Vocal Voices

When you talk about Greece and whether they need a deal or not.

It is now 9 days and counting until Greece have to pay back €302.8m (€1.6bn for the month of June in total), to the IMF.

Almost everyone agrees that Athens doesn't have the money to pay it. However that is about al the agreement there is. The creditor nations have one simple scratched record response. "reform", "reform", "reform". They don't care about the democratic process or what the mandate of the government is. All they care is that Greece sacrifices itself at the altar of EU "stability". Never mind the fact that the EU financial stability is more akin to a gyroscope almost out of spin than a concrete founding stone for a house.

I get paid on Friday. I expect to lose about another 5% of my pay in my UK bank this month as the € drops against the £ again. Probably to recover within a few days as some patched up compromise keeps the sinking ship afloat for another month.

I notice that the IMF is no longer talking about it's contribution to the €7 odd billion rescue package for Greece. This is common sense as €7bn is less than Greece has to pay back to creditors in this year alone and, apparently, Greece doesn't have any more primary surplus to pay anything else with. So why throw any more good money after bad.

If my conspiracy theory is right and the visit to Osborne by Vroufakis in Feb was a cover to facilitate a meeting with De La Rou, then Greece only needs to survive till August for their new Drachma to be printed and ready to issue.... But that's just a conspiracy theory. Although it would be hard to understand Athens actions in any other light? After all what are they going to do next year? Their whole election pledge was based on dismissing 75% of the remaining debt and only having to fund 25% of it, which they could do on their own without additional funds. Or could have before the EU, trying to browbeat Greece into submission, drove away the bond market, investors and economic activity.

I do hope the one thing Tsipras is lying about is "Plan B". Otherwise "Greek Tragedy" will take on a whole new meaning in the modern world.

Just for a bit of enlightenment I went and had a look at Greece over the recent past (120 years or so).

First I had a look at their default history. Looking at that hodgepodge of lies, deceit and complete disregard for Greek Sovereignty, I can understand some of the hatred of a Troika. That term goes back to the century before last and replaces Britain with Germany and Russia with the IMF....

Then I had a look at their historic (recent), inflation rates. Which just proves to me that those in the EU who thought Greece could stand in the Eurozone were in total lala land.

Then I had a look at a document written in 2000 about Greece's economic performance in the 25 years preceding 2000, what it meant in the past and what it meant in the future. There are 3 things I take from this document.

1. Greece grew and was stable for the first time since independence from Turkey during the post WW2 period where they were controlled and run by a military dictatorship. They had low inflation, good growth and a balanced budget.

2. After the civil war and a democracy was crated, Greece ran huge deficits, high inflation, spent all the money the dictatorship had accumulated and the personal productivity fell. OK during the first decade they had the Oil shocks that all the western democracies had to deal with, but, still, it was not pretty. Then again, they were not exactly much worse than the UK during the 1970's.

3. I mark one massive difference with Greece, compared to the UK. Greece joined the EEC in 1981 and changed it's government from conservative (with a very small c), to Socialist (PASOK). This was at a time when the UK chose Maggie over a gaggle of discredited Labour idiots. The document above clearly states that there is one very clear break in productivity and economic activity, that being joining the EU and a socialist government. Simply put, Greece suddenly had massive EU loans and a socialist government telling everyone it was their "right" to live well and save nothing, the government would provide for them. Oh and working was their right but working hard, saving and improving themselves was a "Conservative" thing which only the middle classes did to suppress the workers...

From the article

Thus, relative to the rest of Europe, the break in performance seems more pronounced at about 1980, rather than 1973. That is of some
potential significance, for as mentioned earlier, in 1981 Greece joined the European Community and PASOK won control of the government, introducing some new directions for economic policy.

Finally one other document I had a look at.

If you were ever in any doubt what the EU is all about.... Here is a quote from the document.

The Germans, and particularly the Bundesbank, knew Greece should not join the euro. But it wasn’t really possible to tell countries they were not welcome in the single currency. It would fatally undermine the whole European project, an ideal to which an entire generation of politicians had committed themselves.

And there you have it. The European project is An Ideal. A very socialist ideal. Not an economy, not a strong gathering of nations to create something new and wonderful. But an ideal. A wet dream for a gaggle of Communists determined to drag us into their way of thinking....

Fascinating thing History isn't it... All the evidence was already there. Greece was already borrowing in the 1990's to replace the funds removed by the EU (the EU only give balance funds for a decade then pull the funding). The gravy train was over but the Greeks could not admit it. They were in the ERM ready to join the Euro and gain all those wonderful things a single currency would give them. Like cheap loans. Britain, at that time, was being summarily ejected from the ERM by Soros. Greece hid the problem.

Then, around the time this document was being written and Greece was joining the Euro, Greece was frantically hiding it's debt in credit default swaps aided and abetted by Goldman Sachs, which if you go back to the first link seems to be a time honoured tradition of funnelling money into Greece which they could not possibly afford to repay.

Now where are we today? We're back in an old cycle. The Greeks have, predictably, voted in a Socialist government who want to rewind the clock and re-write finaincial history without reforming Greece as a place which can do business and grow it's economy.

Time to let them out of the Euro and rebalance their funds. Don't eject them from the EU, the directives and market conditions are very good for their economic health, even if it will need another 50 years for them to have a solid effect.

In about 100 years, if the Greeks can keep things balanced and progressing, they might be viable in the Euro. Today they are not.