[iacovatx]

Ms Vomva, the entrepreneur, is hoping for a future that is not going to come. Her concern that Greek women will not be able to afford her expensive handbags reveals her misconception. Greek women haven’t been able to afford her handbags for years—it is German and US women who, through bailouts and financing, have been putting money into Greek womens’ purses.

The Greeks have this odd delusion that the upcoming Jan 25 election is about “austerity”. You cannot vote away austerity. If you have no money, you cannot vote your situation away. Voting for a socialist who promises to stop austerity is no more possible than voting to add hours to the day. If Greece leaves the EU and starts printing money to pour onto the population, the money will simply be worth little. There is no escaping the Greek economic reality. The only short-term act that is possible is to renege on debt obligations to foreign creditors — and that is what a vote for hard-left socialists means. It is a version of the Argentinian economic model. Spend-inflate-collapse-Repeat.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The only short-term act that is possible is to renege on debt obligations to foreign creditors"

Which is a really bad idea. If you default on your creditors you scare away all of your future creditors and make it far more expensive to borrow money. No one lends to you and you make your economic death spiral even worse. Besides, a lot of their creditors are probably Greek citizens who hold governmental bonds or who have pensions tied up in bonds. So they would only be screwing over themselves. I don't think you can renege on only foreign creditors. The government does not know who holds their debt vis a vis bond holders. They don't know who a foregin investor is or who a Greek citizen bond holder is. They are all just bond holders.