21–30 of 340 posts
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And yet, Greece recovered to become a leading economy in the region. The propaganda is strong on the airwaves these days, just like in the US, one shouldn’t react to “facts” taken out of context. It seems (from here), support for Russia is somehow magically going down as Russia’s economy is having trouble paying for its “support” abroad.
In which region is Greece a leading economy?
Also, the addition of Bulgaria means it's almost possible to travel from Spain to Greece entirely through the Eurozone, with only a thin sliver of Serbia or Macedonia in the way. (Assuming we include Montenegro and Kosovo in the Eurozone: technically they aren't, but for all practical purposes they are.)
It'll also be interesting to see who's next. Czechia is not far off but doesn't seem to be in a hurry, while Romania wants in but still seems to be a ways off. Poland and Hungary will stay outside unless there are major political changes.
Credit where credit is due: the EU gets a lot of flack for being bureaucratic, hidebound, sclerotic, whatever, but the single currency has been a success and it's still expanding, 26 years after its creation. Also, the addition of Bulgaria means it's almost possible to travel from Spain to Greece entirely through the Eurozone, with only a thin sliver of Serbia or Macedonia in the way. (Assuming we include Montenegro…
This will likely come with a one-time significant increase in inflation, at least based on other European countries. When Germany converted to the Euro, the conversion rate was (IIRC) about ~2 DM to the Euro but from what I recall, a lot of everyday things went from costing 7 DM to 7 euro, effectively doubling in price. IIRC France was similar (ie ~6.5 francs to the Euro but 10 Francs went to 3 euro, etc). I've tried…
Covid sort of showed everyone how hard it is to survive as a small economy in the modern highly interdependent world. One small disruptor to a core component of a small economy and they are standing outside the IMF to survive. There are currently 50-60 small countries that depend on borrowing from the IMF (that too in dollars paying interest in dollars - given competition levels guess what dollar generating capacitie…
This is ludicrously wrong of India, and I understand enough of human nature and economics that I’d be surprised if it were true of China, though it may be more suppressed.
Monetary policy is government policy. The ruling party is seldom uniformly popular across their entire domain. Perhaps you’re more familiar with US politics: broadly, rural is Republican, urban is Democrat. In India, the ruling party BJP has a lot of the north, but not so much of the south or east. Accordingly, you should expect dissent from regions with a different state government. And as for socioeconomic disparity between states, rich may complain if they seem to be subsidising poor, poor may complain if they don’t seem to be getting enough attention.
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Just as the Mark and the Franc were.
I don’t think those two are comparable economies to Bulgaria 20 years ago.
This will likely come with a one-time significant increase in inflation, at least based on other European countries. When Germany converted to the Euro, the conversion rate was (IIRC) about ~2 DM to the Euro but from what I recall, a lot of everyday things went from costing 7 DM to 7 euro, effectively doubling in price. IIRC France was similar (ie ~6.5 francs to the Euro but 10 Francs went to 3 euro, etc). I've tried…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think those two are comparable economies to Bulgaria 20 years ago.
Thinking about it, the comparison really isn't that bad. West Germany had just reunited with the East, and France was definitely on a similar upward trajectory as Bulgaria is today.
The lev was pegged to the euro in 1999, Bulgaria was roughly 80% poorer than the EU leaders
(I'm using PPP figures from ChatGPT to make these comparisons, I don't know if I'm making any sense)
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I was in Belgium the week the Belgian franc converted to Euros. I saw no price changes other than rounding up or down to the nearest Euro equivalent price. If memory serves some stores showed prices in both denominations for a while which would not have allowed for stealth inflation to happen. The currencies were pegged for a period before then so other than niche cases there really weren’t opportunities for massive…
I’m Belgian. This is correct. Even now, some people here still convert euros to francs to get a grasp on the value.
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Two things that surprised me when I spent a couple of months in Bulgaria: * Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better * Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks
Also the experience of Greece not too far back and the austerity imposed by Germany is not quite forgotten. Varoufakis[1] can attest to its severity. The Greeks voted against it but Germany imposed its will. [1] https://jacobin.com/2025/07/yanis-varoufakis-on-the-legacy-o...
Portugal managed to get out of the storm, and debt is now below GDP.
Greece took many bad steps trying to recover. And its debt shows that. Their governments have had a big part of the blame. Hell, at one point they didnt have enough money for citizens to withdraw from banks.
And that was before Troika.