It's the economy, stupid!

[Stormborn]

A lot of Greece's problems can be traced back to the wide spread Tax avoidance and possible cooking of the books to join the EU and then the Euro (not that Greece are the only European nation with these problems).

The problem with government austerity plans is that they tend to hit the people who can't afford it the worst, but it is a great way for right wing governments to shift the balance of power. Plus at election time they can then buy votes by cutting taxes, where have I seen this schtick before? I smell Thatcherism. Unfortunately, for the Eton Twins, they have nothing left to privatise to get the UK out of the economic mire that their own parties weakness in opposition helped to create. I guess at least we can enjoy the comedy of it all Pastygate, Ruperrtgate, Jimmy Carrgate & to late to shut the gate!

[Derp53]

A lot of Greece's problems can be traced back to the wide spread Tax avoidance and possible cooking of the books to join the EU and then the Euro (not that Greece are the only European nation with these problems).

The problem with government austerity plans is that they tend to hit the people who can't afford it the worst, but it is a great way for right wing governments to shift the balance of power. Plus at election time they can then buy votes by cutting taxes, where have I seen this schtick before? I smell Thatcherism. Unfortunately, for the Eton Twins, they have nothing left to privatise to get the UK out of the economic mire that their own parties weakness in opposition helped to create. I guess at least we can enjoy the comedy of it all Pastygate, Ruperrtgate, Jimmy Carrgate & to late to shut the gate!

english politics something i never understood either

[MARS]

House, I disagree. Greece leaving the Eurozone would be terrible for us. Our currency's value would dwindle and we wouldn't be able to sustain ourselves any better than we can now.

[POMC S117]

A lot of Greece's problems can be traced back to the wide spread Tax avoidance and possible cooking of the books to join the EU and then the Euro (not that Greece are the only European nation with these problems).

The problem with government austerity plans is that they tend to hit the people who can't afford it the worst, but it is a great way for right wing governments to shift the balance of power. Plus at election time they can then buy votes by cutting taxes, where have I seen this schtick before? I smell Thatcherism. Unfortunately, for the Eton Twins, they have nothing left to privatise to get the UK out of the economic mire that their own parties weakness in opposition helped to create. I guess at least we can enjoy the comedy of it all Pastygate, Ruperrtgate, Jimmy Carrgate & to late to shut the gate!

english politics something i never understood either

No-one understands English politics. That's history. Oh, you mean UK politics?

[Derp53]

then again the Euro was something that was desired, not practical Mars, all these different countries have opposing or different ways of dealing with their economies that it was never bound to work anyway


Ya i meant U.K politics

[MARS]

Except we don't have any money, even with the EU's intervention. I'm an absolute novice concerning economics, so if please someone could explain to me how Greece would benefit from exiting the Eurozone, that'd be appreciated.

[POMC S117]

For a single currency to work, it'd need all the members to have the same tax rates, a floating exchange rate etc. I believe.

[Stormborn]

Derp/POMC - It's UK/British politics* but essentially it's just like US politics except we don't get a new head of state every 4 years. We choose from two groups of identikit politicians who don't know what they are doing and spend all their time shouting at each over irrelevant things to score political points, and then claim they are the best because their stupid ideas are less stupid than another set of equally stupid ideas.

Then laws get passed because the ruling party bullies it's own side in to doing what they are told regardless of what it will do to the people they claim to represent. Britain's only other political difference is that our politicians also generally get to be lord's when they retire this way they can keep screwing up the country but get to wear silly clothes too whilst they are getting drunk or sleeping.

*They generally ignore Northern Ireland as it is the UK political equivalent of being dead. No matter what you do in NI your going to [&@%!] of the maniacs in balaclavas.

[POMC S117]

There only difference between Labour and the Conservatives is that Labour have a Plan B. The Tories are just shouting:

"U-TURN! U-TURN! That'll win us some votes! U-TURN! U-TURN!"

[Stormborn]

POMC the problem is you can't spend yourself out of debt, I've tried and I was just more broke. So Labour's Plan B is a non starter. What the UK needs is growth, but we can't compete with the countries that have the growth, because we have priced ourselves out of the labour-market. Neither Labour or the Tories are trying to deal with the root problem, because it won't affect well paid MP's with their jobs on the side or the 5% of our society that they give a damn about or the foreign owned business which will threaten to move overseas if they have to pay tax properly or the over paid exec's that get rewarded for screwing up.

[POMC S117]

How did we get into the recession anyway? What happened? Something about Icelandic and American banks and then there's a recession.

[Stormborn]

Basically many of the international banking groups decide that it would be a great idea to start lending money out to anyone and everyone, without worrying about whether they could pay that money back. This left them with a shed load of debt, so the banks did a 360. Honestly, this is way to complex to try and explain there are hundreds of competing theories. All I know for sure is, it wasn't me that caused it

[Rootmars]

so the banks did a 360.

I could see how that wouldn't solve anything.

[House of the Wolf]

Right; Kestral put it pretty nicely a few pages back. Basically, banks screwed a lot of people over and, essentially, the entire market by approving bad loans--particularly in real estate, and especially in the US. Because of globalization, and the uniformed currency of the EU, a crisis that originated in the US affected the entire market, directly/indirectly.

Greece's problem, as explained in the wikipedia article provided above, stems from a slew of government programmes with no capital to support them. Between individuals/companies avoiding taxes, to importing more than they exported, it became a the quintessential cliche of a recipe for disaster.

So, Mars, the reason I say that it might do well for both Greece and the EU for Greece to drop-out is because they're both likely to tear each other apart, financially. I could be dead-wrong, and my experience completely differs from the reality of Greece's position, but it's what I suppose is the right answer.

[Arterion]

Exiting the Euro zone would be bad, mkaay.

Now apart for that article consider the same scenario I posted about the slovene companies and multiply it by tenfold, well you get Greece and many other contries in the EU. The problem is so endemic that thousands loose their jobs by the day and there is no way to fill that gap, at least for the moment. Countless companies in were bankrolled by the socialist parties who tried, and failed, to give everyone a job, wheter it was productive or not.

Now the problem is that the generation of people (around 40 - 50 years) who worked in such companies are up from the sudden whithout a job, in advanced age and with no job on the horizon.

This countries are so in debt that without a substantial help from the EU and without rappresentatives from Brusseles they will face quite a grim fate. It was inevitable and only the strict measures from the EU headsmen can actually have any chance to mitigate some damage, thus it would be a great error for the moment to leave the Union.

Speaking of crisis, apart the juggling of the banks, there is also the problem of thousands of immigrants now coming on the shores of Europe by the day, seriously it is a big problem. When I served in the Navy we had an immigrant ship on the shore almost every day and that means several thousands of immigrants in a month... so you get the idea that the EU resources are stranded by the day. Due to the last events down there in Africa I belive that the problem is multiplied by tenfold. Just immagine that all from the sudden your country has half million people more to maintain...

And if that would not be enough consider the economic and political differences among the countries of the Eu and you can see why things are spiralling down.

Europe, now more than ever, must stay united. Produce reforms that will blanket all its states and mobilise our massive financial reserves accumulated in the past half century to give an electroshock to Europe's heart. I damn well remmeber how I was proud when Italy and years later Slovenia took the Euro and even more when the European flag flied over all the broders and I am optimistic that Europe has way more resources than it lets to belive and slowly and steady we will exit the crisis.

We just need to keep calm and focused. Greece, Spain, the eastren countries. All can be returned to a position of wealth, stability and growth, the only thing that is needed atm is patience and the absolute ingnoration of those pesky rating agencies which on a side note none are European. Yp, speculation can be a great tool if you plan to wage an economic war with another country in order to cover your own mistakes...

[ClottedCream]

Let's all be happy now.

[House of the Wolf]

A little insight from Matt Taibbi on what the major banks did, and are still doing, to screw everyone, worldwide, over:


YouTube Link