"No to layoffs! No to salary cuts! No to pension cuts! Do not bow your heads! Resist!"


that their debt would magically disappear without some kind of penalty ? Its not fair to modest, hardworking greek, but hey, it sucks to be greek this century.

They've had many rounds of this already and an increasing amount of families are actually starving and relying on food aid now.

The political parties who cut anything they have further are probably not going to fare well in upcoming elections. Also, cut peoples spending abiliy reduced their ability to buy and grow the economy. Catch 22!

California is next

Well they refuse. IMO, kind of interesting. This has happened before, not exactly the same, but very similar, before the second world war, if i dont remember wrong, 1938, Greece had similar economic situation. Nazigermany occupied Greece in 1941. And, fluffed it all up even more, and Germany still owns Greece, so Merkel and followers, go back to your factories and start to pay of the Greek Debt ;).

Well im usually a very positive man, and i believe that the world has become much better since sec world war and especially after we learned to split atoms, and the gift it gave us, a unlimited energy source. :P. I mean, it has built this world we live in to day. BUT.

I think personally that Europe is in big trouble now, not only in economic or energy crisis. Its has Nazi/nationalistic movements growing, as always in hard economic times, witch can or i believe will result in RACEWARS. :). To bad my parents immigrated here, i guess my whole family will get sent to working camps in northern Sweden,producing iron or something. Make tanks, to bomb like, some odd place like SYRIA!:P Pray for us!

True that many other greeks alike are starving and relying on whatever the government is giving them but do some honestly think that by refusing to 'bow' to foreign pressure to implement cuts and measure (which would affect the welfare and livelihood of most greeks), they would continue to live out their lives as if this is just an episode from a tv show ?

Doesnt defaulting on their national debt makes matter worse ? Their government should spends a couple million euro printing out brochures listing out what greece would be like not if, but when they default.

Creditors are willing (does being gagged,had a knife at your throat,with a gun pointing at your head, and 1 step of the ledge means willingness?) to almost certainly wiping off their debt. I personally wouldnt mind living like King tut himself with a few hundred billions for a few decades and then let my creditors what furniture i use or what kind of meal i could eat.

We have people doing strikes every now and then. And there's only 1 or a few objective to it. Demanding for a better pay, health care or whatever. Now that their country needs them, nobody wish to stand up. Not enough at least.

And flamey, most country has people relying on food stamp and gov aid. In order to grow the economy, you need $. In order to get $, you need a loan. In order to get a loan, you need to get your own spending in order. When the money comes, they could slowly and for sure, painfully simulate their economy back to a level where they could be self sustain. It would take a long time and my best guess is half a generation. But it seems that no greek would want to shoulder that burden that they have enjoyed so far and that annoys me the most.

There is a big misconception about how all Greeks were living a life of prosperity. Of course the politicians, military, civil service and tax-evading upper class have had a champagne lifestyle, pushing the average retirement age down. But the bulk of the country have been living a minimalistic life for a long time. It is these people now who are being kicked the most, you can hardly blame them for being angry, protesting and hating their politicians no matter what they do. Especially since every option left on the table for Greece is a bad one.

Loans are only a stopgap. You cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis, because eventually the interest will become so overwhelming that...well... that you become Greece. Real growth comes through the private sector, but there is little possibility of that happened when they are totally uncompetative with Germany, while pegged to the same currency/wage levels, etc. They are essentially left with two options:

1) Accept bail-out money, which mean making cuts imposed by foreign powers. These cuts are not set economically with future Greek growth set in mind, but rather at a level, which will make foreign governments able to justify to their own people about giving bail-out money. From the Greek people's perspective, they believe that Germany has and still is profitting of their backs and they should pay. They also claim it was Grermany and France who first broke EU financial rules. Also the banks are not going to wipe down their entire debt, but Greece is trying to get them to writedown 50%.

This action is akin to an IVA and it essentially means decades of decreasing lifestyles for the people, who blame other people.

2) Default and leave the Euro.

They'd have no more debt to pay and no more interest, but they couldn't borrow again, meaning that they'd have to make surplusses every year. They'd have to massively devalue whatever currency they are using and make themselves competative. However, the country could get taken over by a communist or fascist regime again and who knows what could happen. Although Argentina appear to have come out of defaulting with a democracy.

Doesn't matter what is safer or more sensible, when people are locked into certain mindsets like the people of Greece. They had to face decades of government oppression, so you can hardly blame them for not feeling very nationalistic and wanting to sacrafice themselves for their country.

just FYI devaluation is also equivalent to "cuts" in terms of lower standards of living because it makes foreign items more expensive for greeks

The unfortunate Greek people are experiencing the end result of years of deficit financing. Their government got around the rules of the common currency by issuing all sorts of municipal bonds. Unlike the US, where a State can't go bankrupt, Greece can. They sure aren't getting any sympathy from the French and Germans, and the Brits wisely stayed out of the whole mess at the start. So now the Greeks will suffer.

We should look at the parallel in the US, where States are doing just what the Greeks have done, California being a very good example. What will finally happen is the US will be in the same position as the Greeks are today. And like with the mortgage crisis where Deutschebank ended up holding all the foreclosed homes, the Chinese will own the US and be able to impose austerity measures. Americans can expect the same amount of sympathy as they are now giving the Greeks.

Meanwhile, keeping shopping at Walmart, yanks!

If Greece goes down then their biggest creditors will feel the pain, including other struggling Europeans and the whole system goes to hell.

I agree with most of what you say, however you lost me here:

"Americans can expect the same amount of sympathy as they are now giving the Greeks."

Are you implying that Americans should be helping to bail Greece out financially?

I'm not saying that the Americans should bail out the Greeks financially, Kitty. I'm really just suggesting that we shouldn't be too "Holier than thou" when we look at the financial crisis in Greece.

The Americans need to get their own finances under control very quickly or they will find themselves in the same boat. A sinking cruise ship :)

They can leave at their own expense. Right now they appear set on expecting everyone else to bail out their decisions. Not that the US is far behind in irresponsible decision-making. Ultimately the music stops and it becomes sink or swim.

What the majority greeks are doing are in fact implying that they DONT WANT THE PROBLEM NOR THE SOLUTION. They just want to keep living like they use to and 'everything will be fine'

To put it simply, put yourself in their shoe. You are a hardworking greek doing 8-10 hours of work everyday. You're doing an honest living till all this fluff came up. Then you guess you had enough and said, 'you know what? fluff you and your crap about me getting less pay and benefits i have been working my ass off' Its every greek for him/herself.

Now put yourself in the creditor's shoe.

They as a nation have an obligation to repay the debt with any means necessary. Just the same as i am with my mortgage and loans.

This is banker stupidity. Euro banks - mostly German - wanted to throw loans around like candy but never be forced to take the pain when any of those loans defaulted due to their own ridiculously incompetent risk analysis.

Banks should be forced to write down the loans rather than attempting to "make" Greece pay. There is nothing to "make" -- they already tried one round of austerity and Greek GDP collapsed more than the austerity measures. And England's economy should also point out the fact that austerity does nothing.

Bottom line is the banks must write down their debt to zero, and this whole charade is simply delaying the inevitable. The ideal outcome for the Greek economy is to repudiate the debt - default, and force the banks to mark it to the market price of zero. Iceland and Argentina's economies are doing great after they repudiated their debts and told the banks to pound sand when they kept coming back to "attempt" to force a nation to pay someone else.

It's got nothing to do with wage levels - in fact the wages of workers should be increased to allow for consumption to exist. Can't squeeze blood from a stone.

I agree with you Unsymapthetic about the banks. They should be forced to write off this debt, that never should have been loaned in the first place. But the German banks are were also supported by their government who want to lend the Greeks and everyone else money so that other countries can keep buying German. German exports exceed 1 trillion Euros last year. And one could argue that the Germans set this whole thing up in the first place. Having lost two wars for European domination, they are quite intent upon winning this one.

So now, if the Greeks default, they lose the common currency and return to a Drachma, greatly devalued. How will they buy oil then? The are completely snookered.

This is what happens when a system (be it socialist or capitalist) pays off the weak, lame, lazy and otherwise stupid investors (rich and poor) instead of valuing/rewarding hard work and smart investing. Banks across the board made bad loans, with fluffy analysis and then wonder why their money doesn't come back. These banks should be allowed to just fail. Smarter banks will do better. But I guess this is what happens when "everyone can be a winner."

It does beg the question though: Where did the money go? It didn't just vanish, so someone, somewhere has it...

I would love to see a list of people/corporations at the end of the money trail that are quietly counting their cash while a nation collapses on itself...

Oh yeah, and BONUS.

Germany "wanted" to loan money to continue the farce of being thought of as an "export" power, because if the German bank didn't lend the money Greece wouldn't have bought the products, and Germany's net wouldn't have been anywhere near that 1T.

So, now, Germany's leader is attempting to force Greece's citizens to pay for loans they should never have been given in the first place.. simply because she can't accept the reality that her bankers never did anything near appropriate risk management. This was a "liar's loan" at a national level.

If the Greeks default they return to a drachma that gives them the power to manage their own finances. The vast majority of greek debt is owned by greek banks, just like the US. Drachma devalues but nowhere near zero -- iceland is now growing faster than at any time since 2000, and they threw out the euro.

The only people with a problem when Greece devalues are German bankers - and CDS holders/writers depending on the position, of course. The greek economy is roughly the size of miami, so this isn't even a ripple to the worldwide economy other than the signaling effect this would have.

german and french banks mostly and they get loaned money and interest back when other countries and imf helps greece to pay its loans.

I can't help their naivity. I think my country is building toward a similar future letdown. So I'm active politically and I understand that because of the idiocy of borrow-spend-borrow cycle, I will probably be punished down the road. It's a way of life.

Also, 8-10 hours, ehhh... in fairness, I have never been to Greece, but my traversing of Italy taught me that work hours and vacation are seen far differently on the Mediterrean.

8-10 hours?

they got it easy

not to mention 13th and 14th months salaries.

Rubbish, our austerity plans have led to us having the lowest bond yields in our history. I'm sure you wanted us to follow the Labour plan of borrowing us out of existence.

zzz

Not British austerity but quantitative easing combined with low economic growth forecasts. (ie low inflation forecasts as well)

...

We'd be contracting without quantative easing and our inflation has been at 5% all year, its needs to come down.

I don't disagree with the policies, I disagree with what you're saying is the cause of the low yields. With inflation projected to fall well below target next year. The US and Germany are also with record low yields, it's mostly due to very accommodative monetary policy expectations and inflation being low.

Morgan Stanley's latest forecasts for UK economic indicators:
GDP 2011 2012 2013 (year end)
Bull 1.0 2.2
Base 0.9 0.5 1.8
Bear -1.0 0.4

CPI 2011 2012 2013
Bull 3.1 2.2
Base 4.5 2.7 2.0
Bear 1.2 1.5

BoE Base Rate 2011 2012 2013
Bull 0.5 1.5
Base 05 0.5 1.0
Bear 0.5 0.5


Not exactly pretty :/

err... those forecasts for Bull and Bear cases are 2012 and 2013 then

1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is
a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
- John Adams

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3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
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4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is
like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

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which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
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9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys.
- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian



10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors

to live at the expense of everybody else.
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phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if
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politics won't take an interest in you!
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17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
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