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

[Sir Og]

These

worthless dead beats

were doing just fine until recently. Then something happened and their economy tanked.
They stay for years at 20%+ unemployment with no signs of recovery.

You are not saying that the Greeks became lazy just a few years ago?

What I am trying to show is that these alleged character flaws don't explain the timing and size of the crisis and most certainly don't explain the lack of recovery.

What makes the recovery virtually impossible is the lack of the ability to debase their currency so that the labour market clears more quickly and naturaly.

[Dinner]

No, they were arranging outrageous balloon payments from Goldman Sacks because they had charge up so much they couldn't get financing any other way. They were using new loans just to pay the interest payments on old loans.

Then when the market crashed no one would loan them more to roll over their old debts plus interest thus their debt crisis (which was like virtually every other sovereign debt crisis in history). So they most certainly were not doing just fine.

[DinoDoc]

How did Ireland and Latvia recover from their respective economic crises without becoming offended people might want to be paid back the money loaned to them?

[pchang]

Spain's economy is growing faster than Germany's now. In any case, it looks like Greece's primary surplus disappeared since last Feb. This means they close though, so if they just cracked down on tax evasion, they would have one again. That would allow them to default with fewer adverse consequences.

[pchang]

What is the difference between devaluing the currency and just paying everyone less?

[Sir Og]

What is the difference between devaluing the currency and just paying everyone less?

Hardwired human psychology. Price stickyness. Especially wage stickiness.


Here is a chart of the austerity that the various countries have done.

[Dauphin]

Where is the UK austerity I hear so much about.

Oh right, there is still a massive deficit.

[Dinner]

The UK's ability to pay is not in question thus they still have easy access to private equity markets. That is not so for the dead beat Greeks.

Thus why the UK can borrow money while no one but a fool has left money to Greece for half a decade.

[Dauphin]

It was more a reference to these peeps:

[C0ckney]

social benefits have been tightened and the system has been made more punitive; poverty has risen as a result. some services have been cut and some have been privatised, or are moving in that direction. that's what they're complaining about, not the total amount of government spending. austerity is just a convenient catch all for their diverse complaints.

[Dauphin]

of course they are not worried about total spending. Those making the cuts are. And, even with the cuts, there is still a huge deficit.

[C0ckney]

yes, and? it looked like you were talking about the protester's use of the word austerity.

[Dauphin]

I was initially commenting on the graph, which measured austerity as the government surplus or deficit. My beef about saying austerity is equally on both sides of the camp, as it is rather tame (or a misnomer) as applied to the UK. Protestors give a better visual.

[C0ckney]

ah well in that case i agree with you.

[C0ckney]

anyway, the greek government has called a referendum on the bailout terms for the 5th of july. the troika, now that the two establishment parties are out in the cold, and not seeing a way to parachute in a pliant banker/economist to run the show, are outraged.

meanwhile the ECB is expected to announced the end of the emergency funding for greek banks today; it's hard to see how the greek banking system can survive such a move. it looks like greece will default and exit the euro, and about time too.