It’s late Sunday afternoon, Eastern time, and early reports suggest that Greeks have voted heavily against the austerity that creditors have demanded. If so, they have shot themselves not in the foot, but in the head. Perhaps they are counting on a humanitarian rescue package that will at least allow them to eat? If so, trading drachmas for necessities could prove far more difficult than the voters seem to imagine. The fact that Greeks are rejecting austerity even after having lined up at ATMs last week to extract a mere 60 euros per day suggests they are digging in their heels, and damn the consequences. They are about to pay a heavy price for voting their convictions.
Gun to Head, Greeks Pull Trigger
- July 6, 2015, 11:01 pm
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July 5, 2015, 11:22 pm
Finally, the Greeks have had enough. Regardless of any “good faith” intentions, the truth is that Greece had no chance in hell of getting out from under Das Boot. The Troika refused any restructuring of Greek debt. The only option they offered Greece was to renew their international version of a “payday loan”.
I would liken the gun to the head scenario to the scene in The Deer Hunter when Robert De Niro, forced to play Russian roulette by his captors, asks for two bullets and is able to shoot one of the guards and escapes his Mekong River prison. Greece turned the gun on Brussels and escaped, momentarily, certain death. They are not out of the jungle yet, but still fighting.
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Denmark, Iceland and the Czech Republic are all doing fine without Brussels’ help. Iceland in 2008 faced a financial catastrophe never seen in modern times, but it survived and is growing GDP at a respectable rate (20%+ since 2000). Greece will recover also after it claws its way out of the jungle.Short the Euro… it’s doomed
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July 5, 2015, 10:28 pm
Tsipras has played them like a fiddle!
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July 5, 2015, 9:19 pm
John Wilson, agree about the U.S., but the Greeks are not voting no because they’re going to finally do the right things re economics. They actually believe in fairy tails. Keynes only said a little debt is good, not a LOT of debt is great.
Greece will be destroyed. Any use by the Russians/Chinese will only serve as a chink in the armor of the right flank and soft underbelly of Europe in WW3.
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July 5, 2015, 8:50 pm
the Brussels reinstitution of ‘debtor’ prison’ is destroying the very fabric of society and according to Martin Armstrong the Greeks and all the other members of Brussels’ debtors prison will never be allowed to leave the eurozone — they all signed some agreement that would never be allowed to leave–the particulars are at armstrongeconomics.com
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July 5, 2015, 7:17 pm
And what would you have them do, Rick?
Allow Brussels to continue putting their foot on their neck and crushing them to death?
As stupid as the Greeks were to get into the situation they’re in, at least they have the balls to say enough is enough.
Can you imagine if we Americans stood up to the idiotic rulings by the Supreme Court?
The militarized police and the National Guard would open fire in a heartbeat – killing anyone that had any semblance of sanity to go to D.C. and stop the madness.
Dire times require dire action – even if it means shooting yourself in the head to get back to common sense.
Not the route I would take, but at least the Greeks are standing up to the idiots in Brussels and biting the bullet vs. taking the bullet.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the straw that breaks the facade we have for the fiat financial world that we live in.
Always enjoy your comments!
keep up the good work.
Cheers&&&&&
Europe and the rest of the world know that Greece will never be able to pay more than a small fraction of its debts, John. In order to keep the money flowing, however, lenders were looking, simply, for a show of good faith and the reassurance that Greeks at least recognize they must get their financial house in order. The austerity that the voters have imposed on themselves will ultimately prove worse than anything eurozone lenders might have demanded of them. RA
Rick, your comment is incorrect. How much of their expenditures are interest on debt, that’s the issue.The Country has been bled to death but the bankers still want interest on debt, which they simply cannot pay. The politicians who borrowed it are long gone, why should the starve for 30 years to cover politicians agreements selling them out? The “austerity” wasn’t theirs and that is my point, it austerity to pay interest on debts. Once they go to their own currency, less all debts or much of them, they can start anew with austerity which works. Europe will be screwed, not Greece in the end. Spain, Italy, France, they will all walk on their debts.
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Keeping up interest payments is the least that might have been demanded of them, WJ. Nobody was even talking about the repayment of principal. RA