7 Comments

• Isn’t this tax and the public servants’ cut, just a desperate move to achieve a state budget surplus whatever the cost, before proceeding to ‘organised’ default sometime in 2012?

• But as these banks and nations continue to sell, (sorry; try and sell), assets to cover their capital losses; at what point does the issue become a “Forced Sale” where it becomes impossible to raise even a fair proportion of the true value?

  They are all on a road to nowhere … fast.

• I’m not convinced by the default option. Even having defaulted, Greece would still have to dismantle the clientist state, stop this fetish the country has with socialism and Marxism and adopt a modern free market economy – befitting an EU member-state – i.e. do all the ‘modernising’ things the troika is asking it to do. All this talk about default is a distraction from Greece’s overarching problem, which is political, not economic. Why is Greece unable or unwilling to reform itself? This is the real question. And what makes you think that the chaos that will be brought about by default will prompt revival and restructuring? There is also the possibility that default will drive Greeks and Greek society over the edge and Greece will descend even further into the abyss. Greece is not Iceland.

  • ”do all the ‘modernising’ things the troika is asking it to do. ”

    I wonder..Is it a modernising thing to work for 592 euro/month?

    Free market economy hmm..Neoliberalism died in 2008…We just live the decline of neoclassical paradigm..Let’s hope Mr Varoufakis help forming the idea of a new economic paradigm…

• The problems.
  One is a world problem and the other is specific a Greek problem. The world problem is that about 1% of the population owns the wealth of the world. There are plenty of money to invest, lots of money is laying around ready to be put to work. Unfortunately the majority of people have needs, but no money to buy, there is no demand. So creating jobs when is no demand does not make sense. It was a huge improvement in productivity which is the result of education mostly funded by the public. The results of the burst of productivity were channeled smartly to very few people. The rich folks soaked the labour of the productive majority. The market just stopped working. This became a political problem; it stopped being an economical problem.
  The other problem is a Greek specific. We didn’t have a Bismarck that pushed the Germans to copy and design all the machinery that existed at his time and create the industry that perpetuates from that time. The Germans, the Japanese, the Americans during the many wars learned how to organize the efforts of millions of people and resources to achieve certain result. This knowledge is applied to the economy to achieve very nice prosperity. The Greeks industrially lagged behind the Germans and almost everybody else. Even with such disadvantage they achieved quite impressive results, but they still lag behind. What is needed for Greeks is to get mad at Germans and design a plan to beat them in their own game.
  First it is necessary to democratize the process of government. This can be achieved by adopting a modification of the American jury system. Each bill passed by parliament should by voted by around 1000 Greek citizens randomly chosen for each bill. If a bill passes the parliament and the jury it becomes law, otherwise dies. The jury votes using internet from the homes. Once this system is set it becomes very cheap to operate.
  Having an army that can’t do anything is nice for the participants to live on public charity, but the Greeks can’t afford it. The Greek army cannot defend Greece, therefore is nonsense to keep it in the present form. Instead of that all Greeks should participate in a half military, half civilian service to the country. You don’t need a special healthy person to lead a pilotless device to observe or to bomb. A trained grandmother can do that from her bedroom. So we need designing and making staff. We need to train generals not to learn the staff of the past wars, but to lead thousands of people and resources to develop the country. This is beside the individual private enterprise.
  It will be preferable to outlaw the government of Greece to borrow money. Let the cities do it.
  Eurobonds maybe will help a little, but it will not solve the problem. It maybe the price will be a little lower. It is much preferable what exists now, than close cooperation of Europe. The Greeks will be the losers. We don’t have the numbers, we don’t have the industry, and we don’t have the educational establishment. We will be commanded. Not nice.

• It is clear to me that Greece’s default is inevitable!

• My thinking is that greek government plays a very dubious role at this moment .
  For more than two years now , creates high expectations and crush against them .

  After the so called “rescue effort” in May 2010 , the government has abdicated from its given power to serve the interest of its people . Now , they provide a false impression that there is a greek government .

  The similarities with second world war in Greece are striking . For someone living in Greece , this is more than evident .

  In Europe , whatever european solidarity has developed so far between the citizens of all member states will vanish into thin air , bombarded by governmental propaganda against other member states (to cover the inefficiency and misconceptions of itself ) .

  … And as if we were lacking of sufficient dismantling forces , oil and energy crisis is about to strike too in the next five years . Western countries are strongly de-stabilizing middle east in a gold rush , with their so called democracy missionaries .

  I dont see a war in Europe this time .I see a Europe in war . I prophet a new crusade in middle east and a Europe in dark ages once more . On the other hand i am not really a prophet when i speak of something that is already happening …

  I strongly disagree with people concentrating on that the crisis in economic . Dark ages would have come in Europe even if all member state economies were blooming .

  And to my fellow financial consultants worrying about the future of Europe … just try to answer the following question :

  Is an environmental survey assessed upon its cost effectiveness and its efficiency OR the profit of the involved corporations ?

  Is a medicine put on production according to its cost effectiveness and efficiency OR the profit of the involved corporations ?

  Do we make actions for the fate of our country ? the fate of humanity? OR our profits as shareholders .

  We must decided what do we want more . Our citizenship OR shareholder-ship ?

  Economics nowadays lacks COMMON SENSE . This is merely a financial crisis ! It is a CIVILIZATION crisis . Welcome to Dark ages !