"Don't make us come back over there."
Posted on 11/01/2011 9:43:00 AM PDT by mojito
Germans expressed fury and frustration at Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's shock decision to call a referendum on the latest aid package, with some saying the gamble would push Greece out of the euro zone.
"You can't help thinking that they should be grateful as Europe is trying to help," said Konstanze Pilge, a 26-year old student, walking near the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin. "Now it looks like they are going to mess things up."
Papandreou dropped his bombshell on Monday evening, less than a week after European leaders agreed the outlines of a second bailout for Athens.
"It just goes to show once again what a huge mistake it was not to throw Greece out of the euro zone at the start," said Wolfgang Gerke, a banking professor and president of the Bavarian Financial Centre think tank.
Europe's paymaster Germany and its partners in the euro zone were taken by surprise by the announcement.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Ping.
Never turn your back on a Greek.
Wonderland ping.
"Don't make us come back over there."
:-| (serious, stoic and perhaps a little stern non-emoticon)
Maybe the Greeks can burn some more cars & demand more government welfare!
I say let em collapse. Then the rugged individualists will survive and the parasites will die.
I’m still trying to figure out why the Euros don’t just flush Greece down the toilet?
Maybe its the “own the bank” issue?
Have the Germans and the French leave the EU. Let the rest burn down.
Except the real possibility of a war, this whole thing is funny.
The truth is that a single European monetary system won't work unless there is a single European power to oversee it, and that power would ultimately have to be held by force.
The Euro may be nothing more than a Northern European currency (France, Germany, Scandinavia, and the Benelux countries) within a decade.
It’s likely either a vote or anarchy/revolution.
If you keep giving an irresponsible crack addict more crack, they will continue to behave irresponsibly. Talk about moral hazard. Greece has no reason to behave in a financially prudent way because every time they announce more financial problems, they get more handouts.
>I’m still trying to figure out why the Euros don’t just >flush Greece down the toilet? Maybe its the “own the bank” >issue?
The problem is that many German and French banks are up to their eyeballs in Greek debt (and Italian, and Portugese, and Spanish, etc). They are afraid of a couple things:
A) Having their banks take a huge hit if(when) the Greek bonds go into default.
B) A supposed ‘contagion’ of the problem spreading to the other PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain).
It actually is starting to look like the Irish have managed to dig themselves out, but the rest of the PIIGS are still in deep doo doo.
There is another rather sneakier reason that the Germans have put up with this nonsense- the PIIGS are keeping the Euro down as a currency, and this helps German exports. However this gimmick is likely to be pretty inconsequential if all the banks go to hell.
Really the only rational response is to simply chuck the Greeks out of the EU and let them sink or swim. The former is the probably outcome.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes?
It is call derivatives and other leveraged financial tools invented by US Wall Street that is screwing up the situation. Greece’s GDP is a small fraction of the EU. The entire EU can absorb Greece bonds if Greece defaults. Problem is the derivatives are leveraged at ratios of 40 or more to 1. Thus for every Greek dollar, the derivative holder can lose 40+. Furthermore in the past derivatives were never traded in an open market with full transparency. So up to this day no one knows how big this market is. Estimates range from 55 trillion to 1.5 quadrillion. No one knows who owns how many. Many EU investment banks and firms play with derivatives. That is why ECB, IMF, US banks, US Fed Reserve, US Treasury, every EU finance ministry, major banks and etc cannot afford Greek default.
Oh man, the Greeks are sooooo screwing over Europe
“It is call derivatives and other leveraged financial tools invented by US Wall Street that is screwing up the situation.”
That is exactly right.
Lol don’t really enjoy seeing “fury” and “German” in the same headline - yes I am actually part-German
“They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into....I say, ‘Let ‘em crash.’”
I think a referendum on fiscal matters is prohibited by the Greek Constitution. I could be wrong though, its just something I read on ZH.
Anyway it’s a great idea. The feckless Greeks will finally get pinned to a democratic decision, and will either adopt the drachma - or watch in dismay as Germany adopts the Deutschmark and Italy recreates the Lire.
This stuff is stirring up some long held resentments between Greeks and Germans from WWII. This is what Merkel was warning about a week or so ago in her speech when she said this mess could lead Europe into another war.
Hmmm...we could be about to see the first F-4 vs. F-4 dogfights in history...
Just sayin’. My money’s on Germany. And no, I don’t think this is funny, but it’s laugh or cry.
“Rome” is about to fall again, and for the same reasons as before. And the Al Qaida types will be glad to pick up the pieces...if the Russians don’t move in first.
*As with nearly all things there are exceptions. For example, the Bad Dürkheim wine festival. While wearing a hillbilly hat and quaffing pails of white wine one marauds about whacking random passersby with a squeaky mallet and shooting strangers with a squirt gun. Of course for fun to maintain proper efficiency this must only be done at the correct time and in specified areas...
Ohi Day (also spelled Ochi Day, Greek: Επέτειος του «'Οχι» Epeteios tou "'Ohi", Anniversary of the "No") is celebrated throughout Greece, Cyprus and the Greek communities around the world on October 28 each year, to commemorate Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas' (in power from August 4, 1936, until January 29, 1941) rejection of the ultimatum made by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940.
Did you all know that 97% of Germans will kill someone if told to do so by the Government, and only 94% of the folks in the US. Result of several studies done during the 60’s.
Deliveries in the rear.
In classical Attic Greek the word for "no" was spelled ou or ouk--I think the iota is a later addition for emphasis.
Mussolini's idiotic decision to force war on Greece was not only a tragedy for Greece but for all of the Balkans--Hitler felt he had to come to Mussolini's rescue when the Italians proved unable to defeat the Greeks, and therefore the Germans forced the Romanians, Bulgarians, and Yugoslavs into the Axis (when the Yugoslav government that signed the pact with Germany was overthrown the Germans invaded Yugoslavia and occupied the more strategic parts of it while letting their allies annex or occupy other parts). But for that, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania might never have experienced Communist dictatorships and Greece wouldn't have had a nasty civil war after the end of WWII.
Because it is the Germans, Fwench, and English who hold most of the Greek debt.
****
"Surely, you can't be serious."
Throughout the world the takers out number the producers. What cannot go on forever will not. Since it all has to crash eventually, is it better to happen now, or later.
It appears that the story has changed, again.
But this is what Iceland did. It was in their constitution.
Smart Icelanders. The public should not be held to the debts the politicians made with all their vote buying.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/so-europe-fixed-again-referendum-basically-dead
Why not? Elections have consequences, maybe if people thought things through more when they vote, we wouldn't have been stuck with Obama.
These debts are mostly high roller bets called CDS.
They win, they get their money.
They lose, we pay.
That is what is happening. These are so called “insurance” that is not “insurance” that caused the taxpayers of this country to pay for TARP in the first place. The conterparties of AIG were given 100% on the dollar for LOSING bets. It is also what is causing MF Global to be bankrupt now. Losing bets. And OUR banks are full of losing bets on European banks.
THAT is not what our congress approved of.
I am just trying to make an issue that this country’s citizens are not responible for what is happening that is not well known here at FR.
There is already concern another Lehman is about to happen.
Can you say TARP II??
remember what happened on October 28.
That’s when the Italians gave Greece the ultimatum to surrender or face invasion.
****
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!"
not as stupid as you would think:
under the euro= slavery and loss of sovereignty
force concession from EU = leverage to keep euro alive
The Germans need the euro, the French need the EU.
There is a class of Greeks have never forgotten (or fogiven) WW II.
part of the problem is:
the banks were complicit in inflating the value of the Greek bonds. They don’t want to be exposed to a perp walk.
And they lose $40 for every $1 the Greeks default AND it could spread from there to other nations such as Portugal, Italy, etc.
Got it. Finally.
So, absorb the Greek bonds, and sink the banks holding the derivatives. Pay insurance on the depositors and tell the investors and stockholders, they’re out of luck.
Assuming, of course, they’re not your national banks...
This derivative thing is driving me nuts. I just can’t my head around it. We need to let the people playing these games go bankrupt.
Hopefully the Greeks will tell the EU Nazi’s to stuff it as Iceland did.....the 3:00pm news is nothing but another pump and dump moment for the PE.
lets say the “Greeks are chucked out”, and then they tell the EU to go stuff themselves...
Then itally, prtugal, ireland, and spain also tell the EU (germans) to go stuff themselves. They have to in order to avoid be saddled with the now worthless greek debt.
The net result, for “chucking” is a worthless euro currency.
the EU will fall appart next. (all those do nothings in brussels will become unemployed)
This is now about the survivability of the EU. It is just happening within weeks instead of years.
I bet the Chinese are not investing a single penny until this is cleared up either way.
If the Greeks get screwed, China buys all of Germany at a firesale price.
>This is now about the survivability of the EU. It is just happening within weeks instead of years.
Considering how much fraud was perpetrated by member nations of the EU in terms of meeting the criteria for membership, I’d say the EU dying was inevitable. The Greek economy is a sorry joke propped up by loans. Throwing more loans into the hole isn’t going to help. That country essentially needs to crash and burn and then rebuild. It is likely that Portugal, Spain, and Italy need to do the same. The normal crash and burn from a radical devaluation isn’t an option because of the Euro, so pretty much the Euro has to go away.
Not just the Greek ecconomy.
Consider that France, the most productive nation of the EU, has an ecconomy that is in the bottom 20% of states of the USA.
The EU was built upon debt dedicated to socialism.
The EU was not built on assets dedicated to individual freedom.
The socialism of the EU is all about freebies as a collective obligation.
The no confidence vote is Nov 4th, the 5th of November will be veeeeery interesting.
BTW the battle of marathon is celebrating the 2501st aniversary this month...
France is the most productive economy? I would have thought it was Germany.
By either overall GDP or GDP per capital Germany is superior:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
Either way, they are all based on welfare states, which have the Ponzi scheme issue, especially with their demographic troubles.
“They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into....I say, ‘Let ‘em crash.’”
I was telling one of the kids at work about “Airplane.” He’d never seen it.
I feel so old.
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