Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

BullNBear52, nothing there of any substance that has not been posted here before, and i disagree with your neoliberal opinion man, Josh Barro, when he says "the International Monetary Fund’s memo on Greek debt" is the "“Emperor Has No Clothes” moment of the Greek crisis" .. your link .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/upshot/the-imf-is-telling-europe-the-euro-doesnt-work.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

as to my mind that moment was, from Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us

In 2010, [when] the Greek state became insolvent .. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/may/05/greece-debt-crisis-timeline . Two options consistent with continuing membership of the eurozone presented themselves: the sensible one, that any decent banker would recommend – restructuring the debt and reforming the economy; and the toxic option – extending new loans to a bankrupt entity while pretending that it remains solvent. .. suggest you read it all .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115381812

One on your and Barro's revelation-NOT that as it stands the eurozone is rather dysfunctional.

KRUGMAN: Europe is crazy to let Greece implode, but, given this, Greece is doing the right thing
.. Krugman .. Stiglitz .. Reich .. 3 of more who know what they are talking about .. they'll do me ..

The current Euro structure, in which country governments control their own spending but borrow in a single currency, will never work over the long-term unless Europe's richer states are willing to subsidize the poorer ones (the way richer US states subsidize poorer ones). Given that this concept still appears to be a nonstarter for Europe's "core," Greece and other weaker states are probably better off on their own.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115168566

One other

Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us

"Europe did not know how to respond to the financial crisis. Should it prepare for an expulsion (Grexit) or a federation?"

One is that institutional inertia is hard to beat. A second, that unsustainable debt gives creditors immense power over debtors – and power, as we know, corrupts even the finest. But it is the third which seems to me more pertinent and, indeed, more interesting.

The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115381812

In general .. BullNBear52/all .. Wall Street and the Greek Financial Crisis

HUDSON: Today’s problem with the debts really stem back from 2010 and 2011 when Greece obviously couldn’t pay. When Greece joined the Eurozone, it falsified its debt figures. The head of its central bank worked with Goldman Sachs to make complicated derivatives to hide it all, and that was Lucas Papademos.

In 2010 right after the PASOK party came to power in Greece, they revealed the fact that their figures had been fudged all along, and that the debt was so large that Greece couldn’t pay. So the International Monetary Fund, which hadn’t been making loans–almost had no customers in the world, had its European staff calculate. And the staff unanimously said, Greece can’t pay these debts. These are fraudulent debts that are all way beyond the ability to pay. They’ve got to be written down. And the board of directors agreed.

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was the head of the IMF when he wasn’t going to the sex parties, wanted to run for president of France. And he talked to Sarkozy, and Sarkozy said, wait a minute, French banks are the largest holders of Greek debt. If Greece doesn’t pay and writes them down, the French banks will go under. And German banks are the second largest. But then at the G8 blackbankmeetings in 2011, President Obama went over along with Tim Geithner and said, our big campaign contributors are on Wall Street, and they’ve made huge bets that Greece can pay. If Greece doesn’t pay, then all these gamblers and derivative players are going to lose their bets. You’ve got to sacrifice Greece and you’ve got to drive it into poverty, and lend the Greek government the money to pay the bond holders so that our Wall Street banks won’t lose money.

So the European Central Bank told the IMF if you want to be a player, you’ve got to ignore what the stats said, and they did. And the European Central Bank and the IMF paid over 100 billion Euros to the bond holders. So Greece, instead of owing private bond holders, owed the IMF and the European Central Bank.

Now the European Central Bank wants to get paid, but the debts can’t be paid. So the central bank says, okay Greece: Sell us your islands. Sell us your ports. Sell us your lands. Sell us your raw materials. This is foreclosure time. And if you can’t pay, we want everything in the public domain. And you also have to impose austerity. You have–only 20 percent of your population has emigrated. You only have a 60 percent unemployment rate for youth. You’ve got to increase the unemployment rate to 80 percent, double the emigration, in order for us to make the loans to your government that will turn right around and pay us.
.. you oughta think about it all .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115344793

This interview with James Galbraith YOU should read.

'The Prospects and Consequences of a Possible Syriza Government'

Roger Strassburg: One of those things that's been kicked around for a while, is there going to be such a thing as a United States of Europe, and that's not going to happen.

James Galbraith: It's certainly not part of the Syriza program. The Syriza program is a pro-European program. It is, and I think Europe and Europeans, people are committed to the European project, can consider it a great stroke of luck that there has arisen in Greece, and consequently, partly consequently and subsequently, in Spain, as well as in the present government of Italy, a pro-European set of parties, whose objective is change, constructive change, to make the European project viable. That's in many ways the last line that will be there. If those movements are not successful, then you have the Five Star movement in Italy, and you have, I suppose, the Golden Dawn in Greece. So good luck to you if you go from where we are now to that. And I'm not saying that the Five Star and the Golden Dawn are equivalent, they're not, but they're anti-European. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110220953

Another for YOU, 2012, my post Jan 26 2015 .. Greece: Disagreement Everywhere, Rift in the Troika

But now the Troika itself is in disarray. It surfaced today at an IMF press briefing in Washington: the IMF no longer supports austerity as
a guiding principle. Athens News quoted a senior IMF source, who was speaking on condition of anonymity. Frustration was practically palpable:
.. bottom article .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110242378

Also .. Peg, Greece has made HUGE changes to pension set-up
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115149630

and .. 3) This sounds like a disaster for Greece. So it's all Europe's fault?

All that being said, the biggest factor in Greece's collapse into crisis was the global recession, which was enough that even countries like Spain that were running budget surpluses before the crash found themselves in debt crises. Greece's budget mismanagement was bad, and its tax evasion is a chronic problem. But don't get distracted: the real root of the crisis is that economies across Europe collapsed, the European Central Bank acted in the interest of rich northern countries like Germany and against the interest of poorer southern countries like Greece, and the Greek people paid the cost.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115145813

and .. Joseph Stiglitz: how I would vote in the Greek referendum .. bits of ..

It is startling that the troika has refused to accept responsibility for any of this or admit how bad its forecasts and models have been. But what is even more surprising is that Europe’s leaders have not even learned. The troika is still demanding that Greece achieve a primary budget surplus (excluding interest payments) of 3.5% of GDP by 2018.

[...]

In terms of transforming a large primary deficit into a surplus, few countries have accomplished anything like what the Greeks have achieved in the last five years. And, though the cost in terms of human suffering has been extremely high, the Greek government’s recent proposals went a long way toward meeting its creditors’ demands.

We should be clear: almost none of the huge amount of money loaned to Greece has actually gone there.

[...]

That concern for popular legitimacy is incompatible with the politics of the eurozone, which was never a very democratic project. Most of its members’ governments did not seek their people’s approval to turn over their monetary sovereignty to the ECB. When Sweden’s did, Swedes said no. They understood that unemployment would rise if the country’s monetary policy were set by a central bank that focused single-mindedly on inflation (and also that there would be insufficient attention to financial stability). The economy would suffer, because the economic model underlying the eurozone was predicated on power relationships that disadvantaged workers.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115108920

Surely this one means something to you.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who headed the IMF when the memorandum was negotiated, now admits that he made mistakes and wants to rectify them: “”My proposal is the following: Greece should get no more new financing from the EU or the IMF but it should get a generous maturity extension and significant nominal debt reduction from the official sector”
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115034701

Ok, all that is as much to gain more togetherness .. lol .. as it is for you to read, as it seems maybe you don't read all given to you anyway .. your replies suggest you don't .. i believe you would be better served to accept, as well as inadequate institutions and structures of the eurozone banks share as much .. i'd say more, since they served up the toxic loans to the neoliberal Greek governments that sat before the present one.

In conclusion, BullNBear52, gotta say in that post to me, slightly less in some others, you to me, anyway, come
across, through and through, like a somewhat mean-spirited and arrogant, pompous and patronizing little prick.

Still. Have a good day.