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Greece

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41–50 of 209 posts

Re: Greece

#41

Post by cgio »

brohee wrote: post #36
DangerousPie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much. The author's argument is that everybody knew that their economic state was misrepresented, so the banks should have never lend them money in the first place. The mismanagement leading up to the financial crises was of course the fault of the Greek government. However, the reforms that the EU has proposed/enforced since then seem to have been more about punishing the Greeks than about actually buildi…

Implementing a land registry and getting people to pay taxes is not punishment... What part of the reform is actually punitive? The history of the Greek land registry is kinda hilarious btw... http://openeurope.org.uk/blog/reforming-greece-easier-said-d...

The part that led to 25% drop in GDP and three times the unemployment rate. The part that took a 50bn problem and made it 330. You can say whatever you want about the incompetence of Greek governments, but the wise foreign advisors managed to be even worse in every respect (e.g. using wrong multipliers to calculate impact of reforms and even making growth assumptions in an economy they themselves dried up from investment.)

Re: Greece

#42

Post by Xylakant »

Amezarak wrote: post #37
mike_hearn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reforms are the only long term solution. They're reforms like, maybe Greeks should retire at the same age that other people in Europe do. Maybe hairdressing should not be considered a 'dangerous profession', thus unlocking various benefits. Maybe Greek train drivers should not be paid $130,000 a year to drive near-empty trains. Maybe Greece should be able to grow its own food instead of importing more than half o…

> Greece has no real alternative but to adopt severe reforms and that means severe "austerity", whereby "austerity" of course what people mean is shrinking the Greek state to a size more appropriate to the size of its economy. Greece has a perfectly workable alternative in a Grexit. It would help them enormously and not require austerity but there are political reasons that won't allow it. If Greece was using the dra…

As a purely economic solution, a Grexit combined with a default might work. However, who would step up and finance the ongoing deficit? Interest rates even for short term borrowing would be unsustainable. What would happen in the meantime, until such a Grexit could actually be performed? The banks don't have money any more, there's no infrastructure to print new bills, there's no plan on how to actually do that. It's the choice between austerity because the lenders want it or austerity because there's no money left.

On top of that, would Greece leave the EU? There's a lot of greek living and working abroad under the EU residence/work rules. Would such a vote not be perceived as a "No" to europe, effectively pushing greece out of the EU at least on a temporary basis?

I'm not convinced that the Grexit is a workable alternative in a larger context.

Re: Greece

#43

Post by return0 »

Amezarak wrote: post #37
mike_hearn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reforms are the only long term solution. They're reforms like, maybe Greeks should retire at the same age that other people in Europe do. Maybe hairdressing should not be considered a 'dangerous profession', thus unlocking various benefits. Maybe Greek train drivers should not be paid $130,000 a year to drive near-empty trains. Maybe Greece should be able to grow its own food instead of importing more than half o…

> Greece has no real alternative but to adopt severe reforms and that means severe "austerity", whereby "austerity" of course what people mean is shrinking the Greek state to a size more appropriate to the size of its economy. Greece has a perfectly workable alternative in a Grexit. It would help them enormously and not require austerity but there are political reasons that won't allow it. If Greece was using the dra…

> has a perfectly workable alternative in a Grexit

Its not "perfectly workable" in a country that imports >>50% food, has practically zero foreign currency reserves, and is already considered a bad lender.

Re: Greece

#44

Post by misterbarnaby »

"They had knowingly and purposefully brought weak states into the Eurozone, because they genuinely, even nobly, wished to build a large, strong, United Europe."

For folks who know Europe/Europeans well, is this true?

Re: Greece

#45

Post by telepheron »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #32

The TROIKA GDP Forecast graph is great! I think from now on I am going to send it to any investor who thinks asking pre-revenue companies for projections is a reasonable thing.

Especially since it was largely caused by the failure of the Greek government to implement the required changes.

Also the slow recovery in 2013 and 2014 was 'accidentally' left out.

Re: Greece

#46

Post by reagency »

dnautics wrote: post #7

> "The world is full of unworthy and unscrupulous entities willing to take your money and call the transaction a “loan”. It always will be. That is why responsibility for, and the consequences of, extending credit badly must fall upon creditors, not debtors. There is one morality tale that says the debtor must repay, or she has sinned and must be punished. There is another morality tale that says the creditor must in…

That quote is silly, it completely justifies fraud. There has to be a balance.

Re: Greece

#47

Post by miopa »

brohee wrote: post #36
DangerousPie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much. The author's argument is that everybody knew that their economic state was misrepresented, so the banks should have never lend them money in the first place. The mismanagement leading up to the financial crises was of course the fault of the Greek government. However, the reforms that the EU has proposed/enforced since then seem to have been more about punishing the Greeks than about actually buildi…

Implementing a land registry and getting people to pay taxes is not punishment... What part of the reform is actually punitive? The history of the Greek land registry is kinda hilarious btw... http://openeurope.org.uk/blog/reforming-greece-easier-said-d...

There is an additional reason that makes the 'Cadastre' extremly difficult project for Greece. A lot of the land in northern Greece is claimed (with documents) by people who are now citizens of Republic of Macedonia. Greece will break some EU laws if it doesn't honor those documents, but that land is used for more than 60 years by other people or the Greek state.

Re: Greece

#48

Post by telepheron »

rosser wrote: post #40
telepheron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we just ignore the fact that the Greek government misrepresented their economic state, failed to implement the necessary changes and then puts up a completely bogus referendum?

If Greece's creditors lent money to the country while knowing of its government's misrepresentations, then whose fault is that again?

Who says the creditors were fully aware of the government's misrepresentations?

Those misrepresentations were discovered when the Troika started to investigate Greece's financial state.

Re: Greece

#49

Post by Hello71 »

The title was edited from "The best analysis of the situation in Greece" to "Greece". The former title, while baity, is a much better description of the article than just the name of the country. Might as well call it "Blog".

It would have been much better to, for example, delete "the best" and leave "analysis of the situation in" so that readers understand what about Greece is being discussed.

Re: Greece

#50

Post by taki1 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #24
DangerousPie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much. The author's argument is that everybody knew that their economic state was misrepresented, so the banks should have never lend them money in the first place. The mismanagement leading up to the financial crises was of course the fault of the Greek government. However, the reforms that the EU has proposed/enforced since then seem to have been more about punishing the Greeks than about actually buildi…

The reforms are the only long term solution. They're reforms like, maybe Greeks should retire at the same age that other people in Europe do. Maybe hairdressing should not be considered a 'dangerous profession', thus unlocking various benefits. Maybe Greek train drivers should not be paid $130,000 a year to drive near-empty trains. Maybe Greece should be able to grow its own food instead of importing more than half o…

So if you have known all of that you still invite them to the Euro, you still lend them like there is no tomorrow, and then you put all the blame on them?

What kind of investor are you? A german banker? Ja wohl! Ich know all of thiz but I still lend them because if antyhing happens I call up Die Frau and she get our back.

Nice, really nice.

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