Thursday, July 2, 2015

Greece is in Depression with a capital D. And what do the troika propose?... More austerity which will guarantee a deepening of the economic decline.
How can Greece possibly repay its debts with a shrinking economy? The ideological stupidity of the Northern Europeans is astounding. They appear to want to punish Greece for old transgressions, but this is not an economic argument for rectifying a problem that the Europeans help to create by admitting Greece into the Eurozone in the first place and then doing nothing about the behaviour of German and French banks.  The Germans seem to have forgotten the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles which imposed onerous reparation conditions which Germany could not afford and which triggered social and economic chaos in Germany.
Who knows where the meltdown in Greece will go, but at least they won't be marching on Europe and putting people in concentration camps.

Greek bail-out


Photo: Reuters
Total debt pile:
 
€320bn

Greece still owed:

         €7.2bn
Debt settled by:

          2057



How did Greece get here?

In January left-wing government Syriza promised to end years of austerity measures but remain a member of the eurozone

What went wrong?

Negotiations descended into acrimony. Creditors want economic reforms in return for more aid, but Syriza won't budge on key election promises

When is the deadline?

June 30 - when Greece's bail-out programme expires and it owes €1.6bn to the IMF

What if they don't pay?

Greece will still be in the eurozone, but will get no further aid. The central bank could stop providing money to Greek banks forcing the government to issue an alternative currency

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