Greece, what the fuck?

[Loren Pechtel]

They could afford the interest payments before the Eurozone imposed turbo-austerity.

The whole crisis was participated by the fact that their creditors didn't believe this and wouldn't loan them any more money.

What you are looking at is whether they could afford the payments after the haircut the lenders took.

 

[Axulus]

They could afford the interest payments before the Eurozone imposed turbo-austerity.

The whole crisis was participated by the fact that their creditors didn't believe this and wouldn't loan them any more money.

What you are looking at is whether they could afford the payments after the haircut the lenders took.

And if it were true, then why did they need to borrow more? Why not just service their debt financing costs and keep on going on?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is unworkable and the payoff schemes keep the economy shrinking. The votes are counted and it looks like the majority of Greeks don't want to play any more monopoly. The question now is can they play another game that will work. Abusive loans need to be cancelled and perhaps the abusers should take a haircut. If they don't like that, then perhaps the Greeks will have to journey again into the land of democratic innovation...

They already took a major haircut.

The Greek economy is going to burn. They made their bed, they can sleep in it.

- - - Updated - - -

Can anyone here envision a country taking care of its own needs?

It would have been much better if the Greeks had followed this philosophy rather than living on borrowed money and cooked books. The defrauded Europe out of hundreds of billions to support the Greek welfare state, now the house of cards is crashing down.

- - - Updated - - -

You blame the banks for not giving Greece unlimited amounts of loans so that they could spend their way out of the depression?

It doesn't take unlimited funds. It takes sufficient funds. And it takes actual Keynesian spending. And tax increases on those most able to pay.

It is the best way to get the money back.

What funds they have they were using to perpetuate the problem, not solve it.

- - - Updated - - -

Then please give me an example of a country that found itself with too much debt, was unable to borrow more, and "just printed the money" to keep spending, that led to anything even remotely what we would consider a good outcome (given the situation)?

I don't know that there ever has been a country that controls its own currency that has found itself not being able to borrow more. Currently Japan has over 200% debt/GDP and has no trouble selling bonds to continue financing itself.

I see no reason to think that if Greece were able to start selling drachma denominated bonds again that there wouldn't be a market for it.

I don't know if there were countries unable to borrow but there certainly have been ones that chose the printing press route. It's always gone badly.

 

[ksen]

The whole crisis was participated by the fact that their creditors didn't believe this and wouldn't loan them any more money.

What you are looking at is whether they could afford the payments after the haircut the lenders took.

And if it were true, then why did they need to borrow more? Why not just service their debt financing costs and keep on going on?

The imposed austerity policies made it impossible for Greece to continue servicing their debt.

 

[Axulus]

And if it were true, then why did they need to borrow more? Why not just service their debt financing costs and keep on going on?

The imposed austerity policies made it impossible for Greece to continue servicing their debt.

If that's true, they could've said "no, fuck you, we have enough funds to keep paying interest, we don't need to borrow any addl funds. Either roll over the existing debt or we'll default and you'll get nothing."

Why didn't they do that? Why did they insist on needing to borrow tens of billions more?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Venezuela is "just printing the money" in ever increasing amounts, resulting in inflation over 100% per year. How's that working out for them?

Venezuela is not "just printing money." That nation's priorities are not yours and so you have no real way to describe whether it is "working" or not. Venezuela started in a deep hole with a really terrible natural resource the source(oil...kind of dirty oil at that ) of most of the national income. Some of their goals and proudly accomplished projects are things like universal literacy and health care. Depressed oil prices and also over reliance on that resource is a problem but they are attempting to deal with. You simply do not care about the well being of Venezuelans or you would know that there have been numerous positive events in their lives since Chavez. You are set on denying any validity to a real hardfought battle for stability but I feel they will probably not be denied. You probably hated the Castro brothers too. You are a slow learner.

Venezuela has basically gone from a society that had poor, middle class and elite to a society with only poor and elite.

Before the poor were faced with goods on the shelf that they couldn't afford. Now they can afford the empty space on the shelf with no goods in it. I don't see that their lot has improved.

 

[Axulus]

Venezuela is not "just printing money." That nation's priorities are not yours and so you have no real way to describe whether it is "working" or not. Venezuela started in a deep hole with a really terrible natural resource the source(oil...kind of dirty oil at that ) of most of the national income. Some of their goals and proudly accomplished projects are things like universal literacy and health care. Depressed oil prices and also over reliance on that resource is a problem but they are attempting to deal with. You simply do not care about the well being of Venezuelans or you would know that there have been numerous positive events in their lives since Chavez. You are set on denying any validity to a real hardfought battle for stability but I feel they will probably not be denied. You probably hated the Castro brothers too. You are a slow learner.

Venezuela has basically gone from a society that had poor, middle class and elite to a society with only poor and elite.

Before the poor were faced with goods on the shelf that they couldn't afford. Now they can afford the empty space on the shelf with no goods in it. I don't see that their lot has improved.

Their lot definitely improved when the oil money was being used to help them out. If that was all that Venezuela did, they'd be in OK shape. However, along with that came the near total destruction of the private sector and the spending every penny they made from the oil rather than saving a portion of in a rainy day fund for when prices inevitably crashed.

 

[arkirk]

Venezuela is not "just printing money." That nation's priorities are not yours and so you have no real way to describe whether it is "working" or not. Venezuela started in a deep hole with a really terrible natural resource the source(oil...kind of dirty oil at that ) of most of the national income. Some of their goals and proudly accomplished projects are things like universal literacy and health care. Depressed oil prices and also over reliance on that resource is a problem but they are attempting to deal with. You simply do not care about the well being of Venezuelans or you would know that there have been numerous positive events in their lives since Chavez. You are set on denying any validity to a real hardfought battle for stability but I feel they will probably not be denied. You probably hated the Castro brothers too. You are a slow learner.

Columbia, Venezuela's next door neighbor, has near universal literacy and universal health care and is not suffering the same problems of Venezuela and has had a similar amount of poverty reduction as Venezuela over the last 15 years.

I care about the Venezuelans apparently more than you do which is why I recommend they adopt the similar successful economic and taxation policies as Colombia and dump the failed "Chavista" policies that are ending in disaster, a disaster which everyone saw coming years in advance.

Columbia has always had a multiplicity of economic activities that Venezuela never had. What you call disaster is just your mind running away with the propaganda you have been fed over the years. One thing you have to realize is that improvements in public services does not come cheap. The U.S. spoonfed the Columbian government for many years. There is no comparing apples and oranges. Columbian drug cartels left a trail of death across that country... Maybe they are reading a bit more today. There has been some improvements in some of their cities....but it is all with U.S. aid...and U.S. over-involvement. The U.S. prints THEIR MONEY.
Let's not get silly here. The U.S. and American trans national corporations are working all the time to destabilize Venezuela.

 

[Axulus]

Columbia, Venezuela's next door neighbor, has near universal literacy and universal health care and is not suffering the same problems of Venezuela and has had a similar amount of poverty reduction as Venezuela over the last 15 years.

I care about the Venezuelans apparently more than you do which is why I recommend they adopt the similar successful economic and taxation policies as Colombia and dump the failed "Chavista" policies that are ending in disaster, a disaster which everyone saw coming years in advance.

Columbia has always had a multiplicity of economic activities that Venezuela never had. What you call disaster is just your mind running away with the propaganda you have been fed over the years. One thing you have to realize is that improvements in public services does not come cheap. The U.S. spoonfed the Columbian government for many years. There is no comparing apples and oranges. Columbian drug cartels left a trail of death across that country... Maybe they are reading a bit more today. There has been some improvements in some of their cities....but it is all with U.S. aid...and U.S. over-involvement. The U.S. prints THEIR MONEY.
Let's not get silly here. The U.S. and American trans national corporations are working all the time to destabilize Venezuela.

<citation needed>

The $644 million of US aid to Colombia in 2012 pales in comparison to its $370 billion economy in 2012. That's only .2% of it's economy.

Venezuela gets tens of billions from the US every year form the oil we buy from it (over 25 million barrels purchased every month).

 

[fromderinside]

Another nice try.

Give me your best example, whatever criteria you want to use. Isn't the whole claim you are making that Greece, if it had its own currency, would've "just printed the money" to avoid it's deep recession, the very recession you blame Greece's lenders for?

Well lets see. The US went into debt in the thirties and recovery began. But, just when it was working the right wing guys got their wish and put the brakes on spending pushing the economy right back into depression in ought '38. the US guys spent a shit load of money on Europe from the late 40 through the mid fifties in something called the Marshall Plan that was largely responsible for bring Europe back from the trash head aas well as Japan. Maybe you noticed how much they are claiming they did so good now after they got a free pass? Both the US ad EU are printing money to keep their economies from going into deflation with some success. Other than that the conservative recommendations generally prolong misery.

No shit. Check Spain, Portugal, Greece now good citizens like Finland, Norway, Sweden, are suffering because they won't invest and they can't let their currencies float to re-establish an equilibrium with EU. But, hey what's a shit load of examples when you're convinced by 1890s data from the good old gold standard days. Those who persist is shitty policy continue to get shitty results. But shitty ideas are all you hard currency types have.

 

[Jayjay]

Regardless of why Venezuela's economy is in the crapper, the fact that it is in the crapper still makes it ineligible as an example of a country successfully getting itself out of a crapper by printing money.

This seems to be the usual argument of a reality-challenged ideologues on either side: for example, using the utterly failed experiment of anarchist spain as a successful example of anarchism, if only it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!

 

[Axulus]

Give me your best example, whatever criteria you want to use. Isn't the whole claim you are making that Greece, if it had its own currency, would've "just printed the money" to avoid it's deep recession, the very recession you blame Greece's lenders for?

Well lets see. The US went into debt in the thirties and recovery began. But, just when it was working the right wing guys got their wish and put the brakes on spending pushing the economy right back into depression in ought '38. the US guys spent a shit load of money on Europe from the late 40 through the mid fifties in something called the Marshall Plan that was largely responsible for bring Europe back from the trash head aas well as Japan. Maybe you noticed how much they are claiming they did so good now after they got a free pass? Both the US ad EU are printing money to keep their economies from going into deflation with some success. Other than that the conservative recommendations generally prolong misery.

No shit. Check Spain, Portugal, Greece now good citizens like Finland, Norway, Sweden, are suffering because they won't invest and they can't let their currencies float to re-establish an equilibrium with EU. But, hey what's a shit load of examples when you're convinced by 1890s data from the good old gold standard days. Those who persist is shitty policy continue to get shitty results. But shitty ideas are all you hard currency types have.

The US wasn't in a situation were the debt load was so high that it had trouble finding lenders. Keynesian requires a source of funding to debt spend.

No so with Greece. The lenders closed the debt spigot, especially after they found out they were lied to about Greece's actual fiscal condition. Therefore, the comparison isn't valid. The people seem to be blaming the lenders for not allowing Greece to borrow tens (hundreds?) of billions of more, as if they are somehow obligated to keep lending near unlimited amounts, which would've been required had Greece not implemented austerity in 2010 (since their fiscal gap was something like 15% of GDP per year).

To keep borrowing at a 15% of GDP rate (to avoid any kind of austerity) would've meant ~$50 billion in additional loans per year. Not to mention that their economy was in free fall at the time, meaning that the loans would've likely needed to be substantially more to prevent government spending from declining.

 

[ksen]

The imposed austerity policies made it impossible for Greece to continue servicing their debt.

They could've said "no, fuck you, we have enough funds to keep paying interest, we don't need to borrow any addl funds. Either roll over the existing debt or we'll default and you'll get nothing."

Why didn't they do that?

By the time Syriza was elected it was too late for that. The prior government had already implemented a host of Eurozone austerity demands which then drove the country from a primary surplus to a deficit.

 

[arkirk]

They already took a major haircut.

The Greek economy is going to burn. They made their bed, they can sleep in it.

- - - Updated - - -

Can anyone here envision a country taking care of its own needs?

It would have been much better if the Greeks had followed this philosophy rather than living on borrowed money and cooked books. The defrauded Europe out of hundreds of billions to support the Greek welfare state, now the house of cards is crashing down.

- - - Updated - - -

You blame the banks for not giving Greece unlimited amounts of loans so that they could spend their way out of the depression?

It doesn't take unlimited funds. It takes sufficient funds. And it takes actual Keynesian spending. And tax increases on those most able to pay.

It is the best way to get the money back.

What funds they have they were using to perpetuate the problem, not solve it.

- - - Updated - - -

Then please give me an example of a country that found itself with too much debt, was unable to borrow more, and "just printed the money" to keep spending, that led to anything even remotely what we would consider a good outcome (given the situation)?

I don't know that there ever has been a country that controls its own currency that has found itself not being able to borrow more. Currently Japan has over 200% debt/GDP and has no trouble selling bonds to continue financing itself.

I see no reason to think that if Greece were able to start selling drachma denominated bonds again that there wouldn't be a market for it.

I don't know if there were countries unable to borrow but there certainly have been ones that chose the printing press route. It's always gone badly.

Loren: Do you actually have a full fledged hatred going on inside agains Greek people? You want their economy to burn?
You are telling us the Greeks have made their bed and they can just sleep in it. I have already pointed out that for a period of time, the technocrats took over Greece and they delivered nothing at all. What I keep referring to you just deny over and over...the debt was not incurred in a democratic manner. The people were just dragged into this by their leaders. I agree there was a lot of fraud, but this is not caused by the average Greek.

 

[arkirk]

Columbia has always had a multiplicity of economic activities that Venezuela never had. What you call disaster is just your mind running away with the propaganda you have been fed over the years. One thing you have to realize is that improvements in public services does not come cheap. The U.S. spoonfed the Columbian government for many years. There is no comparing apples and oranges. Columbian drug cartels left a trail of death across that country... Maybe they are reading a bit more today. There has been some improvements in some of their cities....but it is all with U.S. aid...and U.S. over-involvement. The U.S. prints THEIR MONEY.
Let's not get silly here. The U.S. and American trans national corporations are working all the time to destabilize Venezuela.

<citation needed>

The $644 million of US aid to Colombia in 2012 pales in comparison to its $370 billion economy in 2012. That's only .2% of it's economy.

Venezuela gets tens of billions from the US every year form the oil we buy from it (over 25 million barrels purchased every month).

Learn about Plan Columbia youself. Check BBC.

 

[tupac chopra]

The Greek economy is going to burn. They made their bed, they can sleep in it.

It will burn for a while. There are going to be much larger problems in Europe though, thanks to those idiot politicians and unelected bureaucrats who created this mess.

 

[arkirk]

Venezuela has basically gone from a society that had poor, middle class and elite to a society with only poor and elite.

Before the poor were faced with goods on the shelf that they couldn't afford. Now they can afford the empty space on the shelf with no goods in it. I don't see that their lot has improved.

Their lot definitely improved when the oil money was being used to help them out. If that was all that Venezuela did, they'd be in OK shape. However, along with that came the near total destruction of the private sector and the spending every penny they made from the oil rather than saving a portion of in a rainy day fund for when prices inevitably crashed.

So they're okay as long as You or someone like you is their banker. I got it now!

 

[fromderinside]

Well lets see. The US went into debt in the thirties and recovery began. But, just when it was working the right wing guys got their wish and put the brakes on spending pushing the economy right back into depression in ought '38. the US guys spent a shit load of money on Europe from the late 40 through the mid fifties in something called the Marshall Plan that was largely responsible for bring Europe back from the trash head aas well as Japan. Maybe you noticed how much they are claiming they did so good now after they got a free pass? Both the US ad EU are printing money to keep their economies from going into deflation with some success. Other than that the conservative recommendations generally prolong misery.

No shit. Check Spain, Portugal, Greece now good citizens like Finland, Norway, Sweden, are suffering because they won't invest and they can't let their currencies float to re-establish an equilibrium with EU. But, hey what's a shit load of examples when you're convinced by 1890s data from the good old gold standard days. Those who persist is shitty policy continue to get shitty results. But shitty ideas are all you hard currency types have.

The US wasn't in a situation were the debt load was so high that it had trouble finding lenders. Keynesian requires a source of funding to debt spend.

No so with Greece. The lenders closed the debt spigot, especially after they found out they were lied to about Greece's actual fiscal condition. Therefore, the comparison isn't valid. The people seem to be blaming the lenders for not allowing Greece to borrow tens (hundreds?) of billions of more, as if they are somehow obligated to keep lending near unlimited amounts, which would've been required had Greece not implemented austerity in 2010 (since their fiscal gap was something like 15% of GDP per year).

To keep borrowing at a 15% of GDP rate (to avoid any kind of austerity) would've meant ~$50 billion in additional loans per year.

There you go. Proving my point. Disconnect from euro. No Keynes doesn't specify what the source of funding need be. It may be as simple as the government choosing to print money. Let output balance with input by floating the currency and printing money for internal use. Its the same solution I recommend for the US. Create money and pay off debt. We got the power to do so so we should do it. Greece must be limited to internal measures. The EU is showing that they can do it with no effect on full faith and trust with their money printing or hadn't you noticed.

 

[untermensche]

Regardless of why Venezuela's economy is in the crapper, the fact that it is in the crapper still makes it ineligible as an example of a country successfully getting itself out of a crapper by printing money.

This seems to be the usual argument of a reality-challenged ideologues on either side: for example, using the utterly failed experiment of anarchist spain as a successful example of anarchism, if only it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!

The Spanish Anarchists had a better economy than the Spanish capitalists.

It has been shown to be a superior system.

It is only a capitalist that thinks crushing something with force means it wasn't working.

 

[4321lynx]

They already took a major haircut.

The Greek economy is going to burn. They made their bed, they can sleep in it.

- - - Updated - - -

Can anyone here envision a country taking care of its own needs?

It would have been much better if the Greeks had followed this philosophy rather than living on borrowed money and cooked books. The defrauded Europe out of hundreds of billions to support the Greek welfare state, now the house of cards is crashing down.

Well, you know who helped them do their cooking of books, don't you. Surprise, surprise :Goldman Sachs. The whole Wiki article makes interesting reading.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Oil_futures_speculation

Involvement in the European sovereign debt crisis

Goldman is being criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[139] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover the high risk of Greece's national debt.[140] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.[141] Lucas Papademos, Greece's former prime minister, ran the Central Bank of Greece at the time of the controversial derivatives deals with Goldman Sachs that enabled Greece to hide the size of its debt.[142] Petros Christodoulou, General Manager of the Public Debt Management Agency of Greece is a former employee of Goldman Sachs.[142] Mario Monti, Italy's former prime minister and finance minister, who headed the new government that took over after Berlusconi's resignation, is an international adviser to Goldman Sachs.[142] So is Otmar Issing, former board member of the Bundesbank and the Executive Board of the European Bank.[142] Mario Draghi, the new head of the European Central Bank, is the former managing director of Goldman Sachs International.[142] António Borges, Head of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund in 2010–2011 and responsible for most of enterprise privatizations in Portugal since 2011, is the former Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International.[142] Carlos Moedas, a former Goldman Sachs employee, is the current Secretary of State to the Prime Minister of Portugal and Director of ESAME, the agency created to monitor and control the implementation of the structural reforms agreed by the government of Portugal and the troika composed of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Peter Sutherland, former Attorney General of Ireland is a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs International. These ties between Goldman Sachs and European leaders are an ongoing source of controversy.[142]