Greece: Bailout? Austerity? Stool Samples?

Monty, the guy who does the Daily Doom over at Ace of Spades, is taking a break, which means that I have to do my own damn research step into the breach, so here a roundup of European Debt Crises news:

  • After much hemming and hawing, Germany finally ponies up 130 billion Euros for the latest Greek bailout funds. “Nobody can give a 100 percent guarantee of success” says Merkel. Actually, just remove the “10” and you have the true chance of the latest bailout succeeding in solving Greece’s problems…
  • And the Greeks, in turn, pass “tough spending cuts”. Presumably those “tough cuts” would be the ones reducing the annual budget deficit from 9% to 7.5% of GDP. They’re don’t even require Greece to stop digging, they just want them to dig slower. And even that assumes that such cuts will actually be implemented.
  • But despite all that frantic activity, Standard and Poor’s still downgraded Greece’s bond ratings to “Selective Default.” You get the feeling they’ve seen this particular tragedy before, and know exactly how it ends.
  • Among the austerity measures were a reduction in the minimum wage, including a 22% cut on the standard minimum monthly wage of 751 euros, and a 32% for those under 25. A good idea and necessary, but once again the sons are paying for the sins of the fathers.
  • Unions, realizing their role in helping bankrupt Greece, have meekly accepted the cuts. Ha, just kidding. They’re going on strike.
  • Following the downgrade, the European Central Bank announced that they would stop taking Greek debt as collateral, at least until the new Greek bailout package goes into effect.
  • How bad is Greek bureaucracy? The FDA is a model of efficiency by comparison. At least the FDA didn’t require stool samples from investors.
  • Germany is thinking of sending German tax collectors to Athens. I’m sure it’s impossible that Greeks would take this in the wrong way.
  • Speaking of Germany, their high court has ruled yet again that a parliamentary panel set up to approve action by the euro zone bailout fund is unconstitutional.
  • Portugal is also digging more slowly, having cut its budget deficit from 5.9% of GDP last year to 4.5% this year. Meanwhile, it’s economy also contracted by 3.3%.
  • The Finns are in, supporting the Greek bailout to the tune of 2.3 billion Euros.
  • Ireland is actually allowing its citizens to vote on the European stability treaty. Of course, if they vote no, expect them to have to keep voting until they ratify the result the Eurocrats have already chosen for them.
  • Seeking Alpha makes the obvious point that you don’t want to hold any of the PIIGS sovereign debt. I would go further and suggest that you don’t want to hold any sovereign debt denominated in Euros…
  • So who, above all, wants to avoid a Euro default among the PIIGS? Would you believe Goldman Sachs? “At the end of 2011, Goldman Sachs had sold $142.4 billion of single-name swaps, contracts that pay out in the event of a default, on the five countries.” That’s an awful of of incentive to keep the game running until all the rubes taxpayers can be fleeced…
  • Even big-spending, welfare state cheerleader and all-around leftwing mouthpiece Paul Krugman thinks Greece will have to leave the Euro. So it only took two years for Krugman to come part of the way toward realizing what what Mark Steyn did two years ago. Of course, Krugman’s analysis is short term and technical, whereas Steyn saw the unsustainable nature of the welfare state a long time ago. Do you think Kurgman might want become a bit less of a cheerleader for big government? I wouldn’t hold your breath…
  • EU council president Herman Van Rompuy: All your national parliaments are belong to us.
  • Spain balks at letting their government reduce spending by 4%of GDP. Problem: Their annual budget deficit is 8% of GDP. That’s the problem when you get that far down the hole to serfdom: Even slowing the digging becomes unacceptable, much less stopping…
  • “Decades of cradle-to-grave socialism, a short work week and long vacation periods for European Union workers have taken a toll on the treasuries of the nation states. The good life lived in Europe without a thought of tomorrow has brought on these days of reckoning. Greece is an example of the limits of a European welfare state.”
  • What would a real solution to Greece’s problems look like? “They must roll back bureaucracy, free up entrepreneurs and reduce the burden of the welfare state, so that the private sector can begin to grow….Regrettably, this is not the approach that has prevailed so far. Indeed, as things stand a whole host of European Union and European Central Bank policies are pushing things in precisely the opposite direction.”
  • American liberals love to talk about Northern Europe’s welfare states, but don’t like mentioning Southern Europe. “For all their fascination with Europe, southern Europe doesn’t loom large for the American Left. But France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal and Greece are more representative of European outcomes than Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and have equally sized welfare states. Their failure should not be ignored in the American debate.”

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  • 3 Responses to “Greece: Bailout? Austerity? Stool Samples?”

    1. Hal (GT) says:

      What I don’t get is why they are pushing the Greeks in the wrong direction. The ECB that is. It seems completely evil to me. I don’t get it and I think it is horrible to do to the Greek people. Yeah. Their government has been corrupt and inefficient. But there must be someone in the country who is morally upright and has some common sense and can take the Greek bull by the horns and steer the country back on track.

    2. τράπεζες…

      […]Greece: Bailout? Austerity? Stool Samples? « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog[…]…

    3. […] that just caused a change in government? It reduced Greece’s official deficit spending from 9.0% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP. They didn’t even want Greece to stop digging a hole, they just wanted them to dig more […]

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