…the hard Left party* who promised to renegotiate Greece’s extremely unpopular bailout. Private scuttlebutt among those of my peers who follow European news more closely than I do is divided over whether the Germans EU will sign off on that, but don’t be surprised if they at least try. The alternative is… well, the alternatives to austerity are as follows:
- A bailout.
- Removing Greece from the EU.
- Placing Greece under direct political and economic control of Brussels.
As you might imagine, the Germans and the French these days get very, very nervous when any suggestion of a possibility of a hint arises that something like that third alternative might become necessary. Of course, they get even more nervous about continent-wide economic depressions and political instability, for much the same reason. Heck of a thing to have to worry about, ja?
Moe Lane
*By my people’s standards, at least; and, frankly, I’m a cultural chauvinist when it comes to America.
Option D: A fleet of armored cars loaded with new Deutsche Marks ready to roll out to all the banks in Germany, because Merkel has to be thinking that the EU experiment is almost over.
I thought that all Euro notes had to have a country code.. an indicator of which country they .. originated in? (in the same way U.S. dollars have a “mint mark”, indicating which printing press they came from)
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I do not see this mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes
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My thought was that they may be able to simply split the Euro and float ’em, so that Greek Euros are worth a given fraction of German Euros or of French Euros, etc. etc., but .. it appears I’m mistaken, and that several countries will need to re-introduce local currency.
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Mew
a) A bailout which, by now, the voters of Britain, Germany, and at least a few of the rest can be absolutely certain will not be paid back.
b) A Greek exit would be watched carefully by Spain, Italy, and a couple others.
c) ‘direct political and economic control’…well, I’m sure the French and Germans can debate whether the instruments of such control should be called ‘gauleiters’ or ‘representants en mission’.
I think “colonial oppressors” should work. Since we are going back to a mid-1970’s political and economic world we may as well resurrect some of the terms. It isn’t like the universities are doing anything else with them these days, correct?
Oh, and for what it’s worth, if I were Greek I’d have probably voted for Syriza too, not ’cause I think their policies are necessarily correct but because SOMETHING has to be done to stop EU encroachment on national sovereignty.
I, too, think that Europe needs a good bout of ethno-religious nationalism. It has been over a century since the last one broke out; and the muslim world has their game-faces on and China is looking frisky….
Let’s have a real blood-letting, let’s really get down to it and see which religio-political groups have the guts and bodies to make it in the 21st Century!
(I hope you realize the above was bitter sarcasm.)
The EU needs to cut their losses and let the Greeks go. They’ll default on their loans, but they’ll do it anyway, so better to cut them loose now.
The real worry is fascism is rising in Europe again, and a downturn in the economy for all of Europe will only make it worse. It’s foolish to think that they’ve given up their fascist tendencies for good. Europeans want economic predictability more than anything else, and don’t care who they have to take from to get it.
Except the Greeks are *one* of the PIIGS countries who would rather like to revert to their old default/inflate/borrow cycle… Let Greece go, Spain and Italy and Ireland and Portugal will all be watching.
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Just my *opinion* here .. this is why the Euro is just a stupid idea on its’ face, and why it should be put down.
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Greeks are not Germans are not French are not Spaniards .. they do not have the same values, they do not have the same culture.
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Here, it works because we’re all mixed in together .. there’s Greektown and Little Italy and Chinatown but .. we’re all Chicagoans. There, it does not work that way.
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Mew
Eventually people stop loaning money to people that have no intention of paying it back. Once they exit the Euro, their economy will collapse. Then the people will long for the days of austerity.
What we really need now is the equivalent of an Austrian Arch-Duke to get assassinated.
Come on Europe, you must have some one person whose death will let you release your native blood-lust! Soccer riots have been tried, but even those aren’t sufficient! Who will stand up and take the bullet and let you loose again?
(Sarcasm throughout this. One cannot be too obvious.)
Nope.
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The Greeks have a long, *LONG* history of getting other Europeans to loan them money, then either defaulting (and keeping the assets purchased) or printing extra Drachmas (causing austerity-via-inflation..) and paying back the loans that way.
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The Europeans *kept loaning them money*.
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So .. which one is the fool here?
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Mew
I find the concept … intriguing beyond the discussion of the title of the EU Procurator of Greece. The question of exactly how Greece would be placed and maintained under that control needs to be looked into. I don’t see divisions of German Panzers, French Legionaires, or Belgian ….. Chocolatiers occupying Greece and extorting repayment of the loans. But absent that, they are left with an economic and diplomatic blockade to beggar Greece if they don’t pay. Neither strike me as particularly profitable or effective.
It is said that if you owe the bank $100, they own you. If you owe them $1,000,000, you own them.
I have only the vaguest of ancestral affection towards any European country, and none at all for most European countries or the European superstate they’re trying to force into being.
I actively dislike most of their neighbors (Russia, Turkey, and nearly the entirety of North Africa).
So put me in the “morbidly curious” camp.