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How Do You Solve A Problem Like Syriza?
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
First off, no, I don’t think Syriza is a problem, I just couldn’t resist the Sound of Music link once it popped into my head, as in ‘headlines you can sing’. I think Syriza may well be a solution, if it plays its cards right. But that still leaves politicians and investors denominating Tsipras et al as a problem, if not a menace. Now, investors may not need to possess any moral values – though things would probably have been much better if that were a requirement -, but you can’t say the same for politicians. Politics is supposed to BE about moral values.
And supporting Samaras and his technocrat oligarchy, as has been the EU/Troika policy, doesn’t exactly show a high moral standard. Not just because trying to influence an election is an no-go aberration (though it’s so common in the EU you’d almost forget that), but certainly also because of what Samaras and the EU have done to the Greek people over the past few years. And neither does it show in what happens now, where the Greeks, steeped in Troika-induced misery as they are, are labeled greedy bastard cheats.
Since the EU lies as much about Greece as it does about Russia, it’s only fitting that the former should speak out for the latter. And it’s deliciously easy: the EU wants to step up sanctions against Russia (because the Ukraine shelled Mariupol?!), but EU sanctions decisions require unanimity. Since Greek-Russian relations have historically been close, Syriza resisting ever tighter sanctions should be no surprise.
At the end of the day, European taxpayers shouldn’t be angry at Greece, no matter how much their media try to stoke that anger, but at their own banks, governments and central banks. Things pertaining to Greece and its debt are not at all what they seem. Most of it is just another narrative originating in Brussels, Frankfurt and the financial media cabal. Not much is left of this narrative if we dig a little deeper. This from Mehreen Khan for the Telegraph today may be a little ambivalent in what it points to, but it certainly puts the Greek debt in a different light from the ‘official’ one:
Three Myths About Greece’s Enormous Debt Mountain
€317bn. Over 175% of national output. That’s the enormous debt mountain that faces the new Greek government. It is the issue over which the country is set to clash with other countries in the eurozone. As it stands, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the currency bloc. It has been steadily rising as the country has undergone painful austerity and experienced a severe contraction in economic output. The new far-left/right-wing coalition is now demanding a write-off of up to 50% of its liabilities. The government argues that this is the only way Greece can remain in the single currency and prosper.
According to the newly appointed finance minister, who first coined the term “fiscal waterboarding” to describe Greece’s plight, the EU has loaded “the largest loan in human history on the weakest of shoulders – the Greek taxpayer”. So far, the rest of the eurozone is adamant that it will not meet demands for debt forgiveness. And yet, the value of Greece’s debt mountain has been called a meaningless “accounting fiction” by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. So what does Greece’s €317bn debt really mean for the country and its creditors? And can it ever be paid back?
Myth 1: They can never pay it back. Ever. Never say never. On the issue of repaying back its liabilities, it’s more a question of time, rather than money. Greece has already been the beneficiary of a number of debt extensions, and in 2012, underwent the biggest private sector debt restructuring in history. The average maturity on Greek government debt currently stands at 16.5 years. The sustainability, or otherwise, of the country’s burden relies more on the timetable for repayment rather than the overall stock of the debt, argue many economists. The chart below shows the repayment schedule on the country’s €245bn rescue package and extends all the way out to 2054.
Source: Hellenic Republic Public Debt Bulletin
Although the question of cancelling any portion of the principal owed to Greece’s creditors seems to be a firm no-go area, the idea of further debt extensions could be an option. But as noted by Ben Wright, allowing Greece more time to payback its loans is still a fiscal transfer in all but name.
Myth 2: Greece is paying punitive interest rates. Not really. Greece has managed to negotiate favourable terms on which it can service the cost of its loans and the interest paid by the country is far below that of Spain, Ireland, and Portugal (see chart below). Think-tank Bruegel calculates that Greece paid a sum equal to around 2.6% of its GDP (rather than the widely quoted figure of around 4%) to service its loans last year. This is because Greece will actually receive back the interest it pays to the ECB should it continue to meet its bail-out conditions.
Even without a further renegotiation on interest payments, the costs could be even lower this year. In the words of economist Zolst Darvas from Bruegel:
Given that interest rates have fallen significantly from 2014, actual interest expenditures of Greece will be likely below 2% of GDP in 2015, if Greece will meet the conditions of the bail-out programme.
It is this combination of such long maturities and rock-bottom interest rates, that has led at least one former ECB governing board member to argue that Greece’s debt burden is far more sustainable than many of its southern neighbours.
Who owns Greek debt? (Source: Open Europe)
Myth 3: Greece won’t recover without debt forgiveness. Wrong again. For all the fixation on the outstanding stock of Greek debt, kickstarting growth in the country is more likely to happen through a relaxation of budget rules rather than a debt cancellation. With the coffers looking sparse, the Syriza-led government is also asking for a renegotiation of the surplus rules imposed on the country. Greece is currently required to run a primary surplus of 4.5% of its GDP. Before taking account of its debt interest payments, it is likely to achieve a primary budget surplus of around 3% of its national output this year. This severely limits the new government’s room for fiscal manoeuvre. It also makes it almost impossible for Syriza to fulfil its pre-election promises to raise the minimum wage and create public sector jobs.
According to calculations from Paul Krugman:
Dropping the requirement that Greece run a primary surplus of 4.5% of GDP would allow spending to rise by 9% of GDP, and that this would raise GDP by 12% relative to what it would have been otherwise. Unemployment would fall by around 10% relative to no relief.
None of this is to deny that Greece would hugely benefit from a significant debt cancellation. But the politics of the eurozone means that this is virtually impossible. However, there do seem to be other ways that Greece could start tackling its enormous debt mountain.
And if that is not enough to change your mind about what the reality is in the Greek debt situation, David Weidner at MarketWatch has more, from an entirely different angle, that nevertheless hammers the official narrative just as much, if not more. Weidner refers to work by French economist Eric Dor, as cited by Mish Shedlock last week. What Dor contends is that a very substantial part of Greece’s debt to EU taxpayers was nothing but Wall Street wagers gone awry.
Not exactly something one can blame the Greeks in the street for, just perhaps the elite and oligarchy. Instead of restructuring their banks, the richer nations of Europe, like the US, decided to transfer their gambling losses to the people’s coffers. And though there are all kinds of reasons provided, which even Weidner suggests may be ‘genuine’, not to restructure a banking system, in the end it is a political choice made by those who owe their power to those same banks.
The result has been that Greece was saddled with so much debt, they had to borrow even more, and the Troika could come in and unleash a modern day chapter of the Shock Doctrine. How convenient.
How Wall Street Squeezed Greece – And Germany
Europe’s political leaders and bankers would have you believe that the conflict between Greece and the European Union is a tug of war between a deadbeat nation and its richer ones who have come to the debtor’s aid time and time again. Instead, what most of these leaders miss is that it’s a bank bailout in plain view.
What’s really happened is that since Greece ran into serious trouble repaying its debts four years ago, Germany, France and the EU have instituted what can only be described as a massive bailout of its own financial system – shifting the burden from banks to taxpayers. Last week, Mike Shedlock republished research by Eric Dor, a French business school director, and it shows the magnitude of the shift. To put it simply, German taxpayers are on the hook for roughly $40 billion in Greek debt. German banks? Just $181 million, though they do hold $5.9 billion in exposure to Greek banks. Those numbers are a flip-flop from where things stood less than five years ago.
German banks were heavily exposed to Greek debt when the crisis began, but they’ve been bailed out and now German taxpayers are on the hook. French banks were similarly bailed out by the European Union.
This massive shift from private gains to public losses was done through the European Financial Stability Facility. Created in 2010, this was the European Union’s answer to the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury Department’s 2008 bailout program. There are some differences. The EFSF issues bonds, for instance, but the principle is the same. Governments buy bad bank debt and hold it on the public’s books.
The terms set by the EFSF are basically what’s at issue when we hear about Greece’s new government being opposed to austerity in their nation. The Syriza victory, which was a sharp rebuke to the massive cost-cutting in government spending, including pensions and social welfare costs, drew warnings from leaders across Europe. “Mr. Tsipras must pay, those are the rules of the game, there is no room for unilateral behavior in Europe, that doesn’t rule out a rescheduling of the debt,” ECB’s Benoît Coeuré said.
“If he doesn’t pay, it’s a default and it’s a violation of the European rules.” British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Twitter account said, the Greek election results “will increase economic uncertainty across Europe.” And Jens Weidmann, president of the German central bank, warned the new ruling party that it “should not make promises that the country cannot afford.” Those sound like very threatening words. And one wonders if these same officials made the same tough statements to Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Credit Agricole or SocGen when they were faced with potentially billions in losses when the banks were holding Greek debt.
European leaders such as Angela Merkel in Germany, Francois Hollande in France and Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb have been eager to beat down Greece and stir broader support at home by making it an us-against-them game. Not to deny that Greece’s financial troubles do threaten the European Union, but today’s crisis pitting nation against nation was created by these leaders in an effort to minimize losses at their biggest lending institutions. Perhaps the move to shift Greek liabilities to state-owned banks (Germany’s export/import bank holds $17 billion in Greek debt) was necessary, but that doesn’t make it fair, or the right thing to do. Europe, like the United States, seems to be at the beck and call of its financial industry.
Michael Hudson recognized this early on. In 2011 he wrote that in Europe there is a belief “governments should run their economies on behalf of banks and bondholders. “They should bail out at least the senior creditors of banks that fail (that is, the big institutional investors and gamblers) and pay these debts and public debts by selling off enterprises, shifting the tax burden onto labor. To balance their budgets they are to cut back spending programs, lower public employment and wages, and charge more for public services, from medical care to education.”
Yes, Greece overspent. But to do so, someone had to overlend. German and French banks did so because of an implicit guarantee by the EU that all nations would stick together. Well, the bankers and politicians have stuck together. Everyone else seems to be on their own. Merkel and the austerity hawks of Europe who won’t share the responsibility for a system’s failure are doing the bidding of banks. At least in Greece, the lawmakers are put into power by the people.
And that still leaves unaddressed that Greece as a whole may have overspent and -borrowed, but it was the elite that was responsible for this, egged on by the likes of Goldman Sachs, whose involvement in the creative accounting that got Greece accepted into the EU, as well as the derivatives that are weighing down the nation as we speak, is notorious.
The world’s major banks got rich off the back of the Greek population at large, and when their wagers got so absurd they collapsed, the banks saw to it that their losses were transferred to European -and American – taxpayers. And those taxpayers are now told to vent their anger at those cheating, lazy Greeks, who are actually notoriously hard workers, who have doctors prostituting themselves, and many of whom have no access to the health care those same doctors should be providing, and whose young people have no future to speak of in their own magnificently beautiful nation.
The Troika, the EU, the IMF, and the banks whose sock puppets they have chosen to be, are a predatory force that has come a long way towards wiping Greece off the map. And we, whether we’re European or American, are complicit in that. It’s Merkel and Cameron etc., who have allowed for their banks to transfer their casino losses to the – empty – pockets of the Greeks, and of all of us. That is the problem here.
And that’s what Syriza has set out to remediate. And for that, they deserve, and probably will need, our unmitigated support. It’s not the Greek grandmas (they’re dying because they have no access to a doctor) who made out like bandits here. It’s the usual suspects, bankers and politicians. And you and I, too, are eerily close to being the usual suspects. We should do better. Or else we are dead certain of being next in line.
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Can you say nail guns and air planes bitchez
Every ECB/IMF banker who visits Greece should be ISIS'd....head severd and served back to Brussels on a silver platter.
bank forgiveness will then be a cinch soon enough
Syriza & problem shouldn't collide in the same sentence unless you're a scum banker...
Yeah socialism never creates problems, no way Greece will end up in worse shape.
How do you get Greeks to pay taxes?
It ain't happening.
be patient grasshopper
"So what does Greece’s €317bn debt really mean for the country and its creditors? And can it ever be paid back?"
A question for every country on Earth. The answer... No, debt is money. Without debt, there is no money. Therefore, more debt is more money. And every filthy, rich oligarch likes more money.
The Euro monetary system was a disaster-waiting-to-happen from the get go. But please don't go around defending Greece. That country is nothing but a third-rate banana republic that never qualified by any stretch of the imagination to join the Euro or any other economic group of developed economies. Greece (and the Greeks) are thoroughly corrupt, bureaucratic, and yes LAZY! So please spare us the BS - the sooner they are kicked out of the Euro, the better for all involved (including the Greeks, who can then dedicate themselves to destroying their economy via Venezuelan style Marxist economics).
Kind of mean guy--you are talking about a whole country. And what is your problem with bananas and the republics that grow them?
They should not have qualified to join the Euro, except they did but for the "creative" accounting of GS... and the need the Merkel and Germany to have more countries buy their wonderfully made crap, which they could not afford. Everyone knew this would not end well, but did it anyway, b/c in the end it's the average moron that's going to pay the bill.
Those lazy Greeks, what have they ever done for society, except for their important contributions in: Mathematics, Medicine, Astronomy, Philosophy, and let's not forget Democracy.
You useful idiot, you.
.
Not for 2000 years they haven't.
Hey you fucking shithead, I'm Greek and I can promise you that my piss has done more work in this world than you.
There is a pretty strong theory that we all owe Greece for making it impossible for Hitler to win WWII.
Aside from being utterly irrelevant to the question of what effect Syriza's policies will have on the Greek economy (the answer being: catastrophically negative), that's an idiotic misreading of history.
nothing about mario dragi deal with greeks gov. in the late 90s
greek gov. debt to gdp was bigger that manchester treaty allow to be a member of eu
goldman fix that. do the swap deal - usd for draghma- in books did look good
first greek get usd, get membership in eu and then they have to return that usd
banks do strong interconection in eu with buying gov. debt
greek banks fall, banks all ready in deep red buy more greek debt.. eu taxpayer get bill
unite europe is old idea but before they try with force and now with debt. everybody in eu is indebted to german. ( where the fuck german get all this money?)
nice to see how thinks is blowing in there face
greeks fight the power
fight the power
im thump up for syrza
Athens, February 26, 2013
....
"Why is Soros funding such anti-capitalist instigators like Cipras with his tirades against Germany? No one talks aloud about this out of fear before the powerful billionaire. But one manager confidentially supposed that, "Soros wants to revenge against Germany."
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/59853.htm
i think they solve those problems with nail guns and slip and falls
great comment that I would up tick if the site would allow...??? as it has allowed me to do with other comments just now??
You can't mouse click a vote because he used an italics quote without a leading indent like I used in this sentence. (Pretty sure indent works) You can still up or down vote by clicking on the post number ( http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/how-do-you-solve-problem-syriza... ) hit your tab key 4 times. Hit enter.
I swear I just checked the market 20 minutes ago and it was down 14. Now it's down over 100. Weird shit going on.
you can say that again. they are really out there stop hunting today
Make that -250
This question was already answered this morning. The author needs to read moar ZH...
Greece does with its EU "reparations" exactly what Germany did with its Versailles "reparations"...
What's Merkel going to do say? "Germany fucked up and was irresponsible..."
Ghordius laid it out perfectly here - the RentenDrachma.
Apparently Dijsselbloem just told Varoufakis at the conclusion of a meeting that he has killed the Troika.
http://www.chaniapost.eu/?p=15006
If Greece is capable of paying off the €317bn public debt as the author suggests it must do so from a corresponding increase in private debt and that is not going to happen in an economy in depression.
Money is created through the issuance of debt after all.
+1
Let the "Socialists" issue public debt. The issue for Greece and the banksters isn't really the money or the corresponding debt anyway, it's the accounting problem and preventing the realization of actual losses or triggering a contingent demand on current money (e.g. a credit event with derivatives) until it's someone else's problem. At the end of the day the decision makers are all politicians or bankers on both sides, and neither side is going to get everything they want or everything they have promised to their various constituencies. So what solution would "cost" everyone (who has a say in the matter) the least and still allow everyone to save face?
"You fucked up. You trusted us." - Eric Stratton
They would have enjoyed a festival had they immediately arrested all the politicians and bankers that got them into the EU in the first place.
Banning GS from ever doing business in the country would be a good start.
The TROIKA is not the problem.
I would have loved to upvote your two first sentences, but alas my green arrow fell short at the final one...
How do you solve a problem like Syriza?
How do you take a bank and bail it out?
How do you find a way to stop Syrizaaaa?
A CIA hit ... a drone with a lit - tle bomb.
Many o' things you know they're gonna fuck up,
Many o' things that Brussels has had planned!!!
So how do you make them pay ... their debts to the german banks?
How do you stick their heads back in the sand?
Oh how do you solve a problem like Syrizaaaa?
How - do you force - those - greeks - to - play - your - hand?
Not bad...it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it.
Julie Andrews could, and she could "do the band."
Her words, not mine;)
Damn cute, Smegley.
(To "A problem like Maria", for those under 85)
Thanks. Am wayyyyyyy under 85, but I loves me some old time musicals.
Back when people could sing, dance, and act.
Yeah, I miss music, and all the rest.
Cute. Sad to say, probably not far from the truth either.
i can't believe anyone would think that hard about this subject. i need a couple of aspirin after scanning that stuff.
Talking his book. What ya want to bet that stuff is as liquid as Imperial Russian bonds about now?
Sock puppets?
Like the ones on ZH, only in person?
... the eurozone could make up the difference with about eight days’ output ... or an hour’s money-printing by the ECB.
The back- tracking of the Syriza government appears to have already begun.
New Greek government agrees to continue EU sanctions against Russia.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/01/29/eu-convinces-new-greek-govt-to-extend...
So, maybe there really is no problem (for EU, NATO, et al)
Wonder what they were bribed/threatened with.
reality sure is a bitch.....
I marked you up but the jury's still out on that, as Varoufakis seems to be saying that the new Greek government was not consulted before the EU's "unanimity" press spin:
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/01/29/a-question-of-respect-or-lack-thereof
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/new-greek-finance-minister-has-...
Other reports say the new government was responsible for 1) sanctions not being increased; and 2) inflammatory anti-Russia rhetoric being removed; and that the "extensions" were only part of a largely previously-agreed deal that did not involve the new guys.
So you may be quite right but I will still reserve judgment here.
I am glad someone is giving those pompus ECB ass bags a hard time. Greece will probably get steam rolled. But at least they are putting up some fight.
nominal GDP plain fugly
real GDP expected +3.2% with 1% deflator ... making expected nominal +4.2%
what we got-
"Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the production of goods and services in the United
States -- increased 2.5 percent, or $110.9 billion, in the fourth quarter to a level of $17,710.7 billion. In
the third quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 6.4 percent, or $271.6 billion."
nominal +2.5% less than real +2.6% because deflator actually slightly NEGATIVE
100 = 2009
Q3 108.643
Q4 108.638
Hang the money-changers!
Tear them limb from limb and burn their remains!
Calculations by Paul Krugman... Zerohedge regulars approve!
Haven't these loans/debts been the tool for destruction from individuals all the way up to entire nations for ages now?
Screw debt if it's geared to enslave. At least with war there is a fighting chance.
The Unwitting Dupes Of The NWO
wtf happened to Dow? No one wants to hold for weekend
10yr yield
1.66
monetary hot potato!
despite gold catching a bid today the mining sector is pretty flat "sad face"
I think some old farts woke up and dialed 1-800-SELLMYIRA.
Dow down 231 with 8 minutes left to go.
I cashed out some VIX calls.
Syriza has only one worthwhile option - default. Total and complete bankruptcy. Abandon the Euro and tell its creditors to pound sand.
I do not see a solution to the problem of promising (and delivering) more than income permits.
Greece has the spot light at the moment but every country in the Western world will soon face this issue. US Social Security is still paying, not because there is money in the trust fund 'lock box' (sorry but that always cracks me up) but because the US government can borrow to make this months payments....same as Greece was doing. The rest of the world, needing a 'safe place' (that one has me rolling on the floor puking with hilarity) to store excess production, still lends to us. Thus the world is awash in debt, awash in assets which are the flip side of that debt and looking forward nervously to the day when all those asset want to be converted into real things. The end will come when nervousness turns to panic.
For now Germany and France and Italy are all paying their bills. They are all just like Greece though. Every one of these countries are on a course to spend and promise more than they bring in in taxes. There is not the slightest thought to changing course. As the dollar gets 'stronger' the problem of delivering promises will just get harder until the world decides on a better way to take care of itself and find a better way to store excess production for future use.
As I look as commodities falling in value vis a vis the dollar I wonder which day will be the day that these changes happen. I suspect it will be rather sudden. Greece wil be forgotten then and it will be every man for himself as the dream of socialism dies. I think eventually that will be a good day but only in retrospect. The process will be painful.
Syriza had 22 days to make history. This is how they did it. We followed Syriza's activists, candidates and leadership from the waterfront, to remote mountain villages, to the nail biting final days. Please share this video.
This is an independent documentary, directed by Theopi Skarlatos (@TheopiSkarlatos)
The end of austerity and straight into collapse. Syriza wants to perpetuate the old socialist tax and spend, borrow and spend out of control statism. Subtle problem, they have run out of other peoples money to finance their little socialist dream world and Germany together with the rest of the EU will be damned if they get blackmailed by some Grexit story.
Neither austerity nor spending is the solution. What Greece and the whole world needs is producing and living within one's means and the first step towards this is to either write off or at least freeze all current payments in respect of debt.
The world needs time out from the debt tsunami to get its house in order so as to enable interest rates to eventually go back to normal levels otherwise capital will be destroyed by cheap interest rates as people seek refuge in riskier and riskier assets for some form of return only to lose their capital as well. Not to mention of course all the malinvestment.
Paramount of course to all this is a shrinkage of the role of government as circumstances permit.
Paramount of course to all this is a shrinkage of the role of government as circumstances permit
Pete
Agree with everything you just said. But where is the part about the laundry list of punishments to the bankers, legislators and lobbyists for all of the lawlessnesss they've contributed in the last decade alone that has claimed well over 2 1/2 to 3 million people and counting...
If you want to make it stop you have to be prepared to bring out the "blind folded lady with the scales" that includes throw away jail keys and six foot ropes! And lots of them...
If this doesn't present itself the situation will never change for the better!!!
I'm not so sure they won't be blackmailed. Every day that passes with Syriza and the EU butting heads, the anti-EU parties in Europe are gaining points. That's why Le Pen cheered Syriza on. Even though Syriza is not anti-EU, they makes the EU look very bad. The more they talk, the worse the EU looks.
1.5 million workers went on strike yesterday in the biggest political strike in Norwegian history.
Trade unions struck against the right-wing government’s attempts to reform labour laws.
Norway on the same path as the PIGS and America?
Get rid of unions, pensions, public workers, middle class, mom and pop biz, everything. Everyone can now suffer equally. Yet taxes continue to go up and billionaires continue to consolidate the world.
Fuck it.
No bother explaining
Governments always default. Bonds are a suckers' bet. Everyone knows this. No one owns bonds. They rent them.
Eventually someone is left holding the bag
Has Syriza arrested any banksters?
No?!
Tool.
LOL
The banksters need to repay us.
"Same as it ever was."
Dropping the requirement that Greece run a primary surplus of 4.5% of GDP would allow spending to rise by 9% of GDP, and that this would raise GDP by 12% relative to what it would have been otherwise
How can you take anyone who says this seriouly. Every dollar that the government spends is a dollar it HAS to take from someone else- from the private sector. So let me ask you is communist cuba or hong kong the country you want to emulate?
The EU represented by Dijsselbloem and Schulz having failed to convince Yanis V and Tsipras...
they come to Paris to talk to Hollande.
One gets the impression that Hollande since his "Je suis Charlie" meeting has become the lodestone of Euro angst psychotherapy, whether it be to solve Jihadist terrorista threats or Greek souvlaki "free rides".
What can Hollande achieve?
Can he repackage Greek's "no stretch a bad paradigm imposed by Troika" to a good paradigm can kicking exercise?
I doubt it.
But he can shield Mutti from a revolt by the PIIGS who will want to avoid a spread spiral if Grexit becomes inevitable.
The attack by the HF on all of Club Med could be devastating if they find "Doing whatever it takes" of Draghi has lost its wheels.
Ultimately, the Greek revolt could spell a new market attack on the Club Med countries that even Draghi's QE announcement could not foil. As the confidence between North and South would de destroyed and the market sharks would circle round Club Med like in 2010/2011.
Greece could be a catalyst both ways for better or for worse to a chain reaction. It could go the wrong way bigtime.
And that would sink the Euro and sink also the FED/US stock bubble.
When the greek horse shoe could signal battle lost!
The US actually benefits from an EU collapse. It's called capital flight. You'll see a huge infusion of European money into the US. Modern economics are based on pyschology and the US is top dog. EU money wont be going to Russia or China. It's coming straight to the US
But the US does not KNOW how to use over liquidity.
Can you not understand that the Western economies live in a problem which is STRUCTURAL and no amount of electronic money running around can solve that as it ALL ends up in sterile casino plays.
The down side risks in EU, in US, in BRICS, in Japan, cannot be solved by liquid money.
They only make the rich richer, the poor poorer and the divide looks like Grand canyon until the world hits the Thelma and Louise moment.
99% poor means we are all in the big void.
I agree that the problem is structural but the US will be the last one out of the game. The rest of the world burns first. The of course infinite economic growth is unattainable and sooner or later people will have to live within their means.
The US loses the most when the whole financial web burns. Its their empire so its their POWER and wealth loss.
The new paradigm will not be BW/UN and subsequent NWO Pax Americana. It will be a very different world.
Can someone please explain to me what the banks stole from Greece? Greece literally produces nothing and has some of the best social programs in the world. If anything the Greek government stole from the EU.
What they stole from Greece was their future. Or rather, control by Greece of its own future. The EU can now keep Greece on a string and control the Greek budget and spending. By forcing austerity on Greece there is no room for Greece to change or improve or ever grow their economy.
Horseshit. Like I said greece produces nothing and they don't want to cut their social programs. So far they have been trying to and everyone just voted for more unfunded social programs. Greece is fucked, EU or not.
I holidayed there before, enjoyed it and will do so again. I pay, they collect . They provide a service that I want. Unlike the FED, IMF, that has the backing of the Big Banksters who unproductively remove the cream off the top and sour the milk.
Greece does not "literally" produce nothing.
The land in Greece is valuable. A warm, sunny Mediterranean climate, with islands and clear waters, a strategic location, the probability of natural gas off the shpres of Crete, superb agricutural products...
Their social programs are in shambles. Have you been to a Greek hospital lately?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/15/recessions-hurt-but-auste...
Is the labour of millions of people who aren't even sperm yet enough for you?
An interesting listen on the situation in Greece since Syriza's victory took place earlier in the week with Web Tarpley.
Interesting lessons especially the relationship with the British banks inside Athens after WWII.
Certainly not sure all of his predictions are correct, especially the one regarding staying with the Euro currency for payment versus an alternative "basket" but much of what he has to say is spot on that it could definitely be "the blueprint" for restructuring to other European Union States still on the fence.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/30/webster-tarpley-an-examination-of-how-syriza-won-in-greece/
Socialist/Communist thinking process will solve nothing and will DEFINATELY make the problems worse!
The mensa candidates have already cancelled the sale of a utility and gold mining operation that would bring billions in desperately needed capital!
Unfortunately freeloading is a part of the Greek DNA probably because of decades of Marxist brainwashing! It's over - especially with this young niave idealist at the helm!
Q: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Syriza?
A: Recycle all socialists/communists/parasites/thieves.
This comment is to Raul Meijer.
You are ignoring so many aspects of reality, it's a bit pathetic. First of all, 80% of Greece's debt is not owed to official creditors. Private creditors took a partial write-down during Bailout 2 / PSI. But defaulting on the debt now causes a chain default on official budgets of the Eurozone and EFSF. So ultimatly, there is no damage to private banks, but to Spain, Portugal, ireland, Cyprus and all the other Eurozone countries that lent to Greece.
You are also assuming that SYRIZA is some kind of immaculately-conceived "clean hands" reformist political party that believes in free markets. This is the height of stupidity. They are a Eurocommunist party that believes in nationalising nearly everything, including infrastructure, universities, hospitals etc. They have already reinstated thousands of useless public servants, and reinstated studies for life at public universities.
At one point, it would be useful if you understood facts on the ground, rather than recycling other people's analysis and adding your own stereotypes. It might be great for your website traffic, but it does very little for your credibility.
Thank you. At least some sane people read ZH too.
To complicate matters further you need to look no further than the braintrust who runs, operates & dictates EU policy. All are failed former, socialists, communists, Stazi's, Nazi's, Marxists & Maoist mental cases! SYRIZA actually fits in pretty well!
On behalf of Mr. Panos, let me just just say "FUCK YOU MALACA. "
the real threat now is TTIP etc, thats how they re going to overcome... EU will sign this year, halleluja and good bye freedom, civil rights etc
Re: your myth # 1.
You need to supply empirical evidence to support your position.
As I don't agree with you I will just say that I have never seen a case of a sovereign paying off debt. The biggest myth is that sovereign borrowers intend to repay their debts.
All things being equal, a big debt writedown would be positive for Greece's economy.
But Syriza's communist ideology will cause them to bloat the public sector and attack the private sector which would be negative for the economy.
So, after all the fuss, Greeks may not really be any better off than before. Pensions will probably be paid in drachmas rather than euros, so retirees and people about to retire will probably be hurt the most.
Tourists might benefit though. Vacations there got fairly expensive when Greece went on the euro. Maybe they will become cheap again when Greece goes off the euro.
They are ultimately faced with 2 really tough choices:
1. No more Euros to buy anything or
2. Drachmas with nothing to buy
Debt write-down would also be anti-deflationary for the euro zone.
There is no solution to irrational & twisted socialist thinking!
They can't wrap their head around the fact PRODUCTIVE people are only motivated by personal gain & achievement.
Their utopian dream of a caring & sharing equal distribution society of rainbows & unicorns is extremely dangerous & usually catastrophic!
Do you really believe that?
that Europe is about caring and sharing? Really?
Can I sell you some papers that I hope to use to raise money to help people suffering in New York?
I know it's easy to pile on to Goldman and the BANKS, but I am tired of hearing this is all their fault or the fault of the Greeks' bailors. The problem is structural because it (the euro) is literally built on a foundation of sand. To get to the point, this is all about socialism, Keynesianism, cronyism, and reckless government on all sides. When you create a fiat money system and fail to enforce the limits of your fellow countries' spending and debt, then what would you expect? They were supposed to keep deficits less than 3% but everyone exceeded it. Especially those PIIGS. So these socialist governments racked up huge debts to fund their welfare programs until they ran out of money. So, fine, blame Goldman, et al. for financing their debt? Blame Germany and France for letting these guys borrow down their surpluses? Everyone here is at fault but I don't think Goldman crammed debt down their throats. I don't think the creditor countries are at fault for demanding repayment. Yes, it was totally wrong for banks to be bailed out of this by taxpayers, but what can you expect in a crony-capitalist-layered-over-a-socialist system? They are all stuck in a corrupt monetary and fiscal system that can't be fixed with add-ons, more debt, and bailing wire. I can't see how Syriza is a solution to anything--more socialism won't work. Conclusion: kiss off Greece. They are doomed to perpetual poverty unless they implement total structural (capitalist) reform. What are the odds of that?
The politicians were co opted by the bankers to borrow excessively in the name of the people they were "governing"/ leading to the slaughter house.
On behalf of Mr. Panos let me just say "FUCK YOU MALACA".
True... True...
If it could be explained how govs are separate from banks I'd agree. Most nation states are merely branches of the global scheme, although Greece just got a renegade board of directors. Only micro community based non corporate existence will fix anything, globalism is the most abject of failures, but that won't happen until it all goes boom.
Solving a problem like Syriza is cake. Have your men in Athens ask the army what it's worth to them to turn Syriza into hamburger.
If that falls through, have NATO do the job for you.
Syriza is the tip of the iceberg.
Standard US/CIA play book sequence in preferred order:
i) Buy out the leaders.
ii) Regime change and put your own man in place.
iii) Kill the leaders and put your own man in place.
iv) Destroy the place so no one else can have it.
BTFD
Every opinion piece on Greece has a binary blame structure, assigned 100% to either the 'bankers' or the 'profligate Greeks'. As in most cases the truth lies in between. But I will say this. Nobody forced the Greeks to borrow all that money. And they freely chose the politicians who promised them the most free stuff.
So you would not blame the Piper for luring the children?
Who printed those billions to give out anyway?
Who did the fraud job of credit ratings?
Who did the manipulated financial statement?
Those in power like the Banks and Brussels must take all blame for a scheme that has clearly failed.
Nobody asked them to become leaders. They fought to become leaders.
Now take some fucking responsibility.
I am talking about European Leaders of course.
Stop blaming the common people.
Mises said that people get the government they deserve.
With the absolute monopolisation of all media, and the amount of propaganda it puts out, not to mention the subliminal crap that is being exposed, I'd say people "choosing" leaders is not quite the modern case.
You need an above average IQ and a perversely enquiring mind thesedays to even be 'arsed' to try decipher what is going on. So people just accept a still very reasonable (in historical terms) status quo. Very sad but very true. Just hope some good knowledge and people come out of the other side of this shite!!!
Goddammit Raul! You're a decent guy, but you apparently still believe that a debt-as-money-with-usury-attached system is sustainable.
It's not.
Godspeed.
1) QE and bail-out all Greek junk-bonds in EUR and default to ECB.
2) Never lend to them anymore.
3) Get them out of EUR and return Drachma.
4) Now they can monetize their newly Drachma bonds by printing moar Drachma.
5) Hyperinflation in Venezuela style kick-in.
6) Problem solved.
7) Enjoy the spectacle.
Exhibit A: Deflation in the euro zone.
Exhibit B: Greece threatening to ditch the euro, accelerating euro zone deflation, due to crushing debt.
Exhibit C: Debt relief is instant monetary stimulus.
Seems like debt relief for Greece would be economic penicillin for the euro zone right now.
Raul Ilargi Meijer has exposed the mythology of the financial media propaganda. And shows the way these financial debt criminals can be found out and stopped.
The Question is what’s the overlap between the Eurozone financial controllers and the G-20 controllers? Here’s a little history:
A map of Europe as viewed by Goldman would picture Goldman’s international network of financiers who dominate the political systems of all the countries through their shadow agencies, reps and central banks. After all, Goldman is more powerful than any one of these countries, or all of them together for that matter.
At each turn of the crisis, Goldman et al., conceive another level of commissions, agencies, working groups and financial entities in numbers beyond imagination, all with confusing names, all with one common ingredient—unelected and charged with issuing financial rules governing the citizens for the benefit of the solvency of the big investment banks. All in secret.
The banksters' trick is to use terms and acronyms and technical meanings different from what they imply and so absurd that the average citizen is totally deceived. Then there’s no way to figure out exactly who’s wrecking this thing. It’s all in the shadows. For instance:
On April 2, 2009, the members of the G-20 created the Financial Stability Board, ”operating as an arm of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), that now structures and dictates, Soviet style, the rules and regulations to be carried out by the central banks of the world…operating independently of national congresses or parliaments." Its chair was none other than Goldman’s Mario Draghi, also a member of the board of directors of the BIS. The BIS Board also included Goldman’s former managing director of Investment Banking, Mark Carney, who had a 13-year career with Goldman before becoming the Governor of the Bank of Canada and a member of BIS (moving on to control the Bank of England). Another BIS Board member is William Dudley, president of the New York Fed and former Partner at Goldman.
Goldman’s Draghi now is the appointed head of the European Union Central Bank.
Then, in May of 2010, the European Union created the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) as “a special purpose vehicle financed by members of the Eurozone to combat the European sovereign debt crisis…aiming at preserving financial stability in Europe by providing financial assistance to Eurozone states in economic difficulty." This one’s headquartered in Luxembourg City, headed by a former Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs after having previously worked for the IMF and the German Ministry of Finance.
“Although there is no specific statutory requirement for accountability to the European Parliament, the Facility is expected to operate a close relationship with relevant committees within the EU,” says Wikipedi. Mmm
All, like Greenspan and Bernanke and Yellen and Fischer and Leguarde and Tusk and Zoellick and Wolfowitz and Wolfensohn and Lew and Rubin and Summers and Dimon and Blankfein and Regling…, unelected and unaccountable.
What’s next? As intended, the global monetary system is too deliberately entangled for the people to untangle. It’s time to cut these strings that are binding the people to the debt slavers. Meijer points the way.
Q: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Syriza?
A: The same way that you would solve the problem of any parasite, eg tick, leech, etc, sucking your life blood.
Who's A$$ were you probing, Or are they Probing Yours?
I believe your on the wrong Feild.