No matter how you unite states, once joined they don’t like it when one or more of its members decide to walk away.
Good riddance to both Greece and the Euro.
What’s interesting though, stripped of the jargon, what the experts are cautioning is that _now_ isn’t the time to quit borrowing money, because of the crisis, that was caused by, you guessed it - borrowing money. It’s kinda wacky.
About six months ago...I was reading through Greek medical problems within the economy. If you were on insulin and tried to pick up your monthly supply...most pharmacy groups couldn’t get the stuff via their normal channels, with Greek health care paying. So you...the customer who desperately needed insulin...had to go down put down around $100 to get the stuff ordered from France. It’d be delivered five days later, and you were ok....except whatever was free via the gov’t health care program...was no longer free, and you had to find a $100 somewhere in your limited budget to pay for what was free before.
My feeling is that of eleven million people in Greece...by next summer, at least 500k will have packed up and left the country. I also think that most banks will end up closing shop or consolidating. The tourism trade? For 2012, I’d predict half the tourism trade that you’d typically expect in Greece, and it likely continues through 2013. They really took the country and made it into some Banana republic.
Greece is a dry run for what is coming.
A harbinger of the future of Liberal America.
Be interesting to see if the populace there riots against its lefty-regime, and to watch their reaction to it.
It is interesting that the quotations of impending doom come from importers who see no future. Stipulating that business is facing huge problems, why do they not attempt to source from domestic sources.
It seems to me that the people of Greece have chosen collapse over a little austerity. No one would give an inch so now they have to go the mile.
Its political machine--the Democrat Party--must be stopped.
Its political machine--the Democrat Party--must be stopped.
Its political machine--the Democrat Party--must be stopped.
If the American people had the good sense to elect a fiscally responsible President and Congress who would (1) abolish the capital gains tax, (2) abolish corporate taxes, (3) abolish inheritance taxes,(4) secure property rights, and (5) abolish all unnecessary regulations, foreign (and domestic) capital would flow into the United States like Niagara Falls!
If the American people had the good sense to elect a fiscally responsible President and Congress who would (1) abolish the capital gains tax, (2) abolish corporate taxes, (3) abolish inheritance taxes,(4) secure property rights, and (5) abolish all unnecessary regulations, foreign (and domestic) capital would flow into the United States like Niagara Falls!
But if they had that much sense, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Greece has a smaller GNP than Indiana. How can it cause all this trouble? Just let it go!
“Watching Greece” should become a didactic exercise for all the other Western nations. It illustrates what can happen — or more correctly, what WILL happen - when socialism collapses and nations are forced to recover and reconstruct themselves “cold turkey”.
They should collect up all the money that’s left and go to Las Vegas and put it all on number 5.
“A former finance minister, Yiannos Papantoniou, saw trouble ahead nearly a year ago...”
Why didn’t he see trouble ahead when he was Finance Minister and, no doubt, contributing to the problem ?
Banker BS. The only reason Greece got bailouts because behind the scenes the EU and US bankers did not want to pay the price for making wrong bets on Greek bonds. So they spin the story that the world would come to an end if Greece defaults (just like TARP). Where did all the EU bailout money go? It went to the Greek banks so they can cover any money they owe EU banks. The people of Greece did not get any bailout except decades of austerity.
Iceland defaulted and went back to the Krona. Everything hit true bottom, prices adjusted to true value and investors are coming in. Iceland GDP is one of the few EU (former) that is increasing while most of the world is stagnating or contracting. We don’t hear about this in the MSM because the central banks and EU/US banks don’t want anyone to know except the bail me out or the economy will implode. This way affected nations will go to the central bankers and scream bailout and nations with the means to provide the bailout money think this is a necessary evil.
Greece should declare bankruptcy and return to the drachma. Greek people will suffer inflation and prices of assets will hit true bottom. Greek labor will be extremely cheap and foreign investors will come in to buy assets and even build factories and service industries to take advantage of the Greek low cost labor. Iceland already prove bankruptcy and going back to their national currency was not the end of the world. Only the EU advocates, central bankers and US/EU bankers don’t want it for their own political/financial selfish reasons.