Greece shocks markets with referendum on austerity

[Valmy]

How is it racist when someone attacks blacks?  Racism is not biological...

Are you sure there is not some racist gene in there?

[Razgovory]

...tired racist morality tropes about hardworking Protestants and lazy Mediterraneans.

How is it racist when they're the same race?

You shut your mouth. Mediteranean types are not white, ergo a different race.

I don't think Protestant is a race though.

[jimmy olsen]

You shut your mouth. Mediteranean types are not white, ergo a different race.

Channeling Slargos bullshit for a particular reason?

[Valmy]

You shut your mouth. Mediteranean types are not white, ergo a different race.

Channeling Slargos bullshit for a particular reason?

He is in a weird mood today.  He has been making fun of plj's daughter's nose for some odd reason in the College Football thread.

[Barrister]

You shut your mouth. Mediteranean types are not white, ergo a different race.

Channeling Slargos bullshit for a particular reason?

I've been trolling HVC for at least a year with the 'latinos are not white' line.

[Barrister]

You shut your mouth. Mediteranean types are not white, ergo a different race.

Channeling Slargos bullshit for a particular reason?

He is in a weird mood today.  He has been making fun of plj's daughter's nose for some odd reason in the College Football thread.

Get it right - I was making fun of PLJ's nose.

[Sheilbh]

It just made me wonder what can the Greeks do?

They can lower their wages and make their products and services competitive again.

As Grumbler said that doesn't solve the problem of their debt.  Plus - and this is why I oppose them returning to the Drachma - Greece has never been Germany.  Greece has always been a sclerotic economy that alternates between devaluation and high inflation.  So saying Greece needs to 'lower their wages and be competitive again' is like saying Germany needs to return to her role as the world centre of experimental high finance.

As I say I think a lot of this has been done to protect French and German banks, with little care for what's actually going to help Greece.  If they were a Latin American country they'd have had a very different program.

I don't see how any of that is going to magically make the money to pay back their lenders appear out of nowhere.

I'm closer to Mihali's view than I used to be.  But they'd default.  They'd do what Argentina's done which hasn't been easy but has been reasonably supported by Argentines.  According to Paul Mason's blog which I posted earlier the only reason he thinks that isn't setting itself up for the Greeks is that they don't have a Kirchner.  They've not got a charismatic, slightly autocratic political leader who can pull it off.

So instead the only party likely to campaign for a 'no' - which will mean they're out of the Euro - is the rather unreconstructed Communist party.  The rest, even the eco-left and the hard-right will probably support a 'yes' vote.

[Valmy]

As I say I think a lot of this has been done to protect French and German banks, with little care for what's actually going to help Greece.  If they were a Latin American country they'd have had a very different program.

Wait aren't they cutting like half of their debt?  That strikes me as trying to help Greece.

[Gups]

As I say I think a lot of this has been done to protect French and German banks, with little care for what's actually going to help Greece.  If they were a Latin American country they'd have had a very different program.

Wait aren't they cutting like half of their debt?  That strikes me as trying to help Greece.

Yes, but it's not really aimed at helping Greece. It's to prevent a default which (a) risks contagion and (b) means a hit on their banks.

There's nothing very charitable about this. If France and Germany could throw Greece to the wolves they would. And rightly so.

[alfred russel]

As I say I think a lot of this has been done to protect French and German banks, with little care for what's actually going to help Greece.  If they were a Latin American country they'd have had a very different program.

Wait aren't they cutting like half of their debt?  That strikes me as trying to help Greece.

The cutting of debt strikes me as a default.

[Gups]

Not if it's agreed

[Martinus]

I am not sure the model of household economics is especially relevant to the situation of States borrowing and international finance.

Yeah, sovereign debtors do not go bust because they borrowed more than they can repay per se, but because the cost of their debt suddenly skyrockets. While prudent financial politics can help here, a lot of this depends on external factors.

That does not mean of course that Greeks are faultless.

[The Minsky Moment]

it was the Greek people who basked in the shower of loaned money their leaders German bankers bathed them in.

Fixed

The Tamas/Martinus response helps explain why the EU is in danger of ending up a failed project.  Even at the level of the relatively well-informed elite (yeah, yeah, hold the jokes), there is a lack of understanding of the fundamental interconnections in the financial system.  There are no innocent parties here.  If some states got hooked on financial crack, their behavior was enabled by the states that chose to profit from being the drug dealers.  But what we see is that when a crisis arises, the pan-European balls of light rally around their tribes to chant and point fingers.  It is Lincoln's house divided against itself, and no amount of fancy contemporary European architecture can keep such a structure standing for the long run.

[MadImmortalMan]

As I say I think a lot of this has been done to protect French and German banks, with little care for what's actually going to help Greece.  If they were a Latin American country they'd have had a very different program.

Wait aren't they cutting like half of their debt?  That strikes me as trying to help Greece.

The cutting of debt strikes me as a default.

Somebody needs to let those guys at the ISDA know.

[alfred russel]

Not if it's agreed

I don't think many were agreeing out of the charity of in their hearts.