Syrzia Won!

Thrugelmir

mayonnaise wrote: »

The Syriza peeps are already toning down the rhetoric.

Of course. They will make the problem the EU's problem to resolve. Greece will have to be kicked out the Eurozone. Little possibility of a voluntary exit. Growing political support in Spain, Hungary, France and Italy for anti austerity parties.

N1AK

Marktheshark wrote: »

Iceland proved you can stick two fingers up to the banks and nothing really changes.

Iceland is a good example of when going bankrupt worked, but it's usually over-stated:

• Wages in Iceland halved after the bankruptcy
• Icelandic share price were, literally, decimated. Serious business for anyone exposed to them, which many savers/pensioners were.
• They got $5,000,000,000 billion in favourable loans from the IMF and Nordic nations. An equivalent loan for Greece's population would be ~$160,000,000,000; Around $15,000 per capita.
• Iceland agreed as part of the process to pay 6% of GDP to the UK/Netherlands until 2023.

Iceland was in a far worse position than Greece is now, which says something because Greece is in a terrible state.

antrobus

Marktheshark wrote: »

Iceland took the stance that the "value" of this debt is held and secured against the future Labour of its people.
If they tell the banks to get stuffed, they still have the asset.
Clever people those Icelandic.

Que?

Iceland's problem was that it had three banks with a lot of debt. All three banks went bust, and Iceland basically rescued the domestic bits of said banks, whilst ignoring the foreign bondholders of the banks. Which is how it avoided a sovereign default.

But the money is still outstanding until such a time as Iceland negotiates a deal

Greece's problem is that Greece has a lot of debt. It can't not pay it without avoiding a sovereign default.

antrobus

N1AK wrote: »

Iceland is a good example of when going bankrupt worked, but it's usually over-stated:

• Wages in Iceland halved after the bankruptcy
• Icelandic share price were, literally, decimated. Serious business for anyone exposed to them, which many savers/pensioners were.
• They got $5,000,000,000 billion in favourable loans from the IMF and Nordic nations. An equivalent loan for Greece's population would be ~$160,000,000,000; Around $15,000 per capita.
• Iceland agreed as part of the process to pay 6% of GDP to the UK/Netherlands until 2023.

Iceland was in a far worse position than Greece is now, which says something because Greece is in a terrible state.

Iceland might have been bankrupt. But the Icelandic government wasn't bankrupt. Icelandic sovereign debt was only about 30% of GDP before the crisis. Of course, it's risen to about 100% since then, which is part of the price that Iceland has had to pay.

ruggedtoast

N1AK wrote: »

I'm inclined towards the opposite conclusion. If the Eurozone lets Greece do anything like what Syrzia promised without kicking them out of the € it will do them far more harm.

The eurozone could survive Greece leaving. However, if Syrzia goes ahead with its promises and gets away with it, why wouldn't voters in Spain and Italy decide to do the same? Let Greece crash and burn for rejecting the terms they agreed to with the other € states and it will serve to strengthen the resolve of the remaining members.

What happens when American states go bust? The city workers don't get paid, the bins arent collected, but no one is worried they wont get their American savings out of their US bank accounts. California's accounts are in a terrible state, in spite, or perhaps because of, it's residents being the richest people in the world.

This could happen in Greece. I dont think its going to get rich but I am not sure that Greece would be any worse off than Georgia.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

They need another bailout just to get through the next couple of months.

I somehow doubt it's a possibility that they can grow their way out of their current problems in that timeframe.

The suggestion isn't that Greece would default today and by tomorrow be all rosy.

The possibility can't be discounted that Greece could default and within, say 18 months or so, be in a much better position than accepting the bailout terms. They'll survive without a bailout and with a such a clear mandate maybe the electorate will be more likely to buy in. They'll need to because they'll need to start paying taxes and reducing their reliance on imported goods for a while.

Not sure how big a possibility this is but it's not as if all of a sudden they'd have no hard currency. There must be loads of Euros floating about - surely ordinary Greeks don't keep Euros in Greek banks any more unless they really have to?

zagubov

wotsthat wrote: »

The suggestion isn't that Greece would default today and by tomorrow be all rosy.

The possibility can't be discounted that Greece could default and within, say 18 months or so, be in a much better position than accepting the bailout terms. They'll survive without a bailout and with a such a clear mandate maybe the electorate will be more likely to buy in. They'll need to because they'll need to start paying taxes and reducing their reliance on imported goods for a while.

Not sure how big a possibility this is but it's not as if all of a sudden they'd have no hard currency. There must be loads of Euros floating about - surely ordinary Greeks don't keep Euros in Greek banks any more unless they really have to?

I reckon that high prices for imports might affect Greece less than Iceland. I'm pretty sure Iceland had to import practically everything except fish and electricity. At least Greece has fertile land and doesn't have to import most of its food and drink. Could presage a tourist boom. We went there a few years back, and though the prices weren't rock bottom, the amount you got for them was pretty impressive.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

The suggestion isn't that Greece would default today and by tomorrow be all rosy.

The possibility can't be discounted that Greece could default and within, say 18 months or so, be in a much better position than accepting the bailout terms. They'll survive without a bailout and with a such a clear mandate maybe the electorate will be more likely to buy in. They'll need to because they'll need to start paying taxes and reducing their reliance on imported goods for a while.

Not sure how big a possibility this is but it's not as if all of a sudden they'd have no hard currency. There must be loads of Euros floating about - surely ordinary Greeks don't keep Euros in Greek banks any more unless they really have to?

Apologies - I had completely misread what you stated.

In_For_A_Penny_2

N1AK wrote: »

They got $5,000,000,000 billion in favourable loans from the IMF and Nordic nations. An equivalent loan for Greece's population would be ~$160,000,000,000; Around $15,000 per capita.

You might want to check those figures.

$5,000,000,000 billion is probably more money than exists in the world.

My understanding was that Iceland's loans amounted to about $5.bn - $2bn from IMF about $3.0bn from the Nordic group. Still a lot for a small island nation.

To date Greece had had over $300bn of bailout loans.

ruggedtoast

I am watching the news now. The Greeks are absolutely made up!

They have united and given an absolutely rollicking kick right to the dangly-sacks of the neo-liberal establishment. They have turned their backs on the politics of debt, on bankers and their vile greed, and on venal self serving politicians.

This will freeze the blood of the debt mongers and those who want to crush and oppress an entire nation because of the imaginary human construct of money.

Change is coming and the Greeks are leading the way! Here in the UK renters are uniting against BTL landlords and the politicians who service them, and the Green Party are approaching May like a torpedo.

Change is coming and it cant come soon enough!