terribruOriginally Posted by Pattern
terribru
hahahahahah!
"please give us more money!"
that greek minister, he's funny.
Wow, those right-wingers were all kinds of bad. The private sector save us because, well,it just will ok!
i loved the whole "LETS PRINT MORE MONEY AND SPEND IT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM!" gig they have going there.
it's almost as if they dont have a fucking clue as to what a Europe wide devaluation would cause, quite amusing.
More like they know the whole enteral growth thing is fucked and thier just getting paid while it holds. In 3...2..1i loved the whole "LETS PRINT MORE MONEY AND SPEND IT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM!" gig they have going there.
it's almost as if they dont have a fucking clue as to what a Europe wide devaluation would cause, quite amusing.
never did get how the whole "you need to become gradually proportionally poorer from now on!" thing got sold, its been like 40 years now so we are stuck with it.
but then, i never did get why the fuck it was such a great idea to inflate a massive housing bubble, and then create cheap variable interest mortgages to fuel it when the steam started to run out, up the interest or pop the bubble and our economy goes into freefall.
sure wish it would fucking hurry already, i have already found the apartment i want to buy post pop.
It's interesting to watch half of Europe kind of disinterestedly watch the other half melt down. It must be how Canadians felt watching America go to shit in 2007-2008.
But America and Canada didn't share the same currency, I dunno that it's gonna work out quite so well for the Canadians of Europe.
"We don't need more young people to have jobs, we need more young people to start businesses, and cutting corporation tax and national insurance and abolishing the public sector is the only way to do that!"
People actually think like this.
What do you think Greece should do elmicker? I'm pretty curious.
I'm not elmicker, but I kind of want to give this a shot. What Greece needs for economic recovery is an increase for goods; demand drives the need for supply which drives the need for employers. What sounds like a good solution here, to me, is to have the Government serve as the customer so that the Greeks can rebuild their economic activity through that stimulus spending. Yes, that means debts will be pushed up more, inflation will kick in, but there will also be people making money - and regain their ability to pay taxes and then start repaying their debts.
Caveat: I really don't know much about economics, but this option, as far as I know, is one of the few that has been shown to work. I haven't heard anything positive about Greece's culture towards paying taxes and I have no idea what their work ethic is, either.
Evel: you can't do that because Greece has lost the confidence of the ppl willing to lend it more euros. They literarally have no money to pump into the economy. (also it's throwing good money after bad unless there's structural reforms, which there aren't)
Basically, unless it leaves the eurozone and regains control of its own currency, it's completely fucked.
Contract stuff to Seraphina Amaranth.
"You give me the awful impression - I hate to have to say - of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position. Ever."
When has that option been shown to work, Evel?
what greece needs is a fucking time machine to go back to about 2000 and tell the government of the day to not cook their books to get into the euro and not cook their books to hide their 20%+ annual deficit. greece is fucked whatever happens, it really doesn't matter what they do at this point.
I got really worried when Krugmen said "well, not every young person can go start a business-" and one of the right-wingers jumped in to say "why not?" How about because having every young person start a business would be hugely inefficient, impractical, would bankrupt most of those young people and starve existing businesses for staff? Good lord.
And when they actually do stimulus it's all bullshit big money projects that their m8s will earn off of."We don't need more young people to have jobs, we need more young people to start businesses, and cutting corporation tax and national insurance and abolishing the public sector is the only way to do that!"
People actually think like this.
I think that at this point the question: "What should Greece do?" is moot really.
Everyone here seems to talk about this as if there is something the Greek government can do at this time. There really isn't. It doesn't really matter if they elect some government that sticks to Austerity or doesn't.
And it doesn't because there's currently a nationwide bank run on all Greek banks. Everyone and his dog is currently doing whatever they can to take out their Euros and exporting them into other currencies abroad (or stuffed under the mattress). For the simple reason that if those Euros turn into Drahmas again, while still in those banks, that money will be worthless. What little reserves there are in Greek banks will all go up in smoke in that run, at which point the EU either has to put up unlimited amounts of money to back those banks up (which it won't do), or let them go under (which I suspect will happen soon now). So all Greek banks will go under, and at that point, Greece will for all intends and purposes have left the Euro, and its over. The newly elected Greek government, whatever it is made up off, will then only be able to put a rubber stamp on something that has already happened.
That bank run: that is real and happening already. And Europe will not be able to stop it, nor will any Greek government, and it would be madness to sponsor it from Brussels. So, the 'exit' is already happening, whatever Merckel or anyone else says or does. The Greeks are already voting with their feet. And frankly, that's the only viable option for Greece I can see (and I agree with Krugman on that) for it to eventually, after much hardship, to climb out of this mess as well. I'm sorry for Greece and the Greeks, I actually like the country and its people quite a lot (been there quite a number of times), but this has run its course. The focus is now on Ireland (referendum) and Spain.
Maybe Greece needs to hire some of Argentina's money sniffing dogs. Argentina has specially trained dogs at all the exit points looking for people taking foreign reserves out of Argentina. The dogs can even tell good money from bad and don't give a shit about the local currency.
Greece's economy is the equivilant of a balloon. You have a third world economy with all the political dishonesty and corruption that implies, which has been massively pumped up with borrowed money to kind of resemble a European nation. But with the exception of tourism and few olives Greece has no real economy. The GFC was the pin prick. Rather than let the balloon deflate the decission was made to try and pump in more air (aka debt) to keep the balloon inflated. But now the puncture is simply to big and the whole thing is going to fly around the room scaring the shit out of everybody.
Then Greece is a third world nation again.
The rumoured exit the markets were working towards was pegged as 2nd July. However, given the reasonable fear that the Greece government would forcibly convert Euros to Drakma at a rediculously favourable exchange rate to itself everyone who can is ripping Euros out of the banks. As a result Greece will not make it to the end of June. The banks will have no cash, the Government will have no cash, and everything will just stop unless they start printing money and they can only do that with Drakma.
Then it will be Spain's turn.
Early results indicate that Ireland will be voting yes in the stability pact referendum (referred to as the austerity referendum by some). Some of the NO campaign leaders have conceded already. The poll happened yesterday.
Personally I abstained. Was in London working anyway, but my thoughts were basically "no = good for me, yes = good for Ireland" (good for me coz I get paid in sterling).
Personally, I wouldn't know what I'd vote for Ireland if I had the choice. The deal is pretty shitty, given the circumstances, and a no might give Ireland a chance to renegotiate it. A yes on the other hand has some guarantees to it, and you never know where those negotiations might up.
Why are you saying, so definitely, that a yes is good for Ireland?
One of the lead articles in the Economist cited what they would do to stablise the eurozone, can be summed up with the term euro bonds. There is a serious line of argument in academic circles that the present crisis presents an opportunity for the EU to further integrate and strengthen itself, which the adoption of euro bonds would be an example of. Interestingly there seems to be some movement on the issue now that Hollande is President (apparently he supports their implementation), the stumbling block is Merkel though who is opposed. As for Greece, nearly every economist is saying that they have to leave the euro and then devalue the drachma to make themselves competitive and rebuild their economy, but nearly every European politician states that Greece won't leave. So it’s basically a contest between Economics and Politics with very serious ramifications for not only the future of the euro but the whole EU project itself.
You can read the Economist article here: http://www.economist.com/node/21555916 (should be accessible unless you've read 5+ articles this week on their site)
P.S: currencies are nouns not proper nouns and thus don't need to be capitalised(/grammar nazi)
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