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On June 29 2015 21:29 WhiteDog wrote:
I would be a european official, I would also be pissed at Greece tho. This small country, with no big banks, still teaching europe how democracy is done. You can't do that.
I still fail to see how they show us how democracy is done, unless democracy is having a referendum about a proposal that is already off the table. A referendum that only serves as a way of clearing away any and all responsiblity for Tsipras and Syriza of what 'd happen regardless of the vote. After all, "it was the people's decision".
Notwithstanding the fact that most people neither have the knowledge nor the time needed to make an informed decision about a matter like that.
Then there's the clientelistic and populist tendencies of Greece's political system too...
Nope, still not seeing how Greece can teach us anything, on the contrary.
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Even our diehard pro direct Democracy guys in Switzerland (the weirdos that want to put national votes/laws over the human rights and stuff like this) say that the Greek Referendum is just a Populist bullshit vote and has not much to do with actual Democracy.
There is not enough time before the vote for the People to actually make an informed decision.
The only reason for it to exist is that Tsipras doesn't want to man up and take the responsibility for a greek failure..
Its just populist crap. If Tsipras truely wants a no, he could just say no right now, which he recommends.
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On June 29 2015 18:35 Silvanel wrote:
I must be pln losing value then. Anway i wonder what will happen Euro vs Usd after Greece default.
I would like to know this as well.
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On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Notwithstanding the fact that most people neither have the knowledge nor the time needed to make an informed decision about a matter like that.
The proposal by the EU/IMF is pretty much unchanged since long time ago, also there is no debt relief in any of them.
Greek people had lot of time to think about it plus 5 years of experience dealing with such failout programs and , most important, the consequences of such programs.
On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Then there's the clientelistic and populist tendencies of Greece's political system too...
a system that totally support the EU/IMF proposal. Greek media are going apeshit three days now while every rotten and corrupt politician and oligarchs come out one by one doing their fear mongering part.
Even ex prime minister Costas Simitis, the one whose government got Greece into eurozone with the ways we all know, spoke after long time supporting "Yes".
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On June 29 2015 23:14 accela wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Notwithstanding the fact that most people neither have the knowledge nor the time needed to make an informed decision about a matter like that. The proposal by the EU/IMF is pretty much unchanged since long time ago, also there is no debt relief in any of them. Greek people had lot of time to think about it plus 5 years of experience dealing with such failout programs and , most important, the consequences of such programs. Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Then there's the clientelistic and populist tendencies of Greece's political system too... a system that totally support the EU/IMF proposal. Greek media are going apeshit three days now while every rotten and corrupt politician and oligarchs come out one by one doing their fear mongering part. Even ex prime minister Costas Simitis, the one whose government got Greece into eurozone with the ways we all know, spoke after long time supporting "Yes".
There's no debt relief in them because the debt isn't even part of the problem right now. As people mentioned multiple times, you have years and years before you have to start paying back for most of it.
I'm pretty sure everyone, including taxpayers in other european countries as well as their FinMin know it's unsustainable but noone wants to take the word in their mouths right now because they want to deal with other things first: tax evasion, corruption, the pension system and whatnot.
I'd be willing to bet lots and lots of money that once you get that figured out people will start talking about debt relief but just not earlier than that.
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On June 29 2015 23:25 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 23:14 accela wrote:On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Notwithstanding the fact that most people neither have the knowledge nor the time needed to make an informed decision about a matter like that. The proposal by the EU/IMF is pretty much unchanged since long time ago, also there is no debt relief in any of them. Greek people had lot of time to think about it plus 5 years of experience dealing with such failout programs and , most important, the consequences of such programs. On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Then there's the clientelistic and populist tendencies of Greece's political system too... a system that totally support the EU/IMF proposal. Greek media are going apeshit three days now while every rotten and corrupt politician and oligarchs come out one by one doing their fear mongering part. Even ex prime minister Costas Simitis, the one whose government got Greece into eurozone with the ways we all know, spoke after long time supporting "Yes". There's no debt relief in them because the debt isn't even part of the problem right now. As people mentioned multiple times, you have years and years before you have to start paying back for most of it. I'm pretty sure everyone, including taxpayers in other european countries as well as their FinMin know it's unsustainable but noone wants to take the word in their mouths right now because they want to deal with other things first: tax evasion, corruption, the pension system and whatnot. I'd be willing to bet lots and lots of money that once you get that figured out people will start talking about debt relief but just not earlier than that.
What are you talking about... please get yourself together.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On June 29 2015 21:49 warding wrote:WhiteDog you've succeeded at pointing out that Ireland is a different country than Greece, not really at explaining how the differences imply that Ireland has an easier time achieving growth than Greece. It's not like Ireland just became fiscally competitive now (it actually became less so with the austerity measures). In the case of Greece, being less developed is an argument for a stronger growth potential: Catch-up growth is easier than leading-edge growth. Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 21:15 Taguchi wrote:
Except 'relatively stable economic circumstances' isn't in the package deal offered by the creditors. Surely you realize this, right? We're talking more than 2% gdp austerity here. Fiscal multiplier suggests a 3% gdp drop as a result of this austerity. And then you have to hit ever increasing surplus targets - meaning there will be a need for more cuts than the initial package. Not to mention the money lasts until ~November, at which point you will have to negotiate yet another bailout. Stability? Hah! AFAIK the troika was willing to bring down the primary surplus targets. Greece was already expected to grow this year if it wasn't for Syriza. Also, what's austerity to you? A move from a primary surplus of 0% to 3% is austerity. A move from 3% to 3% is NOT austerity. Furthermore, if you're enjoying economic growth, keeping a primary surplus of 3% once you're there is not a big deal. Finally, Portugal is still under austerity and growth is expected at 2% this year.
I actually did :
My point was that altho Ireland opted for austerity, it had economic partners that were not in the eurozone and that were growing, with and industry that was able to sustain itself through the austerity thanks to the increase in demand of their economic partners, much like Canada or Germany during their own austerity plan.
Greece has none of that.
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On June 29 2015 21:49 warding wrote:WhiteDog you've succeeded at pointing out that Ireland is a different country than Greece, not really at explaining how the differences imply that Ireland has an easier time achieving growth than Greece. It's not like Ireland just became fiscally competitive now (it actually became less so with the austerity measures). In the case of Greece, being less developed is an argument for a stronger growth potential: Catch-up growth is easier than leading-edge growth. Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 21:15 Taguchi wrote:
Except 'relatively stable economic circumstances' isn't in the package deal offered by the creditors. Surely you realize this, right? We're talking more than 2% gdp austerity here. Fiscal multiplier suggests a 3% gdp drop as a result of this austerity. And then you have to hit ever increasing surplus targets - meaning there will be a need for more cuts than the initial package. Not to mention the money lasts until ~November, at which point you will have to negotiate yet another bailout. Stability? Hah! AFAIK the troika was willing to bring down the primary surplus targets. Greece was already expected to grow this year if it wasn't for Syriza. Also, what's austerity to you? A move from a primary surplus of 0% to 3% is austerity. A move from 3% to 3% is NOT austerity. Furthermore, if you're enjoying economic growth, keeping a primary surplus of 3% once you're there is not a big deal. Finally, Portugal is still under austerity and growth is expected at 2% this year.
If Syriza hadn't been elected, this year the surplus would've needed to become 3% gdp. Next year, 4.5% gdp. Last year, it was 0.4% gdp. Growth was projected on the basis of no further fiscal adjustment - since nothing had been announced about further fiscal adjustment yet.
Syriza got elected, economic climate worsened because of a) uncertainty, b) government arrears since funds went to servicing loan payments instead of paying obligations to contractors etc to the point that the basis for growth estimate was revised to -0.5%, from +2% by most institutions. Then the 'concession' was made that the primary surplus target would be revised downwards from 3% to 1%. Does that look like a concession to you? The only real concession was (maybe) the revision of the 4.5% surplus target to 3.5% (ad infinitum mind you). Hooray for light at the end of the tunnel, right?
Austerity is simply the opposite of expansionary policy. Real austerity would be either a balanced budget or a surplus budget, although many people call austerity a simple relative budget tightening (you seem to be of that opinion I gather). In times of growth and positive shocks, austerity is what you do if you follow Keynesian policy. In times of recession and negative shocks, you pursue an expansionary policy to balance the shocks and revert them. If you don't... well, you get to where we are today. Worse recovery performance than the 1930s, by and large.
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On June 29 2015 23:41 accela wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 23:25 Toadesstern wrote:On June 29 2015 23:14 accela wrote:On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Notwithstanding the fact that most people neither have the knowledge nor the time needed to make an informed decision about a matter like that. The proposal by the EU/IMF is pretty much unchanged since long time ago, also there is no debt relief in any of them. Greek people had lot of time to think about it plus 5 years of experience dealing with such failout programs and , most important, the consequences of such programs. On June 29 2015 22:39 maartendq wrote:
Then there's the clientelistic and populist tendencies of Greece's political system too... a system that totally support the EU/IMF proposal. Greek media are going apeshit three days now while every rotten and corrupt politician and oligarchs come out one by one doing their fear mongering part. Even ex prime minister Costas Simitis, the one whose government got Greece into eurozone with the ways we all know, spoke after long time supporting "Yes". There's no debt relief in them because the debt isn't even part of the problem right now. As people mentioned multiple times, you have years and years before you have to start paying back for most of it. I'm pretty sure everyone, including taxpayers in other european countries as well as their FinMin know it's unsustainable but noone wants to take the word in their mouths right now because they want to deal with other things first: tax evasion, corruption, the pension system and whatnot. I'd be willing to bet lots and lots of money that once you get that figured out people will start talking about debt relief but just not earlier than that. What are you talking about... please get yourself together. + Show Spoiler +
as in, it does extend all the way until 2050. That can always be extended and most likely will as well as a % of it being written off once the basis is there to talk about that.
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On June 29 2015 16:09 warding wrote:
It's a bit tiring to hear that "austerity is not sound economic policy", as if there are tons of alternative economic policies. So what do you do when you reach a deficit of 10%, can't borrow anymore and your economy is overvalued and corrects downward significantly? You keep government spending up? Is the rest of Europe supposed to keep subsidising an unsustainable economy policy? I never understood what the alternative was.
Also, the Greek economy was expected to grow this year, so it's not really wishful thinking.
The Greek economy already went back into contraction before Syriza was even elected.
The alternative to austerity is a default. If Greece can have a primary account surplus before defaulting, they should be able to have a primary account surplus after defaulting.
What happens when a company goes bankrupt? Their creditors realize they made a bad investment. They restructure the debt to get as much of their investment back, knowing that they aren't going to get 100% of it back. Why should a country like Greece be any different? Austerity has destroyed Greece's economy. What makes you think Greece's creditors are maximizing the amount of money they can recover if they tank Greece's economy? A messy default would leave the creditors with nothing. Greece doesn't have much to lose at this point.
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On June 29 2015 19:24 WhiteDog wrote:
What crack me up is that most people that are so adamant that Greece "pay its debt" are arguing that it's nothing more than "reality" that force them to pay up. Meanwhile this kind of sovereign default happened a thousand time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default),
Basically the fatal flaw in 21st century sovereign debt is that its expected never to be written down. because you can always just finance the shortfall (this is basically what the neoliberal world order is about - the perpetual refinancing of all structural imbalance.) Actually, hapsburg spain had a far more sophisticated system of sovereign lending which took the possibility for default into account in advance and had all sorts of contingency claims built into the system to ensure that it would remain stable. Philip II's defaults were actually structured writedowns - this is why his system was so successful. If you guys want to learn about how a real sovereign debt system works you should read 'lending to the borrower from hell.' Thia neoliberal perpetual refinancing shit is a dystopian farce.
The problem here is that greece is not actually a sovereign nation. In theory yes in practice no. What they should do is actually exercise this de jure sovereignty and see what happens. The alternative is permanent debt servitude. Austerity policies are explicitly designed to pulverize greece and render it a permanent vacation property for euroligarchs. They are in no way actually intended to undo structural imbalances and revitalize greek economy.
long live the drachma!!
the REALITY is that sovereign debt gets written down. The UTOPIAN FANTASY is that it 'has to be paid back'.
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I thought this would be over by the end of this month, guess not.
Apparently Greece now has a grace period of 30 days if they miss the payment, and even after that the 30 day grace period is only a smaller part of a much bigger process that kicks in which must reach its end before anything actually happens and this process can go on forever basically.
Looks like EU can kick the can down the road with their hands in their pocket and do nothing at all for quite some time after all.
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On June 30 2015 00:15 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2015 19:24 WhiteDog wrote:
What crack me up is that most people that are so adamant that Greece "pay its debt" are arguing that it's nothing more than "reality" that force them to pay up. Meanwhile this kind of sovereign default happened a thousand time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default), Basically the fatal flaw in 21st century sovereign debt is that its expected never to be written down. because you can always just finance the shortfall (this is basically what the neoliberal world order is about - the perpetual refinancing of all structural imbalance.) Actually, hapsburg spain had a far more sophisticated system of sovereign lending which took the possibility for default into account in advance and had all sorts of contingency claims built into the system to ensure that it would remain stable. Philip II's defaults were actually structured writedowns - this is why his system was so successful. If you guys want to learn about how a real sovereign debt system works you should read 'lending to the borrower from hell.' Thia neoliberal perpetual refinancing shit is a dystopian farce. The problem here is that greece is not actually a sovereign nation. In theory yes in practice no. What they should do is actually exercise this de jure sovereignty and see what happens. The alternative is permanent debt servitude. Austerity policies are explicitly designed to pulverize greece and render it a permanent vacation property for euroligarchs. They are in no way actually intended to undo structural imbalances and revitalize greek economy. long live the drachma!! the REALITY is that sovereign debt gets written down. The UTOPIAN FANTASY is that it 'has to be paid back'.
That´s actually a well thought out post. Good job mate.
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On June 30 2015 01:03 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 00:15 bookwyrm wrote:On June 29 2015 19:24 WhiteDog wrote:
What crack me up is that most people that are so adamant that Greece "pay its debt" are arguing that it's nothing more than "reality" that force them to pay up. Meanwhile this kind of sovereign default happened a thousand time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default), Basically the fatal flaw in 21st century sovereign debt is that its expected never to be written down. because you can always just finance the shortfall (this is basically what the neoliberal world order is about - the perpetual refinancing of all structural imbalance.) Actually, hapsburg spain had a far more sophisticated system of sovereign lending which took the possibility for default into account in advance and had all sorts of contingency claims built into the system to ensure that it would remain stable. Philip II's defaults were actually structured writedowns - this is why his system was so successful. If you guys want to learn about how a real sovereign debt system works you should read 'lending to the borrower from hell.' Thia neoliberal perpetual refinancing shit is a dystopian farce. The problem here is that greece is not actually a sovereign nation. In theory yes in practice no. What they should do is actually exercise this de jure sovereignty and see what happens. The alternative is permanent debt servitude. Austerity policies are explicitly designed to pulverize greece and render it a permanent vacation property for euroligarchs. They are in no way actually intended to undo structural imbalances and revitalize greek economy. long live the drachma!! the REALITY is that sovereign debt gets written down. The UTOPIAN FANTASY is that it 'has to be paid back'. That´s actually a well thought out post. Good job mate.
Im smarter than I look
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Merkel just called the referendum legitimate and said that the result will be accepted. She seems to be quite happy lol.
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then she will try and make an example out of Greece; example on how to fail without EU.
hate, out in the open. it's not good, not good at all.
people should start hating her more ...
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Merkel is like Teflon, nothing sticks...
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On June 30 2015 02:20 xM(Z wrote:
then she will try and make an example out of Greece; example on how to fail without EU.
hate, out in the open. it's not good, not good at all.
people should start hating her more ...
Not that I'm a Merkel fan (far far from it, actually), but that is some twisted logic. If she had condemned the referendum, she'd be hated for denying Greeks a voice in the matter. If she endorses the referendum, it's all of a sudden her displaying "hate, out in the open". Wtf...?
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On June 30 2015 02:22 Velr wrote:
Merkel is like Teflon, nothing sticks...
True, I don't know how she does it.
But then, most politicians get judged based on things that are out of their control, it's irrational anyway.
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On June 30 2015 02:37 ACrow wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 02:20 xM(Z wrote:
then she will try and make an example out of Greece; example on how to fail without EU.
hate, out in the open. it's not good, not good at all.
people should start hating her more ... Not that I'm a Merkel fan (far far from it, actually), but that is some twisted logic. If she had condemned the referendum, she'd be hated for denying Greeks a voice in the matter. If she endorses the referendum, it's all of a sudden her displaying "hate, out in the open". Wtf...?
Greeks kinda hate her already; her opinion on the referendum would've meant nothing to them anyway.
what she did ... her words, were directed at those other countries fucked by the EU/IMF austerity measures that were shoved down their throats.
she pointed her finger at Greece and, while the others watched, light it on fire; then looked around and said ... next?; and the sheep folded back in line.
+ Show Spoiler +now that's fucked up logic
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2015/05/Greek%20payments.jpg)
