[jeffkrol]

Seems they want the people to decide on their direction instead of the banks..................
Wow, dangerous game........

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/europe/markets-tumble-as-greece-plan...-aid-deal.html

The proposed ballot will put Greek austerity measures — and potentially membership in the euro zone — to a popular vote for the first time, risking Mr. Papandreou’s political future and threatening even greater turmoil both among the countries that share the single currency and further afield.

His announcement sent tremors through Europe’s see-sawing markets on Tuesday, with bank stocks taking a particular hammering because of their exposure to Greek debt.

Hello Monetary Sovereignty.........

“Let us allow the people to have the last word, let them decide on the country’s fate,” he said.

[Jasvox]

PM Papandreou is a master at public relations and this is a brilliant plan...to keep him in office and to try to get a handle on public perception of his government. While first thought may seem heroic and in the spirit of the country and democracy, this is really a no-win situation for the common Greek citizen by allowing this vote as a referendum. Why? Greece is in a hole so deep at the moment that by choosing not to accept the loans will surely mean default and self-excommunication out of the Euro system. When and if that happens, you will see very very hard times for Greece as they try to establish a new currency and economy, with no credit worthiness. No banks will lend to them in order to establish a currency with any value for a long long time. Perhaps bartering will be the norm or something similar to what Russia went through after the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, if they continue to take these bank loans in the tens of billions every few months in order to keep the country solvent, the Greek people will shoulder the burden of this debt for a hundred years, if they can last that long being beaten back into the threshold of a third world economy. Even with the loans, there is no guarantee anyone living here will live comfortably as some sort of imagined success due to the bailouts.

Papandreou should have held this referendum 2 years ago before accepting previous bailout loans and before the pleasing to the banks austerity measures wrecked everyone's lives here (mass unemployment, business closing, foreclosures, banishing of the minimum wage, job cuts, wages cuts, tax levies, etc).

In reality, this is little more than a ploy to put something before the people which while may seem fair from a headline, leaves little choice since enormous damage has already been done. Now that we have set ourselves on fire, we are to vote for more fire or borrowed water.

Jason

[altopiet]

It seems to me that Greeks are really between hell and high water, no matter what they decide, the future for them look quite bleak. The question is how the whole situation will impact on the rest of the world and more specifically the other, third world countries.....

[jeffkrol]

It seems to me that Greeks are really between hell and high water, no matter what they decide, the future for them look quite bleak. The question is how the whole situation will impact on the rest of the world and more specifically the other, third world countries.....

Not really , they could weather the conversion from the Euro to the Drachma quite well (there are blueprints out there to minimize the turmoil).

Bigger question is: the remaining "debtors". IF the EU is busted up even more, the EU banks will lose BIG TIME. The individual nations will return to their sovereign status w/ their own fiat currency and be done w/ the IMF as well...............

[Parallax]

Seems they want the people to decide on their direction instead of the banks..................

I wish the U.S. would allow that.

[Jasvox]

Write your Congressmen and urge them to serve in the interests of their constituents.

Jason

[Nesster]

Write your Congressmen and urge them to serve in the interests of their constituents.

Jason

Of course, you need to define "constituents" for the Congressmen...

[Parallax]

Write your Congressmen and urge them to serve in the interests of their constituents.

They've already taken an oath to do that. If that doesn't mean anything to them, I doubt my letter would.

Of course, you need to define "constituents" for the Congressmen...

A Congressman's constituency would be other wealthy, power hungry, think-they're-above-the-law individuals and corporate representatives.

[Jasvox]

The vote was the "by the people" part. A letter is to remind them about the "for the people" obligations.

This is an artical in today's English speaking Greek Newspaper. Decent article from an internal point of view: ekathimerini.com | Grand gestures, empty gestures

Jason

[jeffkrol]

A bit "dated".......


Warren Mosler: A Modern Monetary Theory Approach to Solving Greek Solvency

[Tom S.]

Screw Greece. Their crisis didn't happen overnight. It's been coming for years and neither the people nor the government did a thing to avert it. By dragging their feet, they threaten to bring the same fate to other countries, including some who have agreed to help bail them out.

[jeffkrol]

“We have a strange situation: Everyone’s cursing the government, and everyone expects the government to do the job by itself — to reorganize the economy, to cut the deficit, to make a deal with the Germans — but at the same time, nobody helps him.”

“All parties and all media criticize the government,” Mr. Kirstos added. “So Papandreou, in a sense, tried his best to do the referendum to force the parties, the media and the citizens to undertake their own responsibility. The referendum is a yes or no issue: Either you are in favor, or you decide that you say goodbye to the euro zone.”

Many Greek voters say they are tired of hearing about decisions taken in foreign capitals and political initiatives that do not represent ordinary Greeks. “The government is no longer in control, others are calling the shots,” said Akis Tsirogiannis, a 42-year-old father-of-two who recently lost his job at a furniture workshop in Athens

But he said he shared the skepticism of many other Greeks that snap elections would solve anything. “The opposition parties are even worse than the government,” he said. “They don’t have a clue about what needs to be done, they just want to grasp the chance to get into power.”

He said he would vote against the debt deal in a referendum, should the government survive to hold such a vote. “This deal, like all the others, is a life sentence of austerity for Greeks. The country is being run from the outside — by bankers and the European Union government. We need to reclaim our country, whatever that entails.”

Charged by Europe with dismantling the welfare state they helped create, many of Mr. Papandreou’s Socialist members of Parliament feel they too have reached their breaking points.

Vasso Papandreou, a prominent member of parliament and a former minister who is not related to the prime minister, called on Greek President Karolos Papoulias to order the formation of a unity government ahead of early general elections. “Bankruptcy is imminent,” she said. Earlier this month, Ms. Papandreou said she would vote for a new raft of austerity measures, but that it would be “the last time” she supported the government unconditionally.

If Mr. Papandreou’s government falls, it would not be the first one in Europe to be toppled by the austerity demanded by European debt relief. In Ireland and Portugal governments fell after accepting bailouts from the European Union and the I.M.F., and last month the Slovakian government fell over a vote on whether to participate in the European Union’s rescue package.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/europe/markets-tumble-as-greece-plan...1&pagewanted=2

[Parallax]

Their crisis didn't happen overnight. It's been coming for years and neither the people nor the government did a thing to avert it.

Just like us, huh?

[Wheatfield]

Screw the USA. Their crisis didn't happen overnight. It's been coming for years and neither the people nor the government did a thing to avert it. By dragging their feet, they threaten to bring the same fate to other countries, including some who have agreed to help bail them out.

It kinda fits, no?

[Parallax]

It kinda fits, no?

Bill, the only thing in your re-write that doesn't fit is the "including some who have agreed to help bail them out."
Nobody ever offers to help bail us out.