Greece: 48 Hours to the End

[waauw]

I hope they stick to their guns and refuse to pay. Riot, hang all the bankers, hang all the politicians. Have a total monetary collapse, do away with fiat currency, rebuild from the ground up with money that is backed by real goods. The transition will be difficult, but after a brief nightmare they should emerge on the other side stronger, healthier, and happier than ever before. Leave behind the phony economy of paper pushers and enter a new era where men once again expect only an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

Unlikely, I know, but we are allowed to have dreams.

I don't understand why people here keep wrongfully assuming that a default would only be painful for a short period of time. There is ample evidence that things could drag on for decades just as well.

[patches70]

I hope they stick to their guns and refuse to pay. Riot, hang all the bankers, hang all the politicians. Have a total monetary collapse, do away with fiat currency, rebuild from the ground up with money that is backed by real goods. The transition will be difficult, but after a brief nightmare they should emerge on the other side stronger, healthier, and happier than ever before. Leave behind the phony economy of paper pushers and enter a new era where men once again expect only an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

Unlikely, I know, but we are allowed to have dreams.

I don't understand why people here keep wrongfully assuming that a default would only be painful for a short period of time. There is ample evidence that things could drag on for decades just as well.

As opposed to the pain and suffering of years and years of bailouts that haven't helped?

In the bailout route there is no end to the suffering, it only gets worse and worse.
In a default, as in any bankruptcy, there is always light at the end of that tunnel. Whatever time it takes to recover from the default will be much shorter than if Greece keeps on the course she has been for years now under the thumb of the ECB.

Even you have to see that.

Iceland went the route of not bailing out the TBTFs and she is much better off now than Italy, Greece, France, Spain etc etc etc. Iceland didn't cave to the bankers or to their threats, instead they put the bankers in prison and let their banks die quick deaths. That is the correct way to proceed.

I don't know why people think that loaning money to nations is somehow risk free. There is always risk, something the creditors to Greece should have remembered. Something people who think Greece should pay her debts no matter what misery is inflicted upon her people. The creditors lent money to a high risk nation and now are crying about how there shouldn't have been any risk. Ha! Sucks to be you dude!

In the end the ECB is going to have to eat the losses. Its inevitable, just as the Greek default was inevitable from the beginning. Everyone, and I mean everyone knew full well that Greece wasn't ever going to be able to pay this debt. No amount of beating with the financial stick was going to change basic math.

You can seize all the pensions, you can raise the tax rates to 100%, you can take the Greek islands as payment, take every ounce of Greece's gold, it wouldn't matter because it would never be enough.

[waauw]

As opposed to the pain and suffering of years and years of bailouts that haven't helped?

In the bailout route there is no end to the suffering, it only gets worse and worse.
In a default, as in any bankruptcy, there is always light at the end of that tunnel. Whatever time it takes to recover from the default will be much shorter than if Greece keeps on the course she has been for years now under the thumb of the ECB.

Even you have to see that.

That's utter nonsense. I agree the bailout option has been disastrous until now, for Greece. For other woeful eurozone nations things evolved much swifter, due to stronger decisiveness. Ireland for instance is doing tremendously well.

I don't think you realize how bad things could get if Greece purposely defaults. The multinational corporations won't stop demanding Greece to pay up their debts even after a default. The only way to withold them from doing so is if their own domestic governments demand them to give up the case. I don't know about you, but I'm not so certain the Greek government is more influential than multinational lobbying groups. Greece could very well end up with everlasting pressure from the rest of the EU, possibly even with Greece ending up getting kicked out of the EU as a whole.

Iceland went the route of not bailing out the TBTFs and she is much better off now than Italy, Greece, France, Spain etc etc etc. Iceland didn't cave to the bankers or to their threats, instead they put the bankers in prison and let their banks die quick deaths. That is the correct way to proceed.

Apples and oranges dude:

• Iceland only had a troublesome financial sector, the challenges in Greece are much more profound. The structural difficulties permeate through all of their sectors all the way to their legislation.
• Iceland has access to very cheap energy that Greece does not. They have a myriad of renewable energy sources, and they have already signed deals with China to jointly exploit oil near the North-Pole.
• Greece has one of the highest median ages in the world, whilst Iceland has one of the very lowest median ages out of the entire developed world.
• ...

I don't know why people think that loaning money to nations is somehow risk free. There is always risk, something the creditors to Greece should have remembered. Something people who think Greece should pay her debts no matter what misery is inflicted upon her people. The creditors lent money to a high risk nation and now are crying about how there shouldn't have been any risk. Ha! Sucks to be you dude!

In the end the ECB is going to have to eat the losses. Its inevitable, just as the Greek default was inevitable from the beginning. Everyone, and I mean everyone knew full well that Greece wasn't ever going to be able to pay this debt. No amount of beating with the financial stick was going to change basic math.

You can seize all the pensions, you can raise the tax rates to 100%, you can take the Greek islands as payment, take every ounce of Greece's gold, it wouldn't matter because it would never be enough.

I agree on you on the moral base of things, but you have to be realistic. A nation defaulting is not the same as a business defaulting. A nation can't get rid of its debt as easily.
The big danger for Greece is that it returns to the Drachma, its debts remain denominated in euro's and the debt/GDP ratio skyrockets even more.

[saxitoxin]

Puerto Rico is totally pulling a Jan Brady and now says it's going to default, too -

Puerto Rico’s governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a “death spiral,” has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/busin ... yable.html

- though don't think they have the option of dropping the dollar and going back to the peseta.

[patches70]

I can't believe you are siding with the creditors, waauw.

Lemme ask you, are you the type of person that when confronted with someone who owes you a debt and that person can't pay that debt in a million years, after you've taken everything of value that you can from them until they are left with only their life. The debt is still not paid, and though they have nothing left for you to take, would you insist that they indenture themselves to you for the rest of their life? That the person's children then be indentured to you for the rest of their lives as the person's future labors still wouldn't be enough to pay the debt?
If they refused to indenture themselves and their children to you, would you then grab them by the hair, drag them to a cell and scream at them "PAY YOUR DEBT!!!" day after day, year after year until they rot and die in that cell? Then you take their children, throw them into the same cell and scream "PAY YOUR FATHER'S DEBT!!!" day after day, year after year until they too rot and die in that cell?
Would you insist that your children take your place screaming at the poor unfortunate sods after your own demise insisting that the children of the debtor pay the children of the creditor?

Are you so petty?

Or would you be the type of person that after taking everything that you can from the person until they have only their life, that you would then take that person's life? Murder them for a debt even though that won't get your money back? Then murder the person's family, even though that too won't get your money back? That is something the mafia would do.

What you do when you insist upon all else that Greece pay her debts like some bleeting sheep ignoring the simple fact that come hell or high water Greece is absolutely incapable of paying the debt? Its not that the Greeks are choosing not to pay the debt, it is that they can't pay the debt. There is no way, its a math problem as simple as one can get.

At some point, you as the creditor have to say f*ck it, and you write off the debt as a loss. Or you could be that other person I guess, but if you were to see someone doing that to another person, would you be comfortable support that person's claim to such extreme measures? I'm not, but that's me.

What you are advocating waauw, leads to war, violence, death and destruction. I cannot believe you would stand with that side of the equation. The bankers would, war and violence are good ways to get more people into debt to them.


It is insanity to keep insisting that Greece pay something that they cannot pay. Even if the creditors took all the pensions, stole the money out of the elderly's mouths, stole the pennies in every Greek child's piggy bank, after taking every dime of every Greek's paychecks, after taking every morsel of food the debt would still not be paid and all the Greeks would be dead, dead dead because the creditors deprived them of the things they need to live for the sake of a debt.


Would you be comfortable watching the Greek people being punished to the point of untold misery not for the sake of actually collecting the debt, but as a warning to others to what happens if they too fail to be able to pay a debt?
I'm not.

Greece is in a mess, the ECB is in a mess, and as long as people keep ignoring the reality that the debt can't be paid and that the debt must be paid in full, then there is no way to move forward at all. This thinking leads to war, over an unpayable debt. The war won't get the money paid back and the Greek people will be gone, dead as door nails because they can't pay back people who loaned them money that was created out of thin air in the first place.

Think about that for a moment, the money came into being in the first place because someone hit "print" or hit "enter" on a keyboard somewhere instead of earning the money actually producing a good or developing a resource. And this is what you'd be comfortable with for nations to go to war over?

I don't think so. I hope not. Granted, there are certain parties who are more than willing to go that route, but it won't be to recover the previously owed debt, it will be to get others to assume the debt instead. And those others will also happen to be the ones who do the dying and fighting.

One day people are going to wake up and figure out what this current economic system really is, fraud. Unsustainable, unstable immoral and not worth killing and dying for. Even with all the benefits that our current system has doesn't make up for the downside especially when there are other more sound and stable, but albeit less flexible, systems available. Sound money is proper money, anything else is fraud.

[patches70]

Puerto Rico is totally pulling a Jan Brady and now says it's going to default, too -

Puerto Rico’s governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a “death spiral,” has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/busin ... yable.html

- though don't think they have the option of dropping the dollar and going back to the peseta.

That's opening up the municipal bond debacle and is a completely different topic, though one more personal to the average US citizen. Detroit, Stockton, they defaulted on their bonds and everything didn't come crashing down. Some poor bastards saw their 401k's get beat down hard, but that's what investing is, risk.

The sooner people accept that and understand that, the better and wiser people will be when investing. Which is a good thing in the long run.

But this Puerto Rico thing isn't unexpected, everyone's seen it coming and those who could be hurt by this should have been taking steps long ago to disentangle themselves. If people didn't then f*ck em, they are going to take a beat down.

[mrswdk]

Iceland went the route of not bailing out the TBTFs and she is much better off now than Italy, Greece, France, Spain etc etc etc. Iceland didn't cave to the bankers or to their threats, instead they put the bankers in prison and let their banks die quick deaths. That is the correct way to proceed.

Apples and oranges dude:

• Iceland only had a troublesome financial sector, the challenges in Greece are much more profound. The structural difficulties permeate through all of their sectors all the way to their legislation.
• Iceland has access to very cheap energy that Greece does not. They have a myriad of renewable energy sources, and they have already signed deals with China to jointly exploit oil near the North-Pole.
• Greece has one of the highest median ages in the world, whilst Iceland has one of the very lowest median ages out of the entire developed world.
• ...

• Iceland used loans (equivalent to roughly half of Iceland's annual GDP) from the IMF and a variety of European countries to help it get through its crisis, and was required to make a lot of reforms at the behest of the IMF (similar to the ones being demanded of Greece).
• Iceland as a country never declared bankruptcy, so its government's credibility as a borrower wasn't threatened in the same way that Greece's is.

Interesting to see you glorifying Iceland's solution to their crisis btw, patches. I thought your big problem with the current situation in Greece was that 'bankers' are supposedly winning at the expense of the proletariat. One of the biggest groups of losers from the Icelandic crisis was Dutch and British savers, who had pension schemes and personal savings wiped out when the Icelandic government refused to guarantee the money that Icelandic banks owed those foreign savers. Not much of a victory for the common man.

[mrswdk]

I can't believe you are siding with the creditors, waauw.

Don't think he's siding with anyone, dude. He's just telling the situation how it is.

You, thought, are siding with someone. You're siding with someone who borrowed money and is now saying they don't want to pay it back, which is baffling. I guess if I ever want to borrow money from a CC member, you're the guy I should come to.

[Metsfanmax]

Lemme ask you, are you the type of person that when confronted with someone who owes you a debt and that person can't pay that debt in a million years, after you've taken everything of value that you can from them until they are left with only their life. The debt is still not paid, and though they have nothing left for you to take, would you insist that they indenture themselves to you for the rest of their life? That the person's children then be indentured to you for the rest of their lives as the person's future labors still wouldn't be enough to pay the debt?.

Nah man not forever, just until the next jubilee year.

[waauw]

I can't believe you are siding with the creditors, waauw.

Lemme ask you, are you the type of person that when confronted with someone who owes you a debt and that person can't pay that debt in a million years, after you've taken everything of value that you can from them until they are left with only their life. The debt is still not paid, and though they have nothing left for you to take, would you insist that they indenture themselves to you for the rest of their life? That the person's children then be indentured to you for the rest of their lives as the person's future labors still wouldn't be enough to pay the debt?
If they refused to indenture themselves and their children to you, would you then grab them by the hair, drag them to a cell and scream at them "PAY YOUR DEBT!!!" day after day, year after year until they rot and die in that cell? Then you take their children, throw them into the same cell and scream "PAY YOUR FATHER'S DEBT!!!" day after day, year after year until they too rot and die in that cell?
Would you insist that your children take your place screaming at the poor unfortunate sods after your own demise insisting that the children of the debtor pay the children of the creditor?

Are you so petty?

Or would you be the type of person that after taking everything that you can from the person until they have only their life, that you would then take that person's life? Murder them for a debt even though that won't get your money back? Then murder the person's family, even though that too won't get your money back? That is something the mafia would do.

What you do when you insist upon all else that Greece pay her debts like some bleeting sheep ignoring the simple fact that come hell or high water Greece is absolutely incapable of paying the debt? Its not that the Greeks are choosing not to pay the debt, it is that they can't pay the debt. There is no way, its a math problem as simple as one can get.

At some point, you as the creditor have to say f*ck it, and you write off the debt as a loss. Or you could be that other person I guess, but if you were to see someone doing that to another person, would you be comfortable support that person's claim to such extreme measures? I'm not, but that's me.

What you are advocating waauw, leads to war, violence, death and destruction. I cannot believe you would stand with that side of the equation. The bankers would, war and violence are good ways to get more people into debt to them.


It is insanity to keep insisting that Greece pay something that they cannot pay. Even if the creditors took all the pensions, stole the money out of the elderly's mouths, stole the pennies in every Greek child's piggy bank, after taking every dime of every Greek's paychecks, after taking every morsel of food the debt would still not be paid and all the Greeks would be dead, dead dead because the creditors deprived them of the things they need to live for the sake of a debt.


Would you be comfortable watching the Greek people being punished to the point of untold misery not for the sake of actually collecting the debt, but as a warning to others to what happens if they too fail to be able to pay a debt?
I'm not.

Greece is in a mess, the ECB is in a mess, and as long as people keep ignoring the reality that the debt can't be paid and that the debt must be paid in full, then there is no way to move forward at all. This thinking leads to war, over an unpayable debt. The war won't get the money paid back and the Greek people will be gone, dead as door nails because they can't pay back people who loaned them money that was created out of thin air in the first place.

Think about that for a moment, the money came into being in the first place because someone hit "print" or hit "enter" on a keyboard somewhere instead of earning the money actually producing a good or developing a resource. And this is what you'd be comfortable with for nations to go to war over?

I don't think so. I hope not. Granted, there are certain parties who are more than willing to go that route, but it won't be to recover the previously owed debt, it will be to get others to assume the debt instead. And those others will also happen to be the ones who do the dying and fighting.

One day people are going to wake up and figure out what this current economic system really is, fraud. Unsustainable, unstable immoral and not worth killing and dying for. Even with all the benefits that our current system has doesn't make up for the downside especially when there are other more sound and stable, but albeit less flexible, systems available. Sound money is proper money, anything else is fraud.

You're taking this too personal. I'm not advocating anything an I'm not siding with anyone here. I'm merely mentioning that Greece's precariousness is much more complex than what several people here have been claiming. I'm not saying anything regarding what 'should be', only what 'is'.

I agree the global system is unsustainable, but that doesn't change Greece's situation currently.

PS: As I mentioned before in this topic, it is highly likely that a collapse of the global financial system will be more beneficial for countries like China and Russia than it would be for the west.

[mrswdk]

PS: As I mentioned before in this topic, it is highly likely that a collapse of the global financial system will be more beneficial for countries like China and Russia than it would be for the west.

Going by the countries that were able to shrug off 2008 the most easily, it would be China, India and SE Asia who would gain most in the re-balancing that would take place following that sort of collapse.

[patches70]

You're taking this too personal. I'm not advocating anything an I'm not siding with anyone here. I'm merely mentioning that Greece's precariousness is much more complex than what several people here have been claiming. I'm not saying anything regarding what 'should be', only what 'is'.

Its not that precarious actually. A deal has to be made. For instance, if Greece owes someone a million dollars then Greece pays them $100K and that's that, the debt is done. And so on and so on. If you are owed a billion, you get a $100 million and have no further debt claims against Greece.

The creditors take a haircut (which is inevitable regardless), maybe not a 90% haircut but its going to be significant. After that, Greece has zero debt, gets to keep what she produces and and lives a lot more modestly in the future. Getting loans at that point won't be hard because Greece will have zero debt, but they'll pay through the nose for those loans. Not that the Greeks should be very interested in taking on new debt after the hell they went through.

But once that debt is gone then it is indeed wind at the sails for the Greeks. Hopefully they will be wiser.

The problem is, the ECB isn't too keen on taking a haircut, are they? Why? Because if that happens there will be a whole bunch of raised hands in the classroom looking to get their own deal, right? Spain, Italy and other will want the same deal or near to it. Then it all comes tumbling down after that, doesn't it?

The precarious situation isn't in Greece, its in the ECB and deservedly so, right? They are the ones who have over extended have they not? They are now in the position where their existence is in peril. Why are people yelling that Greece should lie in the bed they made but ignore the mess of the ECB and IMF's bed? Isn't their situation just as stupid, ill thought and foolish?

I agree the global system is unsustainable, but that doesn't change Greece's situation currently.

But its not "Greece's situation", as if they are the ones with the problem. Its the ECB's problem, isn't it? They are the ones who are really on the line. No matter how its tried to be spun that its all the fault of the Greeks, its actually the result of the ECB and IMF's decisions that we are at this point. As such, they are the ones who will ultimately have to pay the price for their malinvestment, their miscalculation and their idiocy, and rightfully so. They made bad loans, knew they were making bad loans, used bogus accounting and ratings systems they knew were bogus. They deserve to go belly up.

PS: As I mentioned before in this topic, it is highly likely that a collapse of the global financial system will be more beneficial for countries like China and Russia than it would be for the west.

Its going to be beneficial to everyone if what replaces it is a sound financial system. I know its hard to see, what we know today is what we've known all our lives and we are comfortable with it, but its unsound, unstable and ultimately destructive to a great majority of the people of the Earth and truly benefits only a small group of people.

Money was invented with the sole purpose of facilitating trade and commerce, not to enrich a select group of elite. We've long since forgotten what money was invented for and so few really understand what our currency is of how fiat currencies come into existence in the first place. When one sees the process they can't help but think of how stupid it is and sees immediately how such power is quickly abused.

Sound money is the only way forward, at least until mankind figures out how to convert energy into matter, then we won't need money anymore.

If yet another fiat currency system replaces it then it just starts the whole process over again and has the exact same end result. It doesn't matter if its the EU, the US, Russia or anyone else who is in charge of the system, it eventually goes critical and won't last more than a generation. As is the case with every fiat currency ever created throughout the entire history of human civilization.

What was it that Einstein said about the definition of insanity? Yeah, that's our modern financial system, the same spin on a very old fraud that always, I repeat, always collapses because exponential growth is by definition unstable, unsustainable and eventually collapses. And that is what our modern financial system is, exponential credit expansion and it always ends the same. Always.

[patches70]

PS: As I mentioned before in this topic, it is highly likely that a collapse of the global financial system will be more beneficial for countries like China and Russia than it would be for the west.

Going by the countries that were able to shrug off 2008 the most easily, it would be China, India and SE Asia who would gain most in the re-balancing that would take place following that sort of collapse.

This thread isn't about China, but I will say that no one really knows the true state of the Chinese economy because they fucking lie about every thing without exception. If China says the sky is blue then people better go outside and check to make sure.

[mrswdk]

PS: As I mentioned before in this topic, it is highly likely that a collapse of the global financial system will be more beneficial for countries like China and Russia than it would be for the west.

Going by the countries that were able to shrug off 2008 the most easily, it would be China, India and SE Asia who would gain most in the re-balancing that would take place following that sort of collapse.

This thread isn't about China

You're a smart boy, aren't you?

I mean, not in the context of anything you've had to say about Greece so far in this thread, but at least you got this one right.

[patches70]

That's the best you got?

You're the one who thinks Greece should pay the price, you're are the one who wants to hold Greece accountable. You don't even see or acknowledge that this is no longer Greece's problem, its the ECB's problem now, and they have one hell of a problem that no amount of smacking Greece around is going to change one bit.

Its not my fault you can't see or understand that.

[Oneyed]

I hope they stick to their guns and refuse to pay. Riot, hang all the bankers, hang all the politicians. Have a total monetary collapse, do away with fiat currency, rebuild from the ground up with money that is backed by real goods. The transition will be difficult, but after a brief nightmare they should emerge on the other side stronger, healthier, and happier than ever before. Leave behind the phony economy of paper pushers and enter a new era where men once again expect only an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

Unlikely, I know, but we are allowed to have dreams.

freedom for Greece.

Oneyed

[mrswdk]

You're the one who thinks Greece should pay the price, you're are the one who wants to hold Greece accountable.

I know, holding someone to promises that they made to you. What a ridiculous idea.

Like I said earlier, if I ever want some easy money then you're the guy I'm going to be 'borrowing' from.

[Metsfanmax]

You're the one who thinks Greece should pay the price, you're are the one who wants to hold Greece accountable.

I know, holding someone to promises that they made to you. What a ridiculous idea.

As I pointed out earlier, you're completely glossing over the fact that a country is not a someone. Who, in particular, should repay the debt, and if it is multiple people, how should the debt be apportioned?

[saxitoxin]

Silver lining is that Greece doesn't grow any food, has to import it all. So everyone will be looking thin and trim in a year or two.

[patches70]

You're the one who thinks Greece should pay the price, you're are the one who wants to hold Greece accountable.

I know, holding someone to promises that they made to you. What a ridiculous idea.

And if the person making the promise says "f*ck you, I'm not holding/can't hold myself to that promise", WTF are you going to do about it then? Stomp your feet, cry?
Or would you say, "well screw it and screw you" and go your separate ways?




Greece has a choice between austerity under the thumb of the EU and continued debt slavery into perpetuity
or
a worse austerity on their own with a chance of breaking the debt slavery.


What say you, CC? Which would you choose given the choice?

[GoranZ]

And Merkel's European Strategy Didn't Just Fail, It Failed Spectacularly

I guess the Germans will learn the hard way that if you give money to someone that cant return them, you will never see them...

It is a lesson for the Chinese also, they give money to American government. Will the Chinese learn it on time?

[Phatscotty]

REMEMBER ALEXANDROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GoranZ]

REMEMBER ALEXANDROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who is he?


Greeks will vote on very "interesting" referendum question...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33311422

[DoomYoshi]

Sounds like a Jugoslav to me.