Wafflecakes
Member
When you are stupid with money, then your parents take your credit card away.
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Greece has no money to pay the IMF, default imminent
- Thread starter ICKE
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When you are stupid with money, then your parents take your credit card away.
Yes, you've lived on borrowed money. Time to pay your dues. Get your shit together, Greece, you can't postpone inevitable and blame it all on some Troika conspiracy theories against left parties.
Coriolanus
Banned
One of the lowest =/= the lowest.
You just supported the argument for greece being a debt colony.
Wafflecakes
Member
According to this Greece has much higher wages than all of its neighbors....
Lalalandia
Member
Of course they are, the entire planet is worse off than before the crisis, that's why it was a crisis. They and we (Irish) both had to slash and burn our budgets (they even more than us I believe) because so much of our budget relied on cheap borrowing. When that went away we were both stuffed, in Ireland we also decided to prop up shitty banks to just tick all the boxes in the 'shitty economic management' bingo card while we were at it.
Don't fall into the trap of reading a GDP graph and going 'oh look it went down when choice X happened' , the reality is budget cuts are often like a parachute in that they don't stop you falling, they just make it less lethal (by ensuring you can still get loans to run a primary deficit).
As I said, we're on right track and recovering from that bubble that hit us all.
PdotMichael
Banned
On the map is Greece grouped in the second highest group of monthly salaries. And beats countries like Portugal, and Poland and the entire Eastern European room.
Frankfurter
Member
Latvia had GDP growth rates of sth. like 10% pre crisis. Not really surprising that that's not really "sustainable" (i.e. achievable) in the long run. + It's at sth. like 5% (~6% per capita) atm, which is fantastic, unless you are China.
Latvias unemployment rate has also decreased significantly (20% to 10% within ~5 years)
Prime crotch
Banned
Sure, just toss people away after you're done covering your asses by saving a banking system that perpetrated the debt economy and then force them to implement measures that historically have never proved to work.
Wafflecakes
Member
No country is entitled to a blank check to maintain an unsustainable economic system.
If Greece wants to leave the Euro, that is fine. They should have the choice to leave if they should so choose. However, the ENTIRE situation is no ones fault but their own.
If Greece would stop trying to blame everyone else for their own incompetence I would be more sympathetic.
ClosingADoor
Member
I'm glad that it is not up to you then, because you do sound delusional if you want an entire continent to suffer economic collapse and probably drag the world down with it for a good part. Because you don't see a future for yourself does not mean millions of others should throw away theirs.
I rank it about the same as people thinking a new World War or actual zombie apocalypse would be cool after they watched The Walking Dead.
Coriolanus
Banned
There's a chart with sorting function right under. Even allows to index for net wages. Use it. It'll still be one of the lowest.
No country is entitled to impose measures that will continue supporting and aggravating an unsustainable economic model.
We totes in agreement about them leaving.
PdotMichael
Banned
It uses the same data as the map and Greece is not one of the lowest countries in Europe or being in the middle is the new low.
Wafflecakes
Member
A country is completely entitled to set the terms for money that they are lending to someone else.
The receiving country is entitled to say no if they don't like the terms. Greece did not.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
I'm not from Greece btw, I'm from Spain, and we suffered, and keep suffering, quite a bit.
And there's no conspiracy, the data don't lie, Greece is a destroyed country with a destroyed economy, not because they borrowed money, because the FMI and their partners think that their solution could work and when is clearly not wroking they keep insisting.
Is like a medic telling someone to take certain pills and when it makes the symptons worse, he keeps telling him to take those pills, at some point you can't blame the pacient for getting the disease and not the medic.
Sure call it delusional. I'm in politics, I see all kinds of people all the time.
There is little hope for what you and I would want because of human nature. People care very little about the bigger picture.
I better then rephrase my wish into a realistic way of reaching a goal. In fantasy land we could turn stuff around tomorrow and work as a truly united union. In the real world people just want Germany, France, Spain or wherever they live to benefit from the union without paying for the losses in bad times.
Maybe I'm just cynical and stuff will end up just fine, that would be pretty great.
Coriolanus
Banned
At which point you're selectively ignoring that the terms where offered and accepted with the presumption that they'd lead to economic improvement. They did not.
Good point.
Wafflecakes
Member
Not the lenders fault. Nor their responsibility.
Also, just making sure that it is clear that I wish Greece the best whether they stay or go, but my main issue is with blaming others for the problem.
Ultimately, a Republic of states is loose and is bound to break apart unless it has the willingness to keep itself together by any means necessary. It took the United States 90 years and a 4 year war to get to the point. The EU as we know it has only been around for 20. EU agreements are too much like the Articles of Confederation to have any real impact.
I'm not saying that Greece should be militarily occupied and Reconstructed, but it's clear that the EU members are thinking of themselves as sovereign states first, and a union cannot survive under those conditions.
I do believe the Greeks did act in bad faith, and Greece does need to implement real reforms (which it has dragged its feet on) , but I think Syriza's plan all along was that austerity is a road to nowhere, so unless austeriy is relieved, default is the better option in the long-term.
A compromise where the Troika gets to force implementation of practical, pro-Greek reforms in exchange for relief would have been the best policy, but neither side trusts the other, and it would have been a humiliation for Greece.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Even with the laughable growth in 2014, you can see the country is on a sorry state. Marginal grows can't compare with all these years of recession, on other news is often that countries with recoverings due to austerity to find themselves in the negativity soon after (like Italy now), is just a little bounce before falling to again.
Coriolanus
Banned
If the lenders suggested the measures and checked on their implementation and then also kept lending, how is it not also their fault?
You lend money to anyone, you're liable to lose it. Either way, one must drop the pretense that they're actually helping the borrower.
They kinda did run exactly on that note, among other things.
PdotMichael
Banned
So you are saying what Tsipras did since his election didn't hurt the Greek economy?
jakonovski
Member
I'm sure everything will be ok once Greece admits it's their fault.
Wafflecakes
Member
Oh, if the lenders lose their money, it is their own fault for lending it.
Everything up to that is the borrowers fault.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
What exactly he did in the economic part of his mandate that wasn't actively regulated by the FMI and his partners?
In other words, the FMI still dictates the economy on Greece, that's why we are here now.
thehypocrite
Member
Yeah. I don't understand when hate started to replace reason, but it has.
Lalalandia
Member
The IMF leave if you play their game, Greece hasn't so they're still there. We did and they left (in part some of the best stuff they proposed we've slid on).
Windom Earle
Member
Syriza should be ashamed to put their country into this situation. They had a lot of credit but lost it all now. Bunch of gamblers.
No?
How the troika reacted hurt the economy. They went ape shit at the idea of Syriza winning.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
You mean that for several years they didn't follow IMF dictates? Because that's just not true...
Prime crotch
Banned
http://fr.slideshare.net/DominiqueStraussKahn/150627-tweet-greece
OOOOOOOOOOOOPS! My bad, we can learn from this, 7th time is the charm!
Live press conference: http://video.consilium.europa.eu
Wafflecakes
Member
I doubt it.
At this point Greece has already been reduced to almost a non-factor in the world economic system.
There will be some ripples, but nothing major.
Lalalandia
Member
To be clear we did follow most of their budgetary dictates, the stuff we've been backsliding on has been structural changes like reform of the legal profession. My point is the IMF aren't hanging around out of spite they're there because the programs that they lent money to Greece for have not been implemented. We did, they left and however annoyed they are that we haven't done everything it's irrelevant because other people will lend to us now.
No, it will be devastating to Greece but the rest of the EU has had it's exposure significantly reduced by having the ECB buy up most of the Greek debt. In fact it's the continuing willingness of the ECB to accept Greek debt and prop up their banks that is the real deadline in all this.
Happens a lot unfortunately. Easy to turn against one another. Feels like I'm in the Eurogroup meeting.
petran79
Banned
Greece were far better off and more productive in agriculture and industry before entering the EU in 1981
EU forced the farmers to change their agriculture in order to get money.
But the Greeks lent you also money when you entered the EU to help improve your country
Relaxed Muscle
Member
They have been implemented for years now, they still hanging around because they aren't working and Greece has to keep asking for money. It may have worked for Ireland, but is clearly not working for Greece.
jakonovski
Member
I'm pretty much in agreement with the commentators that say this is now about fucking over Syriza, not about debt. Which will ironically make the very thing they're afraid of come true: a leftïst party leading a country out of the eurozone.
I don't think anyone involved has thought anything through. It's that much of a shit show.
I don't think anyone involved has thought anything through. It's that much of a shit show.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
So you're okay with things like predatory pay-day lenders, presumably?
Rawket Lawnchair
Member
How do you guys think the Euro will fare on Monday, when the markets open again?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Negotiator
Member
thehypocrite
Member
True, is like the problem is irrelevant, all that matters is assign blame and individual agendas.
Cmon now, lets be serious here.
The fact is that Greece has always paid below market interest for its debts. You look at other countries like Portugal and Spain, they are paying higher interest rates despite having a much lower debt-to-GDP ratio and better economic forecasts. Greece wouldn't even get any loans from the market without guarantees from other parties.
It is true that most of the money from ESM went to other banks. You could draw a comparison such as : Your family member takes a huge house loan and is unable to make his mortgage payments. You then decide to step in and pay the original debtee/investor his money and then your relative continues his payments (below market interest) while you demand some budgetary adjustments.
I understand that sentiment, especially when it comes from normal Greek citizens who have lost so much. But it is not like normal people were not willing to help in other Member States, the economic situations is difficult but the trust deficit is just as big now.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
The only reason the deal is off the tables is because they pulled it off since Syriza called for a referendum. Syriza can then just say: hey, here, we accept that deal, put it back on the table so we can sign it. Of course, they'll refuse to put it back.
Panic!!! The machines will run out of paper!
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