Topic: If Greece defaults/collapses anything is possible - page 2. (Read 5989 times)

Honestly guys stuff like this happens regularly twice a century in Europe.

First comes the financial problems,  like massive inflation (which Greece is about to experience when they drop the Euro... and Germany experienced in the 1930's)

Then comes the finger pointing and scape goating .. (clearly that's happening now as it did in the 1930's)

Then comes the protests (clearly that's happening now like in the 1930's)

Then comes one country saying "f this...  it's now or never"  ...  within a matter of months someone starts shooting...  then others.. then others...

History never repeats itself,  but it often rhymes.

Trust me guys... if history is any indication (and it appears it is in this case)  their is going to be blood in the streets of various European capitals within a matter of months...   I don't think Germany will take it well when they find out they are not going to get paid back from the greeks... and when the italians default as well as the spanish you are going to see something that you haven't seen in 70 years.

Doubtful.

Greek protestors "fostered" that debt on themselves.

It is called a massive welfare state where nobody pays taxes.

I'm looking forward to the Greek people refusing the debts that their so-called "leaders" foisted upon them, just as Iceland did.  I am also looking forward to the Occupy protests continue to gain steam in the US and around the world and result in the American people repudiating the debts foisted upon them.  These are certainly interesting times.  Will we see bankers hanging from light poles?

Broken Promises.  Broken Dreams.

All that's left is to sweep up the pieces and move on.

I wonder if that's because the government said "pay your taxes and we'll provide R, Q, W, X, Y, and Z and you won't have to worry about them".

It's much too late for that.

The "I hope they fail" sentiment arises because people are sick of having their tax dollars given to those who don't deserve it. This is a pretty core human feeling being triggered. I think there's a perhaps sub-conscious realization that things will indeed have to get very bad, for everyone, in order for the status quo to change much. Hence the willingness of some to hope for a system(world)-wide blow-up.

It could be really bad, or it could be like Iceland's default.  It had winners and loosers, but it did not cause a long term meltdown.  

http://www.bondvigilantes.com/2011/09/02/ireland-austerity-vs-iceland-default-whos-winning-and-a-twitter-update/

..i hate market-zynism..

just because you don't like capitalism (i don't like it neither!!) you do not have to hope everything will collapse and be destroyed.
In fact: if greece collapses, NOBODY will be better of. for both the ppl of greece and the european union i hope a default will never happen!!

shame on you for getting exited and all horny about a whole country going up in flames and not beeing able of maintaining even the most essential interests of its people!! 

Does not compute!  You can't peg one currency to another currency and then print as much as you want.  Sure you can say it is pegged but people will trade at what the market believes is the comparable rate not the official rate.  Ask Zimbabwe.

Plus Greece doesn't have the foreign currency reserves necessary to keep their exchange rate pegged.  The Chinese central bank can do this because of their massive holdings of dollars & Yuan.  They actively trade in the market and use their large capital position to make trading against the central bank a losing proposition.  As long as the market has "faith" in the central banks ability to hold the peg the peg will hold. 

Not only does Greece not have the foreign currency reserves to pull this off they also don't have the fiscal or monetary discipline of the Chinese.  The more national currency they print out the harder it becomes (and the more foreign currency reserve it requires) for the central bank to hold the peg.

If the peg fails well that is a vote of noconfidence by the market and the currency will be crushed as all that trading pressure accelerates as people jump in with levered positions to gain from the cental banks failure to hold the peg.



Yeah unlimited govt printing backed up by nothing except the awesome fiscal responsibility of the nation of Greece.  I would love to see the FOREX markets open on the GREEK:EURO cross when that happens.

Greece could print their own currency and fix it to the Euro. Then they could print as many Euro's as they like and get out of debt.

This new Greek currency could be printed by their government debt free (not through the FedRes debt system). They can avoid inflation by setting legislative limits on the fiat printed. People need to realize that the power to print money is better in the hands of a politician than a banker.

Actually, even after they joined they had inflation.  They just fixed the numbers so that it didn't look like they did. 

Uhm.. not really.  They are protesting because they are being asked to pay their fair share.  Greeks are notorious for circumventing and avoiding the payment of taxes.

That's it exactly.

Oh, cmon. ‘Kick them out’. International tribunal trials for Merkel/Sarkozy in 10 years’ time and Papandreu is a new Greek hero/demigod. This will be delayed/renegotiated/dragged into oblivion.

Rich/mc people’s cash is offshore, Greece’s working class is non-existent and cannot bear inferior currency forced through public worker’s salaries/outlawing/military rule/etc. Step down and you have bloodshed. As they are now it is far cheaper for Merkel to keep/support them within euro then force them out and support them afterwards. The thing is, as I fear, those plonkers may choose otherwise.

They get thrown out.

That is not what I meant. It is the skewed people’s perception that makes them take those terms literally/disallow any practical correction and go on strike moved by a fellow idiot, in turn pushing their PM to drastic action.

Anyway the point is that EU governments' debt was to date considered virtually risk-free mostly due to governments’ ability to issue currency and thus controlling it. This is now invalidated by euro experiment. (Full stop here.)

But practically, how does GR gets out of euro? Surely no-one would want to voluntarily exchange/give up euros for drachma/whatever when it is certain to lose its value faster than BTC recently with no hopes of bounce backs at all? Can Greek-printed euros be withdrawn or sumsuch?

Because they are not solutions to the underlying social problems that begot the debt to begin with.  It's akin to a middle class family that can't pay the rent because of their oppressive credit card debt payments choosing to apply for another credit card to pay the rent.  Eventually the creditors are going to get wise.  Considering that Greek debt on the secondary market hit an effective interest rate of 205% today, I think that those creditors have already done so in Greece's case.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/greek-1-year-bond-yield-hits-205.html

Why do most consider these solutions as short-term? These ‘bailouts’ are perfectly flexible and should be viewed as such. Papandreu guy just got too greedy and decided to threaten Germany/France with his ‘referendum’ so they ease the terms a bit. What is fukd up is that those ‘policy makers’ in Eurozone do indeed hate each other badly and may do stupid things despite all the cash shoved into their gaps.