91–100 of 151 posts
The raping of Greece's assets will now begin. EVERYTHING will get privatized, just like a third-world country.
The privatization of Germany in the 90s was so bad that it has now one of the strongest economies and enough money for Greece. And obviously became a third world country.
What I can still not understand: how could this have happened at all and how come just like with the financial crisis following the housing bubble, it is nobody's fault really, nobody gets the blame and has to answer and step down and get locked up for it... and ultimately banks or the countries just get their bail-out and that's it. Few months from now life will just continue as usual as if nothing ever happened, ju…
- Greece is a very recently established democracy (1974), before that greece was like a protectorate, due to a strategic positioning in the edges of the western-eastern block.
- As such, previous generations used to see the state as 'the bad guy' whose raison d'etre was to oppress citizens and maintain class inequality. So it's natural to always try to cheat, steal from "the state" and to pass these attitudes to their children
- Family ties; people can get elected for having a large extended family , and may even end up in the parliament. Are there many developed countries where father, son and grand-son, or uncle and nephew ALL become PMs in the past 30 years?
- It's difficult for new people to enter the political scene, people will not judge you by your CV, but by your ability to trick people to vote for u.
- The media is controlled by businessmen who traditionally have stakes in large (mainly construction) projects. Their main goal is to distract from what matters.
- Justice fails to work, and blames the complex law system for that.
Despite the fact that Greece enters a 30-year period of essentially foreign financial control, the media pretty much focuses on the triumph of no default. Greeks in general have a tendency to hypocritically pretend black is white, so, if anything, the deal will make the political parties who sank the whole country in debt to look as Jesus Savior (I am greek so i hope this is not taken as racist). I doubt anyone (hint, 2 persons: the previous prime minister, the finance minister when we entered the euro) will ever even be called to testify in justice about their wrongdoings. I 'm also curious to see how the rescue plan works out after this dust settles down (september maybe). Also interesting to see the real reaction of markets, after the August 2 distraction goes away
FYI there is no such thing as a "kind of" or "selective" default. It's binary. You either pay back creditors what they are owed or you dont. It's rare that a company or country defaults on ALL obligations all at once. As a member of Wall Street, I appreciate the WSJ's noble attempt to sugar coat this (article below) but that doesnt change the facts. Ditto watchandwait below.., glad it finally happened. http://profess…
The important piece of this is that something has had an 'Event of Default' : That will cause all the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) written against Greek debt to trigger. Banks (mostly European banks, as I understand it) that held Greek debt, but insured it using CDS (written mostly by US banks, ditto), will be able to hand the problem to their counterparties, in exchange for 100%. There may be some very interesting con…
"The total official financing will amount to an estimated 109 billion euro. This programme will be designed, notably through lower interest rates and extended maturities, to decisively improve the debt sustainability and refinancing profile of Greece." Markets and especially the financial sector like banks (especially French banks) owning debt from Greece (or CDO) have positively reacted to the announce for a differe…
i think this is the real story here, agreed.
What I can still not understand: how could this have happened at all and how come just like with the financial crisis following the housing bubble, it is nobody's fault really, nobody gets the blame and has to answer and step down and get locked up for it... and ultimately banks or the countries just get their bail-out and that's it. Few months from now life will just continue as usual as if nothing ever happened, ju…
Here's my remarks about how the greek political system works: - Greece is a very recently established democracy (1974), before that greece was like a protectorate, due to a strategic positioning in the edges of the western-eastern block. - As such, previous generations used to see the state as 'the bad guy' whose raison d'etre was to oppress citizens and maintain class inequality. So it's natural to always try to che…
Does this mean that - given the context you describe - Greece will be essentially unable to raise the resources needed to pay off even the extended maturity debts? I am merely being curious - please take no offence at my question - but what do you think are the chances that we see a 'hard default' in the coming years?
What I can still not understand: how could this have happened at all and how come just like with the financial crisis following the housing bubble, it is nobody's fault really, nobody gets the blame and has to answer and step down and get locked up for it... and ultimately banks or the countries just get their bail-out and that's it. Few months from now life will just continue as usual as if nothing ever happened, ju…
Here's my remarks about how the greek political system works: - Greece is a very recently established democracy (1974), before that greece was like a protectorate, due to a strategic positioning in the edges of the western-eastern block. - As such, previous generations used to see the state as 'the bad guy' whose raison d'etre was to oppress citizens and maintain class inequality. So it's natural to always try to che…
The United States springs to mind: George H.R. Bush, Jeb Bush, George W. Bush.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's my remarks about how the greek political system works: - Greece is a very recently established democracy (1974), before that greece was like a protectorate, due to a strategic positioning in the edges of the western-eastern block. - As such, previous generations used to see the state as 'the bad guy' whose raison d'etre was to oppress citizens and maintain class inequality. So it's natural to always try to che…
> So it's natural to always try to cheat, steal from "the state" and to pass these attitudes to their children Does this mean that - given the context you describe - Greece will be essentially unable to raise the resources needed to pay off even the extended maturity debts? I am merely being curious - please take no offence at my question - but what do you think are the chances that we see a 'hard default' in the com…
What I can still not understand: how could this have happened at all and how come just like with the financial crisis following the housing bubble, it is nobody's fault really, nobody gets the blame and has to answer and step down and get locked up for it... and ultimately banks or the countries just get their bail-out and that's it. Few months from now life will just continue as usual as if nothing ever happened, ju…
This is a case where blind hope was supposed to triumph over facts (- hey, it's politics, right?): the deficiencies of Greece's economy were known to everybody but if Greece hadn't "tweaked" its statistics, it wouldn't have been possible to let them enter the EU/ euro zone, so everybody looked the other way. Why admit Greece in the first place then? The economic opportunities for exporting goods to Greece seem to have been realized, so that part of the bargain held up (- until recently). Also, there was a hope that once Greece was a member of the EU, they would clean up their act and get things straightened. Of course, if you don't impose sanctions and set up strong incentives, the underlying faults don't fix themselves. The one person arguing for administrative reforms in Greece must have ended up feeling like Charlie Wilson making a case for schools in Afghanistan...
FYI there is no such thing as a "kind of" or "selective" default. It's binary. You either pay back creditors what they are owed or you dont. It's rare that a company or country defaults on ALL obligations all at once. As a member of Wall Street, I appreciate the WSJ's noble attempt to sugar coat this (article below) but that doesnt change the facts. Ditto watchandwait below.., glad it finally happened. http://profess…
You mean as an employee of a firm on Wall Street?
What happens to you if you're not in that club?