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How Do The Greeks Really Feel?
With speculation growing of a Greek pivot from The Twilight Zone to The Eurasian Zone, the following somewhat mind-numbing chart tells you all you need to know about how The Greek people feel...
Despite all the western propaganda...
the gap grows...
Chart: Goldman Sachs
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Time to bomb Athens to save Athens?
<Where's Dick Cheney when you need him? Now there's an unknown unknown.>
rumsfeld
< It's just you
< I smell it too
Is it just me or does anyone else find it difficult to believe that some outfit was polling 1000 Greeks about the competency of Russia's leadership back in 2009?
What I cannot believe is that the EU is on an upswing. I would have guessed that the curve would look like a ball rolling off a table top.
The Greeks are hardcore masochists.
Evidently I may be as well gauged by the large number of up-ticks on my previous post...
Like a Rolling Stone (sisyphus).
Goes way back, but it remains the human condition.
Every economy is now fiat based with the debt that goes with it.
We are all debt slaves (if not personally in debt, then your government or company is a debtor), with various liquidity conditions, some can make minimum payments, others not.
What's next ?
Would be cool pivot to Star Trek and lightspeed, now.
Ghordius hates it when I bring this (fact) up, but the seeds of the EU's terminal illness, inevitably causing a breakup of said union, were congenital as they were included in the very document that gave birth to the EU.
Greece is already gone. The writing is on the wall, and statement of the obvious is the only thing the clueless are waiting on.
But it gets worse; Portugal can't grow nor debase its way out of its current economic crisis, either, given the constraints it also has to work under due to its EU Member status.
Italy & Spain are in real negative growth territory, too (don't let the ECB money printing via asset purchases fool you into mistaking nominal growth for real economic growth, and this is more profound given the artificially low prices both Italy & Spain are allowed to sell additional debt at due to Draghi), and there's not a good fundamental prognosis for either nation given their debt loads, demographics, and structural cancer.
Look for a very whittled down EU to remain intact once the tide fully washes in and sweeps away the detritus.
It's going to be a long, tortuous process, with every central banker, politician, pro-EU economist and "journalist" talking up the odds of the EU remaining even remotely intact in the form it once existed in.
"Look for a very whittled down EU "
DE FR PL and the dogshit Baltics
DE PL and the dogshit Baltics
DE and the dogshit Baltics
.....DE
One more curve is needed on that chart: "Approve of none of the above."
That word "fact" does not mean what you think it means.
"fact" Or the word "is." Just ask slick Willy.
They must be, to get soddomized over and over.
Farqued ->. This chart is strange if you add up the two percentages for each question, they do not add up to 100% so either, % of Greeks refused to answer, % some did not participate, and Gold-men Sachs did not provide the actual answers from all 1000, or negated answers for the other 50% polled.
Just sayin' the chart shows desending participation in such polling as well.
If some one polled me about elephants and donkeys I might tell the pollster to bug off they both suck.
perfectly plausible for a Russian polling organization to be interested in that number at that date
Gallupski?
That is the Polish polling organization. I think you are looking for Gallupov.
On a previous thread I posted the following:
The MSM has been demonizing Putin extensively of late that any attempt to align with Russia will be met with political blowback. I'm not saying it's the wrong strategy, just that there are costs associated with such a move...
After seeing the chart above, I now say, OK...maybe not!
;-)
sucks
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
How Does Greek Really Feel?
Not very good when they are bent over and taking it without lube.....
I believe it was Ron White who said: You can't fix stupid.
It's taken me a long time, but I've come to realize that no matter how much you love someone, you can't fix stupid.
It's odd, but I'm starting to see why the 'elite' behave the way they do. You see, I can educate, I can indoctrinate, I can subjugate... anyone- but I can't fix stupid.
I'll bet you know how fortunate you are to have a life partner like Mrs. Cog. May God bless (and I ain't religious) and keep you whole and safe from stupid.
ah yes, the american way. lmao
Theys backs against the wall and they buttocks be clinched.
Many Greeks are realizing that they are debt slaves. No matter how hard you try, it is hard to love your masters.
What is the chance that Greece can ever pay off its debt? Less than zero. So Greeks better be looking for a way out. That is what the polls show. The Greek government keeps trying to appease its owners though:
Syriza government submits new list of austerity proposals to Greece’s creditors
By Robert Stevens28 March 2015
The Greek Syriza-led government sent a list of austerity measures to its international creditors on Friday.
Syriza’s proposals have to be agreed by the “Brussels Group”, consisting of the Eurogroup, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), before any of the outstanding €7.2 billion in loans can be made available to the bankrupt state.
The government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had previously agreed to send the list by Monday. Specific austerity measures were demanded of Greece following last week’s summit of European leaders.
The content of Syriza’s proposals has not yet been publicised, but the conservative daily newspaper Kathemerini has reported that they include some €3 billion in “much-needed revenue.” Other measures include pro-business “reforms to improve Greece's investment climate,” as well as “privatizations, such as regional airports.”
The government’s position on the possible lifting of VAT exemption is unclear, and it is also not known whether or not there will be an extension of the hated property tax.
It is by no means certain that these measures will be enough to convince the creditors, especially as Syriza claimed for days beforehand that the list will not include “recessionary” measures such as cuts to salaries and pensions.
Greece will be unable to make it past April 20 without access to external funding, Reuters reported. Such a scenario would quickly trigger a default on a total debt of €320 billion.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/28/gree-m28.html
And by comparison our Congress has been operating with a %14 +- approval rating for quite some time. Baaaa, Baaaaa, Baaaaaaaaaa........
Go Vlad. Everybody loves Putin.
Everybody just wants to avoid the inevitability of a global unipolar shithole neocon bankster police state world.
As circumstances would have it Putin and China are now our only hope.
Because Obama.
I need whatever excuse or plan they give to get out of this mess.
April 15 coming quick.
No more sirtakis time for russian dance.
< Russian Leadership V.P.
< US "Leadership" V.J.
Considering that the Greeks and the Russians had to fight Germany in WWII not surprising.
And what has Europe done for Greece, other than act as an unscrupulous loan shark?
The aqueduct ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE
Plenty of money for infastructure for instance. Europe has done a lot for Greece.
You need to make a distinction between the EU development funds on the one hand, and the ECB's policy of being a debt collector and commercial banks lending money on the other hand.
Equivocation is a mental disorder.
No, thinking that equivocation is a mental disorder, is a mental disorder. Who gets to determine what is right? You?
It is becoming clear that the EU is the 4th Reich, ostensibly headquartered in Brussels but bossed by Berlin. Greece is just a symptom.
The Euro is the key mechanism for centralization of power in Germany. Germany, with its uber-efficient factories, disciplined labor force, and high tech, overpowers the manufacturers of all the other EU countries. German exports grow and Germany runs huge trade and financial surpluses. Other nations in the EU cannot adjust the value of their currency or interest rate policies to regain competitiveness. The Euro is a boon to Germany and a strait-jacket for the other members of the Euro zone.
Greece is a sub-prime buyer/borrower from Germany. Any European in business knows the history and reputation of Greece as a very bad credit risk. But, with Greece in the Euro, Germany sells vast amounts of goods and services to Greece, while German, French, and Italian banks provide the vendor-financing. The banks know they can rely upon their governments to arrange a bail-out if Greece does not pay. Sure enough, when the EU banks and economies catch contagion in 2009 and 2010 from the 2008 US sub-prime meltdown, the governments of Germany, France and Italy engineer a bail-out of their banks through the Troika "bail-out" of Greece.
In the "Greek bailout", Greece is saddled with the cost of relieving the German, French, and Italian banks of the worthless Greek sovereign bonds and Greek bank IOUs they took as collateral for Euros advanced to Greece and Greek banks. The Greek treasury is now the debtor for all the bail-out funds, and austerity is imposed on the Greek government to prioritize debt repayment over all other expenditures. Greece goes into a depression and suffers 25% overall unemployment, 55%+ youth unemployment, and massive social suffering. The rest of the "PIIGS" are treated similarly, with the EU forcing all of them to adopt austerity as the new economic/budgetary remedy for debt and lack of competitiveness. Austerity has similar effects in all the PIIGS.
Greek voters elect Syriza to get relief from austerity and to stop the fire-sale of Greek assets under IMF rules. But the voters want to keep the Euro and stay in the EU. Tsipras and Varoufakis stopped the sale of assets and are playing out the charade of seeking relief from austerity, and seeking debt relief, knowing full well that the Troika and Germany (see Schaeuble) will stonewall any relief.
The Troika, Germany, and the ruling politicians in Spain and Portugal torpedo every attempt by Greece to negotiate relief. Why? Any relief to Greece will encourage anti-austerity, anti-Euro political sentiments, will create doubts about eventual repayment of PIIGS debts, will damage faith in the Euro and the EU banking system, and any rearrangement of the Euro system might weaken Germany's export domination in the EU.
The Troika and Germany insist that Greece must re-confirm its commitment to austerity, asset sales, and "reforms" while accepting periodic loans to keep up its loan payments, i.e. "extend and pretend" that Greece will eventually repay the debts. Tsipras keeps putting forward lists of "reforms", knowing they will not be accepted by the Troika.
Schaeulbe and Dijselbloem play out their roles as the perfect Teutonic "NO-men" to the Greeks. Tsipras acts as the earnest nice-guy just trying to get relief for his suffering voters but being punched in the face by the nasty Troika and German operatives. The stage is being set by Syriza for a referrendum of the Greek people to be given the choice between:
(a) continue with austerity and misery in the Euro but survive with a drip-feed of new loans to keep the government and banks operating, while Greece's debt load inexorably climbs to ever-more unpayable heights; and
(b) leave the Euro, repudiate the debts, and "do an Iceland". There will be economic and financial dislocations but eventually Greeks will be better off.
Without a mandate from the Greek people to leave the Euro, and even leave the EU, Syria is trying to negotiate with both hands tied behind its back. But with such mandates, suddenly Greece would be in a position to repudiate the debts and the Euro system and thus create havoc in the EU banking system.
If Syriza gets its "Grexit" mandate from the Greek voters, the Troika and Germany will face the choice of giving some relief to Greece (and thus encouraging similar relief demands from Spain, Portugal and Ireland) or seeing Greece repudiate or default on its debts and crash the Euro-zone banking system.
Meanwhile:
1. While Greek requests for relief were being rebuffed, France and Italy have been given relief from their austerity programs, allowing them to run deficits above 3%;
2. The Troika increases the pressure on Greece, threatening to cut off funding of Greek banks as those banks try to cope with the ongoing run of withdrawals, and refusing advances to the Greek government while repayments on bonds become due. The Troika may create a Greek default on its own, since the Greek government is shut out of borrowing markets and is running out of stashes of cash it can grab for debt payments (perfect example of Germanic pig-headedness);
3. Austerity is increasingly unpopular with Europeans, and has not led to economic recovery. The ongoing Troika/Germany versus Greece drama shows that significant relief from austerity cannot be achieved without threatening default or repudiation of debts. Thus voters in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland are becoming increasingly attracted to ultra-radical anti-Euro parties;
4. Cracks are appearing in the EU banking system from unanticipated quarters - sanctions against Russia, Swiss dropping the Euro peg, and now the meltdown of the Austrian Heta bank and its spreading contagion to German banks; and
5. Draghi gets his covetted QE bond-buying program, which he no doubt sees as the means of saving the Euro, the EU banks, and economic growth in the EU zone, but may be seen as a move in desperation and an admission that they are all tanking.
Germany will not willingly give up its dominant economic position given by the Euro. Nor will Merkel willingly agree to renegotiate Greek austerity because she knows the German people will see this as a gift by German taxpayers to "lazy" Greeks. German pig-headedness may provoke an unintended Greek default, but at least Merkel can say that she did not agree to give relief to Greece. Ironically, under the Fiscal Stability treaty, German taxpayers have guaranteed all the debts of all other Euro member states, so Germany is on the hook with all the other Euro states if Greece defaults in any case.
Anyone who enjoys schadenfreude must like this situation.
We don´t say troika anymore. Don´t you read your memo e-mails?
And Greece can "default" as much as they want, they still owe the debt to the ECB and the other EU/Eurozone states. So much about "Schadenfreude".
When you default on your loan, the next step is bankruptcy. The sovereign equivalent to bankruptcy is to just declare you will no longer pay back the debt. That's what sovereign means, you get to decide. The only recourse is war by other sovereign nations.
Since when is Greece a sovereign state?
Zee moment zey default and leave Eurolalaland qualifiez az a good sovereign state 'moment'
Lol. Good one.
"German pig-headedness may provoke an unintended Greek default, but at least Merkel can say that she did not agree to give relief to Greece."
so mutii merkel can put her obstinence on her CV. it is short-sighted DE pig-headedness, par excellance - sometimes called german arrogance by other europeans.
although it 'seems' that her so far 'unassailable' position is in danger of crumbling.
Der Spiegel which was rabidly russophobic seems to be slowly becoming merkelphobic.
eg cover art from last week's issue and now an interview with ex.pm schroeder and some previous pro-RU articles.
she may be on her way out.
she is too tight with the amis, voluntarily or involutarily.
Blackbloccupy invades Franfurt... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeU-bByhZ4g
Much better that I expected.
The 'schweinmobiles' (great term) all lined up in a neat and tidy row ready to burn on the known day of a demonstration were almost certainly torched by the police themselves just like at the G20 in Toronto. If not then the cops should be fired for sheer stupidity...
Would you like vodka with that gyro?
So, interview 0.00009% of the country and base that as the way Greek people feel. Not that I think they're big fans of the EU or anything. Just a useless fucking number. About the same as the way all 'Canadians' feel about something after CBC interviews 10 people on the streets of Toronto.
I'm trying to work out why the opinions of EU or Russian leaders is relevant to Greeks other than the fact that Greece used to be a heavily communist country until the late 1940s and had strong political connections with Stalin up until that point and a keen hatred and distrust of Germans and Italians due to both countries invading Greece.
Plus the fact that NATO has not exactly supported Greece in territorial defense, and Greece is a genuine European country, against Turkish military attack, a former Arab empire periphery state.
Plus their strong residual socialism (and sense of entitlement to other people's money) has bred hatred for PAX-Americana, which has been occupying Europe since WWII. And given the total failure of the Greeks to budget, and earn what they spend, and resulted in this mess they are in, is it any surprise they hate core EU country leaders for being held to account for the lack of paying their own way? I'd be amazed if 3/4 didn't hate EU leaders.
I also fail to see how Russia's leadership is being vindicated via an opinion or favoritism, or rather a relative lower general dislike for Russia's leadership. Hardly surprising in that context. Look at the numbers, it's at only ~35% on the graph which means 2/3rds of Greece do not approve of the Russian leadership either. Do how does that make Russia, or purported Eurasian trade zone look better to you, weekend-Tyler?
And you have to ask, just what were these 'interviews' asking, consistently, each year since 2008, to generate this 'relevant' leadership opinion 'data'?
But far more importantly, where is the vastly more relevant Greek leadership line on this graph? Or are we to believe that was not part of these annual survey interviews?
Suuuuure it wasn't.
The whole thing seems a useless BS exercise, which tells us nothing useful or clear about anything ... well, unless confirmation bias and group-think tune-up was the aim ...
"~35% on the graph which means 2/3rds of Greece do not approve of the Russian leadership either."
doesn't mean that at all.
look at the trend
I am looking at it, use your mind's eye to draw a straight line of best-fit from the beginning of the series to the end of it. That trend is going down.
The green 'trend line' curve between a few data points supplied is dishonest, as it ignores the prior large drop in the series, and all that came before it (if surveyed).
There is not much change, nor much change in the change, over the past 4 to 5 years. It wobbles around the 30% to 35% range.
i.e. survey error and biasing from year to year in sample would account for it. It isn't telling us anything definitive and isn't consistent with the upswing suggested by the superimposed curved 'uptrend' line, placed over a few meager basically flat 'data' points.
Drawing a bit of a longbow to characterize that as any sort of uptrend. You could equally validly, on that basis, claim the EU leadership is also becoming more popular. And it would be just as inappropriate to conclude that.
@Element
quote "2/3rds of Greece do not approve of the Russian leadership either. " This statement might not be true either . Because in an election , other things happen like :
People that no longer vote because they feel that is doesn't make any difference , people undecided . Those two categories could amount to 50 % of the voting population . So in practice , if a political party gets 40 % of the remaining 50 % voters , that party would govern . This is the case of Italy and may be other countries in western Europe .
Greeks don't vote in Russia, they vote in Greece, so whether 30% to 35% of Greeks 'approve' of Russian leadership, over ~25% approval of EU leadership, is a rhapsody of quantitative irrelevance.
Good luck with that thinking greeks prefer EU treatment and its union . IGNORANCE IS BLISS Straya cunt .
as i have said, grecorusso intercourse leads to a manage a quatre in a grecorussofrancogermanic orgy. the greeks discovered the technique, afterall.
the pedo prone brits and the old whore usa will have to peddle their wares in the red light district.
Impressive-looking graph based on almost worthless data.
Greece may leave the IMF and Europe whenever it chooses to. This is its legal right. No one obligates Greece to borrow money from outside its borders, but if it wants to use Europe's and/or IMF members' taxpayers funds, it must be prepared to repay what it borrows. In other words, Greek taxpayers must be prepared to repay their fellow foreign taxpayers who lend them funds through the EU and the IMF. A loan is not a grant.
Greece already knows that its current economic policies lead to a shortage of funds (deficit and therefore debt); so obviously it must adopt other/different policies that will guarantee its financial self-sufficiency and the repayment of its foreign debt.
Sorry, I am repeating the obvious.
The citizens dont have the moral obligation to repay the debts incurred by corrupts governments . There is the case of Iceland .
are you suggesting that if a people does not want to repay its country's debt all it has to do is replace the existing government (which it elected, by the way) with another government (duly elected as well), and the debt disappears? Interesting concept!
Most Greecs own their house without mortgages. They are not so bad off as they want us to believe.
Except for no heating, water, electricity, or sewage.
Reply to DutchMadness:
You stated, "Most Greecs own their house without mortgages."
My questiion: What is the SOURCE of your claim?
I do NOT know either way if you are correct or not, but Greece is a modern country where people move around and buy new homes. They do NOT all live in the "family home" of multiple generations past, handed down from fathher-to-son, etc. That is a MYTH - but myths die hard.
Do we still have some Alqaeda stuff left to bring to Greece or all are they all already occupied supporting our foreing policy in the middle east?
The U.S. government has PLEADED with European nations to NOT join China's AIIB (which will supplant the U.S.-dominaed IMF and World Bank), but France, Germany and many others have alread joined. Russia has joined; and just today (again, against the wishes of the U.S. government) Australia and Denmark joined. Greece has either joined or will join.
It is about time there was an alternative to the IMF !!!!!