Euro-Zone Crisis

[Section_31]

I'm no economist by any means, but wouldn't it make sense for interest rates on these epic loans to be lowered so they can actually afford to pay them back? So some credit agency goes 'tut tut tut, don't like the looks of this' and arbitrarily downgrades an entire country's rating, as a result the markets dip, money is lost, and a country is faced with the prospect of having to pay back so much in interest that it can't afford to actually pay the loan as well as basically continue to exist. It's absolute insanity. Why can't states get a grip of 'the market' instead of vice versa? Fucking Karl Marx facepalm.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

I'm no economist by any means, but wouldn't it make sense for interest rates on these epic loans to be lowered so they can actually afford to pay them back? So some credit agency goes 'tut tut tut, don't like the looks of this' and arbitrarily downgrades an entire country's rating, as a result the markets dip, money is lost, and a country is faced with the prospect of having to pay back so much in interest that it can't afford to actually pay the loan as well as basically continue to exist. It's absolute insanity. Why can't states get a grip of 'the market' instead of vice versa? Fucking Karl Marx facepalm.

 

If only they would make it that simple.

 

Does nobody else find it strange that Greece's new Prime minister is a former senior banker, well not strange but sort of a bit of a fix?

[Section_31]

If only they would make it that simple.

 

Does nobody else find it strange that Greece's new Prime minister is a former senior banker, well not strange but sort of a bit of a fix?

 

What the fuck is a technocrat? Apparently both Italy and Greece now have unelected 'technocrats' in charge. This is all some Deus Ex shit, believe.

[Tyler Durden]

If only they would make it that simple.

 

Does nobody else find it strange that Greece's new Prime minister is a former senior banker, well not strange but sort of a bit of a fix?

 

And no allegiance to either leading party apparently, future looks great for the Greeks now.

No wonder he is happy to let them accept the doomsday monies

[Anubis]

Had meant to look for this and post the link previously. It really does show just how insidious hedge funds are. The programme is 40 minutes long, but worth a listen if you can spare the time. Some blurb about it below.

 

 

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - File on 4, Cash from the Crisis

 

 

 

Crippling debt burden

 

BBC Radio 4's File on 4 has discovered that some hedge funds are planning to cash in on the crisis by buying Greek debt in the form of Greek government bonds.

 

Their strategy depends on the troika persuading banks to agree to what is called a "haircut" in the value of their holdings of such bonds.

 

Only by reducing Greece's now crippling debt burden, the troika insists, can a continued crisis be avoided.

 

It is because this write-down would be voluntary on the part of bondholders that hedge funds have found an opportunity. Having bought the bonds, they can then refuse to agree to the voluntary haircut and demand payment in full when the bonds mature.

 

Christopher de Vrieze, who writes on sovereign debt for the specialist news service Debtwire, says some hedge funds are targeting short-term Greek bonds due to mature in March next year.

 

If the troika does persuade banks to agree to a voluntary write-down, Christopher de Vrieze says "Greece will be financed for another couple of years, and will be most likely to be able to pay its shorter-dated bonds."

 

As a result, hedge funds which refuse to agree to a write-down will demand payment in full, from funds provided to Greece under the troika rescue plan.

 

The deeper the voluntary haircut the troika pressures bondholders to accept, Mr de Vrieze says, the bigger the benefit to Greece, increasing its ability to meet demands from hedge funds for payment in full on their bonds.

[clangers]

They are screwed. This will all have unravelled by Jan 2012, either Gemany effectively underwrites the euro and the debt of all members or it collapses to be replaced by a much scaled down nu-euro. Trouble is confidence in that will be shot, we'll have entered credit crunch 2.0 and numerous banks will need bailing out again. Economies will seize up due to the lack of liquidity with governments unable to assist due already being swamped with sovereign debt.

[Carvalho Diablo]

Who owes what to who and who owes them ?

[Strontium]

I'm no economist by any means, but wouldn't it make sense for interest rates on these epic loans to be lowered so they can actually afford to pay them back? So some credit agency goes 'tut tut tut, don't like the looks of this' and arbitrarily downgrades an entire country's rating, as a result the markets dip, money is lost, and a country is faced with the prospect of having to pay back so much in interest that it can't afford to actually pay the loan as well as basically continue to exist. It's absolute insanity. Why can't states get a grip of 'the market' instead of vice versa? Fucking Karl Marx facepalm.

 

 

The interest rate on the loans is so high because lenders have relatively little confidence that they'll be paid back. I could go out now and empty my ISA and loan some smackhead tramp 2 grand, but it doesn't matter whether I charge him 0% or 50% interest, I ain't getting my money back.

 

Of course, it wouldn't be an issue if states didn't borrow so much fucking money in the first place. Does anyone still think that the coalition is wrong, and that the way forward for the British economy is to slash VAT, throw money at the public sector and borrow even more cash? Because if so, I have some beachfront property in Shropshire to sell you.

[Section_31]

The interest rate on the loans is so high because lenders have relatively little confidence that they'll be paid back. I could go out now and empty my ISA and loan some smackhead tramp 2 grand, but it doesn't matter whether I charge him 0% or 50% interest, I ain't getting my money back.

 

Of course, it wouldn't be an issue if states didn't borrow so much fucking money in the first place. Does anyone still think that the coalition is wrong, and that the way forward for the British economy is to slash VAT, throw money at the public sector and borrow even more cash? Because if so, I have some beachfront property in Shropshire to sell you.

 

Isn't the main reason they won't be paid back because interest is so high that nations can't afford to pay their debt AND maintain any kind of forward economic motion, infrastructure projects, public sector employment etc, so economies are stagnating or going into recession, so their ability to repay loans declines even further and they either default or are bailed out, at which point the markets dip again. Sounds more like an orchestrated demolition job to me, what Tony Soprano might call being 'bled dry'.

[dennis tooth]

The interest rate on the loans is so high because lenders have relatively little confidence that they'll be paid back. I could go out now and empty my ISA and loan some smackhead tramp 2 grand, but it doesn't matter whether I charge him 0% or 50% interest, I ain't getting my money back.

 

Of course, it wouldn't be an issue if states didn't borrow so much fucking money in the first place. Does anyone still think that the coalition is wrong, and that the way forward for the British economy is to slash VAT, throw money at the public sector and borrow even more cash? Because if so, I have some beachfront property in Shropshire to sell you.

 

No, I havent seen a single person on here suggest that. You are so close to the answer and still find a way to get it wrong. No the government shouldnt borrow money, it just needs to print its own again and remove banks ability to print money and charge interest then have to loan money they can never pay back.

[Liverpool lad]

What does this mean for my trip to Amsterdam and visits to prostitutes? When should I buy my Euros?

[Carvalho Diablo]

Get yourself off to Greece instead.

 

Bang as many prozzies as you like, drink as much as your liver will take, buy a big fuck off helicopter, a taxi home and change from a £10er.

 

Bargain.

[Jose Jones]

No, I havent seen a single person on here suggest that. You are so close to the answer and still find a way to get it wrong. No the government shouldnt borrow money, it just needs to print its own again and remove banks ability to print money and charge interest then have to loan money they can never pay back.

 

Especially when a massive proportion of the debt was brought about by:

a) bailing out banks that caused much of the problem in the first place

b) worse debt conditions due to the fucking up of the financial markets by the financial markets.

 

It's the government and tax payers who are to blame!

Fuck off with that myopic bullshit. The system is broken. It needs rebuilding with strong regulation.

[dennis tooth]

What does this mean for my trip to Amsterdam and visits to prostitutes? When should I buy my Euros?

 

No take scottish pound notes, I understand its a perfectly valid currency.

[dennis tooth]

Especially when a massive proportion of the debt was brought about by:

a) bailing out banks that caused much of the problem in the first place

b) worse debt conditions due to the fucking up of the financial markets by the financial markets.

 

It's the government and tax payers who are to blame!

Fuck off with that myopic bullshit. The system is broken. It needs rebuilding with strong regulation.

 

Exactly. Banks can create money at will and charge interest on it, a licence to print money for little or no effort and they still manage to fuck it up. How greedy can you get?

[cochyn]

I'll admit to being befuddled here: Am I naive in thinking the euro-zone crisis all amounts to a pissing contest between the banks and the euro states?

 

I'm gonna bang on a bit here:

 

Warning! The following content is NOT WORK SAFE. Click the Show button to reveal.

Banks have over-lent in the past, states have taken advantage, leveraging their borrowing because, hell, every other fucker did the same. Leaving us all in the situation where someone's gone; Hang on, these government bonds are worth fuck-all. Cue calamity, the banks holding out the begging bowl to cover value imbalances (debt) whilst capitalising on record low base-rates to feather their debt books. Then, having the fucking gall (after being torn a new arsehole by the state legislatures) to stand up and say; right povvo's, pay yer' countries' debts or we'll orchestrate market-sanctioned coup d'etats against the economic stragglers as a means to install puppet economists as heads of state (Ireland, Greece & Italy, and so on).

 

Ultimately, leaving inflated property values and associated taxation as the only tangible marker of value to show for this entire shit-storm? Furthermore, the new economies are desperately dependent on perpetuating this situation as means of further leveraging themselves out of crippling debt. Such economic short sightedness constrains the liquid capital markets to a point where investment (yet more debt) in new technologies and ideas is passed over in favour of recouping old, irrecoverable debt? Surely measures such as the coalition government's regional development grants are the only way forward in as much as they are a pro-active investment in people's ingenuity and willingness to work their way out of this fuckery? Investment in people - not past debts - is ultimately the only worthwhile capital expenditure possible right now in my mind. The possibilities are there, grasp them.

[KopOut]

At the heart of our lovely free enterprise capitalist system, there is a socialist money creation system:-banks given the heavily discounted exclusive licence to create money from nothing, charging extraordinarily large sums of money for the pleasure.

 

It doesn't work. Never has & never will.

[KopOut]

what are YOU prepared to do?

 

[Mr. Beast]

What the fuck is a technocrat? Apparently both Italy and Greece now have unelected 'technocrats' in charge.

 

technocrats wielding axes...

 

Austerity & Fascism In Greece: The Real 1% Doctrine

By Mark Ames

 

 

See the guy in the photo there, dangling an ax from his left hand? That’s Greece’s new “Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks” Makis Voridis captured back in the 1980s, when he led a fascist student group called “Student Alternative” at the University of Athens law school. It’s 1985, and Minister Voridis, dressed like some Kajagoogoo Nazi, is caught on camera patrolling the campus with his fellow fascists, hunting for suspected leftist students to bash. Voridis was booted out of law school that year, and sued by Greece’s National Association of Students for taking part in violent attacks on non-fascist law students.

 

With all the propaganda we’ve been fed about Greece’s new “austerity” government being staffed by non-ideological “technocrats,” it may come as a surprise that fascists are now considered “technocrats” to the mainstream media and Western banking interests. Then again, history shows that fascists have always been favored by the 1-percenters to deliver the austerity medicine.

 

Which brings me back to the new Minister of Infrastructure, Makis Voridis. Before he was an ax-wielding law student, Voridis led another fascist youth group that supported the jailed leader of Greece’s 1967 military coup. Greece has been down this fascism route before, all under the guise of saving the nation and complaints about alleged parliamentary weakness. In 1967, the military overthrew democracy, imposed a fascist junta, jailed and tortured suspected leftist dissidents, and ran the country into the ground until the junta was overthrown by popular protest in 1974.

 

This rather disturbing definition of what counts as “non-ideological” or “technocratic” in 2011 is something most folks are trying hard to ignore, which might explain why there’s been almost nothing about how Greece’s new EU-imposed austerity government includes neo-Nazis from the LAOS Party (LAOS is the acronym for Greece’s fascist political party, not the Southeast Asian paradise).

 

 

full article here:

Austerity & Fascism In Greece: The Real 1% Doctrine - By Mark Ames - The eXiled

[Section_31]

Apparently the new Italian government contains no MPs, I say again - there are NO elected politicians in its Government.

 

What, the, fuck, has, happened. And why the fuck is nobody arsed?!?

[stringvest]

Apparently the new Italian government contains no MPs, I say again - there are NO elected politicians in its Government.

 

What, the, fuck, has, happened. And why the fuck is nobody arsed?!?

 

A cursory jog along the history of 20th Century Italian politics will provide the answer you are looking for, grasshopper.

[Strontium]

Apparently the new Italian government contains no MPs, I say again - there are NO elected politicians in its Government.

 

What, the, fuck, has, happened. And why the fuck is nobody arsed?!?

 

 

Is that unusual? I mean, for instance, the only elected politician in the US cabinet is Obama.

[chrisbonnie]

Apparently the new Italian government contains no MPs, I say again - there are NO elected politicians in its Government.

 

What, the, fuck, has, happened. And why the fuck is nobody arsed?!?

 

Who gives a fiddlers fuck that they don't have any elected mp's

 

Sure aren't most politicians just knob end public servants and teachers on leave,

 

What the fuck would they know about an economy in crisis

[Section_31]

A respected economics professor, Monti has taken the crucial economy and finance portfolio himself and named Corrado Passera, chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's biggest retail bank, as industry minister.

 

Passera's connections to Italian and European boardrooms should add extra clout to a ministry that Monti said would have a central place in his government. His political sympathies lie with the center-left and he is rumored to have been considered for a ministry in Romano Prodi's 2006 government.

 

Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, a former police chief, Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Santagata, a former diplomat and Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, an admiral and member of NATO's military committee, are all experienced administrators

 

He will outline his policy platform at the same time and is expected to stick to the broad reform program outlined by the European Central Bank in August when it agreed to prop up Italy's battered debt by buying bonds on the market.

 

Controlling public spending, reforming the pension system, loosening job protection measures, opening up protected professions to more competition and imposing a tax on private assets are some of the measures he could announce.

 

This is all some serious Morgan Everett style shit.

[stringvest]

This is all some serious Morgan Everett style shit.

 

they do have some history of doing this. They did it relatively recently, I think it was before Prodi got in about 20 years ago.