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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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I have to disagree on the credit card issue with brokedown. Countries that are rich and well managed demand cash because they can - Germany, northern Italy, Japan. Countries less well managed and rich, including the U.S., take what they can get including merchants swallowing a loss of several per cent to accept a credit card. Did you know you can use your credit card at Mt. Everest Base Camp where they still keep the old hand held non electronic sliding machines to accept your credit card?
Even so, a person with cash will get a better deal in a country where people like to bargain. The problem, as brokedown noted, is that many thieves will be about.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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And yes, many conclusions about democracy can and will be drawn from this. Of course original Greek democracy included only a small percentage of the total inhabitants. Perhaps universal suffrage democracy is what doesn't work. Now that's a sobering thought.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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yep, you really have to feel for those people who have bills to pay over $100,000.
Ken, that depends on the size of the business you operate. When I was a sole practitioner, I didn't have bills that size. When I was a partner in a law firm, our payroll exceeded that twice a month. I can think of plenty of one-owner businesses with expenses exceeding $100,000.00 weekly, and I suspect you can, too.
Of equal importance, some people have bank accounts that size because they are savers. My wife's parents would fall into that category. Their bank accounts represent the proceeds from sale of their house and of their business. It's all they have to live on. Arbitrarily confiscating 40% of accounts above a given size may comport with rough justice, but it creates penty of real injustice.
John
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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yep, you really have to feel for those people who have bills to pay over $100,000.
Ken, that depends on the size of the business you operate. When I was a sole practitioner, I didn't have bills that size. When I was a partner in a law firm, our payroll exceeded that twice a month. I can think of plenty of one-owner businesses with expenses exceeding $100,000.00 weekly, and I suspect you can, too.
Of equal importance, some people have bank accounts that size because they are savers. My wife's parents would fall into that category. Their bank accounts represent the proceeds from sale of their house and of their business. It's all they have to live on. Arbitrarily confiscating 40% of accounts above a given size may comport with rough justice, but it creates penty of real injustice.
John
John, I wasn't responding to the business issue, but the personal one.
However, you seem to be missing the big picture---which is the collapse of an entire counties' economy, and an effort to prevent that.
If you think that the collapse of an economy and financial system does not result in REAL injustice, you aren't getting the big picture.
What is the alternative? why is it only when people of means are affected, Republicans get upset, and offer no alternatives.
"Let them eat cake"
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Lassitude 33
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So, Jan, have any meaningful studies been done on why the more temperate the climate the the less financially temperate the people are?
A long debunked theory.
But, if you believe that, So Cal should be a poster child for intemperate finances.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Well Jan seems to agree with me plus I guarantee I can compile a much lengthier list of
countries to support my theory than you can to disprove it. Besides, Iceland and Eire
combined are only half of Greece's population.
As for SoCal perhaps you forgot Orange County's travails? Orange County alone would
be the world's 14th largest country based on GDP if memory serves.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Like most boomers, I thought all of this would explode after I was dead. Looks like I'll get to watch the opening act, of the downfall of the Leftist fiscal agenda. After they won the social agenda.
I've read, many of the Pension Funds, rely on a growing stock market. They need investment income, in addition to dues, to maintain solvency.
But the good news, for the U.S. is, with low interest rates, the money available to buy stocks, remains large.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Greece had been running deficits above 3% of GPD for almost 30 years before the crisis hit. But I don't see how it makes sense to call deficit spending "leftist". If need be, I can name any number of "leftist" governments that have had nice budget surpluses and any number of "right-wing" governments that have had massive deficits. The facts seem to indicate that running deficits is pretty much independent of "left" and "right". Overspending is just overspending. Too much of it for too long and you get in trouble.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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What has not been discussed here is the true definition of what we call money. Money, as defined through usage, is simply a medium of exchange and a means of discharging one's obligations. Since there is no longer any metallic backing whatsoever to paper currency, so called "Fiat Currency," the Central Banks simply print more of it generated out of thin air, and then it is "loaned" to governments with bonds issued to the Central Bank as "backing." The value of so called Fiat Currency is maintained for as long as the government is whose name the funny money is issued maintains the confidence of the masses. Sounds like smoke and mirrors? Yes it is exactly that. Financial crises such as the ones the Greek government is facing are truly contrived by the International Banksters who have loaned it billions of hot air Euros. The governments who have purchased the good will of their populations with seemingly limitless free handouts are feeling the squeeze, since the Banksters now want their pounds of flesh nearest the heart.
So how do we the people, the population needing our essentials and luxuries, resolve the problem created for us by this criminal banking system? Answer: through national bankruptcy, which seems to be the Greek answer to the looming crisis.
There is really nothing wrong with a barter economy, as all the participants are forcibly required to live within their means by economic reality.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Greece just voted no as I was sure they would.
Get ready for a volatile financial scene on Monday!
You know the Greeks claim to have won WWII by tying up the Nazis who came to finish the job the Italian fascists started and couldn't complete, for so many weeks, that their actions ensured the Germans would be fighting on the Russian front in the winter.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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I don't see the U.S. dollar losing its status as the world's reserve currency anytime soon. The situation with Greece is going to tank the euro, the Japanese have been in stagnation for over 20 years, the Russians aren't doing all that well, and the Chinese stock market is diving despite big measures by their government to stop the slide. It's not that we're doing so well, it's that everyone else is doing worse.
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Norton
Social climber
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DOW futures now down 250 at the open in first reaction to the Greek vote of no.
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jstan
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2015 - 03:50pm PT
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London fix for spot gold.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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I think the damage done to government debt, far outweighs the damage to the stock market. Government debt, is presumed to be safe, hence low interest rates. So government debt, will become more dear, squeezing the other PIIGS.
I'm guessing, the stock market, is presumed to be volatile and will shrug this off in some days time.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Grexit.
This will be interesting. Not least of all for the Greeks. They should never have been admitted to the EU.
I'd consider myself center-left economically. But it doesn't take a genius to see that with the amount of corruption and inefficiency they had that there would be problems. When you've got 75% of your workers retiring before 61(in some cases much earlier), some generous pensions, and high unemployment, you're going to have issues.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Fiat currency's value is based on the "full faith and credit" of the issuing nation.
When there is no faith,
there is no credit.
As for Jstan's chart,
Who is selling and why?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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TGT, something to keep in mind when considering defaulting on the US debt, and throwing away that "full faith and credit"
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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TGT, something to keep in mind when considering defaulting on the US debt, and throwing away that "full faith and credit"
Didn't Nixon already ruin that faith when he refused to return foreign governments gold in exchange for bonds? Why do you think your currency is called the "petro dollar"???
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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the Greeks claim to have won WWII by tying up the Nazis
That's the sort of deluded thinking that got them into this mess. The Nazis had, what, five
divisions in Greece vs 150 in Russia? LOL!
Yes, the equity markets will shrug this off by the end of the week and the bond markets
will too. Should actually help my domestic bond funds. China and Brasil are more worrisome.
China has the political will and resources to deal with their problems but Brasil doesn't have
either.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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According to the Greeks, it was a matter of timing.
The main point however, is that there is a history behind all this (as always in Europe) and the Greeks have little love for Germany still, because of the war, being invaded and the hundreds of thousands of Greeks who were starved by the Nazis. It's not being said by the politically correct American commentators, but that history had quite a lot to do with the no vote.
And speaking of who owes whom, the Germans were given very generous terms including forgiveness of the Nazi debt and the Marshall plan after WWII, something they balk at doing for the Greeks. The Germans worked hard for what they had but they also were given a lot of help, which they seem to have forgotten.
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