Just been confirmed. Is this just pushing the inevitable back or signs of a slow recovery? Who knows!
Austerity Bill passed
- Thread starter Mr. Fabulous
- Start date
Mr Fab = Mark.L?
Yeah i was watching the BBC news live of when the vote got passed, man its chaos out their in Greece.
I read a good outline of what caused the problems.
1.) 2002 Greece adopts Euro
2.)Greece went on a big, debt-funded spending spree, including paying for high-profile projects such as the 2004 Athens Olympics, which went well over its budget.
3.)The country was hit by the downturn, which meant it had to spend more on benefits and received less in taxes. There were also doubts about the accuracy of its economic statistics.
4.) Greece's economic problems meant lenders started charging higher interest rates to lend it money. Widespread tax evasion also hit the government's coffers.
5.) There have been demonstrations against the government's austerity measures to deal with its debt, such as cuts to public sector pay and pensions, reduced benefits and increased taxes.
6.)The government has already had to access a 110bn euro (£95bn; $146.2bn) bail-out package from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, and now needs a second bail-out.
7.) Eurozone ministers are worried that if Greece were to default it would make it even more difficult for other countries such as Portugal and the Irish Republic to borrow money.
Probably a good warning for Australia, lets not get to crazy with the ol credit card spending on crap. Let's not encourage the welfare mentality with redistributing wealth to low income earners (carbon tax), welfare encourages people to be lazy and non productive.
Regards,
RH
Yeah i was watching the BBC news live of when the vote got passed, man its chaos out their in Greece.
I read a good outline of what caused the problems.
1.) 2002 Greece adopts Euro
2.)Greece went on a big, debt-funded spending spree, including paying for high-profile projects such as the 2004 Athens Olympics, which went well over its budget.
3.)The country was hit by the downturn, which meant it had to spend more on benefits and received less in taxes. There were also doubts about the accuracy of its economic statistics.
4.) Greece's economic problems meant lenders started charging higher interest rates to lend it money. Widespread tax evasion also hit the government's coffers.
5.) There have been demonstrations against the government's austerity measures to deal with its debt, such as cuts to public sector pay and pensions, reduced benefits and increased taxes.
6.)The government has already had to access a 110bn euro (£95bn; $146.2bn) bail-out package from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, and now needs a second bail-out.
7.) Eurozone ministers are worried that if Greece were to default it would make it even more difficult for other countries such as Portugal and the Irish Republic to borrow money.
Probably a good warning for Australia, lets not get to crazy with the ol credit card spending on crap. Let's not encourage the welfare mentality with redistributing wealth to low income earners (carbon tax), welfare encourages people to be lazy and non productive.
Regards,
RH
Recovery? lol
Paint me the scenario where Greece magically has the money to pay down their loans a couple of years down the track after borrowing even more.... definitely just kicking the can down the road.
Will be interesting to see whether the markets follow a similar pattern to last time: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wh...ct-about-markets-direction-over-next-few-days
Paint me the scenario where Greece magically has the money to pay down their loans a couple of years down the track after borrowing even more.... definitely just kicking the can down the road.
Will be interesting to see whether the markets follow a similar pattern to last time: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wh...ct-about-markets-direction-over-next-few-days
I believe the EU have forgotten the Laffer curve 
The first austerity measures precipitated a further worsening of the economy and one of the reasons why the budget hasn't recovered as originally planned under the first deal. Parallels to the US economy maybe?
The reality is the Greek Parliament had no choice. If they didn't pass, they had no funds to address the budgetary shortfall, so the cuts would have had to been worse and almost instant. The protests at Syntagma Square and in Athens would be nothing compared to what happens in that scenario.
If Greece default, the Argentinian experience is relevant. They (the Argentinians) still haven't been able to come back into the debt market, almost ten years after their default. Unfortunately Greece don't have the natural resources that Russa has which saved them, when they deafulted.
Ultimate responsibility lies with Greece. However, the role of Goldman Sachs, French and German banks needs to be better explored in this tragedy, because I am not sure we get the whole picture here.
Still of the firm opinion that Greece should return to the Drachma. Its interesting that the state of the PIIGS who have impacted to depreciate the Euro, has made the competitive position of German industry even stronger.
The first austerity measures precipitated a further worsening of the economy and one of the reasons why the budget hasn't recovered as originally planned under the first deal. Parallels to the US economy maybe? The reality is the Greek Parliament had no choice. If they didn't pass, they had no funds to address the budgetary shortfall, so the cuts would have had to been worse and almost instant. The protests at Syntagma Square and in Athens would be nothing compared to what happens in that scenario.
If Greece default, the Argentinian experience is relevant. They (the Argentinians) still haven't been able to come back into the debt market, almost ten years after their default. Unfortunately Greece don't have the natural resources that Russa has which saved them, when they deafulted.
Ultimate responsibility lies with Greece. However, the role of Goldman Sachs, French and German banks needs to be better explored in this tragedy, because I am not sure we get the whole picture here.
Still of the firm opinion that Greece should return to the Drachma. Its interesting that the state of the PIIGS who have impacted to depreciate the Euro, has made the competitive position of German industry even stronger.
Was interesting to note recent comments by the Argentinian Finance Secretary:
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/05/29/argentine-minister-warns-greece-about-the-imf-dangerous-policies
I suspect default and return to the Drachma might be the best option FOR GREECE, but in my opinion that would set off a chain reaction of sovereign and bank defaults that could end in a liquidity/credit crunch on a much larger scale than we saw in 2008 with Lehmans collapse.
This graphic always scares the pants off me:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html
Not sure if serious? What are you expecting will drive this?
Hi,
I liken it to ********** into the wind, Greece is a country of 11mill people and will owe 500billion Euros. They won't even be able to pay the interest let alone repay the capital.
It is simply a way of putting it off so that those who created the problem don't have to fix it. They don't want to fix it because there is only one solution, that is for the Greek government to say that the ECB and bankers have neglected their duty of care and should not have lent us this much money.
"We ain't paying" is the only answer !!
I read an article in the Daily Tele which said that the average rail worker is paid 100E per year. There are 600 industries that are classified as dangerous or stressful, these industries include teaching, hairdressing etc etc. These industries can retire at 50 years of age on 95% of their last years salary
The actual income assessed for tax is whatever the person tells the govt it is, so I could earn 100k a year and say I only earned 20k and they accept that and tax me on 20k.
The whole country is a shambles and the Euro community deserve to have the problem because they helped create it by gross greed and incompetence.
We still haven't solved the problem, the world will still be stuffed, they just make it worse with this BS, let it happen tell the truth, fix it and then and only then, we can move on.
I liken it to ********** into the wind, Greece is a country of 11mill people and will owe 500billion Euros. They won't even be able to pay the interest let alone repay the capital.
It is simply a way of putting it off so that those who created the problem don't have to fix it. They don't want to fix it because there is only one solution, that is for the Greek government to say that the ECB and bankers have neglected their duty of care and should not have lent us this much money.
"We ain't paying" is the only answer !!
I read an article in the Daily Tele which said that the average rail worker is paid 100E per year. There are 600 industries that are classified as dangerous or stressful, these industries include teaching, hairdressing etc etc. These industries can retire at 50 years of age on 95% of their last years salary
The actual income assessed for tax is whatever the person tells the govt it is, so I could earn 100k a year and say I only earned 20k and they accept that and tax me on 20k.
The whole country is a shambles and the Euro community deserve to have the problem because they helped create it by gross greed and incompetence.
We still haven't solved the problem, the world will still be stuffed, they just make it worse with this BS, let it happen tell the truth, fix it and then and only then, we can move on.
I am serious. The SP 500 & Shanghai Composite index both heading up to the end of the year.
Coupled with our commodities boom.
Gonna be some rate rises this year, early next year.
Then again i had to kick my crystal ball this morning.
Coupled with our commodities boom.
Gonna be some rate rises this year, early next year.
Then again i had to kick my crystal ball this morning.
Hmmm my personal opinion is that commodities (and markets in general) have been rising in conjunction with the Fed Monetary Base. The last time the monetary base drifted/fell slightly we had the May 2010 'Flash Crash' and commodities were falling as well... with the end of QE2 on our doorstep (end of the rising monetary base after a steep incline) we could be on the cusp of a similar correction. Perhaps Bernanke will announce QE3 and save the day though
No one wants to buy Greek assets and help them repay their debts due to the unfriendly governments that have been running the country. Oh well it's now biting them. Keep voting Greens and we might end up like that when mining no longer underpins the economy. No credibility, no consistency, populist governments destroy countries.
