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The Greeks should vote “no!”
The Washington Times ^ | July 2, 2015 | Peter Morici

Posted on 07/04/2015 10:27:15 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Sunday, Greeks should vote “no”!

Hellenic voters are being asked whether they accept the terms offered by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to extend the bailout for Athens‘ troubled finances or give Prime Minister Tsipras a mandate to insist on a better deal.

Those conditions include more cuts in government supported pensions, higher taxes and labor market reforms other European governments’ are often not inclined to accept in the conduct of their own affairs.

Urging a Yes vote, European leaders and their supporters in private institutions claim more austerity would reinvigorate the Greek economy and permit Greeks to keep the euro as their currency, but such claims simply contradict the facts.

Already, the Troika, led by Merkel and IMF Managing Director Christine Legarde, has imposed five years of budget cuts, higher taxes and labor market adjustments. The Greeks have endured a 25 percent contraction in GDP, 25 percent cut in private sector wages and 25 percent unemployment.

Greece’s debt to GDP ratio has soared from 130 percent to 180 percent of GDP, and that is an impossible burden to repay.

The only solution is for Greece to replace existing bonds with securities having longer maturities and paying lower interest rates, and with reduced face value—essentially, a haircut for creditors.

European governments, either directly or through EU institutions, hold about €100 billion ($111 billion) of Greece’s foreign debt, and Merkel flat out refuses to entertain German taxpayers taking losses.

Yet, neither Germany’s finance ministry—nor any other European government or competent private institution—has tabled a credible analysis demonstrating how more austerity and labor market reforms (read more layoffs and wage cuts) will instigate growth and not result in even bigger losses for bondholders down the road.


(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: alexistsipras; austerity; bonds; christinelegarde; collapse; debt; debtcrisis; default; drachma; eu; euro; europeanunion; france; germany; greece; greececrisis; haircut; nato; referendum; syriza; unitedkingdom
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To: Nextrush

“I think we can see who the worse is in this situation as well and its the European Union.”

So the EU (really Germany) has been “loaning” Deadbeat Greece money for too long so they’re the bad actors? I fail to see any relevance to 1930’s Austria here. Just who is the “Hitler” who’s going to march into Greece any day now? Looks to me that the Germans, quite to the contrary, are trying to “march” the other way and doing it as quickly as they can. Greece needs to go under! They deserve it, and it will serve as a wakeup call (maybe) for the rest of the PIIGS countries that they are next if they don’t clean up their financial houses. Greece has run out of other countries money, and so too have the rest.


21 posted on 07/04/2015 11:24:56 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Greeks are freeloading bums who don't want to pay their tab so they are skipping out on the bill.

Let them act like a bunch of petulant children and become a third world country.

They'd better not ask Germany or France for help when, isolated from the EU, Turkey and Russia - both ruled by fascist maniacs - decide to carve them up.

22 posted on 07/04/2015 11:32:19 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Nextrush
That's the most ludicrous assemblage of written crap I've read today! So, because Greece's government includes 'the conservative independent Greeks' means one should happily ignore that the vast majority of Greek government is hard left! That it is led by a prime minister (Tsipiras) who is most happy to say that he is 'anti-capitalist.' That Greece's problems boil down to a severe lack of understanding of the most basic of economic theory?

Yes, the EU is tyrannical and a bunch of power hungry swine, but the Greek government (and 'economists') are the most stupid bunch of sots to ever run a country. Well, their socialist 'utopia' is crashing down and their only options are either a hard landing or a dead landing.

23 posted on 07/04/2015 11:33:51 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: immadashell

That’s a great post and a good summary of socialism vs capitalism in a nutshell. I’m sure most of us here understand that.

It’s the leftist types that will never get it. The gap between the right and left just keeps getting bigger. Something has to give.


24 posted on 07/04/2015 11:34:26 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: vette6387

The Hitler is the NWO as exemplified by the European Union.

Nigel Farage of UKIP has laid out the evils of the EU and its vassal states like his own country.

A corporatist system that aligns big banks, big business and big government against small business and individuals.

Open border policies that flood countries with cheap labor and hurt the workers, the little people with low wages.

These EU corporatists are in the same family tree as the elites who rule this country with Amnesty to favor business with cheap labor, Obamacare to bail out big hospitals and insurance companies, Trade Deals to help big multinational companies and Gay Marriage with no religious freedom protections for those who object and the list goes on......

Little Greece’s socialist government is a shot glass full of urine next to the filled to the top chamber pot of the socialist, humanist, corporatist European Union.


25 posted on 07/04/2015 11:35:53 AM PDT by Nextrush (FREEDOM IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS, REMEMBER PASTOR NIEMOLLER)
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To: spetznaz

Whatever landing an independent non-Euro Greece comes to, it will be a landing of their own making as people free and independent of the EU New World Order tyranny.


26 posted on 07/04/2015 11:38:22 AM PDT by Nextrush (FREEDOM IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS, REMEMBER PASTOR NIEMOLLER)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks; Nextrush
It's funny, Nextrush, how you are trying to obscure the facts with a lot of blather.

Greece wanted to join the EU.

They lied about their finances to get in.

Once they got in, they borrowed as much money as they possibly could and continued to fake their books.

Corrupt Greek politicians and criminal Greek citizens took all of that money then refused to pay it back.

Then, instead of balancing their budget and being responsible grownups, they burned down a bank with a pregnant woman inside and whined and complained that they are the "victims" of the people whom they lied to and stole from.

This is supposedly a conservative website.

Posters here should theoretically support balanced budgets, personal accountability, paying back what you borrow, and telling the truth.

Syriza is a neocommunist organization that opposes all of the above, and you are their shill, Nextrush.

27 posted on 07/04/2015 11:43:02 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Nextrush

A Greek walks into a bank and shouts “give me all the money you’ve got or someone’s gonna get hurt!”

The manager says, “Here’s 60 bucks.”

The robber thanks the manager and says, “I was expecting only 30.”

The manager says, “Can I borrow some of that?”


28 posted on 07/04/2015 11:43:06 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Pray for their victory or quit saying you support our troops)
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To: Nextrush
And that is 100% okay, and a fair point to make. If people want to mess up their own home it is their right to do so, and as I mentioned the EU are a bunch of swine.

My point though was please don't lie to FReepers. Trying to make the Greek government to be some Conservative bastion in liberal Europe fighting bravely against the voracious minions of darkness and evil. You even mentioned 'amnesty, gay marriage and climate change' as if those phrases will make FReepers rise to the support of (and I am using facts) the hard-leftist, Marxist Greek government that has hardly an iota of economic sense.

Simply state that the Greeks have a right to run their country as they see fit, and leave it at that. No need to try and make the Greek government appear to be Conservative warriors when they are simply idiotic sots whose communist dream is turning into a nightmare.

29 posted on 07/04/2015 11:49:08 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: Nextrush

“Open border policies that flood countries with cheap labor and hurt the workers, the little people with low wages.”

Sounds just like here!


30 posted on 07/04/2015 12:00:06 PM PDT by vette6387
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To: vette6387

Anyone who is realistic - including the banks and countries that loaned Greece money (as well as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc.) - know there is absolutely no chance the money will be paid back. Austerity cannot do it. They made loans knowing the country was unable to pay them back.

That doesn’t excuse the deplorable situation in Greece - which is very, very similar to what is unfolding in my own country, the United States.

The only way to “clean up their financial houses” is for Greece to default, force a settlement, leave the totalitarian EU regime, print drachmas and rebuild. Until that happens, there is no way out.


31 posted on 07/04/2015 12:05:05 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal.")
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To: vette6387

The difference here is that we don’t have a shared currency; Greece is only in the news because the foreigners propping up their currency are demanding action.

In our case we just have currency devaluation (rising prices with the enemedia providing various excuses for each commodities’ rise in costs...


32 posted on 07/04/2015 12:08:09 PM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: wideawake

Going way out on a limb here, Greece is simply going to have to leave the Euro, unless the Germans decide that they’re willing to continue to send “loans” south that will simply never be repaid.

The net result of a GRexit of the Euro probably won’t be world-shaking, and could even restore some confidence in the currency in world markets. At the very least, it would be a strong signal from the hard-money North (which for all intents and purposes is Germany) that they are not going to follow the traditionally soft-money countries (France, they’re looking at you) down the drain.

So far, the rest of Europe seems willing to let Greece follow the path they started down, which looks like a return to the Drachma, but some mechanism to keep them in the EU.


33 posted on 07/04/2015 12:08:25 PM PDT by absalom01 (You should do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, and you should never wish to do less.)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin

Good idea. Tens of thousands of Greeks are pretending to be blind.


34 posted on 07/04/2015 12:17:40 PM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

“The only way to “clean up their financial houses” is for Greece to default, force a settlement, leave the totalitarian EU regime, print drachmas and rebuild. Until that happens, there is no way out.”

And unless we start now fixing our own financial system, we will eventually default too. In reality, the whole Effing World is Going Broke! There are very few countries where their financial house is in order. And yet here we are, electing a half-breed, illegal alien, “community organizer” to the most important office in the world. Further, it’s even money “we” will elect the female “grifter” to be our next “leader.” And if and when the “end” comes, the Liberal morons will be standing around wondering WTF as if they can’t believe Socialism/Marxism has failed (again)! After all “it’s the only fair way to govern.” Bums have a “right” to a good life too!


35 posted on 07/04/2015 12:26:43 PM PDT by vette6387
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To: Nextrush
The Greek government is fighting the tyranny of the EU and its austerity.

What a bunch of crap.

The Greek government is fighting to continue getting freebies and run their quasi-marxist state and not have to pay for it. That is all this comes down to.

From the right, I'd vote no. But my reason is to leave the EU entirely, control my own destiny and I would recognize that the immediate pain of Grexit would be tough. My goal would be to re-establish a free market, competitive state. That is NOT what this Greek government or most voting NO want. They just want a better deal. IE, more freebies to continue their statist ways.

Austerity means cutting back on spending dramatically, vastly reducing the amount of government workers, slashing ridiculous pensions that Greece could never afford. Again, this is NOT what the NO voters want.

Also this anti banker stuff is just more BS. If they hadn't overspent they would not be at the mercy of these "evil banksters". This is no different than if you ran up your credit card bill and the creditors worked with you (granted for their own benefit) to allow you to avoid bankruptcy. You'd be at their mercy. That is where Greece finds itself. Don't overspend, live within your means, and you won't have this problem and neither would Greece.

By the way, most Greek universities are practically communist education centers. The young people have drank the kool aid and are looking for anyone to blame but their own socialist ways.

36 posted on 07/04/2015 12:36:56 PM PDT by Longbow1969
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To: vette6387

“And unless we start now fixing our own financial system, we will eventually default too. In reality, the whole Effing World is Going Broke! There are very few countries where their financial house is in order.”

+1

Plan for it now. You will have no time later when it is obviously happening.


37 posted on 07/04/2015 12:47:49 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal.")
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Cut spending and raise taxes? Where do they get their economists from the IMF?


38 posted on 07/04/2015 1:51:11 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Vigilanteman

America could bury the Euro with a new 500 dollar bill, plus we can put a woman’s face on it.


39 posted on 07/04/2015 1:52:03 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“The Greeks should vote “no!””

Yeah, because the rest of the world is so eager to trade valuable things to the Greeks in exchange for New Drachmas.


40 posted on 07/04/2015 1:56:36 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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