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On July 07 2015 04:49 Alcathous wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2015 01:09 andrewlt wrote:
The debt is unsustainable. There should be no more argument about this. I'm reading English language (mostly US/UK, some Canada/Australia) articles and there is really no point of contention about this. Outside the Eurozone countries, the consensus is pretty much on the side of the IMF regarding debt relief.
Yet every time Greece puts it on the table, Eurogroup immediately walks away. And the opinion here that Greeks are cheats and playing us for a fool are growing and this limits the room of our politicians, who already don't even want debt restructuring on the table. Then it leaks out that the Dutch/German/Finish/Slovenia side actually do want to restructure debt eventually, but only after winning the negotiations and on their terms, not the Greek terms.. Germany and the Netherlands profited hugely from the Euro, which was implemented faultily and is still fundamentally flawed. And now they both refuse to deal with the weak points. My fellow people need to get real and realize that being in the same monetary union means we pay for what they call the 'Greek sins'. It is the other side of a coin that has been very profitable to us. If we were smarter, we would have had better agreements, stricter rules or no Greece in the Euro anyway. But we didn't use our veto. We could have a federal Europe with UK, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, Austria, but we fucked it up and then to make it worse let the business lobby get too strong and let in all these Eastern European countries as well. If we want a real federal Europe, we have to start anew within the EU, it seems. Also, Germany is now too powerful. When people say they won WWII after all, they aren't very wrong, as they are in charge of Europe now.
There are strict rules. The most important of all the no-bail out clause. Federal Europe? Its completely impossible. The cultures are just way too different. Also the eastern European countries you want to keep out so badly are actually way closer to the northern countries mentally than the traditional EU countries (Italy, France, Spain) anyway.
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On July 07 2015 04:49 Alcathous wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2015 01:09 andrewlt wrote:
The debt is unsustainable. There should be no more argument about this. I'm reading English language (mostly US/UK, some Canada/Australia) articles and there is really no point of contention about this. Outside the Eurozone countries, the consensus is pretty much on the side of the IMF regarding debt relief.
Yet every time Greece puts it on the table, Eurogroup immediately walks away. And the opinion here that Greeks are cheats and playing us for a fool are growing and this limits the room of our politicians, who already don't even want debt restructuring on the table. Then it leaks out that the Dutch/German/Finish/Slovenia side actually do want to restructure debt eventually, but only after winning the negotiations and on their terms, not the Greek terms.. Germany and the Netherlands profited hugely from the Euro, which was implemented faultily and is still fundamentally flawed. And now they both refuse to deal with the weak points. My fellow people need to get real and realize that being in the same monetary union means we pay for what they call the 'Greek sins'. It is the other side of a coin that has been very profitable to us. People here are so crazy now that all they care about is 'punishing Greece', even if it costs them money. If we were smarter, we would have had better agreements, stricter rules or no Greece in the Euro anyway. But we didn't use our veto. We could have a federal Europe with UK, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, Austria, but we fucked it up and then to make it worse let the business lobby get too strong and let in all these Eastern European countries as well. If we want a real federal Europe, we have to start anew within the EU, it seems. Also, Germany is now too powerful. When people say they won WWII after all, they aren't very wrong, as they are in charge of Europe now.
Funny thing is, about a month ago I read a really fitting commentary on Reuters (US) that's a little related. Can't really find it anymore and it wasn't even about the Euro crisis but about Ukraine and german leadership in that position as well. In that article however it was about Europe needing more german leadership (iirc?) and not the other way around.
Long story short, the author basicly blamed/assessed that Germany does not even want to be in a leading role. Germany, according to him basicly wants to be a bigger Switzerland. And that's totally the case. People here want to be done with it, they don't want to be in charge of Europe especially with how people all over don't want Germany to be in charge either. It does beg the question why it ends up that way if Germany clearly doesn't want to be in that position :/
And as I open NYT for shitz and giggles I read
As de facto leader of Europe, Ms. Merkel faces a very different set of responsibilities, starting with maintaining European unity in general and holding the euro together in particular.
[...]
In the wake of Greece’s landslide vote on Sunday to reject bailout terms that had been offered by its creditors, Ms. Merkel now confronts greater pressure than ever to resolve those clashing sensibilities — a challenge that will test her leadership abilities and help determine Europe’s direction at a pivotal moment.
Like that...
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Dijsselbloem maintains that there are structural problems with Greece. I think we can largely agree with that statement.
He's not going to budge.
How is Tsipras going to get something done tomorrow? Or even make progress...
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On July 07 2015 05:37 c0ldfusion wrote:
Dijsselbloem maintains that there are structural problems with Greece. I think we can largely agree with that statement.
He's not going to budge.
How is Tsipras going to get something done tomorrow? Or even make progress...
Here is my vision.
The Eurogroup cannot and will not budge, the reasons have been stated often enough. The Greek vote changes nothing here. The democratic choice of 1 country will not change the political reality in Europe.
Tsipras cannot accept the Eurogroups offer, it would be political suicide after the No, nor can he offer a good enough deal to the Eurozone without again going against the referendum.
The negotiations will enter a gridlock right away and be stuck until something in Greece fails and forces the issue. Most likely is the banks simply running out of money and forcing Drachma's to be printed to save the common people, otherwise this will last till the 20th and a default to the ECB will force the issue.
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On July 07 2015 05:37 c0ldfusion wrote:
Dijsselbloem maintains that there are structural problems with Greece. I think we can largely agree with that statement.
He's not going to budge.
How is Tsipras going to get something done tomorrow? Or even make progress...
Dijsselbloem has no power, he is a puppet, and will respect whatever Germany decide.
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On July 07 2015 06:50 Gorsameth wrote:
Tsipras cannot accept the Eurogroups offer, it would be political suicide after the No, nor can he offer a good enough deal to the Eurozone without again going against the referendum.
I'm not quite sure what Tsipras' endgame is. The "no" vote pretty much ties his hands if the creditors don't budge. Even if he gets a deal after some horse trading with the troika, he needs to rev up the propaganda machine again to convince ordinary Greeks that what he's getting is better than what they rejected.
The IMF pretty much screwed up big time with their timing. Their announcement last Thursday helped the no camp. It should have been released much earlier while negotiations were still going on. Why back Tsipras into a corner then help him?
I forgot where I read it first. The line that the troika got the Greek government they deserve is so true.
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On July 07 2015 07:19 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2015 06:50 Gorsameth wrote:
Tsipras cannot accept the Eurogroups offer, it would be political suicide after the No, nor can he offer a good enough deal to the Eurozone without again going against the referendum.
I'm not quite sure what Tsipras' endgame is. The "no" vote pretty much ties his hands if the creditors don't budge. Even if he gets a deal after some horse trading with the troika, he needs to rev up the propaganda machine again to convince ordinary Greeks that what he's getting is better than what they rejected.
I don't think he has an endgame. He is a fish out of water and has been playing bluff poker since day 1. His bluff got called back before the 30th of June and now he is just trying to find a way to save his own skin. First by the referendum and now? I don't even know anymore.
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Even if they print Drachmas (not to mention they have to re-make all the printers), is there any value in it? Essentially money is about how much trust we have, since we can only utilize it to exchange for other goods from other people... If no other country trusts Greece, then their money won't have any bargaining power either. It's a bad situation as a whole.
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Spiegel (german print news, has been highly anti-merkel, pro-greece for the last months before... the last 3 or so days) was saying 1 Drachma is expected to be around 20-25 Euro-Cent after innitially starting at 1:1 base I think.
On the topic of lategame... That is actually the greatest fear I have. I am not sure Tsipras realizes his position. All the talk about how this referendum supposedly strengthens his position when it obviously doesn't make a difference. He has to be aware of that, right?
Screw how rude Varoufakis has been with nazi&terrorism stuff, we've been plenty rude as well. But with him I always had the idea that he actually knows what he's talking about despite not being liked for some of his comments. The first thing I remember hearing from him was some conference when he said the most important thing to do is to rebuild trust and everything else comes after that. Because it's impossible to get a decent deal if all the EU has on its minds is wether or not Greece is a blackhole that will continue draining money, literally no matter what we do because they don't want to reform.
So he was talking about how getting creditors trust that they're actually trying to do something and proving it with little things on the way that are easy to implement has to be the first step.
With Tsipras I have the feeling he still hasn't realized to this day that the issue the hardliners have isn't even remotely a financial but a political/trust issue and thus they can't offer deals that would make sense under the assumption that Greece will actually reform because they don't think Greece will if they let go of the leash.
As much as I think letting Varoufakis go is a smart move to give people outside of Greece something to be happy about (at least the ones that hated him for whatever reason)... that's probably a really stupid move from an actual "getting things done" pov.
Or at least that's the impression I've got from those 2 people.
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On July 07 2015 07:40 Reaper9 wrote:
Even if they print Drachmas (not to mention they have to re-make all the printers), is there any value in it? Essentially money is about how much trust we have, since we can only utilize it to exchange for other goods from other people... If no other country trusts Greece, then their money won't have any bargaining power either. It's a bad situation as a whole.
While this situation can play a role in adjustment in the value of the drachma, of course the drachma is still going to have value because it is the currency used by the Greeks : a people, bind by common institutions and beliefs. Even in a crisis, Greece is a market.
Plus, the Greek actually need a currency with a lower value in order to reduce the weight of the debt.
lol Spiegel pro Greece...
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+ Show Spoiler +
Even Varoufakis dsmissed that possibility and pointed out that a kick out of the Eurozone could completely eradicate trust and establishing a new currency might take several months to a year. What that would do to the Greek economy is probably not worth the risk.
While this situation can play a role in adjustment in the value of the drachma, of course the drachma is still going to have value because it is the currency used by the Greeks : a people, bind by common institutions and beliefs. Even in a crisis, Greece is a market.
Are you so sure about that? Russia's default pretty much cost them their democracy. Greece may have invented democracy but they sure had a pretty shaky past.
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On July 07 2015 08:52 Nyxisto wrote:+ Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KSmcUyAZwU Even Varoufakis dsmissed that possibility and pointed out that a kick out of the Eurozone could completely eradicate trust and establishing a new currency might take several months to a year. What that would do to the Greek economy is probably not worth the risk. Show nested quote +While this situation can play a role in adjustment in the value of the drachma, of course the drachma is still going to have value because it is the currency used by the Greeks : a people, bind by common institutions and beliefs. Even in a crisis, Greece is a market. Are you so sure about that? Russia's default pretty much cost them their democracy. Greece may have invented democracy but they sure had a pretty shaky past.
This is pretty obvious. Varouflakis is studying a grexit : it will create a lot of distorsions it's obvious, so much that it would touch the entire eurozone and not only Greece imo.
But it's also obvious that Greece can live without the euro, and that in the long term (and with the right policies) they can stabilize their currency (altho way lower than the euro of course) and that having control over their currency could have a lot of benefit to them (they don't even need to print excess liquidity, the simple game of offer and demand of drachma would be beneficial).
The biggest problem is that they need strong institutions to stabilize a newly made currency, and the strength of public institutions is one of the structural problems Greece have.
Are you so sure about that? Russia's default pretty much cost them their democracy.
And German's defaults ? And french's defaults (in the XIXth century) ? It's not the default that cost Russia its democracy.
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Well we all know what the economic situation of the 20's and 30's did to Germany politically, and people still have an irrational fear of inflation today, it still shapes the countries economic culture. I don't think it's obvious at all that Greece can 'live without the Euro' in the sense that they come out undamaged as a functioning democracy.
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On July 07 2015 07:40 Reaper9 wrote:
Even if they print Drachmas (not to mention they have to re-make all the printers), is there any value in it? Essentially money is about how much trust we have, since we can only utilize it to exchange for other goods from other people... If no other country trusts Greece, then their money won't have any bargaining power either. It's a bad situation as a whole.
This has happened many times throughout history. The drachma will initially probably rapidly lose value. The euro will still be used a lot for a while. In the long run, though, the drachma will likely be at least somewhat stable (unless debtageddon 2.0 happens quickly).
Keep in mind, people will need to exchange euros, dollars, shekels, etc. for drachma when they vacation or do business with greek businesses. People probably won't "hold" drachma for stability purposes, but it will still need to be used and as such will still have some buying power.
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On July 07 2015 08:08 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2015 07:40 Reaper9 wrote:
Even if they print Drachmas (not to mention they have to re-make all the printers), is there any value in it? Essentially money is about how much trust we have, since we can only utilize it to exchange for other goods from other people... If no other country trusts Greece, then their money won't have any bargaining power either. It's a bad situation as a whole. While this situation can play a role in adjustment in the value of the drachma, of course the drachma is still going to have value because it is the currency used by the Greeks : a people, bind by common institutions and beliefs. Even in a crisis, Greece is a market. Plus, the Greek actually need a currency with a lower value in order to reduce the weight of the debt. lol Spiegel pro Greece...
well they've been anti-merkel for sure in this whole thing, which more often than not ends up making them pro-Greece in my mind, especiall in comparison to other german media. Just go through their articles and it feels as if half of them have "merkel" and "failed" in their titles during all the times we had 'downtime' and were waiting for something. Not that I'm a fan of how she's dealing with this myself but I have to admit that I don't really see alternatives either. Luckily I'm not in charge of Europe :3
It's also them that were the first who (or at least for me it was the first time I was reading about it in german media) massivly criticized the portrayal of pensions as being way over the top, which obviously is the case if you compare pensions alone and don't take into account that they kind of end up being the backbone of their welfare system, however crooked it may be because of that. So yeah, I'd say they're on the pro-Greece side of things within Germany. I don't have all that much to compare it to with german news but they're certainly more into that direction than, let's say, straight up german 1st channel news that are airing 20:00, which to me is as neutral as it gets from a reporting pov in germany.
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I wonder if I can become a Greek billionaire when they start printing Drachmas
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On July 07 2015 09:17 Nyxisto wrote:
Well we all know what the economic situation of the 20's and 30's did to Germany politically, and people still have an irrational fear of inflation today, it still shapes the countries economic culture. I don't think it's obvious at all that Greece can 'live without the Euro' in the sense that they come out undamaged as a functioning democracy.
And it's not the default that "did" the nazis ! Nor the hyper inflation (in 1924) ! But the austerity in 1929 after the crisis and the refusal to acknowledge the failure of the gold exchange standard in europe (restored in 1925 - the equivalent of the euro at the time) !
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING MY POINTS.
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On July 07 2015 10:05 ticklishmusic wrote:
I wonder if I can become a Greek billionaire when they start printing Drachmas
You could have become an Italian one at any time. It works after the original price drop.
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On July 07 2015 10:05 ticklishmusic wrote:
I wonder if I can become a Greek billionaire when they start printing Drachmas
You can already be a Zimbabwe Trillionaire  (until the end of 2015 I guess)
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/zimbabwe-100-trillion
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On July 07 2015 06:50 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2015 05:37 c0ldfusion wrote:
Dijsselbloem maintains that there are structural problems with Greece. I think we can largely agree with that statement.
He's not going to budge.
How is Tsipras going to get something done tomorrow? Or even make progress... Here is my vision. The Eurogroup cannot and will not budge, the reasons have been stated often enough. The Greek vote changes nothing here. The democratic choice of 1 country will not change the political reality in Europe. Tsipras cannot accept the Eurogroups offer, it would be political suicide after the No, nor can he offer a good enough deal to the Eurozone without again going against the referendum. The negotiations will enter a gridlock right away and be stuck until something in Greece fails and forces the issue. Most likely is the banks simply running out of money and forcing Drachma's to be printed to save the common people, otherwise this will last till the 20th and a default to the ECB will force the issue.
By the looks of it the ECB is already trying to force the issue: there will be no extra money for Greek banks.
Edit: what baffles me is how many people seem to think that Tsipras' referendum has anything to do with, or even redefines democracy.
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EPT
