Options for the EU? - A cartoon from the Lebanese Daily Star

by fulltimestudent 27 Replies latest social current

• 

  prologos

  Perhaps greece should sell part or all of it's territory to the debt holders for the billions owed, and recognize for them to have sane monetary laws like in the debt holder's home countries to become sovereign law there. Safe and sane enclaves in the greek mad house. not lend/ lease, as of ww2 fame , but money for territory. Northern Europe needs the sunny enclaves, win win win.

  Use the useless A 380, to ferry 800 sun starved estonians, finns south and bring back unemployed greeks to do some contribution to the hard work of the species. Euclid. Archimedes.\, Pythagoras would be proud.
• 

  FadeToBlack

  Not saying the former greek leadership is without blame, but as mentioned earlier, they never should have been allowed to join. Then based on overly-optimistic projections about 'growth', banks from other countries 'lent' them unreasonable (risky) amounts of money. Which of course (suprise) they couldn't pay back.

  Rather than force the banks/lenders/speculators to take a loss (apparently that isn't an option anymore) the IMF steps in to the rescue with - you guessed it more loans. These loans however were used primarily to pay back the original loans (90%). The loans from the IMF comes with strings attached (austerity) which only makes the situation worse. When offered another loan/bailout you can understand why they might be inclined to say no thanks. Default and rebuild is their best option. Not going to be easy, but still best.

  If you would like to read more about how thw whole IMF racket works, I suggest Naoimi Klein's - The Shock Doctrine.
  
• 

  Ruby456

  I'm putting my money on debt re-structuring and Greece staying in the European Union. why? well because of Russian threats to stability in Europe. The present leadership of Greece know this threat strengthens their hand.

  But poorer people here in Britain and the rest of Europe who are facing more austerity and even more severe austerity will want to see Greece acknowledging the need for more austerity even if it is the same as before. Otherwise I can see that UK people will demand even more distancing from Europe than what we have at present. So I can't see Greece's demands for parts of the debt to be written off succeeding. They have to remember that their democracy has to exit in tension with the rest of Europe's democracy.
• 

  fastJehu

  prologos
  

  Perhaps greece should sell part or all of it's territory to the debt holders for the billions owed...

  They have 2 strategically important ports. And Putin is interested.
  So maybe Putin offers greece natural gas for the ports.
  "Some" countries don't like this scenario
• 

  FadeToBlack

  Regarding 'some' country that would like see Greece stay in the EU to avoid a collapse of NATO, Paul Craig Roberts has a recent article along those lines.

  It seems in general that the Greeks are going to continue to take a beating in order to set an example for other countries that might be interested in getting some debt forgiveness/restructuring if the Greeks get it. All interesting stuff to read about, probably not so much fun on the streets of Greece.
  
• 

  prologos

  Astonishing: Reducing widow's pensions in Estonia to top off Greek Supertanker owners' secret swiss bank accounts.

  Declaring that money owed will not be payed back, but give us more money that will not be payed back,-- to do the same.?
• 

  fulltimestudent

  On another forum, discussing this same problem, someone put together this table of (taxpayers?) money paid out to save American and other financial institutions.

  

  While acknowledging the importance of 'banks' in providing credit and capital, it seems that the Greeks may not be as important as some other people on this planet.

  -------------------------------------------

  PS: This is not my ownwork, its someone elses, and I have not attempted to verify the amounts of money listed.
  
• 

  Ruby456

  fulltimestudent

  there are so many opinions about this crises that I hardly know who to believe anymore but i like the idea of Greek recovery and perhaps great, reasonably priced holidays there once this awful awful misery they are experiencing is over.

  Simon Jenkins in today's Guardian argues that a Grexit would be good for the Greek people and that bankruptcy would enable a fresh start. On this pov a bailout would simply be throwing money at Greece's banking system but would still keep the nation hugely indebted to Northern countries - Germany mainly. He argues that they ought to have exited in 2008 and if they had done so they would be well on the way to recovery by now.

  Another opinion (Christopher Meyer int he Guardian) says that the media are greatly exaggerating the catastrophic aspect of this situation for the Eurozone and that in reality the Eurozone would be strengthened with a greek exit as several problems would be fixed - one problem being that the Eurozone does not have an orderly exit plan for countries like Greece and that once an orderly exit plan is in place the situation need not be as disastrous for the eurozone monetary union as it is at present.

  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/08/greece-catastrophe-eurozone-grexit-default
  

  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/08/grexit-strengthen-not-weaken-eurozone-fears-euro-overblown
  

  
  
• 

  Ruby456

  it isn't looking good for Greece is it? If they remain in the EU will they be able to fight their way out of their mountainous debts and grow at the same time? I can't see it.
• 

  prologos

  greeks are taking the rest of Europe for a ride. Their state pensioners get twice what more hardworking northerners are allowed. They think northerners are fools to keep paying them. laughing all the way to the bank at $~ 100 a day. All these maneuvers, election, referendum, rejection, all to get more money that will never be repaid "this side of Armageddon", the other scam.