Thread: Greek PM concedes election defeat

It will be the EU that backs down in this game of chicken when they finally realise that the Greeks are serious and aren't going to. They basically have no choice.

Originally Posted by buriramboy

It will be the EU that backs down in this game of chicken when they finally realise that the Greeks are serious and aren't going to. They basically have no choice.

Don't really see how the EU can back down, because it's not really their problem.
EU could say the Greek debt will be paid by the citizens of the EU, not going to go down well with their voters.
The money is not owed to the EU, but private banks, people are sick of bailing out billionaire bankers.
The banks will have to wear the loss, or it may spread to other countries banks, but these countries may will, then want the same deal.
This is really what should have happened in 2009, collapse the banking system and put in place a better system.

The EU will back down as their main fear is if Greece leaves the EU then in a few years down the road has turned itself around and become relatively successful, this can't be allowed to happen as it will then be the end of the EU

Originally Posted by buriramboy

The EU will back down as their main fear is if Greece leaves the EU then in a few years down the road has turned itself around and become relatively successful, this can't be allowed to happen as it will then be the end of the EU

But who pays the debt if the Greeks won't, as said earlier, why does Greece have to leave the EU.
Is there something in the agreement, EU membership that states, if you go broke you can't remain.
Nearly every member is really broke, most manage to service their debts so far.
Going to be a hard one to call and no one seems to have any idea what will happen March first.
Not like a job you just walk out of, borders, passports, currencies, free trade and the list goes on.
Capital flight from Greece yes [done] Greeks in other EU countries will need to be deported, military ties re negotiated, the reverse of joining, not going to happen overnight.
Still if the Greeks don't pay the banks are in shit, EU member or not, bottom line is the money

Answer is down to who covers the debt, not Greece leaving the EU.

Germany likes the Southern European countries being in the Euro as it hugely benefits from having a weaker currency than it would if the Euro just comprised of Northern European countries or it still had the deutchmark as it greatly helps its exports. Got to hand it to the Germans though as couldn't rule Europe by force as 2 world wars shows but now they're ruling and making policy for all of Europe without a shot being fired and everyone just sits back and blindly lets it happen.

Originally Posted by buriramboy

Germany likes the Southern European countries being in the Euro as it hugely benefits from having a weaker currency than it would if the Euro just comprised of Northern European countries or it still had the deutchmark as it greatly helps its exports. Got to hand it to the Germans though as couldn't rule Europe by force as 2 world wars shows but now they're ruling and making policy for all of Europe without a shot being fired and everyone just sits back and blindly lets it happen.

True Germany is calling the shots, they control the purse strings, but the German people will not wear paying the Greek debt easily.
Lets say, Germany, France, UK cover the Greek debt, 100 billion each, governments say well will use your pension funds and increase taxes, not to save Greece, but to save the banks, as per 2009.
Next election Greece will not be the only country with a government with radical ideas.

All this in/out EU talk is a side show, who foots the 300 billion debt is what the game is about.
Someone has to or banks fold, banks fold, then there is a run on other banks, dominoes, falling.
Those government guarantees on personal bank accounts are out the window, UK had to nationalize backs last time.
This time they may not be handed back and a new EU banking system will be born, you can bet your bottom dollar the bankers don't want that.
They should have been jailed 2009.

Better get something done quick.

Greece Debt Clock :: National Debt of Greece

Just reading an article on this in the Economist, article same same as other news agencies, but the comments, by I suspect some smart guys paint a different picture.

Seems there is no mechanism in place to force Greece out of the EU or the euro.
The Greek government runs on a surplus, except for the interest payments
Government owns 40% of the main banks, which these loans are brokered through.
If I read it right, bank goes down, government steps in, nationalizes it, 60% of the bank debt is held by the private owners.

If Greece left the euro, it could tie the new currency to the euro, some Africa nation already do.

Looks like they are in the drivers seat and the big picture stuff is a fear that Spain and others will follow suit.
Their credit may well be shot in the west, but with a trade surplus and still in the EU, if not the euro, BRIC nations will happily loan money.
China makes long term low interest loans, takes a longer view and have already, allegedly made approaches.

Good on the Greeks, home of democracy, leading the way, once again.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Just reading an article on this in the Economist, article same same as other news agencies, but the comments, by I suspect some smart guys paint a different picture.

Seems there is no mechanism in place to force Greece out of the EU or the euro.
The Greek government runs on a surplus, except for the interest payments
Government owns 40% of the main banks, which these loans are brokered through.
If I read it right, bank goes down, government steps in, nationalizes it, 60% of the bank debt is held by the private owners.

If Greece left the euro, it could tie the new currency to the euro, some Africa nation already do.

Looks like they are in the drivers seat and the big picture stuff is a fear that Spain and others will follow suit.
Their credit may well be shot in the west, but with a trade surplus and still in the EU, if not the euro, BRIC nations will happily loan money.
China makes long term low interest loans, takes a longer view and have already, allegedly made approaches.

Good on the Greeks, home of democracy, leading the way, once again.

This origins of democracy - more than a bit of a myth.

thaimeme, history is a myth, stories told to shape the future, but I bet the Greeks believe.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

thaimeme, history is a myth, stories told to shape the future, but I bet the Greeks believe.

...as do the greater percentage of Western induced populations.
Propaganda and ingrained conditioning is a most influential tool.

Repeated often and over again, it all becomes real and true.

Belief and reality are two different beasts.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Their credit may well be shot in the west, but with a trade surplus and still in the EU, if not the euro, BRIC nations will happily loan money.

But at what price? Would you loan money to someone who won't or can't pay it back, or might default on payments? Greece is a risky country to loan to. Yes, someone might loan some money to them but the interest will reflect the risk. More risk = more interest.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

China makes long term low interest loans, takes a longer view and have already, allegedly made approaches.

The Thai government were not very happy recently about a proposed Chinese loan to pay for a railway project. Interest rate too high, they said.

Originally Posted by Neverna

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Their credit may well be shot in the west, but with a trade surplus and still in the EU, if not the euro, BRIC nations will happily loan money.

But at what price? Would you loan money to someone who won't or can't pay it back, or might default on payments? Greece is a risky country to loan to. Yes, someone might loan some money to them but the interest will reflect the risk. More risk = more interest.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

China makes long term low interest loans, takes a longer view and have already, allegedly made approaches.

The Thai government were not very happy recently about a proposed Chinese loan to pay for a railway project. Interest rate too high, they said.

Can't really say, big picture stuff, but wasn't the Chinese premiere in Greece last year making deals, saying they see Greece as their gateway to Europe.
Sure the new Greek government has been on the phone seeing where it stands, they must have a card or 2 up their sleeve. They would have come to the election with a plan mapped out.

As to Thailand and China, China wants the railway, Thailand wants the best overall deal, just bargaining, the railway will come.

No Time for Games in Europe: Greek Finance Minister

By YANIS VAROUFAKIS

February 17, 2015 "ICH" - "NYT" - ATHENS — I am writing this piece on the margins of a crucial negotiation with my country’s creditors — a negotiation the result of which may mark a generation, and even prove a turning point for Europe’s unfolding experiment with monetary union.

Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. Because I spent many years during my previous life as an academic researching game theory, some commentators rushed to presume that as Greece’s new finance minister I was busily devising bluffs, stratagems and outside options, struggling to improve upon a weak hand.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If anything, my game-theory background convinced me that it would be pure folly to think of the current deliberations between Greece and our partners as a bargaining game to be won or lost via bluffs and tactical subterfuge.

The trouble with game theory, as I used to tell my students, is that it takes for granted the players’ motives. In poker or blackjack this assumption is unproblematic. But in the current deliberations between our European partners and Greece’s new government, the whole point is to forge new motives. To fashion a fresh mind-set that transcends national divides, dissolves the creditor-debtor distinction in favor of a pan-European perspective, and places the common European good above petty politics, dogma that proves toxic if universalized, and an us-versus-them mind-set.

As finance minister of a small, fiscally stressed nation lacking its own central bank and seen by many of our partners as a problem debtor, I am convinced that we have one option only: to shun any temptation to treat this pivotal moment as an experiment in strategizing and, instead, to present honestly the facts concerning Greece’s social economy, table our proposals for regrowing Greece, explain why these are in Europe’s interest, and reveal the red lines beyond which logic and duty prevent us from going.

The great difference between this government and previous Greek governments is twofold: We are determined to clash with mighty vested interests in order to reboot Greece and gain our partners’ trust. We are also determined not to be treated as a debt colony that should suffer what it must. The principle of the greatest austerity for the most depressed economy would be quaint if it did not cause so much unnecessary suffering.

I am often asked: What if the only way you can secure funding is to cross your red lines and accept measures that you consider to be part of the problem, rather than of its solution? Faithful to the principle that I have no right to bluff, my answer is: The lines that we have presented as red will not be crossed. Otherwise, they would not be truly red, but merely a bluff.

But what if this brings your people much pain? I am asked. Surely you must be bluffing.

The problem with this line of argument is that it presumes, along with game theory, that we live in a tyranny of consequences. That there are no circumstances when we must do what is right not as a strategy but simply because it is ... right.

Against such cynicism the new Greek government will innovate. We shall desist, whatever the consequences, from deals that are wrong for Greece and wrong for Europe. The “extend and pretend” game that began after Greece’s public debt became unserviceable in 2010 will end. No more loans — not until we have a credible plan for growing the economy in order to repay those loans, help the middle class get back on its feet and address the hideous humanitarian crisis. No more “reform” programs that target poor pensioners and family-owned pharmacies while leaving large-scale corruption untouched.

Our government is not asking our partners for a way out of repaying our debts. We are asking for a few months of financial stability that will allow us to embark upon the task of reforms that the broad Greek population can own and support, so we can bring back growth and end our inability to pay our dues.

One may think that this retreat from game theory is motivated by some radical-left agenda. Not so. The major influence here is Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who taught us that the rational and the free escape the empire of expediency by doing what is right.

How do we know that our modest policy agenda, which constitutes our red line, is right in Kant’s terms? We know by looking into the eyes of the hungry in the streets of our cities or contemplating our stressed middle class, or considering the interests of hard-working people in every European village and city within our monetary union. After all, Europe will only regain its soul when it regains the people’s trust by putting their interests center-stage.

Yanis Varoufakis is the finance minister of Greece.

Heavens above - stone him! He wants to do what is right for the people of Greece rather than obey the Criminal Bankers.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by Neverna

Would you loan money to someone who won't or can't pay it back, or might default on payments?

All banks do it every days, some clients pay religiously, others take the money buy a new pickup after stopping payments it's taken back by the finance company. The % that pay easily cover the % that don't.

It does not cost a bank anything to loan money because they create it on a computer. This is where the global inflation has come from. When it is not paid back they do not care as they have not lost anything, but they get shitty about it because you are not agreed to pay they fake money back with real money where that it salary or tax euroes.

Banker tyranny and terrorism.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by jamescollister
They should have been jailed 2009.
Who are the they? The then Greek government who accepted the contract clauses who had expensive financial advisers and retired with the financial perks of their status, the bankers/financial advisers who illegally fixed the entry into the EZ, The EU parliaments members who allowed this blatant lie to be ignored or the bankers which gave Greece the same credit rating as Germany due to it becoming an EZ member?

Or every greek citizen, because they get to understand government finance and EU/EZ regulations? They can have their taxes raised, their pensions can be stopped, the hospitals closed ........., but they can be put on a newspaper headline and BLAMED.

They being the bankers of the western world who played this sub prime pyramid scheme. Not only did they not go to jail, but the governments gave them more money, stolen from their citizens.

The Greek people didn't borrow this money, the banks did.

^ Yes, I thought that's what you meant.

Eurogroup agrees 4-month extension to Greek bailout: Dijsselbloem

BRUSSELS - Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the 19 ministers of the eurozone Friday agreed to extend Greece's crucial bailout by four months as long as Athens set out key reform commitments by Monday.

Published: 21/02/2015 at 03:45 AM
Writer: AFP
"The first step is that Greece must present a first list of reform measures...It should be available and presented on Monday," the Dutch finance minister said after his eurozone peers agreed a difficult compromise on the Greek bailout programme which expires at the end of the month.

Bangkokpost.com

The EEC just blinked.

So the Greeks write out a list of "commitments/reforms etc." on a piece of paper, get the money and promptly ignore what's written on the paper.

Sounds like a plan, I will try on my bank manger on Monday

Originally Posted by OhOh

So the Greeks write out a list of "commitments/reforms etc." on a piece of paper, get the money and promptly ignore what's written on the paper.

Sounds like a plan, I will try on my bank manger on Monday

Does sound like the Greeks have won.
I won't pay you back, but give me more money and I will think longer on not paying you back.

Banks are dammed if they do or if they don't, would say plans are afoot to bring the Greek government down, stalling tactic for time.

No one gives billions on unsecured loans for the better good of the people.

by Monday = a 2 day extension

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Originally Posted by OhOh

So the Greeks write out a list of "commitments/reforms etc." on a piece of paper, get the money and promptly ignore what's written on the paper.

Sounds like a plan, I will try on my bank manger on Monday

Does sound like the Greeks have won.
I won't pay you back, but give me more money and I will think longer on not paying you back.

Banks are dammed if they do or if they don't, would say plans are afoot to bring the Greek government down, stalling tactic for time.

No one gives billions on unsecured loans for the better good of the people.

Actually, the general mechanics don't exist to serve the betterment of the people.

The press are trumpeting a climb down by the Greek Government. The masses are angry.

Will the government return to the EZ and refuse to sign anything or will they be hung from the Temple Olympian Zeus beams.



Monday or four months seem to be the time scales.