Financial Crisis in Greece

[Coolski]

Coolski, Along with the Meandor they have the Celtic Cross, sure their colors may indeed have some white pride connotations to it but again thats not a problem for me. For God's sake what other mainstream parties have been doing has been much much worse. They just play the game better. They came in 4th in Florina if that says something.

Are you saying that you have no problem with supporting a "white pride" neo-nazi party Voltron?

[Voltron]

Im saying that a party that may have developed from a white pride background is the least of my concerns. If it ever gets to the point where they are burning crosses on peoples front lawns then I will have an issue with it.

[Risto the Great]

Are you saying that you have no problem with supporting a "white pride" neo-nazi party Voltron?

He has been saying this for ages.
But Greeks are "different".

[Onur]

Are you saying that you have no problem with supporting a "white pride" neo-nazi party Voltron?

Yes he did say that but the problem is; Greek white supremacists are brown and blue(!) themselves;





The ironic thing is; if the leader of Golden Dawn walks around Berlin streets, he might have get killed by a neo-nazi, mistaken him as an Asian immigrant, just as the Greek guy killed by them in Germany before.

[Risto the Great]

The ironic thing is; if the leader of Golden Dawn walks around Berlin streets, he might have get killed by a neo-nazi, mistaken him as an Asian immigrant

Ha ha so true.

[Coolski]

lol.. exactly like the dave chapelle skit with the blind black man that's a white supremacist. the height of stupidity!

[Onur]

Apparently the journalist who refused to stand up for Golden Dawn`s gypsy leader has wrote an article in the ekathimerini newspaper and after that, Golden Dawn released an official response to her with a famous quote from Nazis in Germany as in German "'Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat, kommt Attentat!'" In other words, watch your back (!!!)

The Aggressive Tactics of the Greek Right Wing
Greek far-right parties could end up with as much as 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has intensified the xenophobic atmosphere in the country. Those who confront them are threatened with violence, journalist Xenia Kounalaki recounts.

At night, the streets leading to Omonoia Square are empty. That wasn't always the case. The area was the premier multicultural neighborhood of Athens and one of the first quarters to be gentrified. Jazz bars and Indian restaurants lined the streets, separated by the occasional rooms-by-the-hour hotel. It was a quarter full of immigrants, drug addicts and African prostitutes, but also of journalists, ambitious young artists and teenagers from private schools.

Today, the immigrants stay home once night falls. They are afraid of groups belonging to the "angry citizens," a kind of militia that beats up foreigners and claims to help the elderly withdraw money from cash machines without being robbed. Such groups are the product of an initiative started by the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi -- Golden Dawn -- the party which has perpetrated pogroms in Agios Panteleimon, another Athens neighborhood with a large immigrant population.

There are now three outwardly xenophobic parties in Greece. According to recent surveys, together they could garner up to 20 percent of the vote in elections on Sunday: the anti-Semitic party LAOS stands to win 4 percent; the nationalist party Independent Greeks -- a splinter group of the conservative Nea Dimokratia party -- is forecast to win 11 percent; and the right extremists of Golden Dawn could end up with between 5 and 7 percent.

My name is Xenia, the hospitable. Greece itself should really be called Xenia: Tourism, emigration and immigration are important elements of our history. But hospitality is no longer a priority in our country, a fact which the ugly presence of Golden Dawn makes clear.

A Personal Attack
Shaved heads, military uniforms, Nazi chants, Hitler greetings: How should a Greek journalist deal with such people? Should one just ignore them and leave them unmentioned? Should one denounce them and demand that they be banned? One shouldn't forget that they are violent and have perpetrated several attacks against foreigners and leftists. I thought long and hard about how to write about Golden Dawn so that my article was in no way beneficial to the party.

On April 12, the daily Kathimerini ran my story under the headline "Banality of Evil." In the piece, I carefully explained why it was impossible to carry on a dialogue with such people and why I thought the neo-Nazi party should disappear from media coverage and be banned. Five days later, an anonymous reply to my article appeared on the Golden Dawn website. It was a 2,500-word-long personal attack in which the fascists recounted my entire career, mocked my alleged foreign roots (I was born in Hamburg) and even, for no apparent reason, mentioned my 13-year-old daughter. The unnamed authors indirectly threatened me as well: "To put it in the mother tongue of foreign Xenia: 'Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat, kommt Attentat!'" In other words, watch your back.

Most Greeks believe that Golden Dawn has connections to both the police and to the country's secret service. Nevertheless, I went to the authorities to ask what I should do. I was told that I should be careful. They told me that party thugs could harass me, beat me or terrorize me over the phone. It would be better, they said, if I stopped writing about them. If I wished to react to the threats, they suggested I file a complaint against Golden Dawn's service provider. That, however, would be difficult given that the domain is based somewhere in the United States.

Like Weimar Germany
A friend told me that I should avoid wearing headphones on the street so that I can hear what is going on around me. My daughter now has nightmares about being confronted by members of Golden Dawn. Three of her classmates belong to the party. The three boys have posted pictures of party events on their Facebook pages. For their profile image, they have chosen the ancient Greek Meandros symbol, which, in the red-on-black manifestation used by Golden Dawn, resembles a swastika. The group's slogans include "Foreigners Out!" and "The Garbage Should Leave the Country!"

The fact that immigration has become such an issue in the worst year of the ongoing economic crisis in the country can be blamed on the two parties in government. The Socialist PASOK and the conservative Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy, or ND) are running xenophobic campaigns. ND has said it intends to repeal a law which grants Greek citizenship to children born in Greece to immigrant parents. And cabinet member Michalis Chrysochoidis, of PASOK, has announced "clean up operations" whereby illegal immigrants are to be rounded up in encampments and then deported. When he recently took a stroll through the center of Athens to collect accolades for his commitment to the cause, some called out to him: "Golden Dawn has cleaned up Athens!"

Yet, Chrysochoidis is the best loved PASOK politician in his Athens district, in part because of his xenophobic sentiments. His party comrade, Health Minister Andreas Loverdos, is just as popular. Loverdos has warned Greek men not to sleep with foreign prostitutes for fear of contracting HIV and thus endangering the Greek family.

High unemployment of roughly 22 percent, a lack of hope, a tendency toward violence and the search for scapegoats: Analyses in the Greek press compare today's Greece with Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic. "We didn't know," said many Germans when confronted with the truth of the Holocaust after Nazi rule came to an end. After elections on May 6, no Greeks should be able to make the same claim.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-831218.html

After that Nazi style death threat issued for the female journalist, wordpress has suspended the account of Golden Dawn`s official blog site for involving hate crime;

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_10/05/2012_441461

[Coolski]

Are they holding new elections soon?

[Niko777]

Are they holding new elections soon?

It looks like it

[Voltron]

It looks like SYRIZA is expecting to get a majority next time around. Some preliminary polls suggest they will exceed the 20 percent. We are screwed if that happens.

I cant stand those people at all.

[DraganOfStip]

Back to the old drawing board for the Greeks I'm afraid.More bailout money gets blown in the wind in the form of new elections.Way to go with someone else's tax money.

[Coolski]

Greek Eurozone Exit #Grexit

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-history-tells-us-about-a-possible-greek-exit-2012-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

What History Tells Us About A Possible Greek Exit


A number of hours per week for me are spent reading through various pieces of sell-side & independent economic and macro research. The merits of such a practice can be debated, but it no question provides me a “consensus” view of current economic views. Over the last week or two the sell-side has increasingly raised the likelihood of a Greek exit from the Euro. Take for instance:

JP Morgan raised the odds of a Greek exit to 30-50%.

“The fear scenario is as follows…massive capital flight in anticipation of exit force capital controls in Greece, and new IOUs to pay public workers which starts the process to a new currency; capital flight from rest of periphery. If periphery countries then impose capital controls, the monetary union is effectively dead, as one country’s euros are then not the same as another country’s euros.

We have already seen capital flight within the EU. As Richard Koo stated this week, “…Spain has a private sector that is deleveraging in spite of near-zero interest rates. But the resulting savings surplus has not remained within the country. Instead it has fled to Germany, causing Spanish yields to rise and forcing the Government into austerity.” The average observer can see this in action with Bund yields plummeting to ~1.50% as of Friday.

Now back to Greece for a moment. Their future is less certain given the recent elections and now the previous bailout is uncertain. Is an exit now possible or probable? What would an exit from the euro look like, and how would it be accomplished? Furthermore, are there any historical examples we could point to that would give us a clue to the repercussions? John Hempton, a brilliant hedge fund manager from Bronte Capital, touched on this very topic in an underrated blog post last September. Below is an excerpt:

Variant 1 - the Argentine option: Default and de-peg the currency.

When Argentina defaulted not only did the government default but they forced a private default. If you had a debt in US Dollars in Argentina prior to the default you were forced to pay it back in Peso. Indeed it was illegal to make payment in US dollars.

Likewise if you had a US dollar asset you got back Peso. A dollar deposit in Citigroup in Buenos Aires became a peso deposit. If you really wanted to keep your dollars you needed to make your Citigroup deposit in New York.

The forced private sector default was necessary for Argentina. The Argentine banks all had lots of US dollar funding. If you devalued without forcing their default then they would all have uncontrolled defaults (a true disaster) and the country would lose its institutions. Telefonica Argentina would have failed too - failing to replay USD debts.

The same applies in Greece. If the Greek Government were to devalue the new Drachma (to perhaps a third the value of the Euro) then the banks (which are loaded with Greek Sovereign paper) would default. Even Hellenic Telecom would default because they would be forced to repay their billions of Euro borrowings whilst collecting only Drachma phone bills.

The Argentine economy was doing quite nicely after the devaluation. The lesson was that devaluation worked - provided you simultaneously forced private sector default.

If you were Greece you would take this option without hesitation. However this option has explosive implications for Europe. You see a bank deposit in Athens is going to turn your Euros into Drachma. Overnight it will lose 70 percent of its valuation.

So it has to be done quickly and with an element of surprise (as per Argentina when most people did not get their dollars over the border). Without surprise people will rush their money to Deutsche Bank in Munich.

One weekend we will just find that the Greeks have done it. But now suppose Greece does pull this trick. The day after we have a Drachma - deposits are in Drachma. We might print a single 10 drachma note and allow it to settle against the Euro - then over time print more. This should work for Greece.

Now if you are Irish or Italian or Portuguese (or even Spanish) you know the rules. You get to get your Euro out of the PIGS and into the core (Germany) as fast as possible. So max all your credit cards (for cash), draw all your bank deposits and load them in the boot of your car and make the drive to Switzerland or Germany. Somewhere safe. Otherwise you are going to lose half the value the day that the rest of the PIGS do a Greece.

And this bank run – a run including tens of thousands of Italians driving their Fiats - will surely blow apart every Italian bank. And their Euro-skeloritic compatriots will sign the death knell for for all their banks too.

If you are going to go the devaluation route you are going to have to do it all at once. Like the big-bank weekend (maybe coinciding with a week long bank holiday) in which all core European countries get their own currency back.

There is a precedent. It is not a pretty one. When the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed there was a single currency over a huge area covering much of what is now Euroland. In this case the rather Germanic Austrians were in charge (or rather were in charge until their empire collapsed).

What they did was put troops on all the borders and made it illegal to take cash (or wire cash!) across borders. Then all Austro-Marks in each country was stamped - converted to Drachma for Greece, Marks for Germany, Peseta for Spain or whatever the currencies of the day were [If someone remembers the 1918 border splits better than me they are welcome to say…]

In this conception all Spanish debts become Peseta debts. All German debts become Mark debts. All Greek debts become Drachma debts. Unstamped currency goes worthless.

If you are going to split the currency I see no alternative to a big bang - and if you do that I see no alternative to troops at the border stopping transfers (and wire transfers) because shifting cash North looks so profitable against a sudden devaluation. Suddenly – and against all historic hope – its time again to guard the French-German (and every other European border) with troops for a week whilst the money is stamped.

Note however almost every country borrowed in hard currency (Marks) and got to repay in soft currency (Drachma). This is a scheme which shifts the loss home to Germany and with little compensating benefit except that they get their beloved Mark back. Its a scheme that is way better for the periphery because they get to keep their institutions. In two years they should bounce back like Argentina bounced back after their default.

Unilateral Greek default and devaluation without planning for the periphery to do the same - well that is a true mess. Too ugly almost to think about - and it would be unilateral for less than a week. The rest of Europe falls into that abyss with maximum movement of deposits and cash in the meantime.

Wow. What a great piece by Hempton, and awesome food for thought. But this could be reality in a matter of weeks or months. Could you imagine troops at borders preventing the transfer of euros to places like France and Germany? Like he said, it would need to be done quickly. As stated above, capital flight has already started in earnest as brisk flows into Germany have depressed bund yields.

Can anything be done now to help? The issue is greater than just Greece. Richard Koo and others have recommended that eurozone governments prohibit selling bonds to people outside of their own borders. Private Spanish savings, for instance, could be invested into Spanish bonds instead of German bonds.

It’s clear that the dynamics between heavily indebted peripheral countries and creditor nations such as Germany are inextricably linked. The capital flights into Germany are affording an already “healthy economy” (unemployment at a 20yr low, industrial production approaching record highs), to potentially overheat. Koo speculates that this could lead to a German housing bubble.

There’s obviously a ton of different dynamics happening here, but from everything I’ve read it appears the actual implications of a Greek exit are being underestimated. Thanks again to John Hempton for a vivid description of what that might look like. Furthermore, could that possibly be in the cards for additional peripheral countries if things continue to deteriorate?

This seems to be an interesting article which puts things into perspective. I wonder if the Macedonian government is prepared to close borders in order to hinder Greeks fleeing north if that scenario occurs.

[Soldier of Macedon]

The Macedonian government isn't even prepared to close its north-western borders to stop terrorists slithering in and out of the country. For the Greeks they would probably 'do an Antic' and roll out the red ventilator carpet.

[DraganOfStip]

Looks like Greece is heading for chaos and disorder :

http://kurir.mk/svet/region/70869-Mudis-Se-pogolema-e-verojatnosta-deka-Grcija-ke-izleze-od-evrozonata

http://kurir.mk/svet/region/70871-Grcija-za-mesec-ipol-ke-ostane-bez-pari

[Brian]

Greece will fall but it reminds me of that "Pantene Shampoo" add, "It wont happen overnight, but it will happen". It's a long way off. I could say more but then I would be entering into 'conspiracy theory' and in the interest of not polluting this thread I'll just state it as my opinion.