Is Greece in major financial trouble ?, Current account balance and GDP Options

[Chris Kiato]

[RED SHERIFF]

I watch the news all the time! What a load of rubbish!!

whats rubbish??? that tsipra is not a commie?

[Chris Kiato]

The rest of your rant...

[RED SHERIFF]

kiato...

i am sorry.....you really need to grasp the concept of what these parties stand for...and what they believe in.....

tsipra is not fit to govern greece....his party has no policies...

he tells YOU what you want to hear.....he has no substance....I really do not believe you have any idea of the greek political landscape... (I am not being rude)....but i think you need to brush up...on the history of where these guys sit...

these guys are communists.....they believe in a greece with no EU or NATO affiliation...they want Greece to be a beacon in a rebirth of 1950s communism...
they will create zero jobs...no one will deal with us...do you understand?
no one will ever want to invest in a country that is broke that is run by over zealous unions...and socialists...

the guy is dangerous.....he is anti - west...

any person that sees greece as anything but west orientated is insane..

we have no future unless we embrace the west....otherwise we will suffer greatly...

if we align ourselves with a mythical or ideological "east" ...we will lose Cyprus eventually...and once the skops and Turks get more westernized..we will be on the fringe politically...
we will have no money,no friends ,no alliances...other than being a cheap whore to mother Russia..

you need to understand a lot more of the issues at hand..other than "lets default to teach the Germans and the banks a lesson..we will then print drachmas, sell gyros and lemons at .00000002 drachmas by the tonnes and we can all retire at 49 - and let the malakes work and pay taxes"....

greece needs a massive structural reform.....and the further away tsipra stays from power the better off we will be...

one also needs to be fully aware of the types that are in Greek media and what we are being fed....a lot of the 'HARD HITTING' Greek journalism...usually beats to a familiar drum...

[iltibas]

Whatever one may think of Tsipras and his party, they are neither dumb nor incapable. If one were to read what they propose, here , one would see that they have managed to put together the political program which:

1) Appears plausible and practical
2) sounds pretty reasonable and pleasant to most citizens.

It is only when one consoders the side effects of the seemingly plausible proposals that one wonders as to what the second act of the Syrriza program might look like.

[RED SHERIFF]

not one of those plausible proposals would encourage investment?

greece needs massive reform to encourage business...and investment..

- "fast track" has not started ..needs to be implemented ASAP...Syriza wont help here..
- red tape is a killer....why does it need 8 months and 16 meaningless pieces of paper for a hairdresser to open a shop?
- why does it take a business syndicate 5 years to construct a hotel...?

these are the issues that are pulling us back....to start with.... we are not competitive in a business sense...

tsi[ra will not change any of this..he simply can not...as all this goes against what he stands for..

[Chris Kiato]

There are plenty of articles where he has made quite clever proposals and policies to fix Greece's problem. I dont understand why you post lies he has no policies? He is the only one that ruffles governments feathers and exposes them for what they are.

He will never get the numbers to rule, so dont worry, Greece wont be led by a commie!

The West is turning Greece into Bagladesh btw.

This post has been edited by Chris Kiato: Apr 5 2012, 06:54 PM

[RED SHERIFF]

give me a real workable policy?

i thought you were behind Sammy? now the commie?

[Chris]

There are plenty of articles where he has made quite clever proposals and policies to fix Greece's problem. I dont understand why you post lies he has no policies? He is the only one that ruffles governments feathers and exposes them for what they are.

He will never get the numbers to rule, so dont worry, Greece wont be led by a commie!

The West is turning Greece into Bagladesh btw.

Greece's politicians are what is/was turning Greece into Bangladesh.



Before you point the finger at others, you must make sure your own house is in order. And sadly Greece's house is a mess.

[Guest_porman_*]

And that is why... Everyone. In. The. Parliament. Must. Die.

[CHE21QNZ]

Amen

[Chris]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_artic.../04/2012_436938


Ridiculous....

[Chris Kiato]

Greece's politicians are what is/was turning Greece into Bangladesh.

Before you point the finger at others, you must make sure your own house is in order. And sadly Greece's house is a mess.

Indirectly they are. It's the IMF/EU who are ultimately behind Greeces tragic policies in the last 2 years. But you are right, the ultimate responsibility lies with our polititians.

This is from The International Forcaster I subscribe too and received today

The IMF issued a statement Thursday that it was “deeply saddened” by the
incident, but the people of Athens have taken to the streets yet again, with thousands
flocking to the site of his death and many scuffling with police.
These types of protests aren't merely predictable, they're part of the plan. The
IMF and World Bank documents that leaked out in 2001 detailed the four step plan for
looting a country, including the “IMF riot” stage. People take to the streets to protest the
austerity measures that are tied to the IMF loans, causing foreign capital to flee,
governments to go bankrupt, and foreign speculators to pick up the pieces at fire sale
prices. The riots happened in Indonesia in 1998. And Bolivia in 2000. And Ecuador and
Argentina in 2001. What's happening in Europe is not an exact analogue, and it's aimed
at centralizing power in the EU in Brussels and the ECB in Frankfurt, but that the IMF
has seen the crisis as an excuse to get its foot in Europe's door as a lender is
particularly telling.
This is how the game is played and that's why the politicians for the most part are
happy to go along with it. After they serve their term in the cockpit, they jump out with a
golden parachute and leave the people to crash in the flaming debt bubble the politicians
have created.

[gboots]

This made me laugh

Man resigns with email telling 500 co-workers he hasn't done a day's work in 14 years
Save this story to read later
From: AAP
April 13, 2012 1:36PM


German retiree says for 14 years working as a civil servant he "was present but not really there". Picture: File

NEWS.com.au, 26 Sep 2011
A GERMAN public official has retired with an email telling his 500 co-workers he didn't do a tap of work in 14 years.
The 65-year-old informed his colleagues that he earned £600,000 ($917,000) while working with the civil service “without lifting a finger”, reports The Daily Mail.

His parting words to his workmates were: “Since 1998, I was present but not really there. So I'm going to be well prepared for retirement - Adieu.”

The well-rested man from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia did not think the email would leave the office.

When confronted by his local newspaper he declined to comment saying the email “was not intended for public view”.

The man, who worked as a surveyor since 1974 said the situation was the council's fault because he did not have enough work to do and could leave it all to his colleagues.

This enraged the mayor of the town who has since made the 65-year-old’s former job redundant.

“The employee had not once complained about not having enough to do during his 38 years of employment,” said the Mayor of Minden, Volker Fleige.
“This kind of behaviour is very worrying," he said.




Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/m...4#ixzz1ru5SvxOU

[RED SHERIFF]

brilliant find...brilliant story...

[iltibas]

This made me laugh

It should have made you cry. Because,

1) It provides a worrisome insight in the nature of bureaucracy, no matter where it is. But most importantly,

2) The event was deemed newsworthy, some citizens were apparently upset, and the mayor eliminated the post that was, apparently, superfluous.

There are other countries in which such events are not newsworthy and this is more worrisome.

[pao2gre]

So Greece has 3.4 million workers out of a population of 10 million.

That simple statistic speaks volumes.

Downgrade the public sector by 300,000 and you are left with 3.1 million workers.

No policy in the world can make Greece work without the complete overhaul and restructuring of any law that is incidental or ancillary to the development of private commercial enterprise.

Environmental protection will have to be the first to go.

[Guest_porman_*]

"Environmental protection will have to be the first to go."

Can anyone explain what this will mean to Greece? I feel it's already below standard...

[Chris]

Below standard? It's almost non-existent.


All the red tape must be cut NOW and business must be given incentives to open/run. Only this will help Greece. The people will pull themselves out of this mess, but red tape continues to exist and the ones in power/benefit from this crap fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. It's tragic...

[iltibas]

While most of us were berating Chriss-Kiato for his idea to return to the drachma, he was gaining disciples elsewhere. Here are a few excerpts from an article in the op-ed section of today's Washington Post:

No easy answers for euro zone’s vicious cycle, By David M. Smick

.... The austerity medicine appears to be killing the patient.
…. As economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson noted recently in the International Economy magazine, in 2008, Spain and Ireland were “models of fiscal rectitude” in their public debt exposure. Italy had the lowest deficit-to-GDP ratio among the euro-zone countries. Of course, the private debt of these countries reached explosive levels and became a driving force in their demise.
In recent years, euro-zone policymakers have operated under the theory that fiscal-policy restraint could actually be expansionary. Has this “expansionary contraction” thesis worked for Ireland, Spain or Greece? The austerity policies to reduce debt created a downward spiral of collapsing demand and employment. This shrank tax revenue such that budget deficits and debt actually increased. The Greek debt-to-GDP ratio was 127 percent in 2009; last year, it exceeded 160 percent.
Spain is the euro zone’s potential game-changer. Unlike Greece, its crisis began with its banks, rather than its sovereign debt. Its banks are now teetering on the edge. Economic growth has collapsed. Unemployment is at 24 percent, 50 percent among those ages 15 to 24. Spain’s still grossly overvalued real estate prices need to drop further. ….

This brings up important questions: Can austerity work without an accompanying policy for economic growth? …..

Some analysts argue that the problem in the euro zone is the euro itself. Currency risk, as analyst Bernard Connolly has observed, was converted into credit risk. Therefore, the banking and sovereign-debt crises are, as economist Martin Neil Baily has put it, “symptoms, not causes” of a euro zone unable to achieve convergence. In other words, countries operate under different levels of competitiveness with huge disparities in current account imbalances. That has left many nations in desperate need of dramatic currency depreciation. But under the euro, they have no way out.
Sweden, Finland, Mexico and Brazil are all recent cases in which austerity policies to bring down debt have worked because those countries achieved an export boom. Austerity without a dramatic increase in exports is a recipe for failure. Austerity alone shifts credit exposure even more onto working middle-class families who are already pressed.