Financial Crisis in Greece

[Bill77]

I don't know about you but this was kinda absurd for me to see this. As you know, Greek PM has appointed a new cabinet two days ago and it looks like all new cabinet members sworn with couple of priests in some kind of ritual to be able to start their duty;
YouTube - ‪Greece brings in new faces in bid to tackle debt‬‏

OK, Greece is not a secular country but do they have to be like a medieval state???!!! So, i wonder what was the chanting for? for a "miracle" to resolve their debt crisis?

I don't know about your countries but the last time we`ve ever seen such a scenery here was about 150 years ago, in the crowning of the last sultan. It`s kinda ridicules to see such a scene in 2011

Oh yeh, its like these satanists are going to help pfffff

Its their mentality that they have to change. No God will save them.

[George S.]

Regarding the demonstrators outside greek parlt the priminister has said to them he is willing to resign if they think he is not doing a good job.

[Louis Riel]

Who will fill the void?What kind of government do these protesters want?Any of our Greek friends here care to enlighten us as to what kind of neighbour Macedonia might have in the near future?

[Soldier of Macedon]

I don't know about your countries but the last time we`ve ever seen such a scenery here was about 150 years ago, in the crowning of the last sultan. It`s kinda ridicules to see such a scene in 2011

I don't see too much of a problem with it to be honest, so long as it remains ceremonial.

[Onur]

I don't care much either SOM, since it`s not my own country. Already, such a scene is unthinkable for my country but it`s rather absurd to see that in 21th century, the elected people in Greece still have to kiss some big bearded clergy`s ass, appointed by some other big bearded fella, to be able to start off their duty. So, who governs who in that case?

[Soldier of Macedon]

For ceremonial purposes it is OK because Greece has an Orthodox Christian heritage. It may seem a little over the top for some, and I understand the point you're trying to make, all I am saying is there is nothing wrong with a bit of tradition, although the clergymen should not be involved in politics unless they're elected by the people.

[Bill77]

UK banks abandon eurozone over Greek default fears

UK banks have pulled billions of pounds of funding from the eurozone as fears grow about the impact of a “Lehman-style” event connected to a Greek default.

Senior sources have revealed that leading banks, including Barclays and Standard Chartered, have radically reduced the amount of unsecured lending they are prepared to make available to eurozone banks, raising the prospect of a new credit crunch for the European banking system, The Telegraph reports.



Standard Chartered is understood to have withdrawn tens of billions of pounds from the eurozone inter-bank lending market in recent months and cut its overall exposure by two-thirds in the past few weeks as it has become increasingly worried about the finances of other European banks.............................

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/18426/52/

And Štefan Fool is concerned about a statue that's making Greeks cry when he and is amigos have other major major problems.

[Onur]

Interesting article from US. About the Greek myth of Eurocrats and Euroheads and the failure of it;

The Great Greek Illusion

Greece has long held emotional sway over Europe. All the cradle-of-Western-civilization talk earned it leniency, even indulgence. The European Union was not ready to go mano-a-mano with the birthplace of democracy.

Past glory is a wonderful thing — and a lousy guide for present policy. That’s true in the Holy Land, in Kosovo and in Athens. Greece should not have been allowed into the euro. It failed to join in 1999 because it did not meet fiscal criteria. When it did meet them in 2001, the fix came through phony budget numbers.

But Europe’s bold monetary union required an Athenian imprimatur to be fully European. So everyone turned a blind eye.

In fact, recent history would have been a much better guide. Greece has had an awful past century. Let’s begin with the wars of 1912-13 that wrested northern Greece from Ottoman control. Then came the massive population exchange, or “ethnic cleansing,” negotiated at Lausanne in 1923 under which about 400,000 Muslims were forced to move from Greece to Turkey and at least 1.2 million Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece.

That upheaval was followed by the 1930s dictatorship of General Metaxas; the brutal German occupation of 1941-44; and a devastating civil war in the late 1940s that bequeathed an ideological struggle between left and right whose visceral quality endures.

The rightist military dictatorship of 1967-74 that rounded up and exiled leftists fanned the embers of the civil war. The ongoing conflict with Turkey over Cyprus, involving its own “population exchanges,” ensures the memory of 1923 has not been entirely laid to rest.

So forget Socrates. Read Bruce Clark’s excellent “Twice a Stranger” on the effects of the Lausanne population exchange and the psyche of modern Greece. Clark writes of Greece as a society “where blood ties are far more important than loyalty to the state or to business partners.”

That’s not a state of mind conducive to tax-paying, collective effort or balanced public finances. It doesn’t rule them out but it doesn’t help. It’s no surprise that Greece took the euro as a means to live on the never-never — ending up with a debt load equivalent to 150 percent of gross domestic product and rising.

Yes, E.U. membership provided some balm to Greek wounds. That’s the great merit of the E.U.: It detoxifies history. But Greece remains a nation suspicious of outsiders — when you’ve been lorded over by the Ottomans you don’t want to be lorded over by central bankers — and a place where state structures command scant loyalty.

That does not bode well. It suggests the latest bailout, after the $158 billion last year, may just be good money chasing bad.

I’ve never seen Europe in such dire straits. Greece is full of the aganaktismenoi , or the outraged, who resent the sharp cuts and sales of state industries made necessary because there is no drachma to devalue in order to regain competitiveness.

Like protesters in Spain, they feel the poor and unemployed are paying for the errors of politicians, the evasions of the rich, and the whole globalized system that rewards the tech-savvy initiated while punishing those left behind.

Their anger is understandable.

In many ways the euro crisis, the European crisis, is an apt symbol of our times. A borderless order conceived by technocrats, sustained over a heady period by low interest rates, appreciated by the moneyed classes who made more money, is today facing popular revolt combined with the relentless pressure of its contradictions.

Strikes and violent protest are one measure of a Europe that now leaves many citizens unmoved by the great achievements of European integration. Open borders are beginning to close again. Turkey is turning its back on the Union. Germany has checked out from its postwar European idealism. America lambasts Europe for its military fecklessness. Many Greeks and Spaniards feel Europe is no more than a scam.

The bottom line is this: A monetary union among radically divergent economies without the buttress of fiscal or political union has no convincing historical precedent.

For a while, the easy-money boom allowed everyone to overlook the fact that peripheral economies like Greece’s or Portugal’s were not gaining competitiveness or “converging,” but amassing unsustainable deficits and debt. Now the hard facts are plain.

Given explosive Greek politics, German exasperation and the limits of what the Greek people will accept, I think the best imaginable outcome over time is probably an orderly Greek default rather than a disorderly one.

There’s simply no readiness to take the fundamental steps — like approving the issue of “E-bonds” underwritten by all the euro area’s taxpayers or the creation of a European Union finance ministry — that would convince markets the euro zone is ready to assume the logic of monetary union. As a result, the trends already evident — away from convergence — will continue over time.

Greece was not ready for the euro. Its classical past was of less relevance than its recent past. A lie is like a snowball: The longer it rolls, the bigger it gets. No salvage operation can hide that.

June 20, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/op...en21.html?_r=1

[Voltron]

The USA is one of the most highly taxed countries in the world. Almost everyone pays their taxes over there and the ones that dont are caught and threatened with jailtime ( Wesley Snipes for example ).

However, how much better off are they? They are just as much in debt as we are in Greece if not more. Uncle Sam prints money off the presses, devalues their currency, raises the ceiling of debt and continues on its way. Why dont we hear the same critiscim regarding the bailout of Fannie Mae or Lehmen Bros ? Why are million of American losing thier homes or making strategic defaults on their property simply because they cant afford it ? Why are Americans paying 6-8000 USD in property taxes each year sometimes being more than the mortgage itself ? And why is this model of capitalism being promoted throughout the world as the right way to move forward ?
So the copout that we dont pay our taxes and that is why we are in this mess is false.
The Americans bleed taxes and still, where is the huge difference with Greece ?

This perversive model does not work, its shown its failure with the mortgage crisis a couple years ago. We here in Greece do not want this model for our country or the EU. They can go fuck themselves if they want to live like this.

[George S.]

Voltron are you surprised about that as i'm not surprised.I allready stated on this thread If it weren't for the name america is on the same boat as greece.Greece is called a basket case & so should america.Look at how much debt america has amassed 14 trillion dollars.The question is yes it's america but when are they going to pay it back?Also virtually half that debt is owed to china.I read somewhere where the chinese are actually laughing at the americans stupidity into getting themselves into such debt.The debt of course would much of a worry but there's something else the chinese are buying everything up ports,farms,mining companies etc there's nothing that anyone can do.
you look at australia they have borrowed money just so they could put in infrastructure for the nbn thats optic fibre to the tune of 40 to 50 billion dollars.That's stupid why borrow such huge amounts to satisfy huge speeds of 100megabits per second internet that hardly anyone will take up.Beleive it or not the chinese are buying anything & everything in australia that australia is easy pickings for them.The other thing the war effort in afghanistan is something in the order of a couple hundred billion dollars of taxpayers money.There was even talk of buying out the taliban so that the americans can walk out of the place.See alot of countries swallowed the hook line sinker approach to joining the eu,greece was one of them.I knew that greece would never repay that massive debt unless it sold it's infrastructure & land etc even then i doubt if it just pays some of it off.If greece didn't opentheir eyes sooner then being into debt is part & parcel of being in the eu.Someone out there is deliberately hoping the respective countries fall into massive debt that they can't repay.There was a talk of a third bailout are you kidding me it's never going to happen .Look it stupid macedonia it's got nothing to offer yet it's stupidly asking to be admitted.You know what they are going to say thanks for coming in here's your share of the massive eu debt now fuck off & die in the corner.Yes it's as bad as that.

[Delodephius]

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[Onur]

The famous fascist bishop of Salonika asks to God to pay their debt on live tv show!!! ;

Greek bishop looks to Almighty for country's debt relief
A prominent Greek Orthodox bishop has sought to enlist the aid of the Almighty to help save Greece from its mountain of debt, a report said on Thursday.



Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki, the outspoken prelate of the country's second largest city, read the custom debt relief prayer in a televised appearance on Wednesday, Ta Nea daily said.

"Oh Lord, we confess that we have sinned as a state and as a people in the management of the economic and monetary benefits entrusted to us," Anthimos said during his appearance on private TV channel Alter.

"But no one is perfect and without sin on Earth," he added.

"We ask for Your mercy and request that you continue to support us," said the 77-year-old bishop, who is fond of nationalist and anti-immigration outbursts.

After years of budget deficits, Greece has accumulated a sovereign debt of over 350 billion euros ($504 billion) that has spooked investors, dried up the prospect of fresh loans and raised fears about shocks to the broader eurozone.

The Greek government is currently in talks with the European Union and the IMF, which gave it a life-saving loan last year, to discuss additional aid for which Athens' creditors are demanding further austerity cuts and reforms.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110623...20110623182127

Why they don't think about selling the vast lands owned by Greek church? They can start with selling that giant golden looking cross

[Risto the Great]

"God" for Greece (and many Macedonians) seems to be the EU nowadays.

[Stojacanec]

Voltron, it’s high time you get a reality check. The collection of taxes in Greece (and in the Balkans) is poor. Corruption is high. Everything is highly politicized. Very difficult to run a business in neighbouring countries because of politics and red tape.

America at least has industry, sports and movie elite that most of the world focuses on. They don't do themselves any favours by waging wars all over the world, that can't be a cheap exercise.

A Greek friend of mine has her feet firmly on the ground when she says, "the only thing stopping Greece from being a third world country is their tourism"

We in Aust can't retire at 50 or 55 where the govt gives us a full pension. As a nation you have to start to balance the budget and stop cooking the books.

[Delodephius]

I was just wondering about what industry and agriculture Greece has? I mean, I don't know of anything significant. Olive oil? Wine? Fish? Cotton? I read on Wikipedia that Greece's main industry is the shipping industry, but it only employs 4% of the workforce and that as much GDP. Is that all?