Thread: Greece About to Vote on Austerity

Greece never had its shit together; I read an archived article today from back when it joined, and the article was essentially about how it showed that the EU was not about credibility but a political project.

That's a large part of why it's still there. The other part is that Greece's default would likely cause creditors to shit their pants and all of the other countries in the EU with stupid finances would go belly up. The Euro could be pretty much finished.

Originally Posted by Xei

The Euro could be pretty much finished.

All I can say is that I'm glad we never joined it.

Originally Posted by Xei

Greece never had its shit together

BBC NEWS | Business | Greece admits fudging euro entry

Greece admits fudging euro entry
Greece has admitted it joined the euro in 2001 on the basis of figures that showed its budget deficit to be much lower than it really was.

Eurozone states are expected to have deficits below 3% of gross domestic product but revised data show Greece has exceeded that limit since 1999.

The figures are being discussed at a meeting between EU finance ministers.

Greece's membership of the single currency would not, however, be questioned, the EU has said.

In other news, Papandreou has got to go.

Why do you think that? He tried to make the decision democratic and was made to back down extremely forcefully by the Eurocrats and the absurd demagogues in his parliament.

Vouching for democracy is real sweet and all, especially when shit has hit the fan. However, it doesn't excuse his lack of progress the past three years in shifting away from the previous pm's course. His failure, in turn, doesn't excuse that of the Greek people's regarding austerity observance.

Pretty much the final chance to sort it out will come tomorrow. The Germans and French initially wanted to consolidate the 27 countries in the EU, but it looks like that can't happen. What they're now hoping for is the ability for Brussels to be able to impose very strict order on the members of the Euro, with punishments to member states for a lack of fiscal responsibility.

This has been well summarised as an attempt to cure the cancer rather than the patient. The structural problem with the Euro is not fundamentally sovereign debt but the way that it fixes the exchange rate of the member states. Countries like Greece are finding it impossible to get their economy to recover because of their lack of competitiveness. Preserving the Euro by trying to implement even more control will just exacerbate the problem and delay the crash for a while. Not to mention the moral angle; Greece and Italy now have essentially unelected puppets running their countries, with the populace being denied referenda or elections. Power is being concentrated into an unelected European elite.

But it looks like it won't even work. The entire point of a stricter Euro was to reassure the European Central Bank that the member states were credit worthy, and hence encourage it to lend; but today it pretty ruled such a scenario out. So for all intents and purposes, it looks like we have literally reached endgame already. Oh yeah, and Standard and Poor are going to downgrade the entire Eurozone if nothing useful is agreed. Unless something unexpected happens, the Eurozone could start tumbling down as soon as tomorrow.

Its all been baked into the cake for quite awhile now. This is all just for show to buy time. The euro will crash, and a few months later the us dollar will crash.

Wow... the UK Prime Minister has refused to give up any more powers to the EU. The measures included a tax on financial transactions which would basically see billions taken from the UK economy to support the failed project. The remaining 26 countries are agreeing a deal that gives the EU control over the budgets of member states. Like I said this isn't a solution, but the markets don't seem impressed with it as a temporary measure anyway.

One of the worst parts of the hypocrisy is that France, which is leading the push, is purely motivated by self-interest. Their banks are exposed to the highest share of the shitty debt from failing countries, so they're desperate to leech money from the rest of Europe to support said failing countries.

The Danish ministers of foreign affairs and economy, are saying that this will most likely be voted about in Denmark (by everyone). With what little knowledge I have about Danes and their relationship with the EU (similar to the UK's relationship) I'm guessing it'll be a no.

There must be several European countries which require referenda to implement this... it's basically the surrender of sovereign autonomy in quite a fundamental way. The UK has a constitutional obligation to hold a referendum to make such a decision.

Can someone explain to me the relationship between the US dollar and the euro? Why does one crashing crash the other? Is it because our financial institutions are international? International trade? Stocks?

Originally Posted by juroara

Can someone explain to me the relationship between the US dollar and the euro? Why does one crashing crash the other? Is it because our financial institutions are international? International trade? Stocks?

Xei apparently was answering a different question.

As to the question of currencies, it is not true that the US dollar follows the euro, in the short run. In fact, the exact opposite is true. When the euro crashes, there's a flight to safety, which means a flight to dollars. The dollar rises. Similarly, when the dollar crashes (it does so more slowly usually, so this is harder to spot), the euro gains.

For stocks and bonds, the story is different. Because of all the stuff that Xei said, a European stock or bond crash precipitates a crash in the stock and bond market of the US.

As far as I know it's about credit. Europe's economy faltering has negative effects in all sorts of ways. For a start, Europe's the biggest economy in the world, so US trade is reduced. Then there are the effects of sovereign defaults; US banks hold lots of that debt, and the loss of that revenue causes the whole financial system to freeze up. And any negative effects on the US economy are exacerbated because they make it less likely that it'll be able to repay its debts, reducing confidence and raising borrowing costs even higher.

It also has to do with the fact the US banks own Eurozone debt. As soon as the euro defaults, those debts that were assets become huge liabilities.

The face of evil


Xei, I don't know much about how the EU was formed, but would Greece have even been allowed into the EU if their real debt had been known? What were the prerequisites for it? I know Greece told the central bank that it had half the debt that it actually did thanks to the shifty bookkeeping help of GS.

jurora, why would one not effect the other? Trading is done globally, they are all dependent on each other, especially two giants like the US and EU.

The sad thing is it's almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better. The EU breaking up will have a ripple effect and bring down ours too.

No, the EU knew perfectly well that Greece lacked financial credibility. They are quite happy to break their own rules. When they allowed entry they were essentially making the statement that the Euro was an idealistic project rather than one based on reality.

It was the Euro they were let into by the way, not the EU. The EU is a political union and Greece was already a member. The Euro is a financial union... it's a currency.

I misused the term EU to mean the european currency, my mistake. But if the extent of Greece's debt was known, why did the Greek government pay Goldman Sachs 1.2 billion dollars to help conceal their debt?

The problem to me still doesn't lie with greece as a people, just their corrupt politicians. I've seen plenty of reports of the rioting on AnonOps and the Occupy sites. They seem to be upset with their corrupt politicians and the banks who control them, not that they want more money from Germany for nothing. Granted, the three sites I get my info about it from are left wing biased.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

I misused the term EU to mean the european currency, my mistake. But if the extent of Greece's debt was known, why did the Greek government pay Goldman Sachs 1.2 billion dollars to help conceal their debt?

The problem to me still doesn't lie with greece as a people, just their corrupt politicians. I've seen plenty of reports of the rioting on AnonOps and the Occupy sites. They seem to be upset with their corrupt politicians and the banks who control them, not that they want more money from Germany for nothing. Granted, the three sites I get my info about it from are left wing biased.

It's actually a good question. Some people say that it's still the Greeks fault, because they didn't intervene when absurdly large benefits came seemingly out of nowhere. The invidiual Greek hasn't necessarily lived particularly well, but overall, the state has spent much more money than it should have, and the Greeks, apparently, did nothing to stop this.

Of course, it's hard to say if that's actually what the issue stems from. Obviously, Greeks can't be held completely accountable for corrupt politicians, but even then, the Greeks should know that it is their country, not the politicians'.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Of course, it's hard to say if that's actually what the issue stems from. Obviously, Greeks can't be held completely accountable for corrupt politicians, but even then, the Greeks should know that it is their country, not the politicians'.

Are you fucking kidding me? Corruption is not the problem in Greece. It's the people retiring with full pensions at age 40...

Originally Posted by cmind

Are you fucking kidding me? Corruption is not the problem in Greece. It's the people retiring with full pensions at age 40...

Did I say otherwise?

The politicians are the ones who allow this to happen. But the people are the ones who are supposed to react when politicians do shit like this. But they did nothing, apparently.

I misspoke, it was 15 billion dollars, not 1.2.

First of all greeks never liked the euro in the first place.second i dare you to come to work in greece for one week,and maybe then you see if greeks are lazy.third if somebody takes money
from someone and that someone is a loan shark you can make a guess where the problem is.
southern european countries are not bankrupt.bankrupt are the northern ones.
and then think about why a ten million country is importand for six and a half billions.

as for the viable country we fought the turkish 200 ago we fought the gremans 70 years ago and then the british which came to enforce peace like anybody wanted them to stick their noses anyway.

as for the austerity measures from 1960 exist a quantity of petrol and natural gas in the country which can sustain europe for 200 years.apart from the fact that they just destroy a mountain which has the amount of three hundred million tons of gold in the area of halkidiki.
SO WE DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY OR YOUR HELP.
And when this is finished we are going to see if western europe CAN'T RESOLVE HER ENERGY PROBLEM.

Oh and people don't retire in their 40's they retire in the 67 if supposively they do.Because many they don't.But let's see when euro collapses because it is going to collapse if the meditterenean is going to be the one with the problem.

After Greece Exits The Euro, What's Next? An Illustrated Guide To 5 Possible Scenarios

If you didn't like the Euro in the first place you shouldn't have voted for a party which wanted the Euro. I am dubious of that premise anyway, the Euro was supposed to encourage tourism, and as far as I know polls still show that Greeks want to stay in it. Also you shouldn't have voted for a party which borrowed its way into oblivion. Loan sharks prey on old ladies. An entire country is supposed to have the sense to not take loans that it can't possibly pay back. It was obvious what was going on, the Greek people either supported it or didn't care. If this wasn't the case you wouldn't have continued to vote for the people who were doing it.