Greece Watch...

[johnhemming2]

I am referring to what happened in the UK. If you wish me to comment on some other jurisdiction then give me a proper link to it.

[clv101]

They seem quite happy to invest in new roads to satisfy the road haulage lobby but not in rail or housing. Would this be because those areas don't have a financial return for the political parties backers?

HS2 (not that I think it'll actually be built) would be a big rail spend though? Personally, I think it would be a far better idea to spend £32bn on half a million well insulated houses - the bulk of them social - thereby slashing housing benefit payments to private landlords.

[3rdRock]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33754005

Greek shares plunge on first day of market reopen

The main Athens stock index, the Athex, ended the day down by 16.23% as trading resumed after a five-week closure.

The nation's top four lenders - Piraeus Bank, National Bank, Alpha Bank, and Eurobank - were biggest fallers, all down by 30%, the maximum allowed. Banks make up about a fifth of the index.

The bourse was shut just before Athens imposed capital controls at the height of the debt crisis.

It had fallen behind by 22.87% just minutes after opening for trade.

[PS_RalphW]

However markets rose in other European countries. This was entirely factored in to the markets outside Greece already.

[johnhemming2]

Greece is lucky in that the stock market managed to re-open.

[3rdRock]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/a ... inues-euro

Greece's tax revenues collapse as debt crisis continues

Fresh evidence of the dramatic impact of the Greek debt crisis on the health of the country’s finances has emerged, with official figures showing tax revenues collapsing.

As talks continued over a proposed €86bn third bailout of the stricken state, the Greek treasury said tax revenues were 8.5% lower in the first six months of 2015 than the same period a year earlier. The bank shutdown that brought much economic activity to a halt began on 28 June.

Public spending fell even more dramatically, by 12.3%, even before the new austerity measures the prime minister Alexis Tsipras has been forced to pass to win the support of his creditors for talks on a new bailout.

[raspberry-blower]

Europeans Against the European Union

Very interesting article about the fundamentally flawed concept that is the Euro.

To understand why this disconnect between growing internationalism of European peoples and the European Union exists, we have to explore its economic basis. The idea of a ‘social Europe’ has never been at the heart of this market-oriented project of European integration. At the same time as Jacque Delors was seducing Europe’s social democrats into this myth in the 1980s, he was trapping them into arrangements they would never agree to without it. First in 1988 the directive mandating for extensive free movement of capital and then, in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty.

These arrangements provided the foundation for the euro – a currency which was to drive the stake of neoliberalism into the heart of the European Union. The money in our pockets is the most right-wing currency ever designed, with a central bank that doesn’t care about unemployment and won’t act as a lender of last resort, modelled to work only in the free-market utopias predicted to arrive at Francis Fukuyama’s end of history.

So it's all for one and **** everyone else

There are also strong words about the origins of the Greek crisis

Another hidden story takes place in the late 1990s, when German banks took on huge exposure in states like Greece by investing in high-yield bonds. For the business class this meant credit to Greek consumers – therefore a boon for exports. There was also the benefit of a heap of profit from financialising the peripheral economies with significant levels of returns. In Greece, it led to falling bond prices, cheaper credit and a bubble.

Between 1998 and 2007, Greece had the second highest growth rate in Europe. During roughly the same period Greece’s bond yields fell from over 15 per cent to 3 per cent. There’s an almost direct correlation.

This development was not led by demand from Greece but supply from Germany. In many ways the German business class was the sub-prime mortgage lender of the European financial system. But, because of this primacy of core over periphery and capital over labour, it has been workers in peripheral European states which paid the price for their recklessness

In short it asks a lot of important questions that pro-European politicians have repeatedly failed to answer. It is this failure of the EU to respond in a transparent and effective manner - it has instead tried to obfuscate its way through - that has aided the rise of - in the UK - the likes of the swivelled eyed lunatics of UKIP. In the rest of Europe there are far worse - in France, for example, they have Marine Le Pen and the Front National.

[johnhemming2]

Part of the problem was regulatory in that the amount of capital the banks had to hold to hold sovereign debt was very low (possbily zero on a risk weighted basis) as all the euro countries were treated as being equivalent.

Hence if there is a slightly better interest rate it makes the bonds much more attractive to hold.

That is one of those issues of detail that is in fact very important.

[UndercoverElephant]

Europeans Against the European Union

Very interesting article about the fundamentally flawed concept that is the Euro.

To understand why this disconnect between growing internationalism of European peoples and the European Union exists, we have to explore its economic basis. The idea of a ‘social Europe’ has never been at the heart of this market-oriented project of European integration. At the same time as Jacque Delors was seducing Europe’s social democrats into this myth in the 1980s, he was trapping them into arrangements they would never agree to without it. First in 1988 the directive mandating for extensive free movement of capital and then, in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty.

These arrangements provided the foundation for the euro – a currency which was to drive the stake of neoliberalism into the heart of the European Union. The money in our pockets is the most right-wing currency ever designed, with a central bank that doesn’t care about unemployment and won’t act as a lender of last resort, modelled to work only in the free-market utopias predicted to arrive at Francis Fukuyama’s end of history.

So it's all for one and **** everyone else

There are also strong words about the origins of the Greek crisis

Another hidden story takes place in the late 1990s, when German banks took on huge exposure in states like Greece by investing in high-yield bonds. For the business class this meant credit to Greek consumers – therefore a boon for exports. There was also the benefit of a heap of profit from financialising the peripheral economies with significant levels of returns. In Greece, it led to falling bond prices, cheaper credit and a bubble.

Between 1998 and 2007, Greece had the second highest growth rate in Europe. During roughly the same period Greece’s bond yields fell from over 15 per cent to 3 per cent. There’s an almost direct correlation.

This development was not led by demand from Greece but supply from Germany. In many ways the German business class was the sub-prime mortgage lender of the European financial system. But, because of this primacy of core over periphery and capital over labour, it has been workers in peripheral European states which paid the price for their recklessness

In short it asks a lot of important questions that pro-European politicians have repeatedly failed to answer. It is this failure of the EU to respond in a transparent and effective manner - it has instead tried to obfuscate its way through - that has aided the rise of - in the UK - the likes of the swivelled eyed lunatics of UKIP. In the rest of Europe there are far worse - in France, for example, they have Marine Le Pen and the Front National.

In a word, yes.

It looks to me like the hitherto unassailable assumption that the EU/Eurozone was forever - a one way process that may take time and effort but can only have a single European state as its ultimate destination - is no longer unassailable. Ordinary people (as opposed to the "loony right") are asking difficult questions, which don't have "acceptable" answers.

[AutomaticEarth]

Looks like Tsipras could be off.......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... swirl.html

[emordnilap]

Looks like Tsipras could be off.......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... swirl.html

Let's hope they get a true left-wing government in place.

[johnhemming2]

Let's hope they get a true left-wing government in place.

and what would that be?

A government that tries to renege on the bailout terms?

[adam2]

Now confirmed that new elections are to be held in Greece.

[biffvernon]

Looks like Syriza have done rather well in today's election.

[adam2]

Expected result now confirmed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

I predict another default.