Greece out of the Euro?

[Anna B]

The whole of Europe is about to be faced with the most dire financial distress of a kind that has not been experienced since the second world war, all because of the dishonesty of bankers and the ineptitude of governments.

 

Alistair Darling is warning of starvation in Greece, when, with no further bailouts forthcoming, it will no longer be able to pay its public sector salaries and pensions.

The German people are deeply resentful of the cost of keeping Greece in the Euro, and the Greek people angry at the Germans for stealing all their money during the war. I foresee 'squabbling' breaking out very soon.

 

And Greece is only the first of a toppling house of cards. All of Europe will be affected.

 

Yet it's hard to remember that only 5 years ago everything seemed fine.

 

Except of course that it wasn't, as a great many people tried to point out on forums such as this, only to be dismissed as cranks and Conspiracy theorists. If they had been listened to maybe we wouldn't be in this predicament now. Yet the Government continues to deal in smoke and mirrors and lie by ommision. We are entering a period when we seriously need to know the score so we can take what steps we need to get through it.

[Mecky]

Out of Euro or out of Europe? I wonder if there is any correlation between the demise of the Euro and the new member states that were/are desperate to join Europe.

[tasha_78_1]

Surely Europe is a geographical area of which Greece has always been a part, therefore it cannot be removed from Europe? Not sure on this one, I know sometimes politicians refer to "Europe" as being some sort of club of which countries are members. Can anyone clarify?

[I1L2T3]

If the establishment is to be believed — it’s in the interests of “long-term financial stability” that creditors who stupidly bought unrepayable debt don’t get a big haircut like they would in a free market. And it’s in the interests of “long-term financial stability” that bad companies who made bad decisions don’t go out of business like they would in a free market, but instead become suckling zombies attached to the taxpayer teat. And apparently it is also in the interests of “long-term financial stability” that a broken market and broken system doesn’t liquidate, so that people learn their lesson. Apparently our “long-term financial stability” depends on producing even greater moral hazard by handing more money out to the negligent.

 

http://azizonomics.com/

 

What I have posted above is the best assessment I've seen of what is happening.

 

Something has to happen to break the stranglehold the banks are daily gaining over us. We are moving to a situation where we are committing ever more taxpayer cash for ever increasing lengths of time to bankers who created this mess in the first place. Creating debts that can't be repaid for what? So the banks can survive to do it all over again?

 

We're are committing to a world where bankers take complete control. It isn't going to be pretty if Greece leaves but something has to give. The banks have to be broken like any unviable business would be in nearly any other market. Then we need to start again.

[Uptowngirl]

Out of Euro or out of Europe? I wonder if there is any correlation between the demise of the Euro and the new member states that were/are desperate to join Europe.

 

Greece's problems stem from a desire to up their services to those enjoyed by the rest of the Eurozone and the easy credit that was made available to achieve that. They borrowed more than the country could afford, lost their credit rating and the interest payments spiralled out of cointrol.

Put simply they borrowed too much in the good times to be able to keep up the repayments in the bad times. Gordon Brown did a similar thing here on a slightly smaller scale. We missed losing our AAA credit rating in 2010 by the skin of a general election.

[I1L2T3]

Greece's problems stem from a desire to up their services to those enjoyed by the rest of the Eurozone and the easy credit that was made available to achieve that. They borrowed more than the country could afford, lost their credit rating and the interest payments spiralled out of cointrol.

Put simply they borrowed too much in the good times to be able to keep up the repayments in the bad times. Gordon Brown did a similar thing here on a slightly smaller scale. We missed losing our AAA credit rating in 2010 by the skin of a general election.

 

Where did the Greeks borrow the money from?

[Leah-Lacie]

Surely Europe is a geographical area of which Greece has always been a part, therefore it cannot be removed from Europe? Not sure on this one, I know sometimes politicians refer to "Europe" as being some sort of club of which countries are members. Can anyone clarify?

 

I think its the 'European Union' that they refer to, being covered by EU laws and all that stuff

[Uptowngirl]

Where did the Greeks borrow the money from?

 

Pretty much anyone who would lend it to them at the reduced interest rates EURO membership bestowed

[I1L2T3]

Pretty much anyone who would lend it to them at the reduced interest rates EURO membership bestowed

 

How did they qualify for inclusion in the EURO

[Leah-Lacie]

I watched a programme a while back where people from the UK earned as much for a week/month as they would if they did the same job in Greece. The retirement age is something like 45 or 50, and then they get a much larger state pension than in the UK. Financial advisors are good at telling them how to squeeze the most out of their wages, and some of them would earn 4 or 5 times more than they do in the same job here, and dodge tax. It made interesting viewing, no wonder the country is skint.