Greece about to default

[Artorias]

The best course of action is to let Greece default and force them out of the EU, they've been freeloading off the backs other European countries far too long and its time for them to smell the ashes, you reap what you sow.

 

[werepossum]

This is bafflingly ignorant. Dunning-Kreuger effect in play again.

Can you point me to where I argued that Germany should pay for their bad actions by forgiving Greece's debt or where I thought Greece should pay for their bad actions by getting free money? Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore?

I know what I am arguing about - whether Greece should repay its loans. You can pretend that Germany loaning Greece ever more money to make its loan payments plus its new spending in perpetuity (or until a miracle happens and the "investment" in paying people not to work somehow pays off) is somehow functionally different from Germany giving Greece free money it doesn't have to pay back if you wish.

 

[fskimospy]

I know what I am arguing about - whether Greece should repay its loans. You can pretend that Germany loaning Greece ever more money to make its loan payments plus its new spending in perpetuity (or until a miracle happens and the "investment" in paying people not to work somehow pays off) is somehow functionally different from Germany giving Greece free money it doesn't have to pay back if you wish.

It's funny that when you said something insane about my position and I asked you to back it up, you just repeated your previous insane statement. You're full of shit. Back up what you said.

All that aside, you've said some hilariously ignorant things about Euro monetary policy here. I tried to warn you from the beginning that you would just embarrass yourself, but taking advice isn't your strong suit. At least you seem to have switched to pretending it never happened instead of saying more dumb things.

 

[glenn1]

The best course of action is to let Greece default and force them out of the EU, they've been freeloading off the backs other European countries far too long and its time for them to smell the ashes, you reap what you sow.

We're way beyond the mere problem of paying back the Germans and other creditors at this point, the entire anti-austerity worldview is at risk which is far more troubling to the Keynesians. Open ended borrowing and "stimulus" is the golden calf god they pray to, so the idea that Greeks (or anyone else) would get cut off from their debt supplier terrifies them. Meanwhile the Germans and other creditors will relearn the old lesson that when you're a buyer of debt, return of principal is just as critical as return on principal. They fvcked over the low-quality borrowers for too long and are about to lose their entire investment, and it couldn't happen to more appropriate people.

 

[Svnla]

I will put this here, "why Greece may never recover" = http://fortune.com/2015/06/30/my-li...-recover/?xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE

 

[werepossum]

It's funny that when you said something insane about my position and I asked you to back it up, you just repeated your previous insane statement. You're full of shit. Back up what you said.

All that aside, you've said some hilariously ignorant things about Euro monetary policy here. I tried to warn you from the beginning that you would just embarrass yourself, but taking advice isn't your strong suit. At least you seem to have switched to pretending it never happened instead of saying more dumb things.

Fine. How about you actually post your opinion on Germany's supposed misdeeds, how Germany controls EU fiscal policy, and your solution. So far you've said "One member nation's actions in particular have damaged this goal by trying to use the common currency area to make its exports more competitive without taking responsibility for the negative effects of this." How, exactly, has Germany "use[d] the common currency to make its exports more competitive" in a way that is unfair? Please take into account that if the euro is weaker than was the mark, then Germany's exports also return less real wealth. And maybe explain how Germany being near twice as productive per hour as Greece is a misdeed.

While we are at it, this is a union which Greece joined of its own free will and which most Greeks do not want to leave. Please detail how Greece was tricked and/or victimized by this and when, if ever, one might reasonably expect Greece to attain adult status and be responsible for its own actions.

And then pray tell what I am supposedly pretending never happened.

 

[werepossum]

Read the Wikipedia article. Honestly there is a lot of it I have not read of it but skipping through it, reading a few articles, and knowing just some of the bullshit in how bankers and financial consters operate makes clear to me what is going on right now. Yes lots of the old Greek government was to blame but they were engaging in fraud and corruption right alongside all the rest of the EU politicians and businessmen. How do you think most Greek citizens feel about this debacle?

Pretty much like children denied their next sugar tit, I'd say, but can't say as I really care. Having asked for loans, spent the money, and now asking for more loans without wanting to do the hard work of structuring a society that isn't a welfare state in perpetuity, their feelings on the rest of Europe not wishing to support them any longer is frankly not something that interests me. Let them do the hard work to support themselves, or let them default and fall into communism and its eternal search for the triple-breasted woman. It's their nation, let them do as they please - just please let them stop whining that other people are willing to support them.

I keep reading that Greeks aren't convinced that their European Union partner states are concerned about building Greece as a competitive nation, but I never see the Greeks articulating why that is the responsibility of other nations. For fuck's sake, this is a nation that dates back over five thousand years; surely it's time to grow up. Adults repay their loans and stand on their hind legs. Adults do not whine and say those lending me the money I blew were taking advantage of me, so please lend me more money.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Having asked for loans, spent the money...

We should be clear: almost none of the huge amount of money loaned to Greece has actually gone there. It has gone to pay out private-sector creditors -- including German and French banks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josep...ack-greek-democracy_b_7692156.html?1435621566

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Pretty much like children denied their next sugar tit, I'd say, but can't say as I really care. Having asked for loans, spent the money, and now asking for more loans without wanting to do the hard work of structuring a society that isn't a welfare state in perpetuity, their feelings on the rest of Europe not wishing to support them any longer is frankly not something that interests me. Let them do the hard work to support themselves, or let them default and fall into communism and its eternal search for the triple-breasted woman. It's their nation, let them do as they please - just please let them stop whining that other people are willing to support them.

I keep reading that Greeks aren't convinced that their European Union partner states are concerned about building Greece as a competitive nation, but I never see the Greeks articulating why that is the responsibility of other nations. For fuck's sake, this is a nation that dates back over five thousand years; surely it's time to grow up. Adults repay their loans and stand on their hind legs. Adults do not whine and say those lending me the money I blew were taking advantage of me, so please lend me more money.

Well what is interesting in all this mess is that even the poorer Baltic EU nations are also showing zero sympathy for Greece. These nations have made deep cuts and as a result have made greater strides than Greece in curbing their debt woes. In fact as they see it Greece has very little room to complain as one Bulgarian newspaper pointed out "They (Greece) have access to the see, bigger pensions and a better life" so in their view Greece is just being a "spoiled brat" of a nation in refusing to make more cuts in their pension benefits.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/w...ct-little-sympathy-from-poorer-neighbors.html

Some of the most resolute opponents of cutting Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza Party any slack, however, have been Europe’s most deprived nations, places like Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest member, and Baltic States blighted by decades of Soviet-imposed penury.

“We are much poorer than the Greeks, but we have performed reforms,” Rosen Plevneliev, the president of Bulgaria, a northern neighbor of Greece, said in an interview. “When you have a problem, you have to address it and not shift it to Brussels or onto somebody else,” he said, deriding Syriza’s complaints that Europe had let Greece down.

Yet the gap between Syriza’s self-image as the champion of the underdog and the reality that Europe’s least-well-off countries have shown it little or no sympathy has exposed a flaw at the heart of a doomed negotiating strategy that has pushed Greece to the edge of an abyss.

It has also deepened fury in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union’s executive arm, and in Berlin, at repeated accusations from Mr. Tsipras that creditors are trying to blackmail Greece and upend the democratic choice made by voters in January. That is when they elected Syriza, which had promised to end years of grinding austerity.

Mr. Tsipras returned to this line of attack in a television address on Sunday evening in which he announced that Greek banks would not open on Monday. Pillorying the European Central Bank for refusing to increase emergency aid to Greek banks, he said the bank’s move “had no other aim but to blackmail the will of the Greek people.”

Viewed from Bulgaria and other poorer countries, however, Greece’s suffering draws only curt comparisons.

When Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, in an early round of negotiations in Brussels, complained that Greek pensions could not be cut any further, he was reminded bluntly by his colleague from Lithuania that pensioners there have survived on far less.

Lithuania, according to the most recent figures issued by Eurostat, the European statistics agency, spends 472 euros, about $598, per capita on pensions, less than a third of the 1,625 euros spent by Greece. Bulgaria spends just 257 euros. This data refers to 2012 and Greek pensions have since been cut, but they still remain higher than those in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Croatia and nearly all other states in eastern, central and southeastern Europe.

Such statistics have made it very difficult for Syriza to win support for its argument that Greece is suffering a uniquely painful “humanitarian catastrophe” and that fellow European Union countries ought to put up their own money to save Athens from bankruptcy. “Greece is not seen as suffering so much,” said Ognyan Georgiev, an editor at Kapital, a Bulgarian business newspaper. “They have the sea, they have big pensions and they have a life that looks better than what we have.”

 

[werepossum]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josep...ack-greek-democracy_b_7692156.html?1435621566

From your link: It has gone to pay out private-sector creditors -- including German and French banks.

If I ask my neighbor to make my house payment, should I then insist I shouldn't have to pay him back because that money went to my creditor, not me?

There is a truly bizarre tendency on the left to accuse the French and Germans of nefarious behavior in loaning Greece money to make payments on the loans they gave them before whilst also insisting that the French and Germans should loan Greece even more money. WTF?

Well what is interesting in all this mess is that even the poorer Baltic EU nations are also showing zero sympathy for Greece. These nations have made deep cuts and as a result have made greater strides than Greece in curbing their debt woes. In fact as they see it Greece has very little room to complain as one Bulgarian newspaper pointed out "They (Greece) have access to the see, bigger pensions and a better life" so in their view Greece is just being a "spoiled brat" of a nation in refusing to make more cuts in their pension benefits.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/w...ct-little-sympathy-from-poorer-neighbors.html

That is interesting, thanks.

 

[nageov3t]

OP should update, looks like there's no more "about to"

Greece Defaults: After five years of negotiations and arguments and chaos, the clock finally strikes midnight for Greece

Greece’s five-year struggle to avoid default and preserve its membership in Europe’s single currency ended in shambles at the stroke of midnight, as the country missed a key payment to the International Monetary Fund...

Whoever is to blame for the collapse of the Greek talks — a creditor group that includes the IMF and other eurozone governments — or Greece itself, the default marks the undisputed failure of the country’s €245 billion rescue, the largest the world has ever seen.

Greece is now firmly on a path to leave the eurozone, and possibly the European Union. While markets have so far weathered the immediate fallout, a Greek exit from the euro would show that membership is not irreversible, a reality that will have long-term implications for currency’s stability.

 

[Ns1]

GGPO greece. It'll be interesting to see what happens tmr.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

From your link: It has gone to pay out private-sector creditors -- including German and French banks.

If I ask my neighbor to make my house payment, should I then insist I shouldn't have to pay him back because that money went to my creditor, not me?

There is a truly bizarre tendency on the left to accuse the French and Germans of nefarious behavior in loaning Greece money to make payments on the loans they gave them before whilst also insisting that the French and Germans should loan Greece even more money. WTF?

Somehow, one expected something better of Greece's Eurozone "partner." But the demands were every bit as intrusive, and the policies and models were every bit as flawed. The disparity between what the Troika thought would happen and what has emerged has been striking -- and not because Greece didn't do what it was supposed to, but because it did, and the models were very, very flawed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-stiglitz/argentina-greece-default_b_7697838.html

 

[werepossum]

OP should update, looks like there's no more "about to"

Greece Defaults: After five years of negotiations and arguments and chaos, the clock finally strikes midnight for Greece

Well, everyone knew it was going to happen. Now we wait and see if the other member states are willing to entertain any scheme to allow Greece to remain in the European Union at all. €245 billion leaves a hell of a lot of room to buy some forbearance - assuming Greece can and will pay back enough of it to make that worth it to the other members.

 

[werepossum]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-stiglitz/argentina-greece-default_b_7697838.html

I do believe that with this article the Greeks have set the record for lightest skinned people claiming racism from the "White Europeans". Congrats, I suppose.

 

[Charmonium]

They're now asking for a two-year bailout. The EU has called their bluff and seems to have no problem with Greece leaving, which might be their only option.

Greece asked for a two-year bailout from Europe, its third in six years. The bankrupt country is reported to be asking for 29 billion euros ($32 billion).
Finance ministers discussed the request by phone and agreed to hold another call Wednesday, when Greece is expected to provide more details.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chaired the meeting, said any new rescue may require tougher conditions than those Greece has already rejected because of the rapid deterioration in the country's finances.

So they've not only screwed up the existing bailout, where paying out the additional money the IMF had on tap for them is no longer an option, but they've managed to make their situation significantly worse.

So either Greece is going to cave to EU demands and the Greek citizens vote yes on the referendum, or they're not going to have any choice except to go back to the drachma.

In the meantime, the Greek economy is going to be turned upside down and inside out. I wouldn't be surprised if NGOs don't soon start sending humanitarian aid to the country.

 

[werepossum]

They're now asking for a two-year bailout. The EU has called their bluff and seems to have no problem with Greece leaving, which might be their only option.

So they've not only screwed up the existing bailout, where paying out the additional money the IMF had on tap for them is no longer an option, but they've managed to make their situation significantly worse.

So either Greece is going to cave to EU demands and the Greek citizens vote yes on the referendum, or they're not going to have any choice except to go back to the drachma.

In the meantime, the Greek economy is going to be turned upside down and inside out. I wouldn't be surprised if NGOs don't soon start sending humanitarian aid to the country.

It's an odd place. Buddy of mine went on a church mission trip to Greece. They built a baseball field and some buildings for a Greek church. Each afternoon the men would gather to sit and watch the Americans build them things. They would not help unless paid. That is such a foreign concept to me, that one could sit and watch someone else build something for one's own benefit without pitching in. Where I'm from, even old people who physically cannot help build a barn or whatever would run themselves ragged trying to do what they can, grateful yet still feeling guilty for accepting what was freely given.

 

[theeedude]

EU is going to bail them out, but they don't want to do it until Tsirpas leaves, because then other EU members on whom austerity was inflicted will ask what gives. The Europeans want to make it look like it's their initiative, not something they were pressured to do by the Greeks.
The reality is that the current offer is unimplementable, even if accepted by the Greeks as written by the Europeans. 3.5% of GDP surplus in the middle of a depression. No one believes it will happen, even though it's an area of agreement in negotiations. The disagreement is over details on how to achieve this target that both sides know is not achievable in the first place. You can not get out of a debt hole without growth, and austerity suppresses growth.

 

[WelshBloke]

It's an odd place. Buddy of mine went on a church mission trip to Greece. They built a baseball field and some buildings for a Greek church. Each afternoon the men would gather to sit and watch the Americans build them things. They would not help unless paid. That is such a foreign concept to me, that one could sit and watch someone else build something for one's own benefit without pitching in. Where I'm from, even old people who physically cannot help build a barn or whatever would run themselves ragged trying to do what they can, grateful yet still feeling guilty for accepting what was freely given.

They were probably wondering why you were building them a baseball pitch to be fair.

 

[K1052]

They were probably wondering why you were building them a baseball pitch to be fair.

Probably would have done better with a basketball court. They love basketball.

 

[werepossum]

They were probably wondering why you were building them a baseball pitch to be fair.

Wasn't me, just a coworker friend. Honestly I wondered why one would go all the way to Greece to build a baseball field (do Greeks even play baseball?) as well as why one would go all the way to Greece and then build a baseball field. (Those may sound like the same questions but they actually differ - the latter assumes one wishes to help Greeks and the former assumes one wishes to help baseball.) They did build some other stuff, too, but it was first presented to me as a baseball field. It was an interesting conversation:

"I'll be gone for two weeks."

"Oh? Where are you going on vacation?"

"It's not a vacation, it's a mission trip to Greece."

"Greece? Um, aren't they already Christian? Are you are trying to convert them to Baptists? 'Cause they kind of have a whole church named after them, so . . ."

"No, it isn't an evangelical mission. We're going to build a baseball field."

"Wait - what? A baseball field? Isn't that just pretty much a flat space with some bases?"

He did explain that they were building some other stuff for the local Greek church, but when he was telling me all he actually knew they were going to build was a baseball field. But hey, I've never gone anywhere and built anything for anyone out of the county, so I'm not going to nitpick it.

 

[WelshBloke]

Wasn't me, just a coworker friend. Honestly I wondered why one would go all the way to Greece to build a baseball field (do Greeks even play baseball?) as well as why one would go all the way to Greece and then build a baseball field. (Those may sound like the same questions but they actually differ - the latter assumes one wishes to help Greeks and the former assumes one wishes to help baseball.) They did build some other stuff, too, but it was first presented to me as a baseball field. It was an interesting conversation:

"I'll be gone for two weeks."

"Oh? Where are you going on vacation?"

"It's not a vacation, it's a mission trip to Greece."

"Greece? Um, aren't they already Christian? Are you are trying to convert them to Baptists? 'Cause they kind of have a whole church named after them, so . . ."

"No, it isn't an evangelical mission. We're going to build a baseball field."

"Wait - what? A baseball field? Isn't that just pretty much a flat space with some bases?"

He did explain that they were building some other stuff for the local Greek church, but when he was telling me all he actually knew they were going to build was a baseball field. But hey, I've never gone anywhere and built anything for anyone out of the county, so I'm not going to nitpick it.

I'm just saying that you shouldn't be surprised that none of the Greeks wanted to join in building something that they didn't ask for or wanted.

If you came to build a baseball pitch in my village I'd probably sit down and watch you wondering why the fuck you were building one, then I'd get bored and wander off down to the pub.

 

[werepossum]

I'm just saying that you shouldn't be surprised that none of the Greeks wanted to join in building something that they didn't ask for or wanted.

If you came to build a baseball pitch in my village I'd probably sit down and watch you wondering why the fuck you were building one, then I'd get bored and wander off down to the pub.

They built some other stuff too - although those might have been places to stay when people came to play baseball. lol I really only remember the baseball field, for obvious reasons.

 

[glenn1]

They built some other stuff too - although those might have been places to stay when people came to play baseball. lol I really only remember the baseball field, for obvious reasons.

I can imagine it now. Confused Greeks asking why Americans built a soccer pitch in a conical shape rather than rectangular, and probably concluding it's because the yanks don't metric.

 

[IGBT]

the only negotiating going on now is a financial quarantine of Greece in an attempt to keep the financial mud slide from spreading.