Greek minister of Energy, Panagiotis Lafazanis, announced today that the privatisation of the biggest energyproducer will be cancelled. So Greece is already breaking the promises they made yesterday. Greece should receive fresh money friday, but maybe they will receive the grexit instead. Germany told that Greece should do what they promised. But Greeks that cannot lie and cheat are no real Greeks. Those who don't understand that are idiots. Greece confirmed yesterday that all running privatisation would continue. But today they changed their mind. Let's hope that Europe changes her mind too about the promised money. As long as Greece will not hit the wall very very very hard they will continue this game.
Yes, and I am not referring to Greece here... The Eurozone has suffered through one sh1tstorm after another. Isn't it rather telling that, since the original Eurogeddon crisis, we've had pretty much ongoing mini-crises continuously in Europe and relative stability elsewhere? Isn't there a message in there that European approach of "business as usual" isn't working and the construct is in dire need of a better framework? Again, it's not just me saying that... Yes, and the difference is between responsibility to a single entity vs responsibility to a bunch of agents, each w/their own agenda and ulterior motive. I don't know how else I can explain this "huge difference". http://www.wsj.com/articles/ecbs-risk-sharing-riddle-for-markets-heard-on-the-street-1422024124 http://www.voxeu.org/article/effective-eurozone-qe-size-matters-more-risk-sharing http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0700fd98-9ff5-11e4-aa89-00144feab7de.html#axzz3SlOb8WbM http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2012/html/sp120420.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2015/html/sp150202.en.html etc etc etc As to the Fed, let me re-iterate that I never argued that what the Fed did was less or more risky than the ECB. IMHO, that's irrelevant.
The Biggest Problem For Greece Isn't Debt: It's This "Greeks consider taxes as theft," which, among other things, explains, as WSJ reports, at the end of 2014, Greeks owed their government about €76 billion in unpaid taxes accrued over decades; the government says only €9 billion of that can be recovered, with most of the rest lost to insolvency. Syriza is now making tax collection a top priority among the measures promises the new Troika, but as one government official warned, "the Greek economy would collapse if the government were to force these people to pay taxes." The bottom line is that "normally taxes are considered the price you have to pay for a just state, but this is not accepted by the Greek mentality," and perhaps with this latest round of deference to the EU overlords, it is clear why... Greece’s new government, scrambling to secure another tranche of short-term funding, agreed on Tuesday to make tax collection a top priority on a long list of measures. Yet previous governments have made similar promises, only to fall short. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “Greeks consider taxes as theft,” said Aristides Hatzis, an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Athens. “Normally taxes are considered the price you have to pay for a just state, but this is not accepted by the Greek mentality.” Indeed, for most Greeks tax evasion isn’t considered a serious crime and there is little stigma attached to getting caught, unlike in other European countries or even the U.S. ... Kosmas, a 32-year-old chef in Athens, says his income taxes are automatically deducted from monthly paychecks. But every time he buys something and he is given an option to pay less if he doesn’t ask for a receipt, he says yes. “It is a win-win situation,” he said. “I pay less for the products and the store pays less in taxes.” ... The government’s tax-revenue shortfall in January alone was 23% below its €4.5 billion target for the month. Last week, the government outlined plans to forgive up to 50% of individuals’ tax arrears, a sign would make good on its campaign rhetoric. Syriza would risk a popular uprising by the very people who put it into power if it were to back away from those policies and get tough on taxes, political analysts warn. Even within the government’s own ranks, officials say Syriza can’t risk tougher enforcement. The reason isn’t just political, but economic. .. “The Greek economy would collapse if the government were to force these people to pay taxes,” said one senior government official. * * * And it seems they are already in trouble... Greece admitted on Wednesday it will struggle to make debt repayments to the IMF and the European Central Bank this year as Germany's finance minister voiced open doubts about Athens' trustworthiness. A day after euro zone finance ministers agreed to a four-month extension of a financial rescue for the currency bloc's most heavily indebted member, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis gave a frank assessment of Greece's financial position. "We will not have liquidity problems for the public sector. But we will definitely have problems in making debt payments to the IMF now and to the ECB in July," he told Alpha Radio. * * *
1) of course. I am fully and 100% on your page. Europe needs a different framework. But when a house is burning you don't spend your time on designing a better structure but first concern yourself with killing the fire. Delays and slower speed happens when you put together nations of starkly different cultures. Nobody doubts the huge benefits to peace, safety, and security the EU has brought to its member states. But should the EMU have never been created? Would the EU have been as stable as it is without a monetary union? Or would a financially degenerating nation destabilized peace and security as well? I do not have the answers. 2) Well I do not see any diverging results from this difference. Let's keep it real for a moment, a) most NCBs within the EU run a highly responsible and coordinated monetary policy as set forth by ECB, and b) the large majority of nations within the European union probably run a more unified fiscal policy than the differences you see in financial and fiscal management between New York state and Louisiana. Thanks for the links, I will read through some of those which I found interesting.
Yes, agreed and I don't have the answers either... I do think, though, that there comes a point where integration through "perma-crisis", a la Jean Monnet, starts to become more costly than having the union in the first place. Oh, good lord, I couldn't possibly disagree more with a statement like this, on a whole variety of levels.
I guess we can live with that. In the end the EU and EMU has served all those countries very well that act economically responsibly and which understand the benefits but also the risks of leverage. I doubt Greece would have lasted without couple more coup d'etats at best and without an asset grab by the likes of Russia or China at worst outside the EU/EMU shield. In that even the socially irresponsible countries benefited. Net net a relative wealth transfer has occurred which follows the desire of most European nations to structure their economies according to social market principles. A lot of arguments come down to philosophical lines of reasoning. Some nations encourage hard core capitalism with 1-5% extremely smart and rich and 95-99% living near the bottom while other economies strive for more social balance. Resorting the European experiment to pure economics falls completely short of the original intent. That some member states will over time violate certain EMU criteria, even that some states might drop out of the EMU system was from the beginning anticipated and expected. I agree that there lacks a specific mechanism and rules of procedure to facilitate such. That is something that needs to be worked on, but as European I appreciate a system that affords its average citizen a much better protection and social welfare system than the macho capitalism exercised in the US that degrades the masses to those living at the fringe of personal bankruptcy and a few individuals to strike it rich beyond imagination. I never took issue with Germany, for example, transferring wast amounts of wealth to Greece or Spain. What has to end is the abuse and strangulation that Greeks apply to hold the rest of Europe hostage.
The president of Eurogroup Dijsselbloem said today that the actual program will be prolongated with four months, but that Greece WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY MONEY ANYMORE till they executed the reforms that were promised. At this moment these conditions are not fullfilled and they will not be fullfilled soon ( certainly not before april) Dijsselbloem said. it is clear that the Greeks now should first do what they promised before they will receive any money at all. Europe starts to understand how Greeks think.