Greek election – extreme left won

The Greeks need to reap what they have sown.

Hmm.. but that won’t happen.

The working class people of Greece will reap what previous governments have sown though.. the actual individuals responsible will still be well off I’m sure.

I must reluctantly concede that binners may actually have a point this time.

Have a word with yourself will you its not a pastry based thread is it 😉

jambalaya – Member

Isn’t it perverse how people make money out of money?

Money from money and not perverse at all.

And money speaks for money, the devil for his own.

Thanks for the rest of it, I’ve often wondered how you suck eggs. Doesn’t mean I don’t find it perverse though.

I recommend going to Greece and looking around.

I haven’t visited the country for 15 years and have no intention of doing so. I’ve heard too many experiences of corruption there, eg my mate had to stop in port for emergency repairs to his boat, he was told it was euro 10,000 for a safety certificate to allow him to leave or euro 6,000 in cash. Paying back money you over borrowed isn’t painless. Greece is suffering far less pain now than if they had defaulted and far less pain than they will suffer if Greece exits the euro. Instead of complaining about austerity the Greeks should be thankful they were not forcibly ejected from the euro a few years ago. As posted above they should never ever have been allowed to join.

The working class people of Greece will reap what previous governments have sown though.. the actual individuals responsible will still be well off I’m sure.

@molgrips but its the Greek working class (and retired) who have benefited, that’s where most of the borrowed money went.

jambalaya – Member

@molgrips but its the Greek working class (and retired) who have benefited, that’s where most of the borrowed money went.

😆

I doubt the ‘greek working class’ are of one mind though. And besides – they just took what was on offer – as you would.

My point is that those who will suffer are NOT those actually responsible.

who comes to speak for the skin and the bone ?

It is comedy gold from Jam

Its like having our very own pub landlord.

The European Union made the rules of admission into the Euro, regarding public spending as a percentage of GDP etc, then they completely ignored them to allow the likes of Greece and Italy to join. They were nowhere near meeting the stated criteria. So the powers that be in Brussels are as complicit in this shambles as any Greek politicians.

Not that you’d know it given the lack of contrition.

But a lack of contrition seems to be par for the course for just about everyone responsible for the economic meltdown. Its business as usual for the people who caused it, who remain personally unaffected. I suppose we could always boot them out of office at the Euro elections. Oh… hang on a minute. No we can’t, because all the people making the decisions are unelected eurocrats, and the European Parliament, such as it is, is an anti-democratic sham. Business as usual it is then!

As posted above they should never ever have been allowed to join.

As I recall the only countries that actually met the original Maastricht criteria for Euro membership were Luxembourg and Finland.

This feels like the beginning of the end of the EU in its current manifestation.
Its fifty-fifty whether Greece and the UK will be in it in three years time.

This feels like the beginning of the end of the EU in its current manifestation.

Lets hope so eh? Before they bankrupt the entire continent.

Sounds like theres some bizarre horse trading going on to form a coalition. A possible pact between people I’ve heard being referred to as Communists, and some far right parties. The only thing that unites them is their opposition to austerity. I can’t see that lasting more than 5 minutes

And a spokesman for Merkel has just reaffirmed that there will be no renegotiation on debt repayments

Its all going well then. The Eurozone marches on on its illustrious path

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Am I right in thinking Greece’s problems are down to Germany’s gain?

Not exactly. Germany gained from implicit devaluation of DM and open markets. Hence ran currency account surplus. But to offset that, what happens? They have to run a capital account deficit to make BoP balance, hence capital flows out of Germany into the same places. So they get stung if that money is not paid back. Plus they get stung if the economies in the deficit/indebted countries are depresses – as we do.

The krone issue? After the Swiss franc abandoned their peg, the risk is that the Danish Krone may end up in the same situation, leading to the peg being abandoned and the the DK appreciating as the CHF did recently.

Don’t forget (1h behind all the fancy worlds, QE is essentially hidden currency wars. But wrap this up in fa new language and you might just get away with it.

Don’t forget (2), not paying back what you owe is theft. And the losers, the taxpayer. It’s not an innocent story or an issue of stick together comrades.

jambalaya – Member

@DrJ – austerity is working as Greece is starting to be in a position to repay it’s debts.

Sorry, jambas, but that’s incorrect on both counts.

Talking of extremes, a left party entering a coalition with the far right???? The € always throws up these weird contradictions.

Its like you and Binners played out in the real world 😀

This was drawn for the UK but the same applies to Greece. The debt has caught up with today’s population

The question now …

Is it time to buy or sell EURO?

😀

austerity is working as Greece is starting to be in a position to repay it’s debts

The thousands on the street relying on food banks, and the kids who are fainting in school due to malnutrition will be ever so pleased to hear that the German banks are finally having their bonds repaid. It must be so comforting 🙄

Aside from the headlines about the Euro/Debt/Germany etc, perhaps the most interesting thing happening is the quiet revolution at a grassroots level. It’ll be interesting to see whether Syriza embraces this further or abandons it now that it has it’s hands on power. Hopefully they’ll do the former and resist the temptations that previous leftwing governments around the world have fallen for.

Sorry, jambas, but that’s incorrect on both counts.

TMH, Economist on the TV last night said Greece was running a budget surplus (ex debt service) of 4% of GDP, so that’s progress towards being able to repay no ?

As I recall the only countries that actually met the original Maastricht criteria for Euro membership were Luxembourg and Finland.

DrJ, Germany certainly didn’t qualify to join, I remember that well. It would make sense what you say.

The thousands on the street relying on food banks, and the kids who are fainting in school due to malnutrition will be ever so pleased to hear that the German banks are finally having their bonds repaid. It must be so comforting

@dazh that should serve as a painful lesson not to live wildly beyond their means. AFAIK most of the debt is with public sector organisations now so it’s German taxpayers who are on the hooks not so much their banks. All those Greek doctors who work as self employed and take 50% of their bill as cash in hand should be the ones feeling guilty about their fellow citizens.

Nicely summed up by the Mash 😀

TMH, Economist on the TV last night said Greece was running a budget surplus (ex debt service) of 4% of GDP, so that’s progress towards being able to repay no ?

It’s true that they have run a short term surplus, but not even close to avoid eventual default/restructuring. Unless they do something fancy with perpetuals or the like. The debt dynamics cannot be solved, certainly not without growth. Austerity cannot deliver growth – it’s a contractionary policy not an expansionary one. They need to restructure. Creditors will have to take another hit (European taxpayers again nb not the banks anymore and the risk has been taken off their balance sheets, plus ca change).

Greece needs a devaluation, with one off hit to allow it to recover. The lessons from history are perfectly clear. After the euphoria of the past 24 hours have sunk in, the grim reality will have to be faced. I think another trance of funding is due this month, so tough questions will need to be answered before then.

“The thousands on the street relying on food banks, and the kids who are fainting in school due to malnutrition will be ever so pleased to hear that the German banks are finally having their bonds repaid. It must be so comforting”

@dazh that should serve as a painful lesson not to live wildly beyond their means.

Do you honestly believe that people now relying on food banks have ever lived “wildly beyond their means”?

@dazh that should serve as a painful lesson not to live wildly beyond their means

Come on now. Do you really actually believe that the people suffering now were the ones who were responsible for and benefited from the previous largesse? IIRC the people responsible for cooking the books when they joined the euro were centre-right conservatives who were in the pockets of the shipping magnates and german banks who stood to make billions from Greece’s entry into the Euro. But still, lets carry on with the fiction that it was the ordinary greeks to blame for living a life of state-funded luxury.

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has just said:

“There are internal euro zone rules to be respected,” Lagarde told Le Monde daily. “We cannot make special categories for such or such country.”

Looks like they’re definitely on a collision course then.

Lots of people were responsible – the Greeks, their politicians, the European politicians, the bankers (Greek and foreign). With a heady cocktail of villains like that, it was only ever going to end in tears.

Still impressive that so far, this has been channeled through the ballot box rather than violence and mass unrest.

It might appear as if the creditors have an extra card in this particular case – they can throw Greece out of the Eurozone. Be absolutely clear, that is a threat being made by the creditors. Greece under Syriza has no intention of leaving the Euro, even if they defaulted on all their debt, so they would have to be forced out. I have never seen it set out clearly how the rest of the Eurozone would force Greece to leave without compromising the independence of the ECB, but let’s assume that they have the power to do so. Would the Eurozone ever carry out this threat?

Expelling Greece from the Eurozone because they wanted to renegotiate their debts would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. For a start, the creditors would lose everything, because obviously Greece would go for complete default in those circumstances. In addition, individuals and markets would immediately worry that the same fate might befall other periphery countries. (The story that Dani Rodrik tells is all too plausible.) What would be the gain?

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/let-us-hope-for-syriza-victory.html

But to balance that out:

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw

Still impressive that so far, this has been channeled through the ballot box rather than violence and mass unrest.

Indeed, and the imbeciles of the EU might well reflect that if the Greek path is rejected, then the violence will likely follow, in Greece and elsewhere.

I think it as brilliant result sadly a few years later than would have been really helpful. Greece needs debt relief it’s economy is crippled by the debt burden and constant cuts to the economy stuck in a vicious downward economic circle. I hope Germany sees sense at negotiates write downs in exchange for some reforms, I don’t think Germany was against debt write down in the London Debt Agreement.

Euro is definitely not the ideal currency for Greece at the moment but many seem to want to stick with it to be part of Europe.

Indeed, and the imbeciles of the EU might well reflect that if the Greek path is rejected, then the violence will likely follow, in Greece and elsewhere.

The EU will come up with numerous can-kicking exercises and empty promises to bide their time. They still think they can get things going with QE – although as in the West, only the top 1% will benefit.

Personally I think taking to the streets is long overdue – the situation can only be resolved with the ballet box and street demonstrations – this feels like the early days of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The EU will come up with numerous can-kicking exercises and empty promises to bide their time. They still think they can get things going with QE – although as in the West, only the top 1% will benefit.

The EU is part of the West. The 99% in Greece are finding out what lack of growth in a successful economy really means. In fact its the 100% because any wealthy Greek person with an ounce of sense got out a long time ago. People here complaining about static wages in a growing economy need to understand quite how bad the alternative would have been.

What Greece is experiencing today feels like austerity as they have lived on an orgy of debt for so long they’ve come to believe that was normal.

Do you honestly believe that people now relying on food banks have ever lived “wildly beyond their means”?

@Dr J and @dazh, I was referring to the whole country so in a sense yes absolutely. As I posted in Greece in particular it was the ordinary person who has benefitted hugely from welfare payments made with unsustainably large amounts of borrowed money

This is an old piece from Michael Lewis – 2010 – but it’s worth a read. The Greek railway is so expensive and inefficient it would be cheaper (in theory) to just pay for everyone to get a taxi. I don’t know how many government workers are now at food banks but they have certainly benefitted

Vanity Fair

That article is bonkers! 😯

Somehow I think that a party promising 10,000 new public sector jobs probably isn’t the answer to the countries problems

It is unfair to keep blaming Greece’s problems on the welfare state, tax avoidance was always a bigger problem there, and still the problem which has had the least action taken on.

As I posted in Greece in particular it was the ordinary person who has benefitted hugely from welfare payments made with unsustainably large amounts of borrowed money

So the government buys off the people as a means to enriching their friends in the shipping and banking industries. And you blame the people? Quick question, do you think a Greek public sector worker in 2008 should have voluntarily given up 40% of their salary, paid holidays/sick leave and their pension rights in order to ‘save’ the Greek economy? Your idea of who should be responsible in these circumstances is completely upside down. The Greek people have had a fraud committed against them by those who were in power at the time on a scale never before seen, and you want to blame the victims!

He is fairly consistent in blaming the victim / getting it wrong
Ask about Israel if you need more examples [ with the added bonus of hypocrisy in action as its wrong when they do it to Israel and right when Israel does it pre-emptively obviously. Its a tortured example of what passes as “thinking” ]

Jambalaya 3 hours ago

So what happens next, a great deal of uncertainty as a new government won’t be formed for a few weeks yet

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11369232/Greek-election-Syriza-forms-new-government-with-Right-wing-populist-party.html Torygraph 2 hours ago

hope your not taking up fortune telling.
Going into a coalition with a right wing party seems to me to say that the anti austerity policy is paramount for Syriza

It is unfair to keep blaming Greece’s problems on the welfare state, tax avoidance was always a bigger problem there, and still the problem which has had the least action taken on.

Surely the problem was the size of the welfare state compared to the tax collected. You can have low taxes*, or high government spending**, but you have to pick one.

*tax evasion
**borrowing

That government coalition isn’t going to make it to the end of the week.

Mind you, it could give the EU its usual answer when it comes to democracy, such as validating treaties. It can carry on sending the electorate away to repeat the exercise until it comes back with the correct result

@gordimor – I appreciate the logic of your post but they’ve agreed to form a government but that doesn’t actually happen till Feb 16. That’s what I was referring to in my earlier post. I would agree anti-austerity is their main agenda, they just want the rest of Europe to pay euro 140 billion for the privilege of having Greece remain in the euro.

@MSP, I have made a number of references to the dire state of tax collection. However, even if they collected all of those taxes it would make little difference.

@JY, its about accepting responsibility. Collectively he Greek people are a victim of no one except themselves. As “for getting it wrong” just as I have posted before it’s funny how my line of argument seems to follow and generally support what governments and organisations around the world actually do. The various EU bodies have come out saying quite clearly if Greeks want to continue to receive bailout funds they must honour the agreements signed a few years ago which have lead to the budget cuts/austerity. Greece was bailed out last time as there was a concern a default/euro exist would impact other weak eurozone countires (Ireland, Portugal and the biggies of Italy and Spain). If the EU take the view they are now in a better position to weather the fallout from a Greek exit the Greeks will be “told take it or leave it”.

Jam if I were you I would google appeal to authority
Amusing, but predictable, that you use a fallacy to defend your view
you never fail to deliver.

Stop bickering you two. Or I’ll bang your bloody heads together!

That new Greek coalition is a bit like a coalition involving you pair. I’ll give it a week 😀