Greece warns euro could collapse like house of cards

AFP ^ | 2-9-2015 | AFP

[tcrlaf]

A Greek exit from the euro would see the euro collapse like a house of cards, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned in comments that triggered a spat with Italy.

"Greece's exit from the euro is not something that is part of our plans, simply because we believe it is like building a house of cards. If you take out the Greek card, the others will collapse," Varoufakis said in an interview with Italian public broadcaster RAI that was aired on Sunday.

Varoufakis also incurred the wrath of his Italian counterpart Pier Carlo Padoan by comparing Italy's problem with its large public debt to those of Greece.

"Italian officials... have approached me to say they are supportive of us but that they cannot tell the truth both because Italy risks bankruptcy and they fear the consequences with Germany," he said.

[expat_panama]

Greece is communist

basket case ever since the day it became independent of the Ottomans

--and the Greeks were in pretty bad shape before independence too.  From what I've been able to gather from the results on Greece's recent election is that the leftists that took over are technically not Communist, and in fact the Greek Communists have said that they don't want any part of a coalition w/ the leftists.

party	votes	%
Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)	2,246,064	36.34
New Democracy (ND)	1,718,815	27.81
Golden Dawn (ΧΑ)	388,447	6.28
To Potami (Potami)	373,916	6.05
Communist Party of Greece (KKE)	338,138	5.47
Independent Greeks (ANEL)	293,406	4.75
Panhellenic Socialist Movement-Democratic Alignment (PASOK-DP)	289,482	4.68

There are plenty of tiny party fragments that can join for building  a coalition as time goes on, but for the time being the chaos we're expecting is going to have to first wait for a prolonged period of confusion.

[SandwicheGuy]

This whole Euro was doomed to fail before it started and is the stupidest idea economically floated in 100 years... Greece being kicked out and defaulting won’t cause the collapse, but it will be the first of many to leave the eurozone.

Gents, you hear it here first. There were many of us who were ridiculed when this Euro nonsense first started. The Euro is just Yugoslavia writ large.