Greek euro exit

[DOOM]

Seems like the german government is preparing itself for a greek withdrawal from the eurozone, so it must be a quite possible scenario.
What are your thoughts on this? How will it affect the economy?
Personally, I don't think it will solve anything at all.

[FSL]

Seems like the german government is preparing itself for a greek withdrawal from the eurozone, so it must be a quite possible scenario.
What are your thoughts on this? How will it affect the economy?
Personally, I don't think it will solve anything at all.

I don't think it's that possible because almost no one in Greece calls for it. The most possible scenario is a reworking of the current agreement, with some easing of the debt burden to make it more viable.
If it were to happen it would have to happen "suddenly" or after the imposition of capital controls and limits on withdrawal of money and no party has that mandate so it's a huge risk.

The drachma would devalue and any debt payments would be put on hold at the very least. The first six months might be extremely bad but eventually import substitution and exports would kick in and people would start finding jobs, with awful pay of course.

It isn't that much different to a shock therapy, like what happened in the eastern block countries in the 90s or in Latvia a few years ago (where through internal devaluation they went through a 17% recession and afterwards back into growth).
The whole idea is to deal with the pain at once but of course there will be pain.

Overall, I don't think it solves anything either. In the end, workers need to be more profitable for the bosses and this will happen with any currency.

[tuwix]

Seems like the german government is preparing itself for a greek withdrawal from the eurozone, so it must be a quite possible scenario.
What are your thoughts on this? How will it affect the economy?
Personally, I don't think it will solve anything at all.

First of all, nobody knows how to enforce any country to withdraw from Eurozone. Theoretically, central bank of Greece can be forbidden to get money from ECB. But banks can get money form other sources evading Greek central Bank.


But having own currency is giving a possibility to print it as much as you want. Inevitable result of that will be inflation. The question is how big will it be? If controllable, then it could reverse austerity. But it can be done without a return of Drachma too.

[FSL]

First of all, nobody knows how to enforce any country to withdraw from Eurozone. Theoretically, central bank of Greece can be forbidden to get money from ECB. But banks can get money form other sources evading Greek central Bank.

That's not exactly how it works. Banks lend money either from ECB or from other banks. If the ECB stops lending money to greek banks, other banks will also stop lending them or charge very high rates because the risk would be too big.

[tuwix]

^^You miss the facts that banks are international. So if they can't get money from Greek central bank, they can get them from other central bank in Eurozone. It's very easily avoidable obstacle.

And you're right that rate of Greek bonds will skyrocket, But if a government really don't care what is a level of national dept that is pretty much only record in books because nobody and nowhere will pay out it fully, then the rate isn't any problem. The higher rate of bonds will be pay out by another bonds emissions.

[FSL]

^^You miss the facts that banks are international. So if they can't get money from Greek central bank, they can get them from other central bank in Eurozone. It's very easily avoidable obstacle.

And you're right that rate of Greek bonds will skyrocket, But if a government really don't care what is a level of national dept that is pretty much only record in books because nobody and nowhere will pay out it fully, then the rate isn't any problem. The higher rate of bonds will be pay out by another bonds emissions.

The only real central bank in eurozone is the ECB. National central banks do other things like checking on the financial health of domestic banks. They don't "create money" anymore.

Countries recycle the face value of the bonds. They pay the interest. At this moment the interest on 10 year greek bonds is over 13% and the debt is at 180% of the gdp. Even if you never repayed any debt to anyone, just servicing the debt at these rates would cost about 20% of the gdp or around 40 billion euros.
This can't happen and no one would lend you money after a while.

[Thirsty Crow]

Seems like the german government is preparing itself for a greek withdrawal from the eurozone, so it must be a quite possible scenario.
What are your thoughts on this? How will it affect the economy?
Personally, I don't think it will solve anything at all.

Supposing the exit for a moment - although I don't think this is a realistic prediction.

Of course it won't solve anything. The exit wouldn't occur under conditions of unilateral default, which would be disastrous for European capital in one way or another. Basically, maintaining capitalism on the continent requires debt payment, either on the backs of the working class in Greece, or through some other similar disaster.

I don't know how would it affect the Greek economy, but it is evident that any effect would necessarily be coupled with debt restructuring and continued payments.

And the idea of "reversing austerity" through printing obscene amounts of drachma is hands down the most ridiculous thing masked as a profundity I've heard this month.

[tuwix]

The only real central bank in eurozone is the ECB. National central banks do other things like checking on the financial health of domestic banks. They don't "create money" anymore.

No. Even you can create money in very easy way. You won't be richer, but it is possible and not many people know how to do it or do it unconsciously.
Banks create and destroy money at need but except central bank they are not prime source of money. And national central banks in the Eurozone are real lenders. They can borrow from the ECB and lend more.

Countries recycle the face value of the bonds. They pay the interest. At this moment the interest on 10 year greek bonds is over 13% and the debt is at 180% of the gdp. Even if you never repayed any debt to anyone, just servicing the debt at these rates would cost about 20% of the gdp or around 40 billion euros.
This can't happen and no one would lend you money after a while.

Yes, it can and there would be many to lend. Who of greedy capitalists wouldn't take 20% interest of sure money? Greed will cause that they will but it and government would repay interests in another bonds. It works regardless what a rate is.

[Dean]

Greece has already had massive capital outflows. There is nothing more to protect by maintaining a separate currency.

[ckaihatsu]

---

The push for structural and labor market reform is part of a growing consensus among Eurozone capitalist elites in general that a shift to some kind of growth policy is necessary if Europe is not to descend even faster and deeper into recession. Labor market reform, and broader structural economic reform, is increasingly viewed as the way to generate investment and growth. Prior strategies since 2009 aimed at stimulating bank lending by massive central bank money injection have clearly failed in the Eurozone (as they have in Japan and the USA). Government and private debt levels have also continued to rise despite five years of monetary injections. So another way to ‘grow out of the crisis’ is being debated across the region. One element coming out of that ‘growth debate’ is that the Eurozone in general, and economies like France, Italy, Spain and others should expand exports in order to stimulate in turn new investment. But first wage and labor costs must first be reduced to boost exports. That’s where ‘labor market reform’ and labor cost reduction, i.e. ‘internal devaluation’, comes into the policy and new strategy mix now in progress.

With Italy well on its way to implementing ‘labor market reform’ as a new form of Austerity, France is close behind but has not yet launched a similar labor policy. Pressure by Eurozone capitalists and elites across the region—especially central bankers—is now growing and demanding that France speed up the process.

In the coming weeks and months, as the Eurozone economy weakens still further, it is likely that debates and splits within the Eurozone capitalist elites will continue to intensify. Some will argue still more central bank QE money injection is the answer to stem the new economic decline. Germany and central bankers will push back on this. Other new voices will continue to argue for more investment and government spending. But rising government debt levels and opposition to this by political forces in the European Commission, in Germany, and elsewhere, make the increase in government spending option unlikely. The ‘compromise’ new direction and new policy most likely to be agreed to by the different divisions within the Eurozone capitalist elite is the growth path initially pioneered by Spain and now being followed by Italy—i.e. export-driven growth via labor cost and wage reduction under the ideological cover called ‘labor market reform’. Exports to drive private, not government, investment and recovery. And still more labor cost reduction and wage compression—i.e. more ‘internal devaluation’—to drive exports

But boosting exports by labor market reform and wage compression raises the still deeper question of ‘who will they increase exports to? If the global economy—from China to Japan to Latin America, and even the USA in 2015 should it raise interest rates—continues to slow, as it clearly is now doing, who will buy the Eurozone’s exports?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/...sterity-model/

[Dialectical Wizard]

Seems like the german government is preparing itself for a greek withdrawal from the eurozone, so it must be a quite possible scenario.
What are your thoughts on this? How will it affect the economy?
Personally, I don't think it will solve anything at all.

Could you give us some sources to back up that information though, otherwise it will just seem that you are talking out off your ass somehow.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1067.php


Socialist Project - home
The B u l l e t

Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 1067
January 14, 2015

Socialist Project - home

Breakthrough in Greece?
Austerity and Solidarity

International Union of Food Workers




Greece will hold parliamentary elections on January 25 and Syriza, the left-wing party which has consistently called for debt restructuring and an end to austerity, is leading the polls. The IMF-European Commission-European Central Bank (Troika) are warning of the ‘threat’ of Syriza coming to power and have forcefully indicated their support for Greece's ruling coalition by conditioning further financial support on the re-election of a pliable government. A Syriza victory indeed threatens the suffocating grip of the European and global austerity regime, and for that reason should be welcomed and actively supported.


For the last four years, a succession of aggressively harsh austerity programs have been imposed on the country by the Troika as a condition for supporting the banks and the treasury. At the Troika's insistence, the minimum wage was reduced by 22%, and 32% for workers under 25. Collective bargaining has been shredded, in blatant violation of international and EU law. Public services have been gutted and there are shortages even of basic medicines. Economic output has declined by 25% compared with pre-crisis levels, a level of destruction normally associated with war. A quarter of the workforce is jobless, with unemployment over 50% for young people. Malnutrition and infant mortality are on the rise.

Worsening Conditions

Unsurprisingly, years of austerity have only worsened the country's capacity to service its debt; the public debt to GDP ratio is now an unmanageable 175% – up by over 34% since 2010. Greece simply has no resources to pay its sovereign debt, as even the IMF has reluctantly recognized. The Eurozone's slide into austerity-induced deflation aggravates the problem. Yet the Troika continues to inflict social and economic damage on a massive scale, and insists that the carnage continue.

All of this was predictable, and at every stage alternatives were feasible. Substantial debt restructuring coupled with increased public investment in the early phases of the crisis would have averted much of the pain, and not only in Greece. Cutbacks in public spending have never lifted a country out of recession. ‘Internal devaluation’ – lowering costs to make exports more competitive by reducing wages – was never a plausible solution to the Greek debt crisis; the country's negative trade balance has improved, but only because imports have been substantially reduced as a result of the radical decline in consumption.

If the Troika insists on more of the same, and not only in Greece, it is because they have a political project to fulfill: public services, union power, living standards and corporate taxes must be reduced, everywhere. Privatization will plug any fiscal holes.

Austerity is not the product of a deficient grasp of macroeconomics or a failure of ‘social dialogue’: it is a conscious blueprint for expanding corporate power. The program has been practiced and refined for decades in the developing world, everywhere with similarly disastrous results.

Left Response?

It came to the European Union for the first time with the imposition of extreme austerity in Estonia and Latvia following the 2008 financial meltdown. Despite decades of increasing volatility and cascading crises, a weakened labour movement was unprepared for the crisis and unequipped to articulate and impose a coherent Left response. Labour and social-democratic parties had long been complicit, even active participants in enforcing the new fiscal and political orthodoxy. There was little debate in Sweden when the Baltic economies were ravaged to bail out Swedish banks. Workers in those countries were left on their own, with no real support.

With little effective opposition, European austerity spread; first to Greece, then to Spain and Portugal, then further north. At the same time, austerity's forward march cleared the path for an increasingly aggressive, racist and xenophobic Right which offers simplistic answers to the crisis of the status quo.

Syriza emerged from a groundswell of popular revolt, and that revolt should be encouraged. But an election victory on January 25 will immediately set in motion widespread financial hostility. Even if the party succeeds in putting together a coalition government – and there will be massive pressure to block this – the difficulties will have only begun. Negotiating debt relief will be tough, and Greece could be left no choice but to quit the Euro, triggering massive capital flight. Pressure will also fall immediately on Spain and Portugal, where elections are scheduled for later this year, and Spain's ascendant Podemos has, like Syriza, become a vehicle for hope.

The Greek elections offer a potential breakthrough, but to carry out their program a government of the Left will need massive understanding and support abroad. Unions should be in the forefront of building that support. •

This editorial was published on the website of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) - www.iuf.org.

[New International]

It's a threat to dissuade the population from voting against the troika's austerity. A public relations tactic similar to what was done before the Scottish independence referendum.

Foreign investors want to bleed Greece dry and prevent other nations from getting any ideas about acting too independently or from considering alternatives.

[nomoba]

Latest example, statements by the European officials that there is no way of Grexit in any case, which are contradictory to articles supporting the high probability of a Grexit in case that voters will "dare" to vote for anti-neoliberal powers. On the top of that, some sources support that a Grexit could mark even the end of the eurozone, while others support the fact that the eurozone is now safe and stable even under the possibility of a Grexit.

What is really going on? There are three basic hypotheses:

First, we are dealing with a quite sophisticated, relatively new method of political control, according to which all mechanisms that actually belong to the same side, supply the public with controversial estimations, information and predictions, in order to confuse minds and create further uncertainty and fear, or even panic.

This could be proved very useful in the case of the Greek national elections, as it could make some critical mass of voters to deter the possibility of an autonomous Leftist government. Through this process, critical thought and independent decision could be abolished. The line between good and bad, right and wrong, almost vanishes.

Second, the system is deregulated in such a degree that no one is really certain of what could happen under specific events. In this case, we may have to deal with a global system that is driven to an increasing uncertainty, through an increasingly chaotic pattern.

Third, a combination of the previous hypotheses.

[ckaihatsu]

Just found this from a web search:

So, let’s take the status quo’s worst-case scenario, in which Greece ditches the euro and returns to the easy-to-manipulate drachma. It converts all its outstanding euro-denominated debt to drachmas and then devalues its new/old currency by 30 or so percent, pricing its hotel rooms, charter boats and restaurants back into attractive territory. That’s okay on balance for the Greek people, who benefit more from rising tourism than they’re hurt by devalued savings.

But it’s very bad for European banks and US hedge funds that now own tons of Greek debt and will therefore suffer big losses. More damaging still, once the precedent is set everyone will start looking around for the next domino to fall and will find plenty, with Italy (now in the throes of a political crisis of its own) leading the list. That’s a much bigger economy with way more euro-denominated debt, so an Italian exit from the eurozone would be apocalyptic for the whole global financial system.

Will it come to that in 2015? History says probably not. Remember, Greece has been on the verge of imploding for a decade, and each time the money has been found to save it. With the ECB inching towards a multi-year, multi-trillion euro debt monetization plan, the entire Greek economy could be tucked into that expanding balance sheet without a ripple. So expect another wealth transfer from Germany to Greece in the near future. And then perhaps one from Germany to Italy. But also expect some drama along the way.

http://dollarcollapse.com/currency-w...-greece-again/

[Rafiq]

Question: What is the relationship between the Greek military and Syrzia, presently? What is the possibility of a Greek military coup following a possible victory of Syriza?

[ckaihatsu]

Question: What is the relationship between the Greek military and Syrzia, presently? What is the possibility of a Greek military coup following a possible victory of Syriza?

A *coup* -- ??

In *Greece* -- ?(!)

Geddouddahere...!


Oh....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Gr..._d%27%C3%A9tat

[Rafiq]

Well, obviously I ask this due to the fact that the Greek military has a long history of being politically involved, and absolutely no one seems to even be talking about this. The question could possibly be an ignorant one - which is why I'm asking it in the first place.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, obviously I ask this due to the fact that the Greek military has a long history of being politically involved, and absolutely no one seems to even be talking about this. The question could possibly be an ignorant one - which is why I'm asking it in the first place.

It could very well be prescient....

[nomoba]

Alexis Tsipras:

Today Greek people have written history.
Greece turns page.
Greece leaves behind destructive austerity, fear and authoritarianism, five years of humiliation and suffering.
Greek people cancel the memorandums of austerity and destruction, troika becomes past for our common European frame.
Today there are no winners and losers. Greece of elites and anti-democratic aberration has been defeated. Greece who fights, who hopes, has won.