[angie]

Are we now to believe that Greece has been saved from going bankrupt, leaving the Euro and therefore able to go back to it’s corrupt ways again? Get the porsches and ferraris dusted off from their hiding places Stavros! It’s like the ‘Carry On’ films. All we need is Nana Mouskouri and Demis Roussos to start singing again, so I’m told, who are these people?

It seems they have to pay a 14.5 billion Euros tranche back in March to staive off bankruptcy but now can receive 130 billion Euros to carry on for now, although some economist says they now need 145 billion Euros instead.

If this all goes though with banks and others taking their short back and sides haircut, how long will it be before Portugal, Ireland and Spain say ‘what’s good for Greece is good for us, we want half our debt written off’?

How long before the next crisis in Europe? 🙄

You’ve got to hand it to those canny Greeks whilst their populus suffer!

[Anonymous]

Incredible that the rest allows this. Force them to sell state property if they want new loans. That way they can actually better their economy.

[Anonymous]

its still just kicking the can down the road thou as they won’t be able to pay this loan back either good money after bad if you ask me

[angie]

Yes that’s how I understand it, this merely puts off the day as they still can’t service their debt even with half written off!

It looks like a clever move on their part, but will the ECB and especially Germany agree to it if it costs them money, how will the French Banks fare once their loans are not fully repaid?

Will the price of habas rise dramatically in Spain as a result of overseas events?:lol: Will Greece become the new superpower 😆 Oh I must stop this, my sides are splitting 😉

[Anonymous]

Greece is the word, Nana Mouskouri and Demis Roussos. Gosh you are ancient !!!!!!!!!!!.

[angie]

shakeel I asked ‘who they were’ but how come you knew of them? 😆 It must come from Ancient Greece!

Have just heard that some members of the German Finance Ministry are not happy with this deal and are suggesting Greece is cast adrift from the euro! 🙄

[Anonymous]

A muture bottle of wine remembers attending Demis Roussos gig at the Albert Hall. Saw him a few years later in Edgware road he was half his size with a pony tail.
Nana, I believe is an MP. Had a crush on her as long as she wore her glasses. Yeppp it takes all kind.

[angie]

Greece probably wants to hear again ‘Till the white rose blooms again’

and, ‘Forever and ever and ever’

Oh blast I’ve given the game away 😆

[Anonymous]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9079430/Greece-wont-see-a-cent-of-the-great-bail-out.html

Phew! Now Greece will get its second bail-out package of 130 billion euros (the first 110 billion, given in May 2010, having proved insufficient). Now it won’t default or leave the single currency, and everything will go back to normal… won’t it?

Almost certainly not. For a start, despite the vote yesterday, the Greeks probably won’t ever see a single cent of that second bail-out. The idea is that the eurozone will lend money to Greece, which it can use to pay off the banks holding its debt, as part of an agreement to save it from outright bankruptcy in March. But when the members of the single currency originally agreed to this second bail-out last year, Greece was not expected to last this long.

In particular, the Slovakians, Finns, Austrians and Dutch would never have agreed to the deal if they had thought there was any chance of them actually having to pay. It was a political arrangement, spatchcocked together to force the International Monetary Fund to keep forking out for the initial bail-out. The Slovakians failed even to contribute to that first rescue package, so it was never credible that they had any intention of funding a second. The Finns have passed a law banning their government from giving any more money to Greece without collateral. The Austrians have enough trouble coping with the crisis in Hungary – to which their banks are heavily exposed – without sending money elsewhere; being downgraded by the credit ratings agencies hasn’t made them any keener to pay.

Interesting read. So the Idea is to prop up the banks and then Greece goes down the drain.

[GarySFBCN]

I want nothing more than the euro to survive, but the existing model is not going to work. Before the euro, countries could manage their own debt, inflation, deflation, currency value by printing money.

In this centralized model, the old remedies will not work.

And if I were the chief executive of the Greek economy, I’ll exit the euro, and use the Icelandic model for paying debts.

[angie]

I too can’t see that Greece’s problems go away if they’re given this money which they won’t see a cent of, all it does is buy some more time for the ECB, Eurozone and in particular Germany and France, but of course certain Germans are now baulking at the idea.

I think the World’s economies are also hoping their finances improve and everything looks rosy again before they finally rid themselves of Greece. It was said last night on Newsnight that Greek debt will now be reduced by 73% not the 50% they were talking about, so that will cause major rumblings in Portugal, Spain and Ireland apart from all other Eurozone countries.

On that basis of writing off 73% of our debts, we should do a deal with Fuengi or Chris and buy a million euro property currently for sale at 500k euros but with a 100% mortgage (so please arrange for us, non-status pref.) , so 500k then, then ask lender to write off 73% reducing our mortgage to around 150k and this for the one time million euro property.

The whole idea of writing off such huge debts is barking mad.

[Anonymous]

Greece will default and leave the Euro. It’s only a matter of time.

It’s that or the Germans pay for Greece for ever (which they don’t want and can’t afford to do).

[logan]

@GarySFBCN wrote:

I want nothing more than the euro to survive,

Why? It’s membership of the Euro that has created the mess they find themselves in.
Mark is right Greece is finished in the Eurozone. This sticking plaster measure is simply to protect French and German banks from losses and give them more time to deal with the inevitable.
The whole thing is a grotesque farce.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/57485f60-540a-11e1-8d12-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mM6qYqyX

[Anonymous]

I think some people on here are blaming the EMU/euto a little bit to much. Don’t get me wrong I have always been agaist it but that was because I thought that our cultural/economic diffrences where so big that it would be impossible to make it work without extremly strict budget policies and no countries were willing to adopt something like that. Adopting the euro would have made it harder for countries to get out of situations when the economy was shrinking or expanding to much which have been the commong practise for so long. The EMU boosted these problems because it gave countries that didn’t deserve cheap credits and raisied wealth on paper but at the same time ruining their international competetiveness and just pushed the problems further down the road. What makes Greece diffrent from the other countries is that even the goverment was tricking the world.

The idea of national or international currencies that the goverments just use to tax it’s citizens is the real problem. People need to understand that when countries or organisations print money they are actually taxing it’s citizens. Goverments have extended this power to the banks so everytime a bank creates credits it’s in reality stealing/taxing the taxpayer in that country. How is this possible you might wonder? It’s called fractional reserve banking and is the root all problems. Imagine yourself owning a bakery and when someone comes into your bakery and wants a loaf of bread you tell them that you want 10% of the dough for the bread and then they also have to pay interest “which will make sure you make some profit but it also needs to take into considerations that some won’t be able to pay the interest or handing you the rest of the dough 90%” on the bread. Where does this 90% of the bread come from that the bakery uses to make the bread some eventually would ask…. here is the disgusting part. The bakery legally steals it from the population because they don’t have the dough themselves. Once in a while one these bakeries are found out to have have recklessly given out bread to people/goverments that can’t pay them the interest or handing them the dough. If this happens to one bakery they usually just let it go bankrupt. The problem is that by now these fools owning these bakeries have started loaning dough from other bakeries to be able to have a steady supply of the minimum amount of dough they need to “steal” the 90% of the rest. If one bakery goes belly up all of them will so the only alternative is to bail all of them out and the citizens take control of these banks. Now you think it can’t get any worse right? What if you find out that the top bakery owners in the world have been aware of this all along and used their magic breadmaking skills to make the bread for themselves and use it to buy up other resources and companies all over the world and when this scheme breaks down you find out that these holdings are separate from the banks. They have also gained profits from the intreset during the time and the bakeries are not worth a single dime. Imagine now that there is not even a use for this bread we have just been pumping out because it was made of poop and no one wants it when they find that out.

TADADA FIAT MONEY CREATED OUT OF NOTHING BY A FRAUDULENT BANKING SYSTEM THAT THE BANK OWNERS HAVE USED TO BUY UP REAL VALUE AS GOLD, FOOD AND OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS. Then when the bank goes bankrupt they get to keep everything except their worthless banks

Imagine running your house hold economy the same way… “ok I need a new car so I’ll just start up the copying machine and let my neighbour pay for it”. It’s an unfair system that most people are not aware of. Goverments/organisations should only spend money that they have budget space and banks should not have this power that they are given by fractional reserve banking.

The euro is a great thing considering that it removes this easy way for the national states to steal from it’s citizens but what does it matter when this power is just moved over to the EU/EMU and they steal from every eurozone country instead? The good idea is that it removes the temptetation for politicians in those countries to waste money they don’t have. They have also removed the ability for national states to outsource the printing money process but what does it matter when the thing replacing it in the EMU just does the same thing?!

Please ask me more questions if you have any.

[logan]

Ardun I don’t really understand your beef with fractional reserve banking. It’s a normal part of a capitalist system and has served most countries well until this current financial crisis when bankers completely lost their marbles.

Here’s a useful definition from Wiki:-
Fractional-reserve banking is a form of banking where banks maintain reserves (of cash and coin or deposits at the central bank) that are only a fraction of the customer’s deposits. Funds deposited into a bank are mostly lent out, and a bank keeps only a fraction (called the reserve ratio) of the quantity of deposits as reserves. Some of the funds lent out are subsequently deposited with another bank, increasing deposits at that second bank and allowing further lending. As most bank deposits are treated as money in their own right, fractional reserve banking increases the money supply, and banks are said to create money.

Due to the prevalence of fractional reserve banking, the broad money supply of most countries is a multiple larger than the amount of base money created by the country’s central bank. That multiple (called the money multiplier) is determined by the reserve requirement or other financial ratio requirements imposed by financial regulators, and by the excess reserves kept by commercial banks.

Central banks generally mandate reserve requirements that require banks to keep a minimum fraction of their demand deposits as cash reserves. This both limits the amount of money creation that occurs in the commercial banking system, and ensures that banks have enough ready cash to meet normal demand for withdrawals.

Problems can arise, however, when depositors seek withdrawal of a large proportion of deposits at the same time; this can cause a bank run or, when problems are extreme and widespread, a systemic crisis. To mitigate this risk, the governments of most countries (usually acting through the central bank) regulate and oversee commercial banks, provide deposit insurance and act as lender of last resort to commercial banks.

Fractional-reserve banking is the most common form of banking and is practiced in almost all countries. Although Islamic banking prohibits the making of profit from interest on debt, a form of fractional-reserve banking is still evident in most Islamic countries.

The Eurozone formation allowed weaker members states to borrow vast sums cheaply which they could not afford. The basis of the belief by bankers was if a country is a member of the club it must have sound finances and would be bailed out by the others in times of stress. Neither of those beliefs have proved correct.
Greece lied to gain entry and is being partially bailed out but the lenders also have to take a substantial hit.

Had these weaker countries not been in the Euro they would:-
1. Not been allowed to borrow and spend so much debt cheaply in the first place.
2. The could devalue their own currency and make their economy more competitive.
3. Been able to drastically reduce in their interest rates at the onset of the downturn would have been further beneficial to their economy.
4. Change their noncompetitive labour laws to suit their own economy.
5. Not had the strait jacket which is European treaties.

Now we have a situation where countries such as the UK cannot return to growth because their economies are too closely linked to the failed Eurozone.

The USA has now almost 3% growth and falling unemployment because they were able to take measures early to improve their economic prospects. Europe is sinking ever closer to total disaster and nobody has a clue how to stop it. They are wed to a currency union for political reasons which history will show was and is Europe’s greatest tragedy.

[Anonymous]

@logan wrote:

The USA has now almost 3% growth and falling unemployment because they were able to take measures early to improve their economic prospects. Europe is sinking ever closer to total disaster and nobody has a clue how to stop it. They are wed to a currency union for political reasons which history will show was and is Europe’s greatest tragedy.

The difference is very simple:

USA survived by printing $ (trillions of them) + various stimuli from Obama

Europe did not print as the German constitution won’t allow it.

The clue to stop the Europe sinking is easy, but there are two many points of view in Europe and no consensus. Catholic versus Calvinist…

[Anonymous]

Logan because it’s an unfair system that steals from the normal person and hands it over to the rich.

You are still only talking about plastering over the cracks. It’s a faulty economic system that have caused crashes all around the world for centuries.

A true capitalist would hate the fractional reserve banking system because it’s setup like pyramid scheme. You create stuff out of nothing by stealing resources out of ordinairy people. Credits always become to cheap in a system like this which leads to overstimulating the economy with bad investment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis Every bubble have been built up by it but what makes it burst are often different.

It’s a system set up by the financial elite that have convinced politicians all around the world with “free money”. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

As the poster above mentioned The US have caused growth by printing money when in reality inflation is much higher than 3%. The budget deficit is bigger than some countries national debts and there is no end in sight. 1,5 trillion dollars more in debt every year. What you are doing by printing money is to steal more money from the normal american to hand it over to the financial elite and politicians.

As you see both parties are equally guilty of this. But none really controlls the FED except the banksters themselves.

Either you rescue the whole system again and soon we will be back here or you reform the system all together into a more honest system.

[logan]

@flosmichael wrote:

USA survived by printing $ (trillions of them) + various stimuli from Obama

That’s the job of government to create an environment from where the country can recover from. EZ countries cannot do that.

Europe did not print as the German constitution won’t allow it.

It’s actually the Maastricht Treaty that prohibits the ECB from printing Euros. Another strait jacket which they are currently circumventing by lending cheap created money to EZ banks to buy up peripheral states bonds and forcing down yields.

Ardun.
‘Stealing from the normal person and handing it to the rich’ is a disingenuous assessment.
In these critical economic times everyone has to pay a price. Banks, governments and your average ‘Joe plumber.’ If you think banks are getting away with it look at their losses in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Their write-off’s are huge. If your average Joe, you and me has to pay a comparative sum as well so be it. That’s how the system works, nobody is immune. It’s a collective society, we pay in comparison and equally reap rewards in the same way during better times.

[Anonymous]

@logan wrote:

@flosmichael wrote:

USA survived by printing $ (trillions of them) + various stimuli from Obama

That’s the job of government to create an environment from where the country can recover from. EZ countries cannot do that.

Europe did not print as the German constitution won’t allow it.

It’s actually the Maastricht Treaty that prohibits the ECB from printing Euros. Another strait jacket which they are currently circumventing by lending cheap created money to EZ banks to buy up peripheral states bonds and forcing down yields.

Ardun.
‘Stealing from the normal person and handing it to the rich’ is a disingenuous assessment.
In these critical economic times everyone has to pay a price. Banks, governments and your average ‘Joe plumber.’ If you think banks are getting away with it look at their losses in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Their write-off’s are huge. If your average Joe, you and me has to pay a comparative sum as well so be it. That’s how the system works, nobody is immune. It’s a collective society, we pay in comparison and equally reap rewards in the same way during better times.

We are talking about the absurdly rich here and not just owner of a few odd billion dollars and few local caixas. Look up http://www.bis.org/ “Indirectly controls every central bank in the world”. Why should normal people that have no benefit of this system have to pay for it when it goes bust?

[Anonymous]

Is the EU/EMU trying to destroy themselves from within? The most rescent thing is that they are complaining about countries exporting to much and few other factors, saying that a certain rise in costs for certain product is wrong. We are starting to head in a direction of central economic planning. So these countries that export to much should lower their competitiveness so other countries can have it easier?

http://www.examiner.ie/business/eu-members-warned-of-imbalances-in-economies-183898.html

Twelve EU states have been warned that parts of their economies are showing dangerous imbalances that require further, detailed investigation.
At the same time, Germany has been alerted that the European Commission is considering looking at the imbalance of its exports, which far outweigh imports.

The alert mechanism is part of the EU’s new surveillance procedure over members’ budgets and economies, designed to pick up and correct risky developments.

Based on 10 macro-economic indicators, the alerts will be followed through with in-depth investigations into the issues raised in each country.

If this confirms the fears are well founded the commission will follow through with recommendations in May, which each country is obliged to act on.

Olli Rehn, vice-president for economic and monetary affairs said: “This new tool is a meaningful step towards correcting the imbalances which built up over the years. Sound fiscal policies and early detection and correction of risky economic imbalances are necessary conditions to return to more sustainable growth and jobs.”

The indicators cover a loss of competitiveness, a high level of indebtedness — both public and private — asset price bubbles, export market share and unemployment increases, setting thresholds for changes that if countries breach will be considered a warning sign.

Four countries including Ireland are considered to have breached these thresholds in six of the ten indicators, Greece in five, and three countries — Germany, Denmark and Slovenia have breached two.

While figures have been made available for Ireland, Greece, Portugal andRomania, going back as far as 1996 for some indicators, there will be no specific investigation or recommendations as their problems are already being addressed as part of their bailout programmes.

[Anonymous]

Some people also seem to have problems with what BNP growth really is. I’ll try and show this with an example.

You are a restaurant owner and you are unlucky that your restaurant burns down one day and you also forgot to pay the insurance. You as an owner are ofcourse devestated because of this and everyone that witnesses this tradgedy also feel your losses. You had been thinking about building another restaurant that would net you more profits. The rebuilding process begins after he pays a builder the money and it will take a year to complete it. Let’s simplify it.

1. You as an owner haven’t gained a single thing 500 000 dollars “many years of profit” you are back at square one..
2. The builder have gotten a good job which will net him 500 000 dollars in turnover.

Had the fire not occured it would have looked like this.

1. Restaurant owner builds another restaurant for 500 000 dollars
2. Builder gets the job that nets him 500 000 dollars in turnover

From a growth in BNP perspective both of these happenings was equally good because it only meassures economic activity and totally forgets to take into account savings and other if real value has been added into society as a whole.

Have the wealth in society really gotten any better by this? No ofcourse not. Had the fire never occured the restaurant owner would have been able to make profits in his first restaurant and also had a new restaurant up and running after a year preassuring the competition in an area so people could get equally as good food for a lesser price. The personel lost their job for a year and the potential of new hiring was removed. What if that during that period the builder had to turn down other work because he had no time to do it? What if the other restaurant owners couldn’t handle the rise in customers or chose to raise prices because of lessen competition? What if restaurant customers that would have donated more money to cancer research would have donated less when the price went up and in turn caused a cure for some cancer not to be found.

The problem in todays society is that we have a hard time looking at the indirect effect of certain actions. Sure the production for the builder was the same and the economist was happy that the saved money was injected into society showed up but when looking at society as a whole it was something really bad.

The point I’m trying to make is that things like wars, accidents, natural catastrophies, goverment involvement, bureacreacy, subsidies, crime etc have horrible side effects in the long run for everyone. At a first glance it may be positive for a certain someone.

For to long economists that have thought that these two happenings are almost equally as good been the experts that have advised politicians of what to do. Austrian economics VS mainstream economics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_8H7E3cTo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf3NxGM5IkU&feature=related

[GarySFBCN]

Interesting, from the NY Times:

Europe’s Failed Course
Struggling euro-zone economies like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy cannot cut their way back to growth. Demanding rigid austerity from them as the price of European support has lengthened and deepened their recessions. It has made their debts harder, not easier, to pay off. . .

. . .Portugal has met every demand from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. It has cut wages and pensions, slashed public spending and raised taxes. Those steps have deepened its recession, making it even less able to repay its debts. When it received a bailout last May, Portugal’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product was 107 percent. By next year, it is expected to rise to 118 percent. That ratio will continue to rise so long as the economy shrinks. That is, indeed, the very definition of a vicious circle.

Why are Europe’s leaders so determined to deny reality? Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, in particular, seem unable to admit that they got this wrong. They are still captivated by the illogical but seductive notion that every country can emulate Germany’s export-driven model without the decades of public investment and artificially low exchange rates that are crucial to Germany’s success.

Mrs. Merkel also seems determined to pander to the prejudices of German voters who believe that suffering is the only way to purge Greece and other southern European countries of their profligate ways.

There’s no question that Greece has behaved inexcusably, spending more than it could afford, failing to collect taxes from some of its richest citizens and fudging its books. And while we sympathize with Greek protests against excessive austerity, we have no patience with politicians who continue to drag their feet over pro-growth reforms and privatizations. But the cure is neither collective punishment nor induced recession. Europe must be willing to help Greece grow out of its problems — on the condition that Greek politicians finally commit themselves to market reforms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/europes-failed-course-on-the-economy.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

I think this is especially true in Spain: Cutting government, cutting taxes, cutting salaries, cutting pensions may be attractive to many, but none of those will stimulate the economy enough to increase employment, which is Spain’s most critical problem.

[logan]

Spain’s most critical problem is the banking crisis caused by the real estate slump. Government austerity is just a necessary measure and a symptom of a failing economy.

[GarySFBCN]

Spain’s most critical problem is the banking crisis caused by the real estate slump. Government austerity is just a necessary measure and a symptom of a failing economy.

Sorry, Spain’s most critical crisis is unemployment. Spain’s banking crisis was caused by banks being reckless. Austerity may be necessary, but austerity measures will not solve the unemployment problem.

[logan]

Gary it’s a circle chain reaction during recessions.
First a crisis of demand causing lack of investment and cut backs by business. Usually that come about very easily by a drop of market confidence. Second redundancy and unemployment follow. Unemployment is simply another symptom not the crisis itself.
Third a lack of income and investments causes default both personal and corporate and banks go bust.
Fourth banks, who are the principal grease in the works of capitalism restrict lending. Business cannot invest and people cannot buy anything. Back to demand again, it’s a viscous circle.

Banks were reckless I agree, they broke the rules big time and were principally responsible for the fall in market confidence. Now they have little capacity to lend because interbank lending has dried up and so has their resources. They no longer trust each other and neither does government.

Government austerity is vital in the Eurozone to stave off bankruptcy and default. They inflicted themselves with this economic strait jacket now they are paying the price. The consequences of not implementing meaningful austerity is what you see right now in Greece.
I agree austerity will not solve unemployment, in fact it will increase it. However there really is no alternative.
Unemployment is misery but it cannot be solved until all the other components of the cycle are fixed first.

The only other alternative to that is creating a command economy and we all know where that leads. 😥

Business needs to get leaner, meaner and wiser to deal with the coming challenges of the global economy if we are ever to extricate ourselves out of this mess. A first step might be to change the hopeless direction of government within the European Union or better still get rid of it all together.

[Anonymous]

As I have said earlier there is no way to fix this. The collapse of the biggest financial bubble ever created has just begun. Either we pour more gasoline on the fire or we let it burn out and reform the system all together.

We are not even following the rules anymore. The CDS should have been triggered a long time ago and the easier we let it collapse the sooner we can start rebuilding again. Hopefully we won’t make the same misstakes again.

Gary you mentioned something very true in another thread: “Complicated financial instruments are the root of all evil”. This in itself should be the motto of every economist around the world. Economy is only made complicated by people that wants to use it as a tool to steal peoples money.

[angie]

Hooray, looks like Greece has been saved AGAIN by the loony Eurocrats, how long for this time? 😆

When will the attention switch to Portugal? When will other insolvent Eurozone countries want 70% of their debt written off?

When will those Banks etc taking their savage haircuts find they too are in financial difficulty and can’t lend as much to others?

It’s all Greek to me 🙄

[Author]

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