Greece and the European Debt Crisis
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-30/greece-and-european-debt-crisis
Greece’s parliament votes today on a bill to implement austerity measures. Yesterday, lawmakers approved a controversial package of tax hikes and spending cuts. The vote cleared the way for $ 17 billion dollars in international emergency loans. The aid is meant to stave off a possible default next month. Approval of the package came despite nationwide strikes and violent protests in Athens. The vote gave the prime minister a critical victory in the midst of crisis talks with E.U. leaders and the I.M.F. Diane talks with her guests about Greece’s latest efforts to avoid default and how its debt affects Europe’s stability and markets across the world.
Guests
Scheherazade Rehman
professor of International Business/Finance and International Affairs at George Washington University
Ambassador Vassilis Kaskarelis
Greece's ambassador to the United States
Alan Beattie
international economy editor, The Financial Times
Antonio de Lecea
minister for economic and financial affairs at the E.U. Delegation
Comments
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I have been exercising my throwing arm. On a good day I can throw a bottle about 120 feet. If you add gasoline to it and a burning shred of cloth the weight and the urgency to distance yourself from it greatly impairs your throwing ability, so figure a reliable 50 foot throw. These days glass drinking bottles are not as easy to come by, a lot of stores import soft drinks from Mexico that come in the old time bottles. You can get glass jars but the openings are too big and the thing might ignite in your hand. There are always beer bottles but the capacity is probably not where it should be. I know many of the liberals here will come around to needing this information so I thought I would help out. It is quite strange that primarily liberal democrats want gun control and are the most prone to violence. I suppose this is because when they come to vandolize our property and burn it down we will be unable to shoot them. Of course there is the hope liberals will come to their senses and realize that the control of the universe is beyond their reach and they will get real and acknowledge the socialist utopia they demand is an unobtainable illusion.
Bloated and overpaid public sectors are our downfall. We should heed this lesson.
Just read in today's WSJ that Obama wants to cut loopholes for millionaires that purchase corporate jets and oil companies.
Corporate Jets manufactuers employe many skillfull worker that pay good wages and elimanating tax breaks will raise umemployement. Obama needs to think about Clinton's first year when he eliminated Bush I 1% Wealth Tax which destroyed employement in Liberal NE States. This included yacht manufactuers.
Drilling companies who Barack refers as Oil Companies need the continued Tax Breaks to stay competitive. Not every hole that is drilled has carbons in it. In other words it is not a precise science. Having all those crews and rigs working cost alot of money. Elimanating these tax breaks will cause fuel prices to go up.
The more that comes out of this guys mouth(Obama), the more ignorance he shows in how to create jobs and it is showing.
Life isn't as simply as 'democrat bad' and 'workers bad.' I wish it was that simple.
I look at it this way- two kinds of people were promised different things. Workers were promised a certain wage and a certain pension/retirement package. Bankers were promised a certain return on the money they loaned.
Now the prospect is that both groups cannot be satisfied 100%. So what is the solution? Apparently it is to break all the promises to the workers and to keep all the promises to the bankers. I don't get it.
No one forced the government to raise wages or to provide pensions. No one. Those were freely entered agreements. If the people have to give something up why can't the banks? If I loaned money aren't I taking some kind of risk? It seems to me that people who had nothing to do with financial mismanagement are having to pay for bad loans made by private banks.
Both sides should take a hit- but only making working people suffer is not a solution.
Anyway this taxpayer would rather have his money going to working people than to banks. We already gave the banks $750 billion- for bonus's for destroying their companies.
Greece is, last I checked, a democracy. In a democracy people's opinions have to be taken into account. 80% of the people do not support the austerity plan- shouldn't the government (of the people, by the people and for the people) respect that?
Bloated and overpaid banksters are out downfall. They steal public funds in two ways: crazy interest rates that only their corrupt politician friends like and public money in the form of subsidies and handouts.
We should heed that lesson.
The Rehm Team is busy covering the secure passage of the legislation that will ensure international lending institutions their billions. Will the Diane Rehm show cover the US boat to Gaza "Audacity of Hope" “secure passage” out of Greek waters into international territory?
Former US state official and retired Colonel Ann Wright and crew have asked the Greek government to come on board and examine the cargo, the ship, the passengers so that they can "stay afloat" . They are demanding an immediate inspection by the Greek government. Especially after the alleged attack by Israel on the Irish flotilla ship.
When will the Diane Rehm show cover this story?
http://ustogaza.org/latest/audacity-invites-media-to-inspect-boat-and-pa...
Passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, invite Greek and international media to inspect The Audacity of Hope at 3 pm Athens time on Thursday, June 30, in the town of Perama (next to Piraeus), 42 Democratis.
The entire boat will be open for view, photography, and video. The captain, crew, and passengers on the boat will be available for interviews and inspection. The cargo of the ship – 3,000 letters from Americans to the people of Gaza – will also be available for view, photographs, and video. Everything that will be on the boat when it sets sail, including food and passengers’ personal medications for use during their voyage, will be available for inspection.
Let's see:
. Investors who made an investment, with risk attached to the investment (hence the high interest rate) must be paid. What a deal.
. It is the BANK not the country. Remember that Goldman-Sachs had a (well paid) hand in setting up the securities.
. The IMF funding component. About 50% of IMF money comes from US, yes that means the US taxpayers. We citizens are now bailing out European Banks.
Greece is not the only European country to have become the victim of loan sharks and extortion. At a time of what was thought to be growth, but was actually the fraud of financialization, Greece borrowed money short term in order to try and stay in sync with the European Union. Once the bubble collapsed they were induced to borrow more at higher interests and worse terms in order to satisfy the original creditors. All the austerity possible will not enable them to pay the principle on earlier obligations, and maybe not even the interest. As usury compounds Greece will inevitably default. The choice here is between default now (national bankruptcy) and getting deeper in hock.
Michael Hudson (financial economist) compares Greece with now gutted states in Eastern Europe. Austerity there (Lithuania for example) has resulted in perpetual depression and lawless oligarchy. Greece has a fallback alternative not available to these smaller states if they would only exercise it. They need to withdraw from the Euro and go back to their former currency and fiscal autonomy. Greece could then issue currency and pay their debts in paper, which is just what the mafioso banking houses deserve. Yep, inflation would result, but they'd hardly be any worse off than under a the European Union prescription. But the state of the world is such that if George Papandreou's government tried this they might face a coup, or maybe a visit from seal team six.
A nation state is not a household. It has larger powers and responsibilities. It is not as if the teachers and cabdrivers and ferry captains of Greece are doing anything different than they have always done. They did not contract the loans imposed on their co-opted officials. They should not have to pay for the schemes and mistakes of transnational gamblers. Look at your community. It's almost the same in Greece. Would you sell your freedoms and landmarks to pirates under duress. Decide now, I see the skull and bones on the horizon. Obama is being paddled out to welcome our new slavemasters with flowers and wine. I only wonder this: Why are Americans such dullards and cowards compared to Greek resisters?
Utopia means 'world that cannot be'- it is a Greek word. You can add the word socialist or capitalist or anything ahead of it.
Liberal democrats don't want to take your gun. Limiting gun access to felons is not extreme. Felons, in some states, don't have the right to vote. Why should they, especially if they were convicted of armed robbery, have unfettered access to guns? I don't know a single person who supports that position.
Violence is a human activity- not necessarily a political one. In the history of the world many people have been killed- I do not think it is possible to determine which political group killed more. You can try but you end up putting people in boxes- no conservative would say Hitler was a republican just as no liberal would say Stalin was a democrat. Why? Because they weren't.
Was Genghis Khan liberal or conservative? Tamerlane? Julius Caesar? Leopold king of Belgium? Shaka Zulu? The Conquistadors? Crusaders? The Catholic Church during the Inquisition? Alexander the Great? Xerxes? Attila the Hun? Pharaoh?
kathleen: I'm sure Diane Rehm would be eager to discuss the Audacity of Hope flotilla as it attempts to bring token relief to Gaza. The problem is that the CIA has veto power over American University, and American University has veto power over WAMU administrators, and WAMU administrators have veto power over DRShow. Notice how the discussion of the Greek financial dilemma is not a full spectrum discourse. The issue of taxing swimming pools is hardly pertinent to global fraud. (Very akin to the fascist line that poor homebuyers and Freddie/Fannie caused a worldwide depression, and the microcosm pov that those in poverty and failed health always bring it upon themselves by imprudent choice)
Greece went on a drunken borrowing binge because with their joining of the EU, they were able to borrow at considerably lower rates than they were able to when independent. They held a great money-losing Olympics, increased the size of the public sector, allowed public sector workers to retire at 55, ...
Take Greece out of the EU or allow them to default completely and you'll see considerably higher rates, effectively taking Greece out of the sovereign debt market. At that point, capital will flow out at an even greater rate and Greece, with its huge trade deficit, will be a complete wreck. Greek citizens will see this coming and will be fleeing for Germany and the North.
Greece has undisciplined politicians and their citizens get the government they vote for. Same here.
Considering that Greece joined Euro zone based on fudged data, could they be excluded from Euro zone until they clean their mess?
So haint is looking forward to the Mad Max Days when he'll reign supreme over the weak, just as Satan ordained. Heck yes, the USA is more corrupt than Greece. But even with zero tolerance and public executions the international financial conspiracy would not be overturned. It is global and beyond control of sovereign states. Now there may be some overlap between swimming pool hiders and bankers, but that is a separate matter. In the end money games become as irrelevant as a Monopoly board. People do what they must to survive.
UNPAID TAXES
I lived in Greece from 2003-2008.
I found corruption right down to the individual. One example were homes all around us that looked unfinished, rubble, missing walls. I asked why no one finished their home and was told it was a way of not paying taxes. If a home is "under construction" taxes are not paid on the new property.
Few finished construction....
Yes, kathleen. Apparently the Greece regime bailout is conditional upon stopping the Free Gaza flotilla. Israel Firsters are using everything they have to stop it--this additional to the sudden sabotage of flottila boats & fake claims of unseaworthiness. Don't hold your breath, the Rehm Team never covers the oppression of the Palestinian people & US enabling of same. In that sense they are totally US mainstream media.
Democracy was born in Greece, so it is ironic that Greece now faces the problem of democratic "odious debt": How legitimate is government debt incurred for the benefit of one group at the expense of another?
The EU allows freedom of movement and employment across borders. How likely is it that Greeks, especially productive Greeks, will vote with their feet and move to Germany? Unlike the US, in other countries people pay taxes based on their country of residence, not citizenship.
Privatize their profits socialize their losses...such a deal
Bank bashing extravaganza! Why would banks with there private investor money lend to governments in the future if you let them take the hit for the behavior of irresponsible politicians and the irresponsible people who voted for the them. High interest equals high risk, as an investor myself I would expect nothing less and no other sane investor would either. You want to see a financial crisis, burn the investors and you will have it.
We're gonna let you live haint, just burn your money.
See, don't be teaching young people to throw Molotov cocktails. Be a pacifist like me. Your arms are too short to box with Labor. We fashion your reality by the hour.
The unification of Europe, its currency and its constitution have been pushed through people's throats. It's not democratic at all. Now they have a group of countries/cultures forced under a single monetary policy. Everybody loses.
concentration of wealth/income is way ahead of "bloated and overpaid public sectors" as a major reason for our downfall..deterioration of the family and 'me first' behavior also trumps your perspective
25 to 30 thousand children die every day from preventable causes and your concerned about yacht builders and corporate jet manufacturers..
and then ur concerned about helping the oil industry via drilling company subsidies..at least we know what ur priorities are
hainc, i can't believe u articulated something that i agree with.. regarding the greek borrowing binge
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