Posted on 11/02/2011 3:17:24 AM PDT by markomalley
Oh, and by the way, I should have tagged the post with a “barf alert” — my apologies.
Default is inevitable, and not just in Greece.
Wow.
Writer posted an update that makes it clear that he was not advocating a coup...per se, he was pointing out that it would theoritically solve some of the problems.
The EU was so hungry for expansion they made a huge blunder in admitting Greece to the EU, and pretty much everyone with half a brain knew it at the time, now the bill is come due and no one wishes to pay it..in true socialistic fashion.
As long as Govt’s continue to guarantee investor’s profits, this will happen over and over and over again, at least the people of Iceland stood up for National Sovereignty and said “tough luck” to the banksters who duned them for payment.
Greed Works
As Jim Manzi said, millions of people are depending on promises that cannot possibly be kept: municipal pensions, Social Security, Medicare, Greek debt. The list goes on and on.
Uhhh ... I take it you think governments should default on their bonds?
The problem here, and ultimately in the U.S., is not private sector greed. It is government profligacy and sovereign debt. And the problem is, when the governments default, they'll take every bank down with them.
Will Pappendreau plebicite grease Greek slide into a Hell(istic) hole ?
Hell, it worked out really in Chile. OK, it was a little messy to start with but look where Chile is today.
“The EU was so hungry for expansion they made a huge blunder in admitting Greece to the EU”
They made many more blunders than just greece. Of course the purpose wasn’t just expansion of the EU but expansion of power over all of Europe.
Correction that’s Papandreou, but then it’s all Greek to me.
So, whatever the EU does re. Greece, they can't help these people. Greece is too far gone.
Forcing Greece into default & out of the EU MIGHT convince the rest of the PIIGS & their people to do the difficult things necessary to get their budgets in order & remain in the union. The EU is throwing good money after bad with these futile, unappreciated bailouts.
Useful idiots take not. Greece was the perfect leftist-socialist state. Lavish social and public sector spending far beyond its capabilities.
What happened? It excess eventually threatened the greater socialist machine, and that machine turned on it in a second.
Those on the government teat here, should take a good hard look at what their masters are willing to do with them when the time comes.
Have there been any good estimates of where all the money went?
Greeks and USA?
We all know it went down some rat hole, where?
Logical—and something that looks like it will happen in time. In a democratic state no political leader can stand against the Will of the Mob. The strikes will always win—until the public treasury is empty and the rich folks are poor or leave.
What if Germany invaded and ran the nation for them? Or if they gave it to the Turks to run? They need a despot rather than a never ending bail out.
Papandreou threatened leaving NATO and the EEC to secure constant funding from the West. In fact, in 1985, he blocked the admission of Spain and Portugal into the EEC until he was given nearly 30 billion in EEC funds. Jaques Delors finally caved! There is a constant and overriding theme in post WWII Greek politics: the world has used Greece as a pawn, and hence the world owes us. The Germans, the British and the Americans kept Greece from democracy and freedom until the late 70s. It suited their wartime aspirations. And while we in the US were going through the Reagan revolution in the 80s, the Greeks were still trying to right the many perceived wrongs from the WWII and Cold War battles. Much of Greece's debt troubles can be traced back to reparations for the tragedies associated with those two wars. There are strong senses of entitlement, retribution and redistribution that have taken Greece down this path of excess debt for the last 30 years. The political culture of redistribution that came with freedom in the 1980s, morphed into a culture of unsustainable state entitlement.
Uhhm
Default on bonds, or default on deposit insurance?
What has happened is banks would offer high interest rates on deposits, the money flows into the bank because the State is insuring the deposts, when the scheme collapses, and it will collapse, the people of the country are on the hook for the insurance.
The banksters leveraged the debt instruments using credit default swaps, as the situation worsened the cost of insuring the swaps went up, if there is no “insurance” then the spread for the bonds collapses rendering the State insolvent.
The Icelanders said “tough luck” and gosh, they seem to be doing alright, of course that also means their govt can no longer leverage their productive capacity to offer freebies for votes, but for me, that is a good thing.
Then the rush on the banks will topple it all...which frankly won't be a bad thing in the long run for Greece who has a history long at defaulting. At some point let it fall and then elect officials who care about the nation..if possible in Greece?
One of the problems in Greece is the Govt was able to bribe Goldman Sachs to hide their financial condition so they could take on ever more debt.
Which is one of the recurring themes to all of this, there were no “honest brokers”, from Goldman to Fitch, they all had their hands out to be bribed...and they were.
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