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Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#11

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

honest_joe wrote: post #9
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation. Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts. Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones…

So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks

> How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks?

The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#12

Post by drited »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

tl;dr ECB has leaked to BBC they will cut off emergency lending that covers the panic withdrawals. This will kill the deal and force a grexit, even before 5 July referendum. However French PM does not think they have enough independence to do that. So we have a democratic nation potentially forced to leave Euro, after democratically deciding it no longer wants the austerity imposed, being forced to leave by non democ…

What's the alternative for the ECB? Give €129 bn to Greek banks to replace the deposits that are bound to flee this week only to see it lost when they default after saying no in the referendum? The Greek banks would have been bust long ago if it wasn't for the ECB's emergency lending; they've been provided with €60 bn in liquidity over the last 6 months to replace the deposit flight. Not sure how you can characterise that as Greece being forced to leave by a decision from the ECB. Looks more to me like they have to leave because there are no other options left.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#14

Post by mafribe »

themartorana wrote: post #4

As I understand it, one of the major underlying issues this whole time (aside from the silliness of trying to integrate Greece's economy with Germany's) was the ECB's refusal to act as the lender of last resort. This seems like an affirmation of that. If Greece exits the Euro, I wonder if that will embolden other countries to do the same.

The ECB has effectively acted as a lender of last resort to Greece for a looong time (just look at ELA [1] for example), although for political reasons this fact has been sugar-coated so as not to scare the electorate in states that pay for Greece (and are now beginning to see what has been clear to anyone who looked at the figures, namely that the money is gone!). Greece was effectively bankrupt years ago. The main underlying issue is that Greece has been unable or unwilling (depending on whom you ask) to ensure that tax revenues roughly match government expenditures.

[1] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/ela/html/index.en.html

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#15

Post by celticninja »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11
honest_joe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks

> How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.

He may not be correct in what he is saying, but the underlying message is that Greece and the Greeks were enjoying the benefits of the EU on the never never, their attitude to taxation was part of the problem and now Greece expects to be taken care of by the rest of the EU taxpayers who actually pay their taxes. They don't want to affect their pensioners but it is many of those pensioners who benefitted the most from the money years of the EU.

So I guess the question is who should be paying for Greece's poor financial planning because Greece do not appear to think it should be them.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#16

Post by kuschku »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6
imaginenore wrote: post #3

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation. Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts. Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones…

The issue is: All the cutbacks aim at the government, while all the EFSF money goes towards the banks – the greece government isn’t bailed out, it’s again banks that cash out big.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#17

Post by lmb »

jkot wrote: post #5

There were similar leaks from ECB to force Irish to take bailout. Anyway we will see on monday, right now some ATMs in athens are still working.

Since this is [citation needed] I dug around. Seems like yes, the ECB pressured Ireland into accepting a bailout by threatening them to shut down ELA. But in fact they did it in a secret letter from Trichet to the then finance minister. Getting that letter released took some pressure, as well. [0][1]

So, the only similarity seems to be the ECB threatening to pull ELA. There has alreay been debate that the ECB is already overstepping their mandate, but I can't find an English source for that.

0: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/o-reilly-hits-out...

1: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29942060

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#18

Post by gizmo »

imaginenore wrote: post #3

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

That's a shockingly ignorant statement. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#20

Post by michaelt »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

tl;dr ECB has leaked to BBC they will cut off emergency lending that covers the panic withdrawals. This will kill the deal and force a grexit, even before 5 July referendum. However French PM does not think they have enough independence to do that. So we have a democratic nation potentially forced to leave Euro, after democratically deciding it no longer wants the austerity imposed, being forced to leave by non democ…

  while the democracies that appoint the ECB
  think it is going too far.
Often in politics you want someone to feel threatened, but you don't want to look like an asshole by threatening them yourself.

I'm sure France and Germany can put up the money to cover profligate Greek public spending if they want to. But if they've decided Greece needs to be cut off, I'm sure they'd much rather have an anonymous non-german non-french bureaucrat deliver the bad news than do it themselves.

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