[Lepanto]

Latest on the Greek bailout eurozone repayment crisis: Tsipras is submitting the question to a referendum, which may or may not end up influencing the Greek government's course of action.

IMO, Tsipras literally can't afford to play these brinkmanship games. When your entire country risks financial destruction, you can't afford to quibble over terms. However helpful austerity may or may not be in the long run, surely it's better to accept it than to default?

Opinions?

[General Battuta]

https://www.indiegogo.com/greek-bailout-fund.html#/story

[Mr. Vega]

Latest on the Greek bailout eurozone repayment crisis: Tsipras is submitting the question to a referendum, which may or may not end up influencing the Greek government's course of action.

IMO, Tsipras literally can't afford to play these brinkmanship games. When your entire country risks financial destruction, you can't afford to quibble over terms. However helpful austerity may or may not be in the long run, surely it's better to accept it than to default?

Opinions?

Greece should have defaulted and started printing Drachmas two years ago. This was always a balance of payments issue disguised as a budgetary crisis. The forced and anti-democratic austerity program that the EU claimed would solve the problem has pushed Greece into a second Great Depression, to virtually no benefit to the government's financial position. The Troika hasn't been negotiating with Syriza in good faith; they have responded to reasonable concessions from Tsirpas with absurd counterproposals that demand the Greek government run an even larger surplus than it's currently running while there's 30% unemployment. They want to break Syriza.

Defaulting and leaving the Euro allows them to a) finally devalue their currency to increase their competitiveness as opposed to cutting and cutting and cutting labor costs, and b) let them self-finance their budget deficits (which really just means printing money, what every country with its own currency does) so they can spend what they need to get out of the depression.

If they do take that course, expect a burst of high but not hyperinflation as their currency devaluation causes the price of imports to rise. Hyperinflation has only ever happened when governments have to print massive amounts of currency to put on the international exchange market to service a foreign debt burden, and Greece won't have any.

It'll still suck, but anything's better than starving to death.

[Luis Dias]

Read carefully because I'll probably never say this again: I second everything Vega said just above.

[Mongoose]

https://www.indiegogo.com/greek-bailout-fund.html#/story

This is both amazing and incredibly sad.

But yeah, I have literally no grasp of macroeconomics, but the only thing that seems to make sense is a Greek GTFO of the Euro.  Plus drachmas are way cooler, they're like 2500 years old!

[Bobboau]

Tsipras literally can't afford to play these brinkmanship games.

he might not be able to afford it but he's writing the check.

get it? cause... cause their insolvent... it's funny...

[Dragon]

Yeah. The situation would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Just go back to Drachma already! At this point, they're in no position to haggle, and are pulling the rest of the Europe down with them. A fundraiser on Indiegogo is a nice idea, but I don't think it'll cut it.

[karajorma]

https://www.indiegogo.com/greek-bailout-fund.html#/story

Hang on a sec, 1.6bn is really all they need? Cause given what Mr Vega says surely it would be smarter if a few Greek multi-millionaires and billionaires had a whip-round and just simply gave the government the money rather than face the consequences of a Greek exit from the Euro.

[Mika]

I think the Greek plan was to get rid of the direct IMF involvement and solitarily hang on the EU systems from now on, as they are easier to deal with than IMF (which actually knows better what it is requiring). So I don't think Greek will be leaving EU or euro any time soon, despite all the posturing from both sides. I'd welcome Grexit, but I don't think it is going to happen, with the possible exception of a military coup. The reason for this is twofold, the face saving of the euro supporting politicals and risking destabilization of the eurozone (HAH!), and seondly, making sure the NATO retains its influence within the region. Given the way Syriza has negotiated with Russia, I believe there has been quite a lot of pressure from Washington to EU (= Germany) to keep Greece on the negotiation table.

I personally believe that the only political way Grexit could happen if a large enough protest mentality takes place in Germany where it becomes clear supporting Greek packages means a financial loss and thus results in loss in the next referendum. Since this hasn't yet happened, it is likely still advantageous to keep Greece within the eurozone to bail out the banks. The second the losses become tolerable to the guilty we are likely going to see more talks about Greek separation from the euro zone. It could be approaching now, as the Grexit talk was sort of forbidden two years ago in the media, but somehow I'm still not convinced yet.

Therefore, I believe, the advantage (which is not my advantage) still lies on keeping Greece with euro and pump the package money to banks to cover their losses as much as possible.

[Mr. Vega]

Just the reverse. Germany is in the driver's seat in the Eurozone, and the German financial elites behind Merkel are the ones driving this brinksmanship. The IMF is, horrifying as it is, the most moderate party on the other side of the negotiation table.

[Ghostavo]

https://www.indiegogo.com/greek-bailout-fund.html#/story

Hang on a sec, 1.6bn is really all they need? Cause given what Mr Vega says surely it would be smarter if a few Greek multi-millionaires and billionaires had a whip-round and just simply gave the government the money rather than face the consequences of a Greek exit from the Euro.

It's not

[karajorma]

Yeah, I didn't think it was.

I still think the best idea I heard was that Greece should auction off one of their islands on a 99 year lease (like the Chinese did with Hong Kong) for use as a naval base. They'd raise the money they need tomorrow.

[Luis Dias]

Ominous press conference.

[Lepanto]

Whether or not one likes the results, we have a deal, and Greece is hopefully saved from imminent financial meltdown.

Analyzing in retrospect, I'd like to know what Tsipras's thought process was. When he implemented his anti-austerity regime, did he truly expect to get a better deal when he inevitably had to ask the very Eurozone he hated for another bailout? Whether or not one agrees with his economic policy, his five-month resistance seems to have just flared tempers and cost Greece a lot of financial stability. Seeing as he ultimately had to capitulate.

[The E]

It was a gamble, but a gamble that had to be made. Austerity and privatization are the biggest mistakes economic theory has regurgitated over the past few decades, we need people like Tsipras willing to at least try to get a better deal for their people.

Hell, if it wasn't for the utter stupidity on display by Merkel, Schäuble and the press in Germany, he and Varoufakis might have even got away with it.

[Phantom Hoover]

Austerity in particular is a monster of the politicians, not the economists. Most economists are against it. The European right wing (which includes a lot of 'left' parties) has been very successful at duping the voters into believing it through simplistic analogies to personal finance, but in reality it's a pretext for crippling state finances on ideological grounds.