Basically, I'm saying that the country is already done for. The bailouts aren't going towards anything even remotely realistic in terms of turning the country around. It seems that the country is paying lip service towards actually raising tax revenue and getting its financial house in order WHILE gladly taking the extra money KNOWING FULL WELL that it's at the epicenter of the fate of numerous European banks (Granted I suppose the liquidity spiggots that opened a few months back are presently solving this problem). I just think that your initial post didn't address the real reasons as to why so many of these countries are getting unprecedented support from the ECB and the Fed. It's not about saving the country, per se, it's more about saving the "entity" and the concommitant damage that a default would have on the derivatives market (shadow banking system).
Greece will be ok! there's no oil in it or geopolitical interest...so usa won't "help" them http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/us-egypt-usa-idUSTRE81D0TM20120214
Fundamentally we dont really disagree on anything, If i Oversimplified it in my initial post, it is only because im getting pissed off by these dumb fucking greeks who are in the street torching buildings, and whining about the terms of the loan, and whining about austerity, and what is pissing me off is that they dont seem to realize that, while they trash their cities, the guillotine is currently hanging by a thread two feet above their heads.
"Greece and the return of the economic 'death spiral'" "The lesson of 2008 was that stimulus prevented a new Great Depression. Without similar drastic help, Greece will now default "During the latter part of 2008, central bankers around the world worried secretly that the death spiral was approaching. The concern was that it was too late to stop economies crashing. In the event, concerted international action on both monetary and fiscal policy prevented collapse â although they did get pretty darn close to the precipice. "Interest rates were cut to zero. Banks and even car companies were rescued. Massive amounts of liquidity were made available. There were tax cuts, cash for clunkers and even fridges, along with schemes to help the young unemployed. Plus the collapse came very quickly. "In the UK, then Chancellor Alistair Darling had only a few hours notice that the Royal Bank of Scotland was about to fail. The fear was that cash machines around the world would close, banks would fold and stock markets would tank within hours. This was a once-in-100-year shock: in my view, without such unprecedented intervention, unemployment rates in the US and Europe could well have risen to over 24% â which is where they are already in Greece and Spain. "Stimulus worked, simple as that. "Germany threw wads of cash at the problem, notably through its short-work (or Kurzarbeit) programme, by which companies could temporarily move employees onto shorter work schedules when demand was weak. Companies paid only for the hours worked, while the government provided up to two thirds of the workers' remaining wages. As a result, German unemployment fell, whereas the percentage of jobless in the US reached double digits in October 2009 in the United States." Article continues... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...ce-return-economic-death-spiral?newsfeed=true
"Greece could feed itself, says farmers conference "The head of Greeceâs main farmersâ union said on Wednesday that the country could be 98 percent self-sufficient if it made the most of its capacity to produce food. "Speaking at a conference in Thessaloniki organized by the Panhellenic Confederation of Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives (PASEGES), Tzanetos Karamichas said that Greece produces almost twice as much rice as it needs while reaching close to self-sufficiency on a lot of fruits and vegetables. âWe have to stop undermining Greek agricultural production and terrorizing people about not having enough to eat if the country goes bankrupt,â he said. âWe can surpass self-sufficiency, create new wealth and support the country.â http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_01/02/2012_425569
If Greece defaulted and returned to the Drachma (and then devalued), tourism would explode. The Greeks would rebound faster than Iceland did when IT told the the UK to go F itself.