Can you, in one paragraph or less, tell me what's going on with Greece?

[Dellis0991]

They done fuck they money up!!

[Deleted]

Which is to say a lot because in addition to giving Mexico money we send jobs there too.

And you wouldn't bail them out ^^

[Doctor Amadeus]

And you wouldn't bail them out ^^

Money is easy effort is hard, if their problem is running out of money then money ain't the problem and they obviously can't fix it. So fix the problem weight towards forgiving some of the debt win, win.

[Deleted]

Money is easy effort is hard, if their problem is running out of money then money ain't the problem and they obviously can't fix it. So fix the problem weight towards forgiving some of the debt win, win.

Without structural reforms?

[cFortyfive]

To who? How much?
How can they repay it?

Most of the 320 billion is no longer owed to private entities since those bail-out packages were used to pay them off but to the iwf, the ezb and the other euro states. They can't.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Without structural reforms?

Nope changes have to be forced on them but the reward has to also include forgiving some debt provided the changes hold first.


Oh and by forced I mean NO negotiation Greece agrees to the changes or give them no money at all. Food drops if need be but that's it.

[ciggy]

They voted to not pay their country note at the bank, and the bank is PISSED.

[Deleted]

Nope changes have to be forced on them but the reward has to also include forgiving some debt provided the changes hold first.


Oh and by forced I mean NO negotiation Greece agrees to the changes or give them no money at all. Food drops if need be but that's it.

Greece agreed to changes but dragged their feet or didn't implement them afterwards.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Greece agreed to changes but dragged their feet or didn't implement them afterwards.

Yep so the EU should learn not to leave it up to them. If someone you love has an addiction you can still help them out without giving them the cash. And yes I'm sure not giving them their fix or taking it away will make them cranky. But at some point you have to be the one responsible if you're trying to help.

You want food I'll get you some, need shelter do that too. But don't just rights check and be like ok now spend this wisely if they can't or don't know how.

[Aphrel]

Their economy went to shit because they had no contorl over their currency (euro) and they ahve borrowed huge amount of money in order to keep things going but the situation hasnt turned and now they have depts up over their ears.
The downside of sharing a currency with other countries is that you as a country cannot control your own economy to prevent things like this.

[Durandro]

In short, no. Its a very complicated issue.

But it can be summerised as "Greece had a weak economy to begin with, and by joining the Euro is was forced into hyper-inflation as currency values rose faster than Greece's economy. Thus national debt, a thing all countries have, became quickly unmanagable as most of the money owed was to foreign banks and crediters. Eventually the economy got so bad it began to impact the ordinary people, breeding desperation in the face of mass unemployment and failing public services. The country almost decended into Fascism with the rise (and fall) of the Golden Dawn party, who were far-right neonazis, but were then saved by the rise of a left-wing party that promised to defend the Greek people from austerity. Austerity is provably a scheme by the rich to become richer at the expense of the poor, and thus the Greeks will no longer have anything to do with it. And so given the choice to vote, they voted 'no'. Foreign banks, mostly German led, flew into a mad panic over this and caused a slump in global stock markets (despite Greece's contribution to the world's economy being minor, thus proving the weakness of modern Capitalism) and attempts to smeer and bully the Greek government into accepting austerity which would led the country to a slow painful death (as austerity freezes economic growth).

End result, the Greeks are biting the bullet for the rest of us and showing us how its done. They are not lazy at all. And the Germans are showing amazing lack of self-awareness as they themselves were crippled by unreasonable debts in the past - leading to the Second World War and the rise of the Nazi Party - which they have since been forgiven, causing Germany to again be one of the strongest economies in the world. Punishing Greece for their debt is just petty and mean spirited, especially considering the fact they didn't start a war to get into the economic mess they find themselves in now.

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Their economy went to shit because they had no contorl over their currency (euro) and they ahve borrowed huge amount of money in order to keep things going but the situation hasnt turned and now they have depts up over their ears.
The downside of sharing a currency with other countries is that you as a country cannot control your own economy to prevent things like this.

This is actually quite a good summery of the overall economics and the weakness of the Euro. Shared currency is a nice idea, but not when its shared by countries with vastly different economic strengths.

[Auxora]

Too many and too highly paid pensioners -> high debt + Greece doesn't have a lot of natural resources/exports to recover from debt (other than tourism, which isn't nearly enough to offset the debt)...Greeks don't want to accept pay/benefits/pension cuts to help pay down the debt and have voted that they would rather default and leave the EU. The problem being that it's a short-sighted selfish view by voters and it's kind of the "nuclear" option. Defaulting means no Euro, out of EU, definitely no more bailouts, greatly reduced tourism since Europeans would need a passport/visa then to travel to Greece, almost no lending from outside banks, etc. I'm not sure Greeks realize how bad it will be. They seem to be hoping for a yet another last minute concession or bailout from the EU, but Greeks have done that so many times that the EU and banks are saying they are past their last straw doing that and are done.

PS the Greeks I know are all very hard working, so I don't know where the lazy reputation came from.

[Fullmetal89]

My Big Fat Greek Deficit.

[Vulcanasm]

They were swindled into bailing out bankers and embracing austerity, but this did nothing for their revenue. So the national pastime of cheating on taxes has caught up with them, and now they're nearly bankrupt.

[whynotchris]

thanks all, this was easier to understand than an hour's worth of trying to find out through news and wikipedia lol

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Too many and too highly paid pensioners -> high debt + Greece doesn't have a lot of natural resources/exports to recover from debt (other than tourism, which isn't nearly enough to offset the debt)...Greeks don't want to accept pay/benefits/pension cuts to help pay down the debt and have voted that they would rather default and leave the EU. The problem being that it's a short-sighted selfish view by voters and it's kind of the "nuclear" option. Defaulting means no Euro, out of EU, definitely no more bailouts, greatly reduced tourism since Europeans would need a passport/visa then to travel to Greece, almost no lending from outside banks, etc. I'm not sure Greeks realize how bad it will be. They seem to be hoping for a yet another last minute concession or bailout from the EU, but Greeks have done that so many times that the EU and banks are saying they are past their last straw doing that and are done.

PS the Greeks I know are all very hard working, so I don't know where the lazy reputation came from.

sounds like a nasty situation.

PS I'm a Greek American. I want to know because Greek, but it's really not all over our news and/or common knowledge here because American lol

[vetinari]

Loan sharks be circling.

[Independent voter]

euro == Germany's credit card, that makes sense. If you have crappy credit cause you ran up your cards in the past and you didn't pay and now you have Germany's credit card with their triple AAA rating, you can charge all you want. Up to a point. This is from that Bloomberg video up thread.

[announced]

from what i understand, Greece had terrible work ethics and an early retirement age. combined with too many Government sponsored programs and not enough imports/exports to offset their debt. the fact that they fudged their numbers meant they should have been kicked out of the Euro a long time ago. however I think tying all Euro countries together was a mistake on its own. if their economy couldnt support it, it made no sense to bring them in. but by linking their economies together they have doomed themselves.

[Noradin]

Yep so the EU should learn not to leave it up to them. If someone you love has an addiction you can still help them out without giving them the cash. And yes I'm sure not giving them their fix or taking it away will make them cranky. But at some point you have to be the one responsible if you're trying to help.

Yes but since we are not about to just take their souvereignty from them holding back the money until they move on their own is all we can do.

[Krekal]

They lied about their economy to get into eu, now they let their leftwing party decide, see how it went