Post: #426

Pallast tells it how it is. We have the same delusional "reform" politicians in Croatia who want to introduce reforms but want to keep the Euro (or rather Croatian Kuna, which cannot be printed and has a floating-within-certain-boundaries (that is, fixed) exchange rate towards the euro and is thus not an independent currency but merely a clever ruse).

I hope Živi Zid in Croatia succeeds where Syriza has committed treason and then spreads it to other countries as well. I have had the chance to speak to its leaders, and they not only understand the situation clearly, but possess a great conviction and make many personal sacrifices to fight the corrupt regime. If the EU wants them gone, they're going to have to resort to assassination.

http://zivi-zid.org/wp-content/uploads/2...System.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA-ZhNFia_c

Post: #427

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affair...ave-greece

Interesting interview with Varoufakis, it seems that he was excluded from the negotiations BECAUSE HE WANTED TO TALK ABOUT ECONOMICS!

The Troika have no interest in economic reality or they would know that Greece's debts are un payable and the Eurozone is a economic disaster. The Euro is and always has been a political device, and to hell with the economic consequences.

Heads held proudly in the sand.

"HL: You’ve said creditors objected to you because “I try and talk economics in the Eurogroup, which nobody does.” What happened when you did?

YV: It’s not that it didn’t go down well – it’s that there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. … You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on – to make sure it’s logically coherent – and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply. And that’s startling, for somebody who’s used to academic debate. … The other side always engages. Well there was no engagement at all. It was not even annoyance, it was as if one had not spoken."

Post: #428

This is all a plan of the NWO. Ain't no way Greece was ever getting out lol. The way the plans are set, every country will start losing national sovereignty over there currency. Germany will own Greece in 3-5 years outright. USA/Canada/Mexico will probably become the NA Union, etc. it's inevitable with the path that we're currently on.

Post: #429

Maybe Molyneux's IQ argument holds some merit, and includes the Greek politicians.

Post: #430

When you dig behind this monstrous curtain of "debt" -- in Greece or the US or any other country -- this is what you find:

The young are in debt to the old.
The poor are in debt to the rich.

On a massive, global, societal level. I think in fact the USA was the last big society where there was significant widespread opportunity for the young. That was 30 years ago.

What's next? The young and the poor pick up guns.

Post: #431

(07-15-2015 04:20 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  What's next? The young and the poor pick up guns.

In the United States or Europe?

I'll tell you what bratty US Millennials are going to do: they're going to sit down, shut up, and eat it. Remember, this is the retarded generation that voted for Obama, who passed a healthcare law that does nothing other than tax young people. Remember health care premiums that were $20 for a high deductible plan? They existed before Obama came in office, but only for young people, while old people were paying tons of money.

And Millennials complain about their financial problems? Maybe if they took responsibility in their life instead of blaming everyone else for their problems, they would find the only way to handle a bad future is to start working on build a better future today. Notice what happens when they want other people to fix their problems - it gets worse for them. This is what happens when you rely on others; your future will get worse.

I predict that the US, thanks to the idiotic Millennial generation, will eventually become a socialistic country (in the same way the Soviet Union was) and they will see levels of poverty that Americans have never seen. They will realize, only too late in their life, that the people they thought would help them were using them and their "victim beliefs" to put these people into power (ie: useful idiots).

Young people put someone in office who has openly and blatantly stolen from them and I'm supposed to feel sorry for this generation? They're eating the cake they wanted! This is the medical equivalent to a man cutting off his own balls, then complaining that his dick no longer gets hard.

Post: #432

Here is a great breakdown of why the EU is toxic: http://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/14/t...mechanism/



As you can see, none of the European countries outside of the EU performed poorly, in spite of shitty governments (such as Turkey). Meanwhile, EU countries got fucked with only a few exceptions. It's pretty obvious that floating currencies are superior to fixed pegged amounts.

Post: #433

(07-15-2015 05:33 PM)SunW Wrote:  

(07-15-2015 04:20 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  What's next? The young and the poor pick up guns.

In the United States or Europe?

I'll tell you what bratty US Millennials are going to do: they're going to sit down, shut up, and eat it. Remember, this is the retarded generation that voted for Obama, who passed a healthcare law that does nothing other than tax young people. Remember health care premiums that were $20 for a high deductible plan? They existed before Obama came in office, but only for young people, while old people were paying tons of money.

And Millennials complain about their financial problems? Maybe if they took responsibility in their life instead of blaming everyone else for their problems, they would find the only way to handle a bad future is to start working on build a better future today. Notice what happens when they want other people to fix their problems - it gets worse for them. This is what happens when you rely on others; your future will get worse.

I predict that the US, thanks to the idiotic Millennial generation, will eventually become a socialistic country (in the same way the Soviet Union was) and they will see levels of poverty that Americans have never seen. They will realize, only too late in their life, that the people they thought would help them were using them and their "victim beliefs" to put these people into power (ie: useful idiots).

Young people put someone in office who has openly and blatantly stolen from them and I'm supposed to feel sorry for this generation? They're eating the cake they wanted! This is the medical equivalent to a man cutting off his own balls, then complaining that his dick no longer gets hard.

And then they pick up guns.

Post: #434

Great video by Aaron. The media can play the "poe little Greece" narrative, but they're eating their socialism. The irony that the media miss is that Greece is an excellent example of why leftism doesn't work.

Post: #435

And awaaaaaay we go:

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/r...7443623404

First time protests have gotten violent since Syriza came to power.

Quote:Standing next to a banner showing a ‘No’ wrecking ball knocking down a wall of austerity measures, primary school teacher Natasia Kokkoli, 53, said the bailout deal “is simply not fair”, and perhaps it would be better to leave the eurozone.
“I think Greece is being used as an experiment by Europe. With the banks empty of course it’s hard, but without the euro maybe Greece could find its way again,” she said.

Translation from the Greek: give us back our printing presses so we can pay public servants like me who don't understand what hyperinflation is.

Quote:Vendors selling beer, roasted sweetcorn and nuts had been doing a brisk trade before gangs of mainly male protesters in black t-shirts, many sporting sunglasses over their balaclavas, started to taunt police.
“People are angry. Yes Tsipras had a choice, he chose to lie to us. This is the result,” said Maximos, 37, as protesters near him waved a sign reading “We said ‘No’, we meant ‘No’”

At least people still have money for beer, apparently. Although I suppose they could just be stockpiling supplies for barter.

Post: #436

Greek's protest violently at their betrayal: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150715...49b07.html

Golden Dawn steps up as the only heroes the Greeks can trust: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...92791.html


Cue Civil War in 5...4...3...2...

Post: #437

(07-16-2015 07:37 AM)Samseau Wrote:  Greek's protest violently at their betrayal: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150715...49b07.html

Golden Dawn steps up as the only heroes the Greeks can trust: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...92791.html


Cue Civil War in 5...4...3...2...

What do you think will be the result?

Post: #438

As said, folks, what's happening in Greece at a micro level is worth carefully studying for future reference. When the US dollar hyperinflates, you are likely to see very similar behaviour. Indeed what you're seeing in Greece matches closely with how people behaved in past currency crises of a similar nature - look up an old, old book called Blockade by Anna Eisenmeiger, which was a diary of going through hyperinflation in Austria between WW1 and WW2.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/g...7445303142

Quote:USE it or lose it — that’s the plan for many Greeks, who have been going on a credit card-fuelled spending spree out of fear their savings could be confiscated or devalued.

This is a microcosm of what happens economically in hyperinflation. Greeks are spending on their credit cards because once serious inflation hits, credit simply will not be offered at all - because in hyperinflationary conditions, lenders cannot work out what the interest rate is or should be. Anyone offering loans in hyperinflationary conditions is bound to lose money.

Quote:Wary of the experience in fellow eurozone member Cyprus two years ago, when deposits were seized to recapitalise banks, Greeks are opting to drain their accounts by electronically paying taxes and bills — or buying luxury goods.

Don't be surprised when Greece does something very similar to its own citizens. As for the idea that the banks will reopen? Very doubtful at best. Something similar happened in the US in the Great Depression: FDR slapped a bank holiday on to stop people getting their money out. Something like 6,000 banks across the country closed their doors that day. A good 2,000 or more never reopened them.

Quote:“Up to last weekend, people bought a lot of things to protect their money,” confirmed Andreas Triantaphylidis, vice president of the Association of Athens Merchants.

Between June 27, when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced a referendum that made his eurozone creditors boil, and July 10, when speculation peaked that Greece could crash out of the euro, luxury products have been flying off the shelves.

Sales of expensive goods such as watches and jewellery and electronic items like smartphones and computers leapt 30 per cent compared to the same period last year, Triantaphylidis said.

On one hand, the behaviour of people buying up expensive consumer goods is superficially smart. If you've got your money in consumer goods, you don't have to trade on the government's shit currency. On the other hand, this is actually a penny wise and a pound foolish, because expensive consumer goods like this -- and like gold ingots -- are not easily divisible into smaller proportions. You could easily find yourself having to hand over a 6,000-euro watch for a bag of potatoes. Someone who stockpiles the same value in small, divisible quantities -- for example, buying a case of cigarettes or a couple of slabs of alcohol -- is going to be in a better position since they can barter much more easily, bit by bit; a few apples for a pack of cigarettes, a side of beef for a case of alcohol, and so on.

Quote:Some 500,000 credit cards were delivered in the past few days, helping push card transactions up 130 per cent, according to the Association of Greek Banks.

If so, then Greek banks in general are even more fucking stupid than I gave them credit (ha ha) for. Those banks are not going to see a single dollar of those transactions repaid to them in real terms.

Quote:“Last week, we had a lot of clients. They wanted to buy all they could, for fear of losing half of their savings,” said Stephanie, a saleswoman in a family-owned jewellery store in the capital’s up-market Kolonaki neighbourhood.Jewellery made of gold, a traditional safe-haven metal, and luxury watches, some of which cost up to 6,000 euros, were snatched up by “not especially rich” customers aged 30 to 50, the 28-year-old employee said.

“Greeks: I don’t understand them. Me, I’d never spend my money in these times,” Stephanie added.

Stephanie, likely a middle-class Greek woman who hasn't had to scramble in a currency crisis before, is about to get an object lesson in what happens to the middle class in such crises: it is devastated. Anna Eisenmeiger, in the book Blockade, was a doctor's wife in Austria: the urban upper middle class. By the point where she abandoned her diary in sheer despair, she had lost all of her money, her home, and had lost a nephew to starvation.

Make no mistake: in inflationary or hyperinflationary conditions, you either hold your goods in assets not denominated in the currency you want to avoid, or you get rid of the shit currency you hold as fast as you can. In hyperinflationary Germany, employees would be paid twice per day - and on being paid those employees would invariably run to stores to spend the money and thus get rid of their cash, because their money literally devalued in the time it took to get to the store.

Post: #439

But Paracelsus, When will Samseau see Golden Dawn take over?

Post: #440

(07-16-2015 09:20 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  But Paracelsus, When will Samseau see Golden Dawn take over?

I say the issue is irrelevant. Someone earlier in the thread observed along the lines that Golden Dawn will do nothing different in real terms to Syriza if and when it takes power. Governments are governments: they spend other people's money and they will do whatever it takes to retain power. Governments ultimately cannot hold out against market forces. Should Golden Dawn come into power, there's only two things they are likely to do: either default entirely on Greece's debt, which will cause a currency crisis in Greece and elsewhere ... or seize everyone's Euros and reissue the drachma, which will cause a currency crisis and hyperinflation almost by definition.

A civil war is going to make things even worse, because a civil war invariably destroys infrastructure and sends markets fleeing from the war zone. Not to mention that Greece has got fuck all cash to pay for AK-47s in any event - unless you think arms dealers want to be paid in drachmas whose only use will be wiping your arse. Golden Dawn is going to inherit a dysfunctional, useless country with a terminal case of debt.

Post: #441

I think what Tsipras is trying to do is cave in to eurozone demand and get the bailout money and reinstitute the drachma since it takes time to circulate the currency into the economy.

Post: #442

(07-16-2015 09:26 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(07-16-2015 09:20 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  But Paracelsus, When will Samseau see Golden Dawn take over?

I say the issue is irrelevant. Someone earlier in the thread observed along the lines that Golden Dawn will do nothing different in real terms to Syriza if and when it takes power. Governments are governments: they spend other people's money and they will do whatever it takes to retain power. Governments ultimately cannot hold out against market forces. Should Golden Dawn come into power, there's only two things they are likely to do: either default entirely on Greece's debt, which will cause a currency crisis in Greece and elsewhere ... or seize everyone's Euros and reissue the drachma, which will cause a currency crisis and hyperinflation almost by definition.

A civil war is going to make things even worse, because a civil war invariably destroys infrastructure and sends markets fleeing from the war zone. Not to mention that Greece has got fuck all cash to pay for AK-47s in any event - unless you think arms dealers want to be paid in drachmas whose only use will be wiping your arse. Golden Dawn is going to inherit a dysfunctional, useless country with a terminal case of debt.

They'll probably use the short time they're in power for a lot of political score settling.

It's stupid for any party to want to be running that shitshow, because they'll get the blame when they make things worse or fail to magically conjure up prosperity for the economically ignorant people who have unrealistic expectations.

Post: #443

Paracelsus - you need to read less of libertarian works.

Hyperinflation was always their boogie-man and funny enough it was their libertarian Weimar Republic which managed to do so in the German times.

But I am digressing - in order for this to happen, then Greece would have to return to the Drachma - that means that one party would have to want to lead them out of there. This is not going to happen.
In addition they would have to hire Zimbabwe's leaders for the management of the central bank. The central bank itself is staffed and completely controlled by people who will never let hyperinflation happen at all. You would really have to seize control of the central bank with the military and let fools take over the printing presses.

In addition I might add that the government is in control of 3% of the money supply, while 97% is generated by the banks (or not, if they restrict credit). So essentially the government would then have to flood the market with printed cash as if it was 1827 money-politics wise.

This is utterly unrealistic. There won't be any politicians to enact that - not even Golden Dawn. For the boogieman of hyperinflation to happen - that is about as likely as if Greece invades the EU in order to cross to Switzerland, because it wants to grab their gold.

There will be riots, but austerity and the selloff of Greece will continue. And there may be a solution to it, when Greece surrenders financial control to the EU completely. Then they may let them off the hook.

Post: #444

(07-16-2015 09:26 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  Should Golden Dawn come into power, there's only two things they are likely to do: either default entirely on Greece's debt, which will cause a currency crisis in Greece and elsewhere ... or seize everyone's Euros and reissue the drachma, which will cause a currency crisis and hyperinflation almost by definition.

Why this "or"? It assumes that only one of these is an option, whereas in reality each of those options is pointless (and suicidal) without the other one. Only combined can they produce a healthy Greek economy, and there is no reason not to enact them together. They are synergistic, not mutually exclusive.

Post: #445

Since the Drachma reinstituted is a gamble in the middle of an austerity tsunami here is a radical idea that may not be so radical,

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/des...s/2484391/

There is a large Greek American population in Southern New Hampshire - many are business owners and have family in Greece they visit yearly largely during the month of August - two I know are planning on going and have said the islands are much less volatile then the metro Athens area. And the islands are supported by a large tourism and expat families connections.

There are already millions of USD floating around the country of Greece and its out islands, Greece being a seafaring nation is not particularly dependent upon its land bridge connections to the EU.

The USD has a relatively stable exchange rate history with the EURO - if they can not get enough Euros they could go with the USD in the interim until they adopt a new monetary system that is not dependent upon massive debt issuance to the Euro Banksters Troika... plus the article above lists some surprising countries that float their economies on the USD - some officially and then others unofficially.

Post: #446

Germany leaving the Eurozone would work just fine too

It sounds outrageous, but it's actually a perfectly valid solution.

Post: #447

(07-17-2015 01:32 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  Germany leaving the Eurozone would work just fine too

It sounds outrageous, but it's actually a perfectly valid solution.

It would be valid - from the viewpoint of the southern Eurozone states.

For Germany it would be nothing short of an economic absurdity.

Its primarily export-focused, manufacturing-based economy does better when its currency is relatively undervalued (making its exports cheaper and thus more competitive on the global market.) Going back to the D-Mark would make its exports way more expensive, and would likely lead to a severe (at best) recession.

Germany actually has a rather perverse incentive to keep this crisis on a low boil, to keep the value of the euro down and thus price its exports more competitively. The real reason why Germany's leaders are so adamant about saving the Eurozone at any cost is because it's an insanely profitable cash-cow for the German economy.

As usual, in the end it all comes down to money.

Post: #448

(07-15-2015 06:12 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  And then they pick up guns.

Or in France, Guillotines.

Post: #449

(07-17-2015 12:43 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  This is not going to happen. In addition they would have to hire Zimbabwe's leaders for the management of the central bank. The central bank itself is staffed and completely controlled by people who will never let hyperinflation happen at all. You would really have to seize control of the central bank with the military and let fools take over the printing presses.

They already have. Said fools are called "politicians," and they always have control of the printing presses ... unless, of course, like Greece you're in the EU and have given that right away (for the moment, and until they reissue the drachma instead).

Do you really think the average central bank has the authority or the practical capacity to refuse a direction from its relevant government? Or that a central bank governor refusing to take such a direction from its government would not shortly thereafter be replaced by one who would?

Post: #450

(07-17-2015 06:13 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(07-17-2015 12:43 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  This is not going to happen. In addition they would have to hire Zimbabwe's leaders for the management of the central bank. The central bank itself is staffed and completely controlled by people who will never let hyperinflation happen at all. You would really have to seize control of the central bank with the military and let fools take over the printing presses.

They already have. Said fools are called "politicians," and they always have control of the printing presses ... unless, of course, like Greece you're in the EU and have given that right away (for the moment, and until they reissue the drachma instead).

Do you really think the average central bank has the authority or the practical capacity to refuse a direction from its relevant government? Or that a central bank governor refusing to take such a direction from its government would not shortly thereafter be replaced by one who would?

The Central Banks are actually never under the control of politicians. The only one who had any intention of exerting any control was Victor Urban from Hungary and he was quickly reprimanded by the EU. They threatened to oust Hungary from the EU and also call in all financial aid and even debts if he so much as touched the private central bank.

Most central banks - even the ones supposedly under government control - are independent and under complete control of the BIS. BIS is a private entity just as the IMF or the UN are. That's when I said that if Greece wanted to control the Central Bank it would have to storm it via the military. Never mind - it's a useless discussion anyway.