Greek Referendum voting has closed, preliminary results show 60% voting for No - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Reshy;48132237]I'm curious, do the Austerity measures even work in greece?[/QUOTE]Their economy is shrinking faster than ballsacks in the North Sea, so probably not.

[QUOTE=Reshy;48132237]I'm curious, do the Austerity measures even work in greece?[/QUOTE] They were until December 2014, Greece had a primary budget surplus and the bailout programme was working. Since Syriza came to power in January 2015 the economic situation has gone downhill and Greece has now got a budget deficit again. I don't know whether Syriza caused this but that's what happened. The Greek people are finding austerity unbearable and their living standards have suffered dramatically, but the austerity is necessary to sort out the wider economy. Realistically the choice is: stay in the Euro with big austerity or leave the Euro and do it your way. Greece wants to stay in the Euro [B]and[/B] no austerity - two things which are largely mutually exclusive.

So Tsipras is now the Finance Minister, in addition to the Prime Minister? I don't know why, but I feel like that's too much power for one individual. That's a lot of duties.

[QUOTE=Jamsponge;48132326]So Tsipras is now the Finance Minister, in addition to the Prime Minister? I don't know why, but I feel like that's too much power for one individual. That's a lot of duties.[/QUOTE] Nah, they just haven't announced Varoufakis' replacement yet. The most likely candidate is Greece's chief negotiator, Euclid Tsakalotos. See: [url]http://twitter.com/Reuters/status/617960502162030592[/url]

Given that I study international law here in my country, I still can't fathom why the current administation of Greece has so many sympathizers, given that: - It's well known at this point that Greece lied about the state of its economy in order to become part of the European Union - Greece borrowed money from international parties on the account of obligations on its part (economic and political reforms) and now it declares it isn't going to do jackshit (at the time of this writing, both Tripas and his supposed ministry of economy, Varoufakis, are just pushing the European Union for more money, while they declare they aren't going to touch anything as far as their own country is concerned) - In the past years Greek politicians didn't perform their obligations to their money lenders, but no one heard a single peep about the Greece having to leave the European Union or such obligations being unfair - I know I'm biased on this, but I can't fathom why Greece should be considered a special kind of country and be entitled to more moolah just for its pretty face while Spain and Italy must work hard to reform their structure and reduce their deficit

[QUOTE=EliaMoroes;48132492]Given that I study international law here in my country, I still can't fathom why the current administation of Greece has so many sympathizers, given that: - It's well known at this point that Greece lied about the state of its economy in order to become part of Europe - Greece borrowed money from international parties on the account of obligations on its part (economic and political reforms) and now it declares it isn't going to do jackshit (at the time of this writing, both Tripas and his supposed ministry of economy, Varoufakis, are just pushing the European Union for more money, while they declare they aren't going to touch anything as far as their own country is concerned) - In the past years Greek politicians didn't perform their obligations to their money lenders, but no one heard a single peep about the Greece having to leave the European Union or such obligations being unfair - I know I'm biased on this, but I can't fathom why Greece should be considered a special kind of country and be entitled to more moolah just for its pretty face while Spain and Italy must work hard to reform their structure and reduce their deficit[/QUOTE] Because idiots think they're fighting the good fight against the big and bad European Union. Example, see the fox's posts in this thread.

At this point it's the inflexibility of the creditors demanding interest payments from a country which essentially cannot pay all at once and the EU's attempts to impose their own will in exchange for the necessary money for the country to function which has kinda of dried up sympathy with them. Greece is in a shitty situation because the austerity measures imposed since the crisis began haven't done anything great and no-one will lend them the money to get some stimulus spending happening. I'm certainly someone with only a rudimentary understanding of economics but they seem to be in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' type situation.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48132907]At this point it's the inflexibility of the creditors demanding interest payments from a country which essentially cannot pay all at once and the EU's attempts to impose their own will in exchange for the necessary money for the country to function which has kinda of dried up sympathy with them. Greece is in a shitty situation because the austerity measures imposed since the crisis began haven't done anything great and no-one will lend them the money to get some stimulus spending happening. I'm certainly someone with only a rudimentary understanding of economics but they seem to be in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' type situation.[/QUOTE] As I said in other places, no one forced them to join the European Union, which comes with benefits, of course, but also with political and economic measures each state must develop. The auisterity measures are among these Also, the International Monetary Found lends countries money if said countries swear to take measures to reduce their deficit and anyway to solve the problems that forced them to request a loan from it in the first place. Again, Greece wasn't forced to request a loan and accept the burdens that came with it. Burdens that were known to it long before signing the thing up Can you see where I'm going with this?

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48132907]At this point it's the inflexibility of the creditors demanding interest payments from a country which essentially cannot pay all at once and the EU's attempts to impose their own will in exchange for the necessary money for the country to function which has kinda of dried up sympathy with them. Greece is in a shitty situation because the austerity measures imposed since the crisis began haven't done anything great and no-one will lend them the money to get some stimulus spending happening. I'm certainly someone with only a rudimentary understanding of economics but they seem to be in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' type situation.[/QUOTE] The problem is that the crisis in Greece is precedent setting. The Eurozone can afford to give write-off some of Greece's debt but politically it can't. If the Eurozone writes off Greece's debt then Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy will expect the same treatment too. You can't have one rule for one country and one for another. Whilst Germany and France can afford for Greece to default on some of its debt, they certainly cannot afford the whole of the Mediterranean countries to do the same. The real worry is Spain as they have an election this year and Podemos (the Spanish equivalent of Syriza) will likely win power if they give in to Greece and demand that Spain's debt is written off too. They have to enforce discipline or else the whole system will fall apart. Everyone in this crisis is in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation which means they'll be no happy outcome.

[QUOTE=person11;48131455]Everyone will come back to the negotiating table [B]with Greece in a slightly better bargaining position[/B]. Whether or not Greece is better off in the long term has not been decided today.[/QUOTE][emphasis mine] Not against Germany as far as I can tell. Merkel wants to keep the country in the Euro, [I]but that's not necessarily the case for her (economically liberal) party[/I] which seems to mistrust Greece's intentions. The "No" just gave the critics of economic aid more fuel for complaints. A lot of other countries seem to see it more relaxedly though. Aside from that, some politicians (e.g. the EU president of parliament Martin Schulz (SPD, which is roughly the German worker party)) are discussing specifically humanitarian aid to help the people rather than the state.

Podemos will win here whatever if Greece gets crushed or not, right now their actions at the two most important city fighting the corruption have given them more votes (and considering how well the past political parties did, either they or also the "new" center wing party called "Ciudadanos", Citizens, will reach the power). The problem with Greece, is that they are trying to undone all the mistakes made on these years, and restart all again, which obviously is giving problems. Considering the dimision of Varoufakis, I wonder if is an strategy for the negotiations (Bad-Good cop: Bad cop-critizes the Eurogroup and rejects all the austerity measures->Good cop-tries to accept some conditions).

[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;48133056] Considering the dimision of Varoufakis, I wonder if is an strategy for the negotiations (Bad-Good cop: Bad cop-critizes the Eurogroup and rejects all the austerity measures->Good cop-tries to accept some conditions).[/QUOTE] It probably is, even his blog post said that he didn't mind resigning for Tsipras to use it as a bargaining chip. The Eurogroup members refused to speak with Varoufakis.

I haven't studied economics or anything, but here's what I think is happening that makes the situation difficult for Greece internally (assuming it would otherwise be somewhat self-sufficient): 1. Normally when an economy is mismanaged into debt on a large scale it has the option to "not honour" it using inflation, effectively paying the debt on the shoulders of its private international economy. 2. However, since Greece uses the Euro, it can't just print more of it and therefore runs into a hard "wall" where it absolutely can't pay anyone due to low currency volume, which causes economic deadlock. Of course there are giant issues with the first method too, but it's a slightly softer failure so [I]if[/I] the economy and fiscal policy are fixed quickly there may be enough time to save the situation. If it's (intentionally) not fixed then you get runaway inflation to the point where the currency turns into scrap paper. At that point a currency substitution normally happens, but only after the whole economy has been reduced to material wealth only. (Interestingly enough, this is the only large-scale measure that can be taken by the people directly without explicit consent from their government, since when the local currency rapidly inflates it becomes impractical to use it over a foreign one.) Something to note is that [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution"]currency substitution isn't all that uncommon[/URL], though there are multiple reasons for it aside from economic failure. A "Grexit" would transform scenario two into scenario one, because a reimplemented drachma would almost immediately crash in value due to Greece's inability to get cheap loans. Economic aid is somewhat of a middle path (essentially a more controlled way to keep liquidity that wouldn't automatically kill international trade business), but it's naturally coupled to strict measures against devaluing the Euro (which has lost quite a lot of its Dollar value recently already) since countries with a stricter fiscal policy like Germany do not want to reduce the value of their currency. Purely humanitarian aid would mean letting the economy crash completely to the detriment of everything above basic living conditions, until there's enough liquid value being created to cancel out the debt / be competitive enough for the international market. This is basically "lifting up everything by the base", which [I]sounds[/I] good but in practice doesn't go over well either if the measures are too strong, because it makes doing work moot to some extent, which does hurt the economy if the culture doesn't punish "slacking off". (Though to most people living purely off of someone else's work is shameful and they may work a lot to get specific luxuries, which is why socialism that only guarantees a good basic safety and makes individual effort pay off well usually works decently.) (It's likely I got a few things wrong here, so please correct me if you know more about this.)

This is running around internet as well, could any german confirm if this source is trustable? [url]http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/griechenland-krise-weidmann-warnt-wegen-bundesbank-gewinns/12012008.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;48133264]This is running around internet as well, could any german confirm if this source is trustable? [url]http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/griechenland-krise-weidmann-warnt-wegen-bundesbank-gewinns/12012008.html[/url][/QUOTE] The Handelsblatt is generally trustworthy, yes. The reasoning by the German state bank(?) president Weidmann is also solid: If Greece exits the Euro and inflates its debts away, those becomes worthless to the countries holding them (which are primarily Germany and France aside from the EU as a whole, afaik). However, [URL="http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/griechenland-krise-negatives-eigenkapital-bei-der-ezb-moeglich/12012008-2.html"]page two[/URL] mentions that at least for Germany as a country the effects would still be limited in either case (haircut or default instead of paying it all back) and only happen past 2020, since the payments are already delayed according to current planning, which targets a balanced budget without new debts for Germany. This is probably the reason why so many politicians here seem to be at least somewhat OK with a "Grexit".

[QUOTE=Tamschi;48133249]I haven't studied economics or anything, but here's what I think is happening that makes the situation difficult for Greece internally (assuming it would otherwise be somewhat self-sufficient): 1. Normally when an economy is mismanaged into debt on a large scale it has the option to "not honour" it using inflation, effectively paying the debt on the shoulders of its private international economy. 2. However, since Greece uses the Euro, it can't just print more of it and therefore runs into a hard "wall" where it absolutely can't pay anyone due to low currency volume, which causes economic deadlock. Of course there are giant issues with the first method too, but it's a slightly softer failure so [I]if[/I] the economy and fiscal policy are fixed quickly there may be enough time to save the situation. If it's (intentionally) not fixed then you get runaway inflation to the point where the currency turns into scrap paper. At that point a currency substitution normally happens, but only after the whole economy has been reduced to material wealth only. (Interestingly enough, this is the only large-scale measure that can be taken by the people directly without explicit consent from their government, since when the local currency rapidly inflates it becomes impractical to use it over a foreign one.) Something to note is that [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution"]currency substitution isn't all that uncommon[/URL], though there are multiple reasons for it aside from economic failure. A "Grexit" would transform scenario two into scenario one, because a reimplemented drachma would almost immediately crash in value due to Greece's inability to get cheap loans. Economic aid is somewhat of a middle path (essentially a more controlled way to keep liquidity that wouldn't automatically kill international trade business), but it's naturally coupled to strict measures against devaluing the Euro (which has lost quite a lot of its Dollar value recently already) since countries with a stricter fiscal policy like Germany do not want to reduce the value of their currency. Purely humanitarian aid would mean letting the economy crash completely to the detriment of everything above basic living conditions, until there's enough liquid value being created to cancel out the debt / be competitive enough for the international market. This is basically "lifting up everything by the base", which [I]sounds[/I] good but in practice doesn't go over well either if the measures are too strong, because it makes doing work moot to some extent, which does hurt the economy if the culture doesn't punish "slacking off". (Though to most people living purely off of someone else's work is shameful and they may work a lot to get specific luxuries, which is why socialism that only guarantees a good basic safety and makes individual effort pay off well usually works decently.) (It's likely I got a few things wrong here, so please correct me if you know more about this.)[/QUOTE] I'm not sure a Grexit would necessarily result in a worthless drachma, they'd probably peg it to the euro at some fixed rate. Officially at least. but i'm sure a Grexit will result in a lot of pissed off private entities being left holding the bag of totally worthless debt though.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48133305]I'm not sure a Grexit would necessarily result in a worthless drachma, they'd probably peg it to the euro at some fixed rate. Officially at least. but i'm sure a Grexit will result in a lot of pissed off private entities being left holding the bag of totally worthless debt though.[/QUOTE] Unless they get a lot of economic aid, they'd be unable to peg it to the Euro without freezing the economy. The whole reason for getting rid of the Euro would be having a malleable exchange rate in order to restore liquidity in the first place. [editline]edit[/editline] They could potentially try to devalue their currency all at once, erase their debts that way, and [I]then[/I] fix the exchange rate. However, I'm fairly certain this would destroy the confidence of investors and force Greece to immediately fix its state finances properly, which I don't think is a move the population would support (because it would be essentially just the austerity program again, but likely harsher).

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-05/greece-contemplates-nuclear-options-may-print-euros-implement-parallel-currency-nati]Greece is directly threatening to hyper-inflate the Euro via the use of a few printing presses they have. [/url] Go on Greece. You already sent several companies stocks down by about 10%, and US Oil by about 7%. You crazy fucks may also cause the realtor bubbles to go pop in China. I would not be surprised if this situation isn't resolved within the next week, we'll see a new economic recession.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;48138589][url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-05/greece-contemplates-nuclear-options-may-print-euros-implement-parallel-currency-nati]Greece is directly threatening to hyper-inflate the Euro via the use of a few printing presses they have. [/url] Go on Greece. You already sent several companies stocks down by about 10%, and US Oil by about 7%. You crazy fucks may also cause the realtor bubbles to go pop in China. I would not be surprised if this situation isn't resolved within the next week, we'll see a new economic recession.[/QUOTE] Greece would get into deep legal shit for printing Euros. Also the printing facilities in Greece can only print in denominations of up to 20 euro banknotes. And I'm pretty sure they would run out of paper and ink before they could make much of a dent in the money supply. For them to pay 1 billion euros alone, they would need to print 50 million banknotes, and that would do fuck all but delay things for a short while.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;48138589][url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-05/greece-contemplates-nuclear-options-may-print-euros-implement-parallel-currency-nati]Greece is directly threatening to hyper-inflate the Euro via the use of a few printing presses they have. [/url] Go on Greece. You already sent several companies stocks down by about 10%, and US Oil by about 7%. You crazy fucks may also cause the realtor bubbles to go pop in China. I would not be surprised if this situation isn't resolved within the next week, we'll see a new economic recession.[/QUOTE] I think I called this "the craziest thing that could happen" in some chat. However as Sobitnik says, there are far too many legal (and political) issues with that for them to actually do it. Hearing about the printing limitations is comforting nonetheless. (I wonder what options the other countries would have if something like this happened though. Legally speaking they may be able to declare them counterfeit, but it's hard to distinguish them.)

Since I'm so damned confused, could we get Sobotnik and Seed Eater to work together and explain this to me like I'm 5?