Only as good as the figures they are given.

It is widely accepted that there was some serious creative accounting for Greece to get into the Euro.

Bad taste when he has just died.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

I would expect that the Eurozone's leadership will have by now developed a Plan B (that they will not want to implement) to let Greece leave. If that happens I fear the Greek people will suffer even more hardship than they have to date in the short to medium term. I do not think a military coup can be discounted at some point.

If Greece does leave in a relatively orderly way it will probably over time improve its lot as its currency will be very weak and so it should be able to export, attract mass tourism, etc.

All we are seeing and will continue to see is member states of the EU that have been heavily subsidised have drops in living standards because fundamentally their economies are weak compared with Germany who effectively dictate interest rates. So, in effect the EU serves no purpose.

Boy this is hard to get through but MONEY IS A CONCEPT! It is intangible. I still have on offer the opportunity for people to have 1,000,000 of a Pound sterling or USA dollar or Euro, if they can show me one. Not a metal disc or plastic disc or piece of paper as a representation but an actual one.

Money is what people say it is. Drachmas no longer exist, nor french francs but they could as could greedbuckets if people want to create them.

As for debt, the crazy thing is that the planets total debt is considerably more than than the planets GDP. Are the Klingons waiting for something as they are the creditors? Of course that is absurd but then the current system is absurd.

How can a planet live on GREED? That is what is going on and the situation is getting worse. People are educated, they can think, and eventually enough is enough will happen and the rich will hide in their prisons hoping the masses will not come near. It's happened throughout history and yet people never learn.

There are warning signs and even the armed forces may not come to the rescue in some situations as has been shown again through history.

We live in interesting times

Is it?

You're having me on ?

The deals done were at the suggestion of Goldman Sachs and also JP Morgan. They came up with ideas similar to sub-prime and other such financial instruments to hide Greek debt. One of them just after entry into the Eurozone in 2001 was helping Greece to borrow billions which was hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan!

So they met the rules on borrowing because at the suggestion of Goldman Sachs they found a way to hide it.

When a firm of the type who you would expect to audit government accounts are complicit in the ruse to hide borrowing I don't think "Only as good as the figures they are given" has the same meaning as you intended above.

When the Greeks got the bailout they had to agree to be ruled economically by the troika (European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank) and so embarked on a Austerity program and the usual massive selling off of state assets. The IMF predicted after the Greek economy had crashed to the extent it had, they would as a result of the measures imposed experience a 25% (yes twenty five percent) growth in the economy as it bounced back from the very bottom of the pit.

It has not happened. Geek youth unemployment is at 60% for example. It remains a basket case.

So all the Austerity imposed has failed yet the Greek people have suffered the consequences. They took the medicine but there is no cure in sight. Their living standards have already dropped through the floor.

So given the bailout package has not revived the economy is it any surprise they have voted the way they have?

What the new Greek government has said is paying the debt back in full is unrealistic. They want to halve it and stay in the Euro. That will obviously go down like a lead balloon as I believe the Germans lent 22bn Euros as part of the 110bn package but really this is small beer and writing half that off does not seem to be unrealistic, especially since they have made a big profit as a direct result of the Greek crisis anyway.

As to Germany, they profit massively from this. German companies have bought up a lot of Greek state owned assets. The bailout package earns Germany interest on the loans and as you mentioned there are low interest rates which means Germany's own debt is cheap (but this is not new, the Euro has been undervalued for years as weaker economies keep it low).

Yep. I find the Germans anger on Greece bizarre. They have benefitted hugely from the Euro and are principal movers in the expansion of the Eurozone, including the stupid rules that mean a new entrant to the EU has to become part of the Eurozone.
Germany has to realise if it wants the benefits of the expanded Eurozone it has to take the downsides too, including sometimes bailing out less productive areas of the currency union. The same as the UK has to, just in a different, more integrated way.

I think we really do need to stop using jargon such as "austerity" and start calling it for what it has always been - just another means of wealth redistribution.

The goal is to exchange the assets of the state (ALL states) for the debt of trans-national capital. Breaking the power of states has been the goal since the death of FDR's "New Deal". States are the only entities with the power (legal and military) to curb the excesses of capital. A state saddled with crippling debt has no power.

The final stage will be the privatization of the military. Once that happens - the game will be up.