It's called cutting your losses.
"Talk resurfaces that Greece will quit euro; Creditors arrive to assess nation’s progress on debt" by Patrick Donahue | Bloomberg News, July 23, 2012
BERLIN —The prospect of Greece's exit from the monetary union “long ago lost its terror.”
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Once taboo, the possibility that Greece could exit the 17- member monetary union has been voiced by European officials this year who consider the fallout from such a scenario would be the lesser evil, compared to a seemingly perpetual crisis....
Seems we are all left with that choice, dear readers.
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That's quite a different tune than the one being sung months ago:
" An exit by Greece would sorely test the eurozone" by Steven Erlanger New York Times / May 21, 2012
PARIS — The leaders of the Group of 8, emphasizing growth as well as fiscal discipline at their meeting on Saturday, made a strong plea for Greece to stay in the eurozone and the European Union.
And no wonder.
Despite efforts at official reassurance, no one really knows the consequences of a Greek exit from the eurozone, or how rapidly big countries like Spain and Italy, and their banks, would feel the effects.
The political and financial costs would represent a fundamental challenge to the EU and its credibility, and the point of no return may be approaching faster than anyone anticipated.
‘’Anyone who thinks a Greek departure would be cleansing and not cause systemic contagion is deluding themselves,’’ said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London. ‘‘Already we’ve seen a sharp increase in spreads and the beginnings of capital flight in other struggling eurozone economies,’’ with the risk of a full-blown banking crisis in Spain....
The stresses on the system are now so great that to contain panic and contagion, while protecting countries too big to bail out, would require political choices and financial commitments that many countries, including Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, seem unlikely to make....
The project is over thanks to the f***ing banksters!
The problems of Greece and Spain are complicated enough, but the pressure on eurozone leaders to resolve the evident contradictions in the common currency and to move faster toward more political and fiscal integration is rising by the day.
I sense an agenda being advanced in the form of shock therapy.
The election of Francois Hollande, a committed European, as president of France may help push Berlin toward more collective responsibility for the eurozone, but Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, with her own domestic political concerns, has rarely been willing to move quickly or boldly.
Isn't that interesting? Once again the Germans stand in the way of the New World Order.
While Greece is only a small part of the eurozone, its exit is likely to be more expensive and complicated than figuring out a way for it to remain....
Oh, that was months ago.
Merkel is now talking of special stimulus programs for Greece to help ease the pain of austerity, but any new deal with Athens will have to be negotiated with a real government....
When you find a real government -- one that actually serves its people and not $pecial interests and itself -- let me know.
Related: Globe Iced Iceland
I've got to start putting the Globe on ice.
In the interim, as European officials warn Greek voters about the consequences of an exit, a continuing run on Greek banks — a panic that threatened to spread to Spain last week — could force the European Central Bank to jettison Greece anyway by refusing to replace the euros being moved from the country for lack of proper collateral.
That's another thing the banker's business section keeps on ice.
European finance officials are trying to be reassuring about a Greek exit, saying that most Greek debt is now held by nations, and that better firewalls exist to protect the rest of the eurozone, so the impact on the world economy would be manageable. But a Greek departure is likely to be seen as the beginning of the end for the whole eurozone project, a major accomplishment in the postwar construction of a Europe ‘‘whole and at peace.’’
I've been saying that for months, but I'm just some know-nuthin' blogger.
‘‘A Greek exit should be avoided; it will be very disruptive and disorderly, and not just for the Greeks,’’ said Nicolas Veron, an economist at Bruegel, a research and policy institute, in Brussels.
Daniela Schwarzer, an EU expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said that a Greek default, within the EU or without, would be costly, requiring a write-down of much of the debt held by European states and the European Central Bank, which member states would then have to recapitalize. But that is just the financial expense, which is the least of it.
No, no, no, can't let "investors" take the hit. Time for taxpayers to ante up!
More important is “to avoid the first example of European Union membership not being forever,’’ Schwarzer said. ‘‘If that taboo is broken, I think there will be considerable contagion,’’ including unsustainable spikes in the bond market; further runs on the banks in Spain, Portugal and Italy; and social and political unrest beyond Greece.
We already have that, so WTF?
Experts believe that damage could be limited, but only by bold political steps toward more centralization of power in the eurozone that may prove too hard for politicians to take....
That is the LAST THING they need since CENTRALIZATION is what has CAUSED the PROBLEMS!
Of course, it is not surprising that "experts" cited by the agenda-pusher would be calling for a dictatorship. We all know who is running the EU these days.
Veron suggested that leaders should simply announce that the European bailout funds would guarantee all national bank deposit insurance plans — that Europe would stand behind all eurozone deposits.
But such changes would mean a major political leap for Merkel and other Northern European leaders and a redrawing of the European Central Bank charter. It would imply that funds from countries with healthy surpluses would flow in some measure to help the weaker ones with deficits.
‘’If Greece goes, there would have to be a clear signal from Germany that it would do everything necessary to keep Spain, and that the ECB will do all it must to help Spanish banks,’’ said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform.
How odd that bankers made Hitler's dream of a Europe dominated by Germany come true, 'eh?
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Related: Germany to Reoccupy Greece
Might as well. You're going to be paying for it.
"Greece’s financial problems mount; EU inspectors seek $14b in cuts" by Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis | Associated Press, July 27, 2012
ATHENS — Inspectors overseeing Greece’s faltering financial recovery have returned to Athens to push the country back on the road to painful reform. But as Greece’s economic problems pile higher, the task appears insurmountable....
What recovery? They have been in recession for five years!
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, meanwhile, met Thursday with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
Greeks had been promised some relief from the severe recession after the country won major debt restructuring and rescue loan deals this year, following another round of salary and benefit cuts. But that prospect has already faded.
In other words, the Greeks were lied to by their government and the international banking cartels.
Greece’s economy is in its fifth year of recession, during which its economic output has dropped by about 20 percent.
So when exactly was that faltering recovery?
Samaras has likened the period to the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s.
Except this period will be recorded and is being recorded as the Grand Depression.
On Tuesday, he delivered more bad news: The economy would contract a further 7 percent in 2012, far more than the 2.8 percent predicted last year.
Unemployment, originally forecast to settle around 18 percent, has reached 24 percent.
A national association representing small businesses said it expects 67,000 more companies to go bankrupt in the next 12 months.
The economic downturn is depriving the government of much-needed revenue with which to lower its deficits.
Some blame the severity of the recession on the bailout creditors’ insistence that the government cut spending as a way to lower the deficit.
In the past two years, eurozone members and the IMF have granted Greece two successive rescue loan packages worth $121 billion and $158 billion — a higher combined amount than the country’s gross domestic product — but tied the loans to Draconian demands for fiscal changes to cut overspending.
The main targets include cutting the budget deficit from a runaway 15.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 to around 2 percent over five years, while overhauling the public sector and services and market rules, and cutting 150,000 government jobs.
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You know, I actually heard the Greek budget was in good shape if it weren't for the military-industrial complex and the bankers.
"Greece must cut an additional $5 billion" by Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis | Associated Press, August 08, 2012
ATHENS — Greece still must find up to $5 billion worth of cuts to satisfy the demands of its international creditors, the country’s finance minister said Tuesday....
I would say f*** paying that fraudulent debt drawn up by government and Wall Street that the Greek people never approved.
The cuts will be identified by the seven-week-old coalition government as the country battles a fifth year of recession, with unemployment near 24 percent, according to a recent government estimate.
Last week, the three parties participating in the coalition — the conservative New Democracy, the Socialist PASOK party, and the small Democratic Left party — overcame a dispute on whether some of the cuts should be delayed. The three parties, averting a new political crisis, agreed to back conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and not seek any delay in the new austerity program....
Said he would!
See: Greek Post is Garbage
So apparently, is anything that comes out of government's mouth.
The new government had not ruled out reintroducing a scheme to suspend public servants on reduced pay before they reach retirement age....
And thus cut their pensions, right?
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Related: Greece's Rigged Election
You know what you Greeks need? A good, scapegoating, agenda-pushing diversion!
"Greek officials crack down on illegal immigrants" by Niki Kitsantonis | New York Times, August 07, 2012
ATHENS — The minister of public order [said] that Greece was suffering an ‘‘unprecedented invasion’’ that was threatening the stability of the debt-racked nation.
The minister, Nikos Dendias, defended the mass detentions, saying that a failure to curb a relentless influx of immigrants into Greece would lead the country, which is surviving on foreign loans, to collapse.
Blaming them instead of the banksters. How disgusting and pathetic.
‘‘Our social fabric is at risk of unraveling,’’ Dendias told a private television channel, Skai. ‘‘The immigration problem is perhaps even greater than the financial one.’’
He said he would resign if he was obstructed. ‘‘There would be no point in me staying on,’’ he said. That appeared to be a warning to left-wing opposition parties, one of which called the operation a pogrom.
About 4,500 officers conducted raids on streets and in run-down apartment blocks in central Athens, a police spokesman said, calling the sweep one of the largest ever by the force.
Eighty-eight Pakistanis were flown back to their homeland on a chartered flight on Sunday, said the spokesman, who spoke on usual ground rules of anonymity. He said many more deportations were expected in the coming days.
With its position on the southeastern flank of the European Union, Greece has long been the most common transit country for impoverished migrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. But the global economic malaise and the revolutions of the Arab Spring have sharply increased the flow of migrants, and the government has been calling for more help from the EU.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised to crack down on illegal immigration in campaigning before the general elections in June that his conservative New Democracy Party won by a small margin, followed by Syriza, the party that denounced the weekend operation. But no mass efforts had been made before that, fueling the fury of ascendant right-wing groups.
Last week, the authorities decided to transfer hundreds of officers to Greece’s land border with Turkey, a popular route for smugglers sneaking migrants from Africa and Asia into the country for a fee....
The reinforcements were sent amid fears of an increased influx of refugees from Syria....
The growing population of immigrants in Greece — about 800,000 are registered, and an estimated 350,000 or more are in the country illegally — adds to the anxieties of many Greeks, who are seeing the government’s once-generous social spending evaporate. They complain that the foreign residents are depriving them of jobs and threatening the national identity.
Such frustrations have been exploited politically, notably by Golden Dawn, a far-right group that has been widely linked to a rising number of apparently racially motivated assaults but vehemently denies being a neo-Nazi group.
Yeah, I guess the EU is better off without them.
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