Posted on 06/25/2015 5:24:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
I hate to say it, but I agree with the left on this. If creditors dish out money to people (and countries) without ANY CLUE as to intent to pay it back, then creditors deserve what they get.
In the case of Greece and most 3rd World countries, it is a GIVEN that payback depends on the will of the next leader. If the Germans, or others, want to play that game, they have to be willing to accept the consequences.
VDH’s analysis would have been sound during the last Greek fiscal crisis. However, the misbehavior on the part of the IMF under Dominique Strauss-Kahn at that time, acting in the interests of the Eurozone and Eurozone creditors, rather than following its remit to stabilize national economies, created the current, worse, iteration of the crisis. As Tsipras (in perhaps the only clear-eyed economic analysis I have ever heard or read from a leftist) describes it “an insolvency crisis was treated as an illiquidity crisis”, and the Greek state and Greek people were loaded with yet more debt to let French and German banks get Greek loans off their balance sheets, with no benefit to Greece.
Quite frankly, in view of the long-term misbehavior of Greece that VDH points to, anyone foolish enough to lend the Greek state money (and yes, the fools include the ECB and IMF at this point) deserves to be repaid in new drachma, rather then euros.
Well we had better start buying American made goods then.
“I have very little sympathy for the Greeks. These are people who basically refuse to pay taxes to their own Government, and the Government does nothing.”
Funny, I admire them for that. Wish we had more of that around here.
Socialism!
In a different (I hope?) town, many of the adults were legally blind!
This required not just a physician’s statement but also the village officials certification.
It turns out, they received an additional allowance for being blind.
Among those who put in for the blindness benefit on Zakynthos, a local official said, were a taxi driver and a bird hunter...
...Only 190 of the nearly 700 people it says had been collecting the blindness benefit on Zakynthos participated in the registration, the ministry said...
...Recognizing some names, he said he knew something was amiss when he saw a taxi driver and a bird hunter. “You can tell if someone is blind,” ...
‘Island of the Blind’ Riles a Greek Public Facing Cutbacks
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203370604577263863362854348
The Grreks would find out that owing money to Russia would be the same as borrowing from the Mafia.
Can’t pay.
Won’t pay.
Shouldn’t pay.
Should leave the Euro currency, and if necessary, the EU - at least until their house is in order - move back to the Drachma, default and begin the long process of rebuilding.
It will be hard, no matter which path they choose. Only this path retains sovereignty and provides a pathway to a better future.
Default is nothing new. Spain has done it +18 times. Many other nations have as well.
I don’t get this crisis.
The Greeks should:
(1) Publicly and loudly default on every international debt.
(2) Refuse to leave the European Union.
(3) Continue to operate their economy with the Euro currency. If the Euro Central Bank resists, then supplement with Pounds, Swiss Francs, and US Dollars and aggressively seek cooperation with those Central Bankers.
(4) Make interest payments only to Greek citizens and Greek companies who hold Greek government debt, until some kind of settlement can be negotiated.
(5) Start the long, complicated process of reforming the Greek economy.
Thanks Kaslin. You know, there's nothing wrong in Greece that a few of those Poseidon-style ancient tsunamis, described in Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, wouldn't solve.
This is no longer an economic issue. It is strictly political.
The politics of central EU control over ALL member states.
EU bureaucrat aristocracy wants control and one single sovereign body is a threat to control.
How we got here is irrelevant, where we go from here is the next issue. Oppressive taxes will keep EU control. Lower taxes and growing an economy (for anyone who can figure that out) is the only road to prosperity.
the next fear of the eu would be each country’s separately denominated EU notes would have a different currency value just like a different currency.
Thus greek euros would have a different value than german than itallian than French than etc. etc...
IOW the eu falls apart.
Greeks have it ingrained to avoid the Dhimi tax.
now taxes are just views as a German Tax.
Things did not go well under Turkish or German occupation.
acutally American brokerage houses (goldman sachs?) at the behest of the EU cooked the bond values.
Sorry, I don’t see a problem w/ your point. People doing what they can to NOT pay taxes...que surprise! We do it here in the U.S. as much as possible: paying under the table, ‘work orders’ not filled out...everything a BIT less w/ $$ on the barrel-head.
Now, if you had posted that the problem was a Socialist govt of ‘give people the profits of others they are not entitled, nor have any Right so they can sit on their asses and expect even more w/ every election’, I’d be in concurrence.
Athens has been a big boys club stretching back to classical times. Women did all the work and the men got to go down and hang out with other men in the Agora.
I mean that Greece should continue to use Euro currency and Euro deposits that are already present in the country.
Reverting to the Greek drachma would be international economic suicide.
If the EU Central Bank stops supplying currency to Greek banks, or if EU commercial banks stop doing Euro-denominated business with Greek commercial banks, then move into the Swiss Franc, Pound, or US Dollar.
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