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Pinely posted:Austerity doesn't work. Or, at least, doesn't work very well. That's the problem, in spite of years of mediocre at best recovery the Troika still thinks austerity works. So, to them, Greece is trying to cheat out of taking its medicine. The problem is that 'trying something else' means 'throwing a lot of EU tax payer money at Greece'.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:45
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:Ah yes, the timeless banking strategy of losing money by lending to people you know cant pay it back. I'm pretty sure every bank that lend money to Greece is pretty happy with their results
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Jun 29, 2015 20:45
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Hellblazer187 posted:Aren't they running a primary budget surplus or very close to it? They were before Syriza took power, now they are not.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:47
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Charlie Mopps posted:THe banking strategy to dump any losses on taxpayers, while keeping all profits for yourself? Yes, that is indeed a timeless strategy of all rich people. No its a conspiracy. Why yes I am a gullible baby in international banking.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:50
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Zeitgueist posted:No its a conspiracy. Um, I'm legit confused here. Is it a controvercial statement to say that that big financial institutions have since the 80's realised that they can ignore whatever risks there are because the IMF will always bail them out in every crisis. I mean, that's how the Asian Financial Crisis of 97 worked out, and the lesson wasn't lost anyone involved. Now the same strategy has just been repeated in the West itself, instead.
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Jun 29, 2015 21:43
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demonicon posted:Not enough to repay their debts. Sure, but that's explicitly enough to "finance their functions"
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Jun 29, 2015 21:52
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Zeitgueist posted:Yes buying valuable long term assets low is a terrible idea thanks for schooling me on finance bro. This is not an sarcastic question but genuine interest, so I'd honestly love any concrete answer you could give me: what long term assets worth 240 billion has the EU gotten for their investment? Please keep in mind that the 240 billion is about equal to the annual Greek GDP, so even if the EU takes over the entire country today and finds a way to sequester 10% of the GDP (the usual estimate of the maximum amount a country can spend on repayment) it would take 10 years to get the money back. There is no sarcasm in this post, i'd really love to find out how the EU stands to gain from this. Bro. quote:THe banking strategy to dump any losses on taxpayers, while keeping all profits for yourself? Yes, that is indeed a timeless strategy of all rich people. What profits? Show me the European banks that made a net profit on any of their lones in greece. CEO's were fired, banks nationalised and a lot of very rich people lost a lot of money that they could easily miss. Here's a reminder from 2012 : France's Crédit Agricole SA racked up €3.1 billion ($4.11 billion) in fourth-quarter losses, while the U.K.'s Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC suffered a £1.8 billion ($2.82 billion) loss. Bailed out Franco-Belgian lender Dexia SA disclosed a €11.6 billion full-year loss, much of which came in the fourth quarter. The banks were battered by multiple forces. They continued to write down the values of holdings in Greek government bonds, incurring hundreds of millions of euros of losses in the fourth quarter as they cut the bonds' values to about 25% of their original price. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204778604577241321983782002 Banks were dumb and have had to pay a price. Is it fair compared to what Greece is going through? Not in my opinion, but thinking that banks and those bastardly Germans are happy with this outcome is dumb.
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Jun 29, 2015 21:57
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Well Big Tough Schauble can hardly admit that he and his friends decided to shift the risk to EU taxpayers, from irresponsibly lending financial institutions, can he? It would destroy his image as defender of the German Taxpayer, by exposing the reality that he poured poo poo bonds down working German families' throats, to defend Deutsche against losses. IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:France's Crédit Agricole SA racked up €3.1 billion ($4.11 billion) in fourth-quarter losses, while the U.K.'s Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC suffered a £1.8 billion ($2.82 billion) loss. Bailed out Franco-Belgian lender Dexia SA disclosed a €11.6 billion full-year loss, much of which came in the fourth quarter. And who is bearing these losses, pray tell? Antwan3K fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 21:57
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Friendly Tumour posted:Um, I'm legit confused here. Is it a controvercial statement to say that that big financial institutions have since the 80's realised that they can ignore whatever risks there are because the IMF will always bail them out in every crisis. I mean, that's how the Asian Financial Crisis of 97 worked out, and the lesson wasn't lost anyone involved. Now the same strategy has just been repeated in the West itself, instead. I'm not making fun of you, we're on the same page.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:11
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The EU central bank isn't the winner it's private investment in France and Germany. The average EU taxpayer isn't making out on this. I mean, do you think anyone seriously thinks draconian austerity is a good plan for anyone in greece?
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Jun 29, 2015 22:17
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Zeitgueist posted:The EU central bank isn't the winner it's private investment in France and Germany. The average EU taxpayer isn't making out on this. Everyone in Germany?
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Jun 29, 2015 22:18
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Most people in Germany now actually think it's best for everyone if Greece leaves the euro.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:20
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demonicon posted:Most people in Germany now actually think it's best for everyone if Greece leaves the euro. Which is true because control of monetary policy is gonna be the only way greece gets out of this crisis and revive their economy
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Jun 29, 2015 22:25
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rscott posted:Which is true because control of monetary policy is gonna be the only way greece gets out of this crisis and revive their economy Pretty much. Default has been the best route for a while now. Should also be a clear message to everyone not France or Germany.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:32
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Zeitgueist posted:The EU central bank isn't the winner it's private investment in France and Germany. The average EU taxpayer isn't making out on this. I don't understand what you are saying anymore. I'll gladly respond to your new point about austerity later but we need to clear up the original poinrt You stated quote:"Well if you can't make it here's just enough money to stay open, please sell us all your infrastructure at bargain price. Thx." The people lending the money to stay open are the EU/ IMF etc, so my question was: how is the EU profiting from their 240 billion investment? To which your answer was: quote:Yes buying valuable long term assets low is a terrible idea thanks for schooling me on finance bro. So now the 240 billion is a valuable long term EU investment. To which my response was: "show me how the EU is going to make any profit from their 240 billion?" Can we conclude that your final response of "The EU central bank isn't the winner it's private investment in France and Germany." means that you have also come to the conclusion that your original position was full of poo poo and that we should now discuss the new position whether or not the private investors who have about 45 billion in Greek debt are making bank on this?
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Jun 29, 2015 22:33
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Salt Fish posted:I mean you say this like it isn't a strategy used by a huge number of financial firms. Student loan debt and sub prime mortgages are two good examples from the recent history of my country of this being a very popular tactic. The subprime mortgage analogy would work if Greece was a household, and not a government that would assumedly have very intelligent people saying what the possible affects of borrowing might be. Basically any comment that absolves Greece of responsibility is assuming greece is a country filled with retards and retard politicians/economists/business leaders. Given the people they elect this might not be to far off though. Zeitgueist posted:No its a conspiracy. So you are sticking with the "retard" angle? Because if you can understand this it's pretty silly to suggest this caught the greek government by complete surprise. tsa fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 22:33
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Zeitgueist posted:Bullshit, it's about raising taxes during an economic crisis and making up growth predictions out of whole cloth, and forcing deregulation. But Greece needs to shrink, they've basically been living on borrowed money and now the tap has been turned off. Of course the standard of living has to decrease because they could never afford it in the first place. Greece is a poor country trying to pretend it can support a social system that is more generous than Scandinavian countries. rscott posted:Which is true because control of monetary policy is gonna be the only way greece gets out of this crisis and revive their economy Modern economies are built on energy (and fed workers), Greece will be lacking in both once they leave since continueing to import the amount of energy they do is going to be massively expensive. The reality is "reviving their ecnomy" means returning to a much lower standard of living and significantly less social programs. The money just isn't there. Maybe tourism can save them a little but that's assuming the right wingers don't ruin the country for foreigners. tsa fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 22:35
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tsa posted:But Greece needs to shrink, they've basically been living on borrowed money and now the tap has been turned off. Of course the standard of living has to decrease because they could never afford it in the first place. Greece is a poor country trying to pretend it can support a social system that is more generous than Scandinavian countries. A lot of countries have been 'living on borrowed money'. It's how our financial system works. None of them would have anything to gain from losing a large part of their young educated population and a quarter of their gdp. Like is there one country outside of like Norway and I guess the Gulf states that runs consistent net surpluses? e: apparently Switzerland Antwan3K fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 22:41
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tsa posted:But Greece needs to shrink, they've basically been living on borrowed money and now the tap has been turned off. Of course the standard of living has to decrease because they could never afford it in the first place. Greece is a poor country trying to pretend it can support a social system that is more generous than Scandinavian countries. If only they could be like those models of fiscal propriety like the US, never spending beyond its means. I'm aware of why the US can do this and Greece can't, but the moralizing is seriously eyeroll inducing.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:43
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tsa posted:But Greece needs to shrink, they've basically been living on borrowed money and now the tap has been turned off. Of course the standard of living has to decrease because they could never afford it in the first place. Greece is a poor country trying to pretend it can support a social system that is more generous than Scandinavian countries. Haha of course Greece must continue to shrink, it's clear that the existing 33% drop in GDP has not been nearly enough of a "correction." Despite their economic indicators at the outset of the crisis being fairly middle of the road, it's important that Greece recognizes their fundamental poverty (and moral inferiority) and that more than a quarter of their country being unable to find employment is just a natural happenstance that they've got to buckle down and power through in order to fully repay those loans the EU/IMF so generously took over from the private sector.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:45
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Antwan3K posted:Well Big Tough Schauble can hardly admit that he and his friends decided to shift the risk to EU taxpayers, from irresponsibly lending financial institutions, can he? It would destroy his image as defender of the German Taxpayer, by exposing the reality that he poured poo poo bonds down working German families' throats, to defend Deutsche against losses. For those specific banks listed: France's Crédit Agricole SA: According to wiki: In all, the bank’s Greek investments cost around €9 billion. No bailout over the greek debt, so entirely payed for by the bank and its private stake holders. U.K.'s Royal Bank of Scotland Group: Was 80% nationalized by the UK in 2008 before the whole greek crisis. Losses shared between all investors, so this includes the UK. Bailed out Franco-Belgian lender Dexia SA: 11% is owned by the French and Belgian government. The rest of the losses were for private investors.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:52
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Zeitgueist posted:Next up: tell me how the poor US housing lenders were suckered by predatory NINA borrowers. I honestly don't see where you are getting this comparison from. Ignoring of course the point that the Greek Government is not analogous to a single household, there were clear mechanisms in the US crisis that allowed banks to profit from issuing bad loans. As I'm sure you know, they repackaged the bad loans and sold them off as AAA credit packages. They even bet that the homeowners would default! But as far as I know there's no evidence to support this sort of situation for the current Greek Crisis. It looks a lot more like banks made a mistake (it's possible!) and now they are trying to limit their losses. The suggestion they are massively profiting from this and set the whole situation up to destroy greece (like what happened in Iceland) seems to be conspiracy theory at this point. At the very least nobody's offered any evidence of the money trail in the threads yet.
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Jun 29, 2015 22:53
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tsa posted:I honestly don't see where you are getting this comparison from. Ignoring of course the point that the Greek Government is not analogous to a single household, there were clear mechanisms in the US crisis that allowed banks to profit from issuing bad loans. As I'm sure you know, they repackaged the bad loans and sold them off as AAA credit packages. They even bet that the homeowners would default! Some banks made mistakes, sure. But, banks and other investors were also actively deceived by the Greek government that was with the help of American banks hiding deficits. The estimated deficit after EU inspections that revealed tampering of the numbers increased form 6-8% of GDP to 16% of the GDP. Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/6404656/COM_2010_report_greek/c8523cfa-d3c1-4954-8ea1-64bb11e59b3a
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Jun 29, 2015 23:04
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Cross-posting myself from the Eastern Europe thread because I see a lot of familiar names here.quote:Didn't we used to have a European Economic Meltdown Megathread here in D&D? Looks like it would be prime time to revive that one, because in the next few years massive torrent of poo poo is about to hit the fan around the world that will surely affect us in Europe as well.
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Jun 29, 2015 23:57
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:I don't understand what you are saying anymore. I'll gladly respond to your new point about austerity later but we need to clear up the original poinrt My original position was that several multinationa banks actively lended to Greece with little care ss they correctly assumed central banks would backstop them. They then called in the debt arbitrarily forcing a crisis. The central banks then went with standard austerity bullshit worsening the crisis as Greece must now suffer because the EU isn't as equal as everyone pretends. Part of these austerity measures firesaled greek assets that private interest have snapped up on the cheap which is hardly a new thing. Greece should have defaulted a long time ago but everyone is/was playing the debtor flagelation game. That's about it as I'm on a phone and nor typing more words.
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Jun 30, 2015 00:00
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tsa posted:I honestly don't see where you are getting this comparison from. Ignoring of course the point that the Greek Government is not analogous to a single household, there were clear mechanisms in the US crisis that allowed banks to profit from issuing bad loans. As I'm sure you know, they repackaged the bad loans and sold them off as AAA credit packages. They even bet that the homeowners would default! Banks made loans to someone they knew probably couldn't pay because they knew they wouldn't get stuck with the balance. They were right, the troika paid.
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Jun 30, 2015 00:07
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:For those specific banks listed: Dexia was/is a major political scandal in my country. It was a consumer bank that expanded very aggressively in the rest of Europe and had to be bailed out, with Belgium getting a lovely deal in the process. Also elements are still lingering in the Arco affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCO_Group Antwan3K fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 00:15
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Zeitgueist posted:Banks made loans to someone they knew probably couldn't pay because they knew they wouldn't get stuck with the balance. They were right, the troika paid. But this is not the complete truth? The troika paid for some of the loss that was the result of having to write of the Greek loans, but none of the banks with substantial loans made any profit on it and all had to face substantial devaluations. The worst "offenders" had to be nationalised. None of this is what I would call a capitalist success story. Also take note, the evil banks that provided the loans were deceived by the Greek government on the performance of the Greek economy. Could they have still seen this crisis coming? Possibly, but painting the Greek government as innocent victims in this is far, far from the truth. I don't know whether or not austerity is or was the correct course of action for Greece, but I was under the impression that the Greek situation was improving as evidenced by economic growth before the election of the current " what deal, why should I keep to past promises?" government.
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Jun 30, 2015 01:39
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Only one group benefits from austerity....
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Jun 30, 2015 01:45
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:But this is not the complete truth? The troika paid for some of the loss that was the result of having to write of the Greek loans, but none of the banks with substantial loans made any profit on it and all had to face substantial devaluations. The worst "offenders" had to be nationalised. None of this is what I would call a capitalist success story. Not everybody did well? How is that not a capitalist success story. And no, I don't think the greek government is the innocent victims here. I don't think they gave a poo poo. The victims here are regular citizens, as always. gently caress the deal, this is standard finance industry 'do as I say not as I do' guilt bullshit. Draconian austerity is not in the best interest of the Greek People and if the government there thinks appeasing banks isn't more important than taking care of it's citizens they they should absolutely not keep their promise. You loan money, you can get burned, do you think they're giving money out of the goodness of their hearts?
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Jun 30, 2015 01:58
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 Krugman, 2010 exmarx fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 02:37
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EDIT: ^^^ Mark Blyth has a quotable "It's just a matter time" moment from one of his talks on youtube that I'm tempted to dig up. To me he made one of the most compelling cases for why the austerity measures were a terrible idea.IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:I don't know whether or not austerity is or was the correct course of action for Greece, but I was under the impression that the Greek situation was improving as evidenced by economic growth before the election of the current " what deal, why should I keep to past promises?" government. I'm a little ignorant on the details of this though I've been following it on and off the past few years, but is it a consensus that Greek had economic growth? From what I've seen that statement is only really true if you do something like select a window of 2-3 quarters to show an anemic but positive uptick in GDP, or maybe go by some X-adjusted stat. Taking any broader view I don't see how that that can be anything but a contentious claim at best. The narrative "everything was on the mend until they elected Syriza..." is very vocally prevalent yet to me it reeks of artifice. Zeitgueist posted:Not everybody did well? How is that not a capitalist success story. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 02:43
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Bhaal posted:I'm a little ignorant on the details of this though I've been following it on and off the past few years, but is it a consensus that Greek had economic growth? From what I've seen that statement is only really true if you do something like select a window of 2-3 quarters to show an anemic but positive uptick in GDP, or maybe go by some X-adjusted stat. Taking any broader view I don't see how that that can be anything but a contentious claim at best. The narrative "everything was on the mend until they elected Syriza..." is very vocally prevalent yet to me it reeks of artifice. Even if it has grown, it's after a huge crash, which makes it a pretty disingenuous statistic.
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Jun 30, 2015 02:45
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Let's do a head count for a second and see who really didn't see this coming. Literally who else thought this was going to happen? Somebody fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 02:48
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Bhaal posted:I'm a little ignorant on the details of this though I've been following it on and off the past few years, but is it a consensus that Greek had economic growth? From what I've seen that statement is only really true if you do something like select a window of 2-3 quarters to show an anemic but positive uptick in GDP, or maybe go by some X-adjusted stat. Taking any broader view I don't see how that that can be anything but a contentious claim at best. The narrative "everything was on the mend until they elected Syriza..." is very vocally prevalent yet to me it reeks of artifice. I'll readily admit my own ignorance on this, so here are the GPD figures. Syriza was elected end of 2014  I don't want to be the voice for austerity here, but to keep this from becoming a left-wing blame it on austerity echo-chamber: how do guys interpret the modestly positive effects of the Irish austerity program?
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Jun 30, 2015 03:04
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:I'll readily admit my own ignorance on this, so here are the GPD figures. Syriza was elected end of 2014 Did they start austerity in early 2014? Hint: No
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Jun 30, 2015 03:05
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So what prevents Greece from freezing the foreign bank accounts of all the ogliarchs and using that money to pay off the debts? Greece doesn't know who the land belongs to? Why doensn't Greece offer free land to all greek diaspora members and use that to bring in capital?
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Jun 30, 2015 03:10
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Iceland seemed to do much much better by giving the imf the finger, but perhaps the situations aren't directly comparable.
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Jun 30, 2015 03:11
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Zeitgueist posted:Did they start austerity in early 2014? Could you please start effort posting a bit more? So far they only responses I get form you are 1 or 2 sentences of rhetoric without any substance. Surely you don't mean to say that if a program only works after after 2 to 4 years it is worthless? Keep in mind that the New Deal took several years and two iterations in 1934 and 1937 as well, and that was with a government deficit of only 3% quote:Iceland seemed to do much much better by giving the imf the finger, but perhaps the situations aren't directly comparable. I might be remembering this incorrectly, but didn't Iceland gladly accept the IMF loan while giving Europe the middle finger on paying any of the bank guarantees followed by severe austerity measures and gradual economic recovery? IAMNOTADOCTOR fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 03:25
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:Could you please start effort posting a bit more? So far they only responses I get form you are 1 or 2 sentences of rhetoric without any substance. Surely you don't mean to say that if a program only works after after 2 to 4 years it is worthless? Keep in mind that the New Deal took several years and two iterations in 1934 and 1937 as well, and that was with a government deficit of only 3% No, my response was pretty clear. You can ascribe the contractions to austerity as well as any expansions, and you're not showing it relative to growth prior to the crash. It's essentially the Estonian Miracle, where if you squint hard enough maybe you can make a lukewarm argument in support of austerity.
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Jun 30, 2015 03:35
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