously though, something has to change. While the citizens of Greece are protesting against these changes, perhaps they should come with different suggestions. Greece will have to get real and suck it up here and there and pay for shit like everyone else does, at least in one way or another. Anyway, like I said I don't know too much about all this crap  But what I do know is that countries like the Netherlands get fucked over really hard. Relatively to other countries we've always been paying a lot to the EU and will keep on doing so.. At the same time we barely have anything to say in the EU and I'm pretty sure that the value of the "advantages" of being in the EU don't come anywhere near the money we've invested. Now once again, the EU saves Greece with a loan that will never get returned.. which in the end is tax money that we, the simple folk, are paying. I don't even know why we are still in the EU. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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flatwhite
United States4 Posts
As for why the weakening of the euro, I would guess that the inflation rate in Europe is higher than the inflation rate in the U.S., which would make the relative exchange rate between the dollar and the euro to even. And as to the cause of a high inflation rate, I would say that traditionally it means that the countries are printing more Euro's, which I think is supposed to affect the bank's interest rate in some way. | ||
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Ryps
Romania2740 Posts
On May 21 2010 04:17 Smorrie wrote: Minimum wage (monthly) is 640 if you're 18. It goes up each year up to 1400 for 23 and older. Obviously people in the Netherlands are making more money than people in Greece, but we pay A LOT of tax. I'm not too educated on all of this but I know people in Sweden and France for example pay a shitload on taxes as well. However, the costs of living in all these countries are a lot higher as well. (And in the Netherlands people have to pay for an obligatory health insurance.) As you pointed out, whenever any government screws up it'll always be the lower class that will get hit the hardest. Obviously though, something has to change. While the citizens of Greece are protesting against these changes, perhaps they should come with different suggestions. Greece will have to get real and suck it up here and there and pay for shit like everyone else does, at least in one way or another. Anyway, like I said I don't know too much about all this crap But what I do know is that countries like the Netherlands get fucked over really hard. Relatively to other countries we've always been paying a lot to the EU and will keep on doing so.. At the same time we barely have anything to say in the EU and I'm pretty sure that the value of the "advantages" of being in the EU don't come anywhere near the money we've invested. Now once again, the EU saves Greece with a loan that will never get returned.. which in the end is tax money that we, the simple folk, are paying. I don't even know why we are still in the EU. Almost all EU countries pay 18-25% of their salary, its simple math the higher the salary the higher the tax contribution. The bad thing for Greece is that even when they get out of the crysis they will be in debt for at least 10 years. Protesting is kinda pointless, they NEED a huge loan and if they dont get it it's gg for Greece; average salary will go down, unemployement, lower foreign investments. They already lost a lot tourists due to the bad image they have atm, I mean when the tourism agencies tells us to stay in the resorts and not wander in the cities you know its not safe. | ||
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Happy.fairytail
United States327 Posts
Today was a really bad day for the US markets, from a chart & sentiment perspective. Yesterday was bad enough, opening and closing below the 150 moving average, and today was even worse: (1) market open gapped down, (2) most of the volume was on the down movements, and (3) the last 15 min of the day, the most important in my opinion, just plummetted with huge spikes in volume ... In conjunction with the VIX spiking back up to 45, this is just plain total fear gripping everyone. I take a look at my screen, and everything is in deep blood red. Take for example Apple (AAPL): there's no absolutely no reason why it's at $238, trading at 12x FY11 EPS ex-cash, with Mac sales doing great, iPhone still growing very strong, and iPad exceeding expectations. This is indiscrimant selling across the board. Fundamentally, U.S. is in better shape than EU, as at least its economy is recovering into positive growth. HP reported a fine quarter, and even said they saw their Europe sales were better than expected. John Deere also saw a fine quarter, and raised their outlook on US and South America. As far as I can tell, the US economy is slowly recovering and will only get brighter as we get into 2011. However as I said before, fear is really gripping the markets ... I think the main problem is the debt at risk with Greece is around $800B (or at least that's what Roubini says ... but he's a notorious perma-bear), and about 75% of that is held outside of Greece. Meaning, if Greece goes under, everyone else takes a $600B hit as well ... in comparison, Lehman was a $300B hit. So yeah ... that would be pretty bad. On the plus side, even Roubini says there's only a 30-40% chance of Europe seeing a double-dip into recession, and that this bailout will help delay things for at least a year. So hooray, chances are fundamentally we'll be okay =P (and my friend who works for a certain well-known economy strategy group says fundamentally everything'll be okay, just a lot of short-term volatility, because in the end this Greece thing will be a blip just like all other sovereign debt crises ... even Russia's default was just a blip in 1998 in terms of the stock market, although it was a huge blip at that.) Hope this helps, just thoughts from a lowly third year analyst. | ||
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Smorrie
Netherlands2925 Posts
Here's something interesting I just googled really quickly. (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3941) The 2007 ‘hit parade’ of the largest EU-contributors looks like this: 1. Flanders: 1,780 million euro divided by 6.3 million inhabitants = 282.6 euro/Fleming 2. The Netherlands: 4,464.1 million euro divided by 16.4 million inhabitants = 272 euro/Dutchman 3. Luxemburg: 117 million euro divided by 476.187 million inhabitants = 245.7 euro/Luxemburger 4. Wallonia: 690.5 million euro divided by 4.2 million inhabitants = 164.5 euro/Walloon 5. Denmark: 817.4 million euro divided by 5.4 million inhabitants = 151.3 euro/Dane 6. Sweden: 1,280.2 million euro divided by 9.1 million inhabitants = 140.6 euro/Swede 7. Germany: 9,393.6 million euro divided by 82.3 million inhabitants = 114.1 euro/German 8. Great Britain: 6,156.6 million euro divided by 60.8 million inhabitants = 101.2 euro/Briton 9. Austria: 639.7 million euro divided by 8.2 million inhabitants = 78 euro/Austrian 10. Cyprus: 49.2 million euro divided by 778.684 inhabitants = 62 euro/Cypriot 11. France: 3362.3 million euro divided by 63.3 million inhabitants = 53.1 euro/Frenchman 12. Italy: 2,938.3 million euro divided by 59.1 million inhabitants = 49.7 euro/Italian 13. Finland: 229.1 million euro divided by 5.2 million inhabitants = 44 euro/Finn So in trade for a peaceful existence, making traveling, living and working through Europe easier and being able to help other countries out of their own shit, we get to contribute a lot of our money without getting shit to say in the EU since we're just a small country. Isn't that nice : D. Like I said earlier, I really don't know why were are in the EU :\ Also, I always thought that everyone had equal rights & laws in Belgium and the imaginary border between Flanders and Wallonia was only existing because of the language difference.. But apparently it's not >.< Pretty crazy. Obviously the Greek citizens aren't happy with the situation and never asked for anything like this but when worst comes to worst it's everyone for themselves imo. Just move out of Greece if ya don't like it, you're in the EU anyway lol | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Investors are concerned that the debt problems in countries like Greece and Portugal will spill over to other countries in Europe, cause a cascade of losses for big banks and in turn halt economic recovery in the U.S. and elsewhere. Greek workers, meanwhile, again took to the streets protesting recently approved budget cuts that were necessary for the country to receive a bailout. Greece was able to repay debt that came due Wednesday only because it had access to a rescue package from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/stock-market-drops-again_n_583611.html | ||
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Happy.fairytail
United States327 Posts
My feel is that yeah everyone's gonna get whacked as everyone's just running for the doors, but when risk starts coming back into the markets, commodity driven economies like Canada, Australia and South America will outperform; so will emerging economies like India and China. Europe will lag significantly; US will be mediocre. | ||
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