The grexit media coverage is terrible and absurd.....

[michael anderson]

I've seen the same article a million times now. Some back reporter interviews a couple of Greek citizens....

Reporter- so you want to stay in the euro?

Greek idot- yeah we need to stay in the euro.

Reporter- so you are ok with austerity?

Greek idot- oh no can't have that.

Reporter- ok bob back to you.....

On a related note Greeks have got to be about the craftiest people around....this crap has been going on for like 4 years now, and they've managed to steal all this money for so long. All the while knowing it would never be paid back. Reminds me of those people who live in a new house they bought for like 16 months total before finally getting evicted....paying a single mortgage payment! Who is the idot....them who lived rent free for over a year or the bank who loaned them the money?

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

Works for a while, but getting evicted with no place to go is
a bitch....

--
Though my heart be left of centre, I have always known that the only
economic system that works is a market economy, in which everything
belongs to someone -- which means that someone is responsible for
everything. It is a system in which complete independence and plurality
of economic entities exist within a legal framework, and its workings
are guided chiefly by the laws of the marketplace. This is the only
natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that can
lead to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature
of life itself. -- Vaclav Havel

[michael anderson]

They can always rent a house....yeah, the best deals/houses may not be possible as they can be picky, and you may have to put a larger than usual deposit down. But I'd take 25000 worth of 'free living' in exchange for having to give 2 months security deposit instead of one.

[xyzzy]

It's because until today nobody believed a grexit would actually happen. Everyone assumed they would make another deal to keep kicking the can down the road, like they always have, so it was all just seen as

[The Cheesehusker, Trade Warrior]

On Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 7:14:02 PM UTC-5, xyzzy wrote:
> It's because until today nobody believed a grexit would actually happen. Everyone assumed they would make another deal to keep kicking the can down the road, like they always have, so it was all just seen as

overnights down 238 as I type

[xyzzy]

I have a co-worker vacationing in Greece right now. Can't wait to hear his stories when he gets back.

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

On 2015-06-28, michael anderson <miande...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was talking about the Greeks, really. Analogies only go so far.

--
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance,
unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited
memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to
create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even
implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated.
Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are,
after all, anonymous. -- Barry Ritholtz

[RoddyMcCorley]

You meant to type: "if he gets back."

--
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul
with evil.

Pennsylvania - Tá sé difriúil anseo.

[andre...@gmail.com]

I can't help but snicker at this terrible mischaracterization. Stolen money? Seriously? LOL.

Meanwhile, the Greek economy keeps collapsing due to the extremely harsh austerity imposed on it, and Very Serious People who ought to know better keep pushing for more of the same. Jesus.

[The Cheesehusker, Trade Warrior]

Curious - what would you have them do? The Greeks that is

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

Greece: we voted for you to give us more money
Germany: sorry
Greece: WHY DO YOU HATE DEMOCRACY

($1 to David Burge)

--
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher Von Braun

[michael anderson]

what I don't get is when the citizens of Greece(and greek pols and sympathizers) continually shouting "Austerity doesn't work. We've tried it." Ummm ok.....it's their country. If that doesn't work, perhaps they should develop another plan to pay back the money they borrowed.

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

They've selected their plan -- re-institute the drachma. It will be
ushered in with a couple of years of pain that make "austerity" look
like heaven, but hey -- austerity was intolerable.

--
Experience is what allows you to recognize a mistake the second time you
make it. -- unknown

[xyzzy]

Greece definitely has a reckoning coming. They need to rip the band-aid off.

Grexit then default then recession then recovery. See: Iceland. Or Argentina.

Of course all of this is easy for us to say, not being trapped in the Greek economy.

The main problem that Greece has now is that it doesn't have a currency that can be devalued. I know Paul Krugman doesn't get much respect here but he's written about the basic problem of the Euro... sovereignty without control of your monetary policy is a problem.

[xyzzy]

Correct, but the difference is that with the drachma, recovery based on cheap currency and therefore cheap exports is possible and would come much quicker than trying to austere their way out of it forever. The Euro has its advantages for countries with similar outlooks, but a country that doesn't control its own currency is not really sovereign. A lot of the Euro zone countries are OK with that and work well within the ECB's guidelines, but countries that don't or can't shouldn't be in the Euro.

[andre...@gmail.com]

What xyzzy suggested; default, then drachma. The other alternative relies on the Eurozone fixing the problem by treating countries as states in a manner similar to the US, and Germany, at least, is sitting far too pretty (and not even mostly by its own devices) to countenance such a thing.

[The Cheesehusker, Trade Warrior]

Similar to my viewpoint - surprised they haven't been kicked out of the Euro actually.

And hold on - I agree with Krugman.....:)

[michael anderson]

320 billion dollars is a lot of money.....and the moment they are kicked out all of that disappears on paper as well. That's a pretty big hit to take.

But don't throw good money after bad. Better to eat 320 billion than have to eat 500 billion.

[michael anderson]

Greece played this brilliantly. Had they not hoodwinked all these other countries and banks for 320 billion(and never joined the euro), their economy would still be in the crappy situation it's in. but they managed to steal 320 billion dollars of other peoples money to pass around to their citizens......brilliantly played.

[michael anderson]

the crazy thing is the amount of money Greece owes all the banks from these recent(post euro) loans comes out to 29,000 dollars per greek person(even children included). that's insane. Greece doesn't appear to even be a functional country at this point.....for 29000 dollars I can buy a new Honda accord loaded. So basically every greek citizen has stolen a new loaded Honda accord these last several years.

[xyzzy]

On Monday, June 29, 2015 at 3:07:40 PM UTC-4, michael anderson wrote:
> the crazy thing is the amount of money Greece owes all the banks from these recent(post euro) loans comes out to 29,000 dollars per greek person(even children included). that's insane. Greece doesn't appear to even be a functional country at this point.....for 29000 dollars I can buy a new Honda accord loaded. So basically every greek citizen has stolen a new loaded Honda accord these last several years.

"I crashed the Euro economy and all I got was this lousy Honda Accord"

[The Cheesehusker, Trade Warrior]

TMML

[andre...@gmail.com]

I love how you can repeat the same lies over and over again, as if they're actually true.

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

I don't disagree, but you won't be able to sleep for the squeals
of pain. Iceland and Ireland suffered it quietly, but Greece will not.

> The Euro has its advantages for countries with similar
> outlooks, but a country that doesn't control its own currency is not
> really sovereign. A lot of the Euro zone countries are OK with that
> and work well within the ECB's guidelines, but countries that don't
> or can't shouldn't be in the Euro.

The Euro was a bad idea. The UK was prescient when they didn't join it,
and Margaret Thatcher was a big reason:

Perhaps the Labour party would give all those things up easily.
Perhaps it would agree to a single currency and abolition of the
pound sterling. Perhaps, being totally incompetent in monetary
matters, it would be only too delighted to hand over full
responsibility to a central bank, as it did to the IMF. The fact is
that the Labour party has no competence on money and no competence
on the economy -- so, yes, the right hon. Gentleman would be glad to
hand it all over. What is the point of trying to get elected to
Parliament only to hand over sterling and the powers of this House
to Europe?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/watch-margaret-thatcher-explain-why-the-euro-is-a-terrible-idea-in-1990/274768/

--
People who want to share their religious views with you
almost never want you to share yours with them. -- Dave Barry

[Michael Press]

In article <ce7763c1-c9f9-46be...@googlegroups.com>,

michael anderson <miande...@gmail.com> wrote:

> the crazy thing is the amount of money Greece owes all the banks from these recent(post euro) loans comes out to 29,000 dollars per greek person(even children included). that's insane. Greece doesn't appear to even be a functional country at this point.....for 29000 dollars I can buy a new Honda accord loaded. So basically every greek citizen has stolen a new loaded Honda accord these last several years.

Does not seem like very much to me.
Don't get me wrong. Hondas are good cars.

--
Michael Press

[xyzzy]

I don't know if I'd say Iceland suffered it quietly. But with a national
population well below a half million you couldn't just hear them over the
soothing waves of the vast North Atlantic.

>> The Euro has its advantages for countries with similar
>> outlooks, but a country that doesn't control its own currency is not
>> really sovereign. A lot of the Euro zone countries are OK with that
>> and work well within the ECB's guidelines, but countries that don't
>> or can't shouldn't be in the Euro.
>

> The Euro was a bad idea. The UK was prescient when they didn't join it,zx

> and Margaret Thatcher was a big reason:
>
> Perhaps the Labour party would give all those things up easily.
> Perhaps it would agree to a single currency and abolition of the
> pound sterling. Perhaps, being totally incompetent in monetary
> matters, it would be only too delighted to hand over full
> responsibility to a central bank, as it did to the IMF. The fact is
> that the Labour party has no competence on money and no competence
> on the economy -- so, yes, the right hon. Gentleman would be glad to
> hand it all over. What is the point of trying to get elected to
> Parliament only to hand over sterling and the powers of this House
> to Europe?
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/watch-margaret-thatcher-explain-why-the-euro-is-a-terrible-idea-in-1990/274768/

I think the Euro is a good idea for countries that embrace the idea and
know what they are getting into. The biggest problem with the Euro zone is
that it got too big and diverse. If it had consisted of Germany, France,
Austria, Britain and other similarly wealthy and situated countries I think
it would have been fine. On the plus side it eliminated a lot of currency
conversion friction. Where it went wrong is extending it to poorer
countries as a crypto welfare program. IMO.

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

It has yet to be seen if Portugal, Italy, and Spain can stay with it.
The two others of the original PIIGS have gone down, and those three
are far from out of the woods. Each is undergoing their own version of
austerity. The reason Europe was so hard on Greece was an attempt to
keep the contagion from spreading to them. It is far from certain they
have succeeded. If those three start having problems, the current pain
of the Greeks will seem a Sunday picnic in comparison.

--
I don't want to get to the end of my life and find I have just
lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as
well. -- Diane Ackerman

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

Here is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Quote from
the WSJ article on Greece:

“How can something like this happen without prior warning?”
asked Angeliki Psarianou, a 67-year-old retired public servant,
who stood in the drizzle after arriving too late at one empty
ATM in the Greek capital."

--
There's nothing sweeter than life nor more precious than time.
-- Barney

[Damon Hynes, Cyclone Ranger]

On Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 8:32:03 AM UTC-5, Con Reeder, unhyphenated American wrote:

> Here is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Quote from
> the WSJ article on Greece:
>
> "How can something like this happen without prior warning?"
> asked Angeliki Psarianou, a 67-year-old retired public servant,
> who stood in the drizzle after arriving too late at one empty
> ATM in the Greek capital."

Holy shit. Yeah.

[Michael Press]

In article <slrnmp524p.9...@kim.perusion.com>,

That whole Euro thing was and is a swindle. The people of Great Britain
should be worshipping icons of Margaret Thatcher and voting Conservative
to a man and woman.

--
Michael Press

[Michael Press]

In article <slrnmp56ih.b...@kim.perusion.com>,

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_center#Rodent_experiments>

| Rats in Skinner boxes with metal electrodes implanted into their
| nucleus accumbens will repeatedly press a lever which activates
| this region, and will do so in preference over food and water,
| eventually dying from exhaustion.

--
Michael Press

[Damon Hynes, Cyclone Ranger]

On Saturday, July 4, 2015 at 9:57:38 PM UTC-5, Michael Press wrote:

> That whole Euro thing was and is a swindle. The people of Great Britain
> should be worshipping icons of Margaret Thatcher and voting Conservative
> to a man and woman.
>
> --
> Michael Press

IAWTP

[xyzzy]

Where's the love for John Major?