Greece Watch...

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/may20 ... -m10.shtml

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the troika of the EU Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund has cancelled its planned mid-May visit to Athens. Meanwhile, the European Financial Stability Facility announced that it would withhold €1 billion from a €5.2 billion loan installment that will be allocated on Thursday.

The EU is threatening that any new government, irrespective of its composition, must fall into line with its dictates. The alternative is a state bankruptcy with devastating consequences. Pensions, wages and benefits could no longer be paid. Expulsion from the euro zone would result in hyper-inflation, destroying savings and wages overnight.

The way in which EU representatives are ignoring the election results points in the direction of dictatorial and authoritarian forms of rule. They pose the necessity for the mobilization of the working class throughout Europe in opposition to the corporate and financial elite. However, none of the parties winning seats in parliament on Sunday is prepared to oppose the dictatorial demands of the banks. Instead, negotiations are being held about how to bring about a stable government in the interests of the EU and the Greek ruling class.

If people haven't worked out by now that the EU is run by a brutal elite of bankers and eurocrats who are bent on imposing a supra-national financier dictatorship of capital over the European people, I don't know what will.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18041223

Third Greek coalition bid fails

The leader of Greece's socialist party, Evangelos Venizelos, has abandoned efforts to form a new government.

The president is expected to try to pressure parties into a government of national salvation - but the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says he is unlikely to succeed.

The country would then be facing the prospect of fresh elections, and this would be a leap into the unknown, our correspondent adds.

[Aurora]

BBC News - 12/05/12

Europe central bankers have been openly expressing views on the possibility of Greece leaving the eurozone as its leaders struggles to form a government.

Germany's top banker said it was up to the Greeks to decide, but if they did not keep to their bailout commitments, they would receive no new aid.

His counterpart in the Irish Republic said a Greek exit would be damaging but not necessarily fatal to the euro.

Greece is to make a final attempt at forming a government on Sunday.

Article continues ...

A return to the drachma now seems inevitable.

What are they waiting for? Why prolong the agony? Just get on with it.

[UndercoverElephant]

Well...it has seemed inevitable for the last 18 months.

There is still the potential for more twists in the tail, though. The anti-austerity Greek parties are not actually advocating a return to the Drachma, and there's no mechanism for expelling a country from the eurozone. Greece can leave (because nobody could stop them), but what happens if they decide not to, but refuse to implement the austerity program? We must suppose that further payments from the troika will stop, and Greece will default but will remain in the eurozone. Nobody seems to be discussing this as a possible outcome, so maybe I've got something wrong here, but that's the way it looks to me.

[frank_begbie]

Austerity and bailout measures are the only game in town, if they are seen to have failed,....

Next stop riots, worldwide.

[Lord Beria3]

Well...it has seemed inevitable for the last 18 months.

There is still the potential for more twists in the tail, though. The anti-austerity Greek parties are not actually advocating a return to the Drachma, and there's no mechanism for expelling a country from the eurozone. Greece can leave (because nobody could stop them), but what happens if they decide not to, but refuse to implement the austerity program? We must suppose that further payments from the troika will stop, and Greece will default but will remain in the eurozone. Nobody seems to be discussing this as a possible outcome, so maybe I've got something wrong here, but that's the way it looks to me.

I do recommend Michael Portillos documentary on the euro...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ro_Crisis/

One thing that comes across clearly is the although Greeks are fed up with Austerity , they want to keep the Euro. They associate it with progress, the future and a period of wealth.

Very few want to go back to the drachma. I suspect that if the Troika stop giving Greece money, then this might force the Greeks out, otherwise they would literally starve. Better to go back to the drachma and print your own currency to pay for critical imports and public sector salaries than see a state collapse.

Now, the interesting question is whether the EU/Germans would really drive Greece out of the euro - because the social, human and political implications (in the short term) would be horrific for the Greek people. Not only that, driving the Greeks against their will out of the Euro would be a brutal message to other peoples in Europe that the Euro isn't some nice, solidarity project but a brutal mafia system where the democratic will means nothing compared to the dictates of eurocrats and international finance.

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/819425 ... zkyklsibr9

Very good pdf on how the Euro could break up.

[snow hope]

If Greece leave the Euro and go back to the Drachma, it is likely their standard of living, which is based on being able to import products, will further deteriorate. Who will want to take Drachma in exchange for goods?

It is all well and good saying they should default and I understand that emotional response, but how bad will the effects be?

All countries are "bought" into the fecking financial system and it is very, very hard to leave it. I think things are still up in the air - it will be a momentous final decision to leave the Euro and default. How many decades will it be until other countries accept them back into the fold?

Just saying.

[UndercoverElephant]

Now, the interesting question is whether the EU/Germans would really drive Greece out of the euro - because the social, human and political implications (in the short term) would be horrific for the Greek people. Not only that, driving the Greeks against their will out of the Euro would be a brutal message to other peoples in Europe that the Euro isn't some nice, solidarity project but a brutal mafia system where the democratic will means nothing compared to the dictates of eurocrats and international finance.

By "drive Greece out of the Euro" do you mean stop sending them money?

[UndercoverElephant]

How many decades will it be until other countries accept them back into the fold?

Given what is likely to be happening elsewhere in the next ten years, not even one.

[Lord Beria3]

Now, the interesting question is whether the EU/Germans would really drive Greece out of the euro - because the social, human and political implications (in the short term) would be horrific for the Greek people. Not only that, driving the Greeks against their will out of the Euro would be a brutal message to other peoples in Europe that the Euro isn't some nice, solidarity project but a brutal mafia system where the democratic will means nothing compared to the dictates of eurocrats and international finance.

By "drive Greece out of the Euro" do you mean stop sending them money?

Yes.

Regarding Greece default, in the long run, this may be the best thing for Greece. Why? Because I think (along with other contrarian thinkers like Dr Faber) that the current globalised financial system is going to crash at some point in the future and all the developed world will see the implosions of their government bond markets, one by one over the coming years.

The shift to Scarcity Industrialism is coming for the world, and a Greek crash into a poorer self-sufficient future will be very hard in the short term but medium-long run a Greece which is more autarkic will be better placed than countries like the UK which are more plugged into the bankrupt financial system.

[UndercoverElephant]

Well...it has seemed inevitable for the last 18 months.

There is still the potential for more twists in the tail, though. The anti-austerity Greek parties are not actually advocating a return to the Drachma, and there's no mechanism for expelling a country from the eurozone. Greece can leave (because nobody could stop them), but what happens if they decide not to, but refuse to implement the austerity program? We must suppose that further payments from the troika will stop, and Greece will default but will remain in the eurozone. Nobody seems to be discussing this as a possible outcome, so maybe I've got something wrong here, but that's the way it looks to me.

I do recommend Michael Portillos documentary on the euro...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ro_Crisis/

I just watched this; thankyou for posting. Well worth watching.

[Aurora]

The Independent - 13/05/12

Greece: A nation on the brink

As the President makes a last-ditch effort to forge a unity government, Michael Pooler and David Connett report on what will happen if the country has to go back to the polls.

Article continues ...

Syriza argues that Greece can abandon the bailout and European leaders will not carry out their threats to withhold funding, because they cannot risk the damage to other EU countries that would be caused by a Greek collapse. "They will be begging us to take the money," Syriza's deputy, Dimitris Stratoulis, claimed on Friday.

But European leaders say the next tranche of loans, due in late June, is in jeopardy if Greece does not emerge with a government committed to the bailout package. If a second election is held, voters will be given a stark choice, said Chris Williamson of the London-based research firm Markit. "I think it is going to be increasingly presented as a vote to effectively leave the euro. That's how it will be seen outside Greece, and the rhetoric will build up to ensure that voters are aware of the implications."

[snow hope]

How many decades will it be until other countries accept them back into the fold?

Given what is likely to be happening elsewhere in the next ten years, not even one.

Yes, you are right, what a silly statement by me.

I think you know what I meant though.

[Aurora]

I do recommend Michael Portillos documentary on the euro...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ro_Crisis/.

Thanks LB, have just finished watching the documentary.

The thing that amused me was the Greek electrician, who, when times were good, had purchased five cars, including a Porsche Cayenne, for his family.

He then went on to say that Greece was in the brown stuff because of the fiscal excesses of their government over the past ten years.

It obviously hadn't even occurred to him that his personal, debt laden, spending spree had been a contributing factor. Unbelievable.