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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 13, 2015 - 10:28pm PT
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REALLY? And yet, he fixed the recession and unemployment faster than any Repug said that they could
No he didn't, the world's greatest and most resilient economy fixed itself
with the Fed's help.
Now, let's get back to Greece.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jul 14, 2015 - 10:03am PT
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Now, let's get back to Greece.
That's the point of this entire thread, not how great/lousy Obama has done/not done. Leave the U.S. politics elsewhere...
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jul 14, 2015 - 01:43pm PT
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No he didn't, the world's greatest and most resilient economy fixed itself
with the Fed's help.
As he said it would.....and as the Repugs said it would NOT.
To bring this back to the Greece subject, we are seeing an interplay of the same arguments: Punish the weak to teach them, or help the weak, while the background conditions change for the better---and a rising tide floats all boats.
The world is still recovering from recession. As it improves, Greece will do better.
Remember that the SAME repug reasoning was used to demand the default of GM. Instead, they were supported, they turned around, they turn a profit, and all loans were paid back ahead of time, at a profit.
The Repugs would have deep-sixed them "to teach them a lesson".
The Repugs are really into lessons. They are the opposite of the Japanese quality saying: "fix the problem, not the blame".
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jul 14, 2015 - 03:39pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The International Banksters are NOT the "Repugs." This is about the ECB, and the Deutsche Bundesbank. Oh.. and the word "Compassion" doesn't exist in their vocabulary.
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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Jul 14, 2015 - 06:43pm PT
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Greek bailout: $344,500,000,000
USA bailout/TARP: $700,000,000,000
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jul 14, 2015 - 07:01pm PT
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U.S. stock markets are now up 4 days in a row & the S & P 500 is approaching its May 2015 alltime high.
Apparently those with money to invest are not listening to the doomesters & gloomsters on this thread.
That's good.
Sooooooo-
I won't forecast what's going to happen with Greece, but after all the hype, their effect on the rest of the world will be minimal.
And our stock market will either be up or down over the next 12 months.
I have sold none of our stock portfolio.
I always enjoy a "gud" ride!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2015 - 07:09pm PT
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and yet...
Do we add a suit and tie to the guys on top to make it more accurate?
lol
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 14, 2015 - 10:21pm PT
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I won't forecast what's going to happen with Greece, but after all the hype, their effect on the rest of the world will be minimal.
Oh good, you mean we'll all keep gettin that yummy Greek yogurt; )
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Jul 14, 2015 - 11:14pm PT
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...It's always a sore subject with some of the posters on this site when mention is made of Bush's grand recession...In their minds the recession never happened or worse yet think it was caused by Obama who wasn't in office when the economy tanked...The denial , excuses , and intellectual double talk come avalanching down in an attempt to hide the obvious incompetence that is associated with the so-called fiscally responsible party that they blindly worship...Greeces financial problems are a reflection of what tanked our economy during the W years when Bush cut taxes while increasing military spending and with Greece simply not collecting taxes... so let's focus on the splinter in Greece's eye as our country , 7 years later , tries to recover from a train wreck that was choreographed by America's smartest economists...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jul 14, 2015 - 11:54pm PT
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Here's an article from Foreign Policy that maintains the whole Greek crisis is really about the EU leaders getting Greece and other countries plus their own tax payers to help rescue the big banks in northern Europe which were even more heavily levera,ged than ours. Greece actually received very little of the bailout money but was simply a way station in the process of shuffling it from both northern and Greek taxpayers to the banks. The Germans blaming the Greeks for their fiscal sins is merely a cover for what's really going on.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-07/pain-athens?cid=nlc-twofa-20150709&sp_mid=49066558&sp_rid=d2xvZGVrMUBjb21jYXN0Lm5ldAS2
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 15, 2015 - 02:11am PT
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Thanks Jan. Best article so far.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jul 15, 2015 - 11:04am PT
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Good thing the libtards came in and started talking about the real problem, Banksters and Conservatives
Obviously the Conservatives will shift the blame away from them, that's how they get away with what they do, propaganda and ignorance of the people. It's all Greece's fault, and corruption and this and that, it couldn't be me that supports these conservatives and their bankster owners, they told me so!
Greece: the brutality of Euro-creditors and “banksters”
http://www.lemauricien.com/article/greece-brutality-euro-creditors-and-banksters
If you genuinely care about people and their basic human rights, then you’ll easily see the madness of a strict and harsh austerity package and the dire consequences of its implementation upon people’s livelihoods. But if you are one of those utterly selfish people for whom private greed always has to take precedence over public need, then subjecting vulnerable people to inhumane and degrading treatment through austerity would be quite normal for you.
For a number of reasons, Greece has to carry out certain reforms but not necessarily what the Eurogroup has been advocating using all kinds of dirty tricks against, and unacceptable pressures on, the Greek government. Working hard to put one's finances on a better and eventually sound footing can, and must, go hand in hand with the adoption and implementation of measures to boost economic growth. After all, a country’s debt cannot be seen in the same way as you would your average household’s debt.
Unfortunately, the creditors think otherwise and the people of Greece have suffered as a result. They continue to suffer precisely because of the measures concocted in Brussels not to boost their economy but to curb their standard of living, deprive them of their wealth and inflate the obscene profit levels of banks. These institutions borrow on the money markets at very low interest rates to lend to Greece at very high interest rates. In the aftermath of the global financial meltdown of 2008, how much did banks across the globe pay off to sovereign nation-states which bailed them out with public money?
There are many observers and analysts who believe that inflicting so much pain on innocent people is horribly cruel and cannot be condoned. They include Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dr Rowan Williams (ex-archbishop of Canterbury), Pope Francis, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Piketty, Dominique de Villepin and many others. Hence their support for the Greeks, directly or indirectly.
In the referendum held on Sunday 5 July, the suffering people of Greece understandably said NO to crippling austerity. The Eurogroup typically made it clear that for negotiations to restart with Alexis Tsipras as head of the Greek government, his finance minister had to go. Yanis Varoufakis immediately walked away, or rather drove away on his motorbike, saying that he wore the creditors’ loathing with pride.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jul 15, 2015 - 11:12am PT
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Vampire Banks Will Suck Greece Dry
Saturday, July 11, 2015 22:04
By Jonathan Cook
http://beforeitsnews.com/banksters/2015/07/vampire-banks-will-suck-greece-dry-2435466.html
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis offers a clear explanation of what the euro-elites have been really up to in enforcing endless austerity on Greece.
The popular line that Greeks need to pay the price for their years of profligacy and learn fiscal discipline is, as Varoufakis observes, cover for the euro-elites’ efforts to force European tax-payers to bail out yet again the recklessness of their nation’s banks. That is why the “debt relief” for Greece is helping the banks rather than ordinary Greeks.
After the 2008 financial crash, the banks had to be saved from their reckless lending to individuals through deeply unpopular bail-outs (so-called QE, or “quantitative easing”).
Now that the banks are exposed to the debts caused by their equally reckless lending to whole nations, led by Greece but also including Spain, Portugal, Ireland and others, they need another massive bailout. But rightly that won’t wash with European taxpayers, so the euro-elites have distracted us with the idea that only through austerity can Greece be rehabilitated and fixed.
The problem, however, is that the financial sector is what really needs restructuring and rehabilitating. It has been simply buying time since the 2008 crash to keep on with its profoundly self-destructive practices, destroying not only individual families’ lives but whole nations, while a tiny elite suck out their wealth like besuited vampires.
This pain is not going to stop for Greece – in fact it is going to keep spreading to other nations – until wholesale finance reform is taken seriously.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/greece-the-pearl-of-the-mediterranean-how-to-beat-banksters-at-their-own-game/5461155
The Greeks were right to reject paying the debts, for these debts were forced upon them by the giant vampire squid, Goldman Sachs, in words of Matt Taibbi. “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”. As we now know, Goldman Sachs (you do not have to be an anti-Semite to hate them) cooked the book,s falsely pretending Greece had a high credit rating though they knew of its huge debts. When the debts snowballed, they pulled the rug and collapsed Greece’s rating, bailing out banks at the expense of the European taxpayer.
Out of €320 billion, Greece received and used about €20 billion, while the principal sum went to the banksters. Greece could not pay it off: after five years of trying, the country is in worse shape and in deeper debt than it ever was. Austerity has destroyed lives and infrastructure. The bankers planned to sell all Greek assets: harbours, railways, lands; and you can envisage yourself who would buy it. The negotiations between the EU, IMF and Greece were dishonest, explains Ashoka Mody in widely read and technical essay. That’s why the Greeks elected the far-left party Syriza and its far-right counterpart INIL to break the rules of the rigged game.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 15, 2015 - 11:19am PT
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In the referendum held on Sunday 5 July, the suffering people of Greece understandably said NO to crippling austerity.
Craig, you're forgetting a basic fact of contemporary Greek economics -- without a third party giving the government money, it has no ability to pay for anything but austerity. Also, despite your [other readers choose one] honor roll/rogues gallery of leftist advocates, if the banks aren't repaid, they have given, not lent, the Greek government money.
To the extent that other governments are purporting to aid Greece in a way that effectively repays the overextended banks in their own countries, that's really a matter for citizens of the outside governments to handle. Most conservatives I know dislike "crony capitalism," and using taxpayer funds to bail out banks that made poor lending decisions provides an excellent example of crony capitalism.
As far as the Greek economy is concerned, if the outside third parties make the "bailout loans" that, in effect, bail out their own banks, those third parties have simply substituted the banks' uncollectible Greek debt for their own uncollectible Greek debt. They haven't done anything to make the Greek situation worse; they just haven't made it better.
Again, the only thing that will help the Greek government provide the level of social services and payments the Greek citizens want is outright gifts from outside of Greece. I don't see that happening on a large enough scale to make a difference for the Greeks.
John
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Norton
Social climber
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Jul 15, 2015 - 11:26am PT
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In the referendum held on Sunday 5 July, the suffering people of Greece understandably said NO to crippling austerity.
so what, the vote was an opportunity for the Greek people to show their displeasure with
the austerity they have already endured for years now
the vote changed nothing, purely symbolic
the vote did not "soften" the new lending terms
looks like Greece is in for many more years of their creditors's imposed austerity
truth: as harsh as this sounds Greece should be thankful for any more lending given them
and make no mistake, the "fault" of this mess IS very largely Greece's own doing and NOT
the fault of the European Union's willingness to continue to lend Greece money
especially knowing that the EU may never be repaid what they have already given Greece
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 15, 2015 - 12:07pm PT
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One has to wonder if Norton has bothered to read the half dozen or so articles linked above.?
The bailouts aren't even going to Greece - just the legal obligations. They're going to bailout the bankers who recklessly pumped money into a perennial weak economy years ago. I hear the Nazis... I mean Germans... are planning on dismantling tbe Parthenon and reassembling it in Berlin. :) They've got to pay till the last drop of blood.
Of course the lenders will never be repaid. They know that, the Greek people know that, the IMF knows that. This is just sadism. Long since time for a write off and let greece start with a clean slate.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 15, 2015 - 01:19pm PT
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Of course the lenders will never be repaid. They know that, the Greek people know that, the IMF knows that. This is just sadism. Long since time for a write off and let greece start with a clean slate.
Nazi's ? Do you call black people you don't like the N word too?
Even if Greece's debt is erased today they'd fall into debt tomorrow. Don't you understand that? The problem they have, like much of the rest of the world. They/we have too many over 60 people collecting fat pensions from the Gov. and not enough people paying into the system. Period! Here in the US it takes 2 1/2 people(middle income) to pay for one person's pension and SS. We got less than 10yrs to straiten this out less we suffocate.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jul 15, 2015 - 01:54pm PT
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Greece’s Debt Overhang. Looted by Wall Street and the European Central Bank
Open Letter to Mr. Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece
By Peter Koenig
Global Research, February 06, 2015
http://www.globalresearch.ca/greeces-debt-overhang-looted-by-wall-street-and-the-european-central-bank/5430005
Dear Mr. Tsipras,
Let me first congratulate you for winning the elections on 25 January 2015. And congratulations also for dismissing the troika as one of your first deeds. Well done!
It is encouraging to see that the majority of voting Greek dares to vote for a change from the relentless misery imposed by the infamous troika – ECB, EC and IMF. The Greek people have entrusted you with the delicate task of pulling Greece out of the morass, where she has been put – totally unjustified – by this notorious troika.
Mr. Tsipras, your Government has been tricked into believing that Greece’s debt is insurmountable and could pull Europe into an abyss. Instead your country is being looted by Wall Street and their European allied too-big-to-fail banksters. Of course, with the connivance of your neoliberal predecessors, some of whom have been associated with one of the biggest Wall Street gangsters, Goldman Sachs. Indeed, the President of the European Central Bank has also been associated with this criminal financial institution. In other words, the EU financial system today is run by the extended arm of Goldman Sachs – and its Washington masters.
Neoliberalism (Neo-Con) is a murderous plague. It is invading at brushfire speed the entire western world. What makes it even more diabolical is that it controls almost all the western media. Ninety percent of the news we get in the West are controlled by six giant Anglo-Saxon media corporations. They dish out every day nefarious propaganda – lies after lies after ugly lies. They brainwash people into believing what is not.
They made Europe believe that Greece with a mere 2% of the Eurozone GDP and with about 109% debt to GDP in 2009 was a danger for Europe. If Europe was to survive economically, Greece had to be ‘rescued’ – and that with hundreds of billions of Euros in new debt!
The Greek debt would have been totally manageable without outside interference. Compare it with the US current debt of 105%, and with ‘long-term unmet obligations’ (5 years) of US$ 128 trillion, more than seven times its GDP; debt that will never be paid back, but is largely absorbed by foreign nations who hold dollar reserves – as long as the dollar remains the world’s main reserve currency.
That’s when the infamous troika struck – the extended arm of Washington. It decided that Greece would need about €300 billion in different packages over about 4 years. They imposed their usual draconian conditions. Your neoliberal predecessors played along. Greece had to punish its population with severe ‘austerity’ programs. In reality, ’austerity’ is a mere euphemism for the misery they forced the Greek Government to impose on its people; privatizing public assets, reducing public services, health and education benefits, pensions, minimum wages, dismissing public servants – overall increasing unemployment from about 10% to close to 30%, and above 60% for young people, as you well know, Mr. Tsipras, causing outright famine and sometimes death from sheer destitution.
more at link
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