Warren Dew wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

minininja wrote:
But the difference is the federal taxes and redistribution between states.

Except that this only applies within the US and even with this system of redistribution, there are still significant differences in deprivation between the richer and poorer stats. Clearly the US system mitigates the worst of this problem, hence...

The U.S. doesn't mitigate the problem at all. Redistribution here is not from richer states to poorer states; it is from less politically powerful to more politically powerful states.

That sounds more in line with reality.

Thommo wrote:

Nicko wrote:The question is what to do now? The austerity measures have only deepened the recession to the point where the economy is basically paralysed.

Greece's economy was the fastest growing in the Eurozone and the government was once again issuing bonds last time austerity was in effect. The economy has become paralyzed under Syriza.

To be fair, the economic growth took place only after the troika allowed the Samaras government to put targeted tax cuts into place. But yes, the government spending cuts that were part of austerity were necessary to put the budget in a position where those tax cuts could be implemented.

Darkchilde wrote:And also: if Greece is out of the eurozone, we will have a huge humanitarian problem. LGBT people, immigrants, those who are not "pure" greeks will be in grave danger as there will be no european law to stop discrimination. And I am serious because "Golden Dawn" is right around the corner and are part of those who will vote No in the referendum.

I was noticing that. The referendum gives Golden Dawn a golden opportunity to achieve their goal of leaving the EU.

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

minininja wrote:
But the difference is the federal taxes and redistribution between states.

Except that this only applies within the US and even with this system of redistribution, there are still significant differences in deprivation between the richer and poorer stats. Clearly the US system mitigates the worst of this problem, hence...

The U.S. doesn't mitigate the problem at all. Redistribution here is not from richer states to poorer states; it is from less politically powerful to more politically powerful states.

That sounds more in line with reality.

Come on, you guys are better than that.

http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/

mattthomas wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

mattthomas wrote:Using terms like "they" are great for distancing the reality that punitive measures enforced by European governments upon Greece are going to affect millions of people whose role in the economic failings equate to the square root of fuck all.

Why did not Greece accept the same package as Ireland, Spain and Portugal? It was not good enough for them. Sorry.
You dont accept that corruption was high very high in Greece? That only a tiny minority were involved?
Then you are deluded I am afraid. Corruption was rife throughout the Greek society.
It was not just the big boys it was all the way down.

Did you read what Darkchilde wrote? Even today the last vestiges are still holding out. Still refusing to see that they are the cause of the problem.

So you think that around 11 million Greeks had a hand in it? That's some amazingly wide brush stroke there. Not sure it's one I can comprehend.

The younger generations are seeing the problem, however the older ones are not letting it go. That's majorly why a lot of people are leaving. It's the "I have 40-50 years experience I know what I am doing" thing, or the "This has worked fort 20 years now, no need to change it" even if evidence shows that there is a better way. Or a lot of the old generation still listening to whomever will promise them just a euro more on their pension and voting for them...

And in the past years before the crisis, most parents were thinking to put their children to work in the public sector so they would be taken care of the rest of their lives. And that had started to change after the introduction of the euro. A number of things: people having better access to technology, the internet, and getting better educated.

And on a note for the public sector because I've had contact with a lot of public sector employees: there was a big number of them that were lazy assholes, there were a number that were doing their job. The new generation of public employees are now the ones who actually work a lot.One of the reasons is the older generation cannot work with computers, most of them because they do not want to learn; the younger generation also generally have a lot more patience and are a lot more polite than the older generation. They have started learning. If Greece goes out of euro and european union, all that will disappear. There will be no incentive any more. There will be no growth no going forward. Just backwards.

Beatsong wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:From Thommo's link:

“It’s a vicious circle. Nothing gets done any more because it’s so much more difficult to bribe civil servants,” complained one octogenarian, who admitted he found himself hankering for the bad old days. “In the past, bribes ensured a degree of efficiency. Now nothing works.”

And you wonder why they have problems.

And yet you can't have it both ways. If the dude is complaining that there's so much LESS corruption now than before, you can't use that in support of the complaint that they haven't done anything about corruption and it's still sucking just as much money out.

I read it slightly differently. I think he's complaining that it's much more expensive to bribe people than before, not that they are refusing to take bribes.

minininja wrote:Stand up to them by saying they won't have their democracy undermined and won't be bullied into accepting a never ending debt, and that if the banks want anything back at all then they need to accept that some debt relief needs to be granted to allow the Greek economy to function again, as the IMF have now admitted.

From the banks' point of view the certainty of getting nothing might yet be preferable to the almost certainty of still getting nothing but paying tens of millions for the privilege.

minininja wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

minininja wrote:

Darkchilde wrote:

the question is about the proposal. But the proposal is invalid. Either Greece had taken it until June 30th or it was no longer on the table. So even if the referendum is about the invalid proposal, in essence it is about EU and euro.

Are you suggesting that if the people vote "yes" the proposal will not immediately be put back on the table? It's just the European banks threatening and bullying Greece into not being allowed self-determination and democracy. If Greece votes "no", there's no mechanism in place for ejecting them from the eurozone, all it would do is force further negotiation, - which may eventually lead to Greece stepping away from the euro, but there's no reason it couldn't be a carefully managed with the drachma being brought in side-by-side until the currency was settled. It's impossibly hard but the only way to be free from the control of the banks is if the country together stands up against them.

The only way to remove the control of the banks is to remove all corruption, accept the details of the agreement and pay back the loans. The "no" route would mean a complete disaster. Of course there is no mechanism to kick them out but Greece will be bankrupt. Who is going to negotiate about what. It is the end of the line.
What do you mean standing up against them? With what?
The drachma will be on a par with Zimbabwe's currency.

Stand up to them by saying they won't have their democracy undermined and won't be bullied into accepting a never ending debt, and that if the banks want anything back at all then they need to accept that some debt relief needs to be granted to allow the Greek economy to function again, as the IMF have now admitted.

The IMF does want the Greek economy working again. That's why they insisted on government spending cuts in place of the tax increases Tsipras proposed. Unfortunately, Tsipras doesn't care about the economy as a whole, just about his cronies.

If Greece makes a good faith effort to implement the proposal that the IMF backed, then debt restructuring will be next on the agenda. A good faith effort on Greece's part requires a "yes" vote, however, and probably requires a change of government.

lutefisk wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:

Sendraks wrote:
Except that this only applies within the US and even with this system of redistribution, there are still significant differences in deprivation between the richer and poorer stats. Clearly the US system mitigates the worst of this problem, hence...

The U.S. doesn't mitigate the problem at all. Redistribution here is not from richer states to poorer states; it is from less politically powerful to more politically powerful states.

That sounds more in line with reality.

Come on, you guys are better than that.

http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/

I notice a notable lack of detail on what they consider to be dependency on the federal government. You can cut those statistics to support whatever conclusions you want. For example, why do they only include nondefense federal employees and not defense employees?

Tangerine Dream wrote:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-07-02/varoufakis-says-he-will-quit-if-greeks-vote-yes-

And good riddance to him.

Warren Dew wrote:

minininja wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

minininja wrote:
Are you suggesting that if the people vote "yes" the proposal will not immediately be put back on the table? It's just the European banks threatening and bullying Greece into not being allowed self-determination and democracy. If Greece votes "no", there's no mechanism in place for ejecting them from the eurozone, all it would do is force further negotiation, - which may eventually lead to Greece stepping away from the euro, but there's no reason it couldn't be a carefully managed with the drachma being brought in side-by-side until the currency was settled. It's impossibly hard but the only way to be free from the control of the banks is if the country together stands up against them.

The only way to remove the control of the banks is to remove all corruption, accept the details of the agreement and pay back the loans. The "no" route would mean a complete disaster. Of course there is no mechanism to kick them out but Greece will be bankrupt. Who is going to negotiate about what. It is the end of the line.
What do you mean standing up against them? With what?
The drachma will be on a par with Zimbabwe's currency.

Stand up to them by saying they won't have their democracy undermined and won't be bullied into accepting a never ending debt, and that if the banks want anything back at all then they need to accept that some debt relief needs to be granted to allow the Greek economy to function again, as the IMF have now admitted.

The IMF does want the Greek economy working again. That's why they insisted on government spending cuts in place of the tax increases Tsipras proposed. Unfortunately, Tsipras doesn't care about the economy as a whole, just about his cronies.

If Greece makes a good faith effort to implement the proposal that the IMF backed, then debt restructuring will be next on the agenda. A good faith effort on Greece's part requires a "yes" vote, however, and probably requires a change of government.

That's exactly what the majority of the Greek people want. They want a change in the system, but Greek politicians don't want to. They are afraid they will lose voters, if they "touch" the public sector and the church.

The Greek Orthodox Church though wants a yes vote. Go figure.

Thommo wrote:

minininja wrote:Stand up to them by saying they won't have their democracy undermined and won't be bullied into accepting a never ending debt, and that if the banks want anything back at all then they need to accept that some debt relief needs to be granted to allow the Greek economy to function again, as the IMF have now admitted.

From the banks' point of view the certainty of getting nothing might yet be preferable to the almost certainty of still getting nothing but paying tens of millions for the privilege.

Exactly. What Varoufakis is missing is that the "banks" - that is, the government central banks that now hold essentially all of Greece's debt - are perfectly happy to walk away from the debt. They just don't want to throw good money after bad.

Five years ago, Europe had a much bigger incentive to make a deal because a Greek default would have caused a lot of private sector banks to go under, with a domino effect on Europe's entire financial system. That's no longer the case.

Warren Dew wrote:

Beatsong wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:Seeing some of the overly-generous unsustainable benefits they receive in Greece and the extremely early retirement age, maybe they need a bit of "austerity"...welcome to the real world...

"Received" - past tense.

As I understand it most of the unsustainable public sector and welfare bloat has been addressed, over the course of the last five years of austerity.

Most of it had been addressed under the previous Samaras government, yes. The primary issue outstanding was unfunded pension liabilities.

However, it all got de-addressed by the Tsipras government, which reversed many government cost cutting initiatives.

It's also to be noted that under Samaras, the Greek economy was growing, unemployment was shrinking, and the government was running a surplus before interest. None of that is true under Tsipras.

Greece's current straits are a monument to radical leftist economic policies, nothing more and nothing less.

Except that Syriza didn't cause them, they just failed to solve them. For causes, one needs to look at the period leading up to the crisis when the government deficit was ballooning. That occurred over a long period of time, but most dramatically during the period 2005 - 2009 when Greece was under a centre-right government.

And one of their most entrenched problems, during that period and stretching back for decades, was failure to collect taxes - which is a libertarian issue not a socialist one.

It's almost like they've somehow managed, over time, to marry up the worst aspects of socialism with the worst aspects of free market capitalism, while avoiding the advantages of both.

Isn't the huge failure here that in order to have a monetary union you would also need to have complete political agreement between countries about all financial aspects? The euro policy precludes countries from devalueing their currency to pay off debt and get the export sector going; without having that benefit, the less succesful parts of the EU are always going to be in trouble, and they'll always get in conflicts with the richer parts.

If you'd just see Greece as a part of one country - Europe - then the debt would simply disappear in the overall financial situation of the EU. But it isn't, these are still independent countries who we feel are supposed to "fend for themselves", and that's why this situation doesn't work. I am really starting to feel the whole euro project has been a huge mistake.

Indeed possibly "always" as history shows that empires come and go so to say - economy is dynamic and now global. There are certain conditions for currency union to work, or at least there are theories (optimal currency area been on here briefly few times already). Always in trouble? I am not so sure as if capital can move globally it will follow the lowest resistance and most profits. Always get in conflicts? The richer parts will always need the poorer parts that is for sure because where else would they make money. So this is pub talk really. To me it does not matter much if budget gets diced in our capital or in Brussels. I mean what is the difference? Our politicians know better? Or our interests would not be represented? Not necessarily.

Beatsong wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:

Beatsong wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:Seeing some of the overly-generous unsustainable benefits they receive in Greece and the extremely early retirement age, maybe they need a bit of "austerity"...welcome to the real world...

"Received" - past tense.

As I understand it most of the unsustainable public sector and welfare bloat has been addressed, over the course of the last five years of austerity.

Most of it had been addressed under the previous Samaras government, yes. The primary issue outstanding was unfunded pension liabilities.

However, it all got de-addressed by the Tsipras government, which reversed many government cost cutting initiatives.

It's also to be noted that under Samaras, the Greek economy was growing, unemployment was shrinking, and the government was running a surplus before interest. None of that is true under Tsipras.

Greece's current straits are a monument to radical leftist economic policies, nothing more and nothing less.

Except that Syriza didn't cause them, they just failed to solve them.

To the contrary. Since, as I pointed out, the problems had been essentially solved under the previous government, Syriza most definitely caused the current problems, even if they didn't cause the original problems.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:Isn't the huge failure here that in order to have a monetary union you would also need to have complete political agreement between countries about all financial aspects?

No. The world's nations shared a global common currency - gold - for millenia, but never had anything close to complete political agreement about financial issues. Monetary union and fiscal union are two very different things.

If you'd just see Greece as a part of one country - Europe - then the debt would simply disappear in the overall financial situation of the EU.

That's not how it works in the U.S.

Warren Dew wrote:

If you'd just see Greece as a part of one country - Europe - then the debt would simply disappear in the overall financial situation of the EU.

That's not how it works in the U.S.

It occurred to me that this seemed unlikely, but I don't really know that much about the US. It certainly brought to mind the role the Californian state debt played in the Schwarzenegger governership though, since it played such a role in the campaign and commentary.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:Isn't the huge failure here that in order to have a monetary union you would also need to have complete political agreement between countries about all financial aspects? The euro policy precludes countries from devalueing their currency to pay off debt and get the export sector going; without having that benefit, the less succesful parts of the EU are always going to be in trouble, and they'll always get in conflicts with the richer parts.

If you'd just see Greece as a part of one country - Europe - then the debt would simply disappear in the overall financial situation of the EU. But it isn't, these are still independent countries who we feel are supposed to "fend for themselves", and that's why this situation doesn't work. I am really starting to feel the whole euro project has been a huge mistake.

You seem to forget this is an ongoing process which has not ended by any stretch of the imagination. It will be a long time yet before it is one country (if ever will be). If you cant see the benefits of a single currency well I am sorry. I am old enough to know what it was like with all the different European currencies. It was not nice.

Countries are not "fending for themselves". There is an organisation in place to help countries through difficult times. This has been effective for Ireland, Spain and Portugal. Greece could have been part of that list but wanted more. It wanted to keep its corrupt system and expect everyone else to pay for it. There was growth and corruption was slowly being dealt with but then government changed and everything was stopped. I wonder if the left wing liked the corruption as much as the right wing? It seems like it. This Greek prime minister is not a reformer. He is a conservative stuck in the past. He is demanding to much and he has now the results presented in front of him which is nothing.
He is a fool leading Greece on a fool's dance. The people of Greece do know which way to go but it is a pity their politicians dont.

Right now, we are economically cut off from the rest of the world. We cannot make any payments not for subscriptions or games, as paypal, paysafe, Apple and Google are not available for Greece. Tourists are cancelling, so thank you Tsipras for totally destroying what was left of the Greek economy.

Darkchilde wrote:Right now, we are economically cut off from the rest of the world. We cannot make any payments not for subscriptions or games, as paypal, paysafe, Apple and Google are not available for Greece. Tourists are cancelling, so thank you Tsipras for totally destroying what was left of the Greek economy.

I understand what you mean, but I'm sure there is more destruction to come in the event of a "no" vote.