[civil] "Greece moves closer to eurozone exit after delaying €300m repayment to IMF "

[DinoDoc]

After the financial crash of 2009, the IMF also bailed out the Irish economy. But Ireland stuck to the plan, did what was agreed, and by 2014 was the fastest-growing economy in Europe. Latvia went through an economic crisis every bit as deep as the one in Greece after 2009—losing more than a fifth of its gross domestic product—but it, too, recovered and began to grow. Why should Irish or Latvian voters feel sympathy for Greece’s demand to take another path at their expense?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...necessary.html

[Sir Og]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...reason-at-all/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...doomed-to-fail

The key parallel between the Great depression and the current Greek debacle is the role of the gold standard then and the Euro now.
The US recovered when it de facto left the gold standard by devaluing.

Greece now has to do the same thing. Leave the Euro, let the drahma flow and reap the benefits of adequate aggregate demand.

[N35t0r]

LET THE DRAMA FLOWWW!!!!! AGHHHHH!


Sorry

[Dinner]

Poor Greeks. No one is giving in to their blackmail and lenders actually want reforms to insure the dead beats can actually pay them back.

It is almost like they shouldn't have spent half a decade covering their political asses and actually did something to improve their competitiveness. Naturally, Greeks blame everyone but themselves for how badly they ****ed themselves up. Personal responsibility, or ever common sense, just isn't something modern Greeks like.

[Dinner]

The key parallel between the Great depression and the current Greek debacle is the role of the gold standard then and the Euro now.
The US recovered when it de facto left the gold standard by devaluing.

Greece now has to do the same thing. Leave the Euro, let the drahma flow and reap the benefits of adequate aggregate demand.

I agree they should leave the Euro at this point but it didn't have to be so. If only the lazy Greeks and their cowardly politicians had actually used the last half decade to liberalize their monstrously over regulated economy and privitize... Well, then they wouldn't be the utter failures we know today.

Cut the red tape and give private industry a reason to hire people and the private sector will invest. Outlaw competition for state owned industries and refuse to make state owned industries competitive? Well, your economy will remain **** even as everyone else rebounds. The Greeks made their bed; now they need to sleep in it as a warning to others about being irresponsible.

[dannubis]

The key parallel between the Great depression and the current Greek debacle is the role of the gold standard then and the Euro now.
The US recovered when it de facto left the gold standard by devaluing.

Greece now has to do the same thing. Leave the Euro, let the drahma flow and reap the benefits of adequate aggregate demand.

I can look at a few examples of hyperinflation where aggregate demand was quite disappointing...

[David Cameron]

I told Angela = not a centime to the Greeks until they give up the Elgin marbles once and for all.

[Sir Og]

I can look at a few examples of hyperinflation where aggregate demand was quite disappointing...

I ment to say float instead of flow.
But it sort of works either way

[Dinner]

Og, I am seriously wondering g what you are talking about when you claim the US devalued the gold standard. In 1933 the currency was no longer convertible directly to gold via the government "on demand" as the currency said but there was a hell of a lot more going on with the new deal. So trying to attribute it to just one thing seems illogical and not well proven.

[Sir Og]

I am talking about the changing of the nominal price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35 in 1934.

A lot of the new deal measures that happened later actually made things worse. (I am sure Greece will also make steps in the wrong direction if/after they do the right thing and get out of the euro.)

That's the standard monetarist explanation of the Great Depression. As explained by Milton Friedman and others.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Graph_charting_income_per_capita_throughout_the_Great_Depression.svg

[Dinner]

Very few made things worse and those were quickly corrected while huge numbers of new deal policies made living standards much, much better.

[Sir Og]

What would you say is the main difference between what Greece is doing now and those new deal policies?
If you think things like setting minimum wage etc. helped the US, shouldn't you support the same policies for Greece now?

[Dinner]

1) The US actually had good credit and could easily find private borrowers who were willing to lend it money at very low and reasonable rates.

2) Greek has terrible credit and cannot find any private borrowers to loan it money at any rate.

3) Much of the effort to create jobs in the New Deal was concentrated on things which add lasting value and utility for the populous. Building dams, reclaiming land, building ports, building highways, building bridges, doing improvements on both public and private land which improved both productivity and efficiency.

4) Greece mostly wants to waste it on welfare which neither improves productivity nor efficiency nor does it provide lasting utility for the populous. For example increasing welfare or pensions for people who retired at age 55. That is politically popular but doesn't provide a durable economic legacy which improves the economy the way building a road, port, dam, or airport does.

[Dinner]

Greece's biggest problem is they are broke and no one will loan them money because they are worthless dead beats who are too stupid to change their spend thrift ways or change their regulations to improve their economy.

That sure as **** isn't the US.

[C0ckney]

you have, as usual, understood nothing.