Financial Crisis in Greece

[Brian]

What wicked people reporters/politicians/ect. They are making the EU look like Scrooge and the Grinch rolled into one. Imagine scarring people like that, just before Christmas.

Jacques Atal: Possible breakdown of the euro to Catholic Christmas

http://www.vest.com.mk/?ItemID=49628A28522BE34C8CAAA933A01BB324

The euro may experience a crash to the Catholic Christmas, if at EU level are not taken appropriate anti-crisis measures, warned renowned French economist and former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Jacques Atal.

- The question now comes down to whether the euro will exist as a currency for Christmas. There remains only one chance in two, and it is the common currency to survive until then or she be in the process of decay, Atal said. According to him, to prevent the collapse of the euro is necessary to allow the European Central Bank to Buy bonds id eurozone members who are affected by the crisis, to remove these countries from the financial section suverentitet by introducing national budgetary control and also to introduce necessary changes to EU legislation. - These are three levels of anti-crisis measures. The first can be introduced for five minutes, the second in a week, and the third in six months. It is, however, all three begin to be introduced simultaneously. Otherwise our upcoming disaster, warned the French economist.

and...

British Citizens Warned of Riots as Euro Near Collapse

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/19677/52/

Saturday, 26 November 2011
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The UK Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told UK media.
The Financial Services Authority this week issued a public warning to British banks to bolster their contingency plans for the break-up of the single currency.

Some economists believe that at worst, the outright collapse of the euro could reduce GDP in its member-states by up to half and trigger mass unemployment.

Analysts at UBS, an investment bank earlier this year warned that the most extreme consequences of a break-up include risks to basic property rights and the threat of civil disorder.

“When the unemployment consequences are factored in, it is virtually impossible to consider a break-up scenario without some serious social consequences,” UBS said.

[julie]

Anarchy. Let riots reign supreme, including the break up of the EU

[Brian]

Anarchy. Let riots reign supreme, including the break up of the EU

How's you supperannuation/401K/job prospects/savings. With the world economies being interlinked 'big' bad in one place will inevitably affect everyone else. But I suppose if it stops Macedonia prostituting her name/identity, maybe it will be worth it. It's funny to think it takes the destruction of the EU to stop Macedonia whoring herself.

[Brian]

Another 'Grinch' story...but what are all the other countries planning on doing?

Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are considering a new stability treaty that would be limited to only a few countries in the eurozone, according to a published report.

http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8380461/merkel-and-sarkozy-want-exclusive-treaty

In a story appearing in Sunday's Welt am Sonntag, the two leaders want a pact between their countries and some other nations including Italy.

Paris and Berlin will make the proposal in the days ahead of the December 9 EU summit, government sources told the newspaper.

The EU's current stability pact requires the 17 countries of the eurozone to limit budget deficits to three per cent of gross domestic product and debt to 60 per cent of GDP.

A German government spokeswoman on Saturday confirmed to AFP that discussions were under way with France but said any proposals would come from European Council president Herman Van Rompuy.

Sarkozy has said that the eurozone's top three economies have said they are determined to do everything they can to support the single currency.

[Brian]

And the truth (that 'conspiracy nuts' have been saying for a long time) comes out.

Behold The New Anschluss: ECB's Paramo - "Prepare To Give Up Significant Sovereignty"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/behold-new-anschluss-ecbs-paramo-prepare-give-significant-sovereignty

The only quote worth noting from the just delivered speech by ECB executive board member José Manuel González-Páramo is the following: "We cannot completely delegate governance to financial markets. The euro area is the world’s second largest monetary area. It cannot depend solely on the opinions of ratings agencies and markets. It needs economic governance arrangements that are preventive and linear. This underscores my central point that a much more comprehensive approach to economic governance is now the priority for the euro area. And this means more economic and financial integration for the euro area, with a significant transfer of sovereignty to the EMU level over fiscal, structural and financial policies." In other words, in order to protect people from the "stupidity" of rating agencies which after years of lying have finally started telling the truth, and the market which does what it always does, and punishes those who fail, Europe must be prepared to give up "significant sovereignty" (sounds better than Anschluss) to Europe's "betters" which is another way of saying 'he who pays the piper calls the tune." And "he" in this case is, of course, Germany. In other words, courtesy of one failed monetary experiment Germany will succeed, without sheeding one drop of blood, where it failed rather historically some 70 years ago.

Full speech available in Link after article.

[Brian]

When it rains, it pours. With Greece gone and Italy well underway it's now Portugal's turn. Someone should have taught the EU how to spell PIGS so they could get it in the right order.

Fitch Downgrades Portugal to Junk Status

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204630904577057743033166600.html

LONDON—Fitch Ratings Thursday dropped its credit rating on Portugal into junk territory and warned further downgrades were possible, as a recession in the country is increasing challenges for the government to comply with its austerity plans.

Fitch lowered the rating one notch, to double-B-plus from triple-B-plus, and maintained a negative outlook.

"The country's large fiscal imbalances, high indebtedness across all sectors, and adverse macroeconomic outlook mean the sovereign's credit profile is no longer consistent with an investment-grade rating," Fitch said.

Moody's Investors Service cut the country to junk in July this year. Standard and Poor's Corp. affirmed Portugal's investment-grade rating in October.

Fitch said growing economic pressures in Europe will play a role in the expected contraction of Portugal's gross domestic product in 2012, which is seen down 3%.

"The recession makes the government's deficit-reduction plan much more challenging and will negatively impact bank asset quality," Fitch said. "However, Fitch judges the government's commitment to the program to be strong."

The ratings company expects the official deficit target of 5.9% to be met this year, albeit with significant recourse to one-off measures.

State-owned enterprises are another key source of fiscal risk, Fitch said. The sector has been responsible for several upward revisions to the general government debt and deficit figures over the past year.

"The sovereign crisis poses significant risks to the banking system, which lends to one of the most indebted private sectors in Europe and is highly reliant on wholesale financing (access to which is now closed off)," Fitch said.

"Recapitalization and increased emergency liquidity provision from the ECB to Portugal's banks will, in Fitch's view, be needed and provided," it said.

[George S.]

italy will definitely be next because it began like greece & is going the same way.I don't anything will save it as it's too borrowings & the eu can't keep bailing people out indefinitely.

[Brian]

It's not everyone, George, just the banks. They'll just buy up everything of value in those countries at fire-sale prices and own everything people need to live.

[George S.]

italy is dfinitely going the same way.They never going to get the real value of the debt.Do you think italy has 1,9 trillion of land value???

[George S.]

Also do you know what monti did for greece & italy i consider that as criminal.THey lied to get all those loans using golden sax.You know what one economist said about greece that it was a basket case & even the whole of the eu is not immune as it falls into one big domino heap.

[Bill77]

Euro debt crisis needs spotlight of truth in Greece


How dare he (Andreas Georgiou) act un-Greek like (tell the truth)

Greece ignited the euro debt crisis with a big lie about its deficit, and now the man hired to clean up its statistics faces charges of national betrayal. Keeping euro nations honest is a key to Europe's economic recovery.


By the Monitor's Editorial Board / November 28, 2011


The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes used to walk the streets of Athens “looking for an honest man.” Today’s Greeks are still looking.

It was Greece that sparked Europe’s financial crisis back in 2009 after being caught in a huge lie about the size of its official deficit – claiming it was 3.7 percent of gross domestic product when it was really 15.8 percent.

That was a fourfold fib. Now, even though Europe’s crisis remains the key risk to the global economy, some Greeks have yet to fully embrace honesty as a virtue necessary for economic stability.

The man hired last year to ensure Greece didn’t again cook its books, Andreas Georgiou, is himself under attack.

A few prominent nationalists, disgruntled over the austerity forced on Greeks, have arranged for this respected statistician to face a judge in December for allegedly “betraying the national interest” – simply because he told the truth about the amount of Greece’s red ink. If convicted, he could get a life sentence.

Such a dubious move could threaten the next bailout money for Greece. It also has the potential to disrupt Europe’s attempt to save the euro and jeopardize the continent’s experiment at unity.

This week, France and Germany plan to propose a fix to the 17-nation euro pact with a penalty on any nation that violates the rules on fiscal discipline. The current rule calls for a country’s deficit to stay below 3 percent of GDP. But as Greece and a few other of the 17 euro nations have shown, the rule has been easily ignored.

The French-German proposal could be endorsed at a Dec. 9 summit of European Union leaders. If it is approved, the European Central Bank might then be confident in buying up debt of troubled governments like those in Greece and Italy.

“We must together set up institutions that secure trust in the euro,” says German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. Or as French Budget Minister Valérie Pécresse says, Europe needs better regulatory mechanisms that are “virtuous, that don’t allow a cheater, so that there is no one who can exempt themselves from the rules that are set.”

Greeks are already notorious for evading taxes. And over the past year, in an attempt to tax the wealthy, the government used helicopters to spot undeclared swimming pools in the walled backyards of Athenian suburbs. Instead of finding the officially reported 324 pools, it found 16,974.

When Mr. Georgiou became head of Greece’s new statistics authority last year, he declared he wanted to create a “culture of excellence” in official accounting. He arrived with a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and 20 years as a top statistician at the International Monetary Fund.

Charging him for telling the truth about Greece’s accounting would only further anger other Europeans. If anyone in Athens can be Diogenes’ honest man, it is this longtime civil servant.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/...ruth-in-Greece

"The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes used to walk the streets of Athens “looking for an honest man.” Today’s Greeks are still looking". lol
They will never find one.

[George S.]

the whole of the debt crisis is nothing short of criminal as not only greece but other nations tried & succeeded to get billions & trillions of dollars by lying & cooking up the books.How the eu can tolerate this bullshit i don't know.Even golden sax was invoolved in getting the loans approved.Even the so called monti the expert was involved.These people should all be locked up in jail never to be released.Ripping the eu to a grand grand grand scale.THe whole thing if weren't serious would be a big joke.As each country is clambering to get that easy money.The only thing is that someone has to pay it back.

[George S.]

niko 777 the authorities don't want the tourists to go to the slums as they would get a terrible impression of greece.A stroll through athens will show dog excrement everywhere.I don't think the tourists came for that.(shit)

[Stojacanec]

Its all about how the market will react towards a Greek, Italian and Spanish bailout. how is imposing a penalty going to solve the EU financial crisis? I don't think a decision like this at a summit on the 9th of Dec will improve market confidence because countries like greece will never be solvent.

I think this European crisis is yet to bottom out. The Euro is on the express lane to failure. Its only a matter of when.

[George S.]

the whole eu will topple like a deck of playing cards or dominoes.Do you realise the bailout is something like over 12 trillion eu dollars.The whole american debt is 14 trillion us dollars.(6trillion is owed to china)