Eurozone will collapse...

[Osem]

What's going to happen if the Greeks don't quite like the next deal offered to them, if indeed one is? Another referendum? Why not? If this carries on, sooner or later they'll have to apply to the EU for aid to run their referenda...

[heero_yuy]

Time is very short:

The banker said that if the ECB refuses to provide any additional credit, then the Athens government will have to think about abandoning the euro and introducing a new drachma currency - because otherwise, it would be impossible to pay wages and the economy would deteriorate from being frozen, as at present, to catastrophe.

Linky

So it's either pour more money into the bottomless pit with no hope of it being repayed or watch the Euro fall apart. All comes back to the Germans.

If Greece is bailed out then expect Italy and Spain to be next in line. Why should they have austerity only to see the Greeks get a handout?

[Osem]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Time is very short:



Linky

So it's either pour more money into the bottomless pit with no hope of it being repayed or watch the Euro fall apart. All comes back to the Germans.

If Greece is bailed out then expect Italy and Spain to be next in line. Why should they have austerity only to see the Greeks get a handout?

I may be wrong but I have the suspicion that this whole EU/Euro thing wasn't properly thought through...

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Osem

I may be wrong but I have the suspicion that this whole EU/Euro thing wasn't properly thought through...

That's a masterly understatement.

But then vanity projects are pursued with such messianic zeal that little things like basket case economies that cook the books to get in are just a detail.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

That's a masterly understatement.

But then vanity projects are pursued with such messianic zeal that little things like basket case economies that cook the books to get in are just a detail.

Well it makes a change from exaggeration.

Maybe those blinkered Eurocrats are about to discover that the devil is in that detail...

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Osem

Maybe those blinkered Eurocrats are about to discover that the devil is in that detail...

I expect there's some EU fund somewhere, probably with some of our money in it, that will be raided to keep it going a little longer. The real problem is the 20th of July when some €3.5b, that Greece hasn't got, has to be repaid to the European bank. Don't think that they can fudge that one.

Excrement hits air circulator.

[Osem]

Greece has submitted "no concrete proposals" for a new bailout, at a key meeting of eurozone finance ministers, Malta's PM says.

Joseph Muscat tweeted that this "doesn't help this evening's eurozone leaders' meeting" in Brussels.

The eurozone had urged Greece to submit fresh plans after its people rejected a new draft bailout in a referendum.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is to address the European Parliament on Wednesday, a Greek government source said.

Reports say that the Greek side gave a presentation at the finance ministers' meeting on Tuesday. However, sources said there was no new written plan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33426328

Maybe they're worried that if they write anything down, they'll have to pay tax on it...

Greece really aren't giving their allies much to work with are they? The lack of market turmoil over the last few days is probably just going to strengthen the Eurozone resolve to resist Greece's demands and offer up a final 'take it or leave the Euro' deal.

Their big miscalculation was to assume that the precedent of a country leaving the Eurozone would strike up such fear that a deal would be forthcoming if they held their ground. In the end they've gone into the talks with no leverages and with lenders facing domestic pressure to resist the Greek demands. Also the lenders are the ones with the money. If you go to your bank and demand a reduction in your mortgage but you want to keep the house then the bank wouldn't be willing to play ball.

This is the front cover of a German finance magazine. I don't speak German but apparently it translates to 'Give me the money or I'll shoot':

[Osem]

The Greek government has extended bank closures and a €60 (£43; $66) daily limit on ATM withdrawals until Monday.

The curbs were imposed on 28 June, after a deadlock in bailout talks with creditors led a rush of withdrawals.

The European Central Bank has decided not to increase support for Greek banks until the debt crisis is resolved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33456182

But it's not all bad news. The Greeks have apparently come up with a credible plan as demanded - they're just looking for the fag packet they wrote it down on...

Meanwhile this is, apparently, how Greeks feel and are being seen in Germany:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33446985

Recent academic research has found that anti-Greek sentiment is on the rise.

"You hear people say 'we've had enough', 'we pay for you' and things like that," says Niki, who came to Offenbach from Thessaloniki in 2010 and works in Frankfurt airport. "It's not comfortable."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Niki socialises almost exclusively with her compatriot, often playing tavli, or Greek backgammon, with two German-born Greeks in Offenbach's Greek pub.

"I want this to end," she says, referring to the ongoing negotiations between Greece and its creditors. "I want to go back."

"It's going to be tough for me in Greece, but I prefer to be there with my people in my country, instead of staying here and listening to all this..."

A little further down Offenbach's Frankfurter Strasse, I come across Valerios, a 25-year-old who came here from Drama, a remote mountainous region in northern Greece, two years ago, and is now doing a vocational course while working in a hotel.

While he and his friend Pavlos, a builder who has been in Germany for four years, tuck into a kebab, Valerios says he, too, is acutely aware of how his country is perceived by some Germans.

"They say we are so lazy, that we don't like to work," he says, "and this comes from the media."

I dare say that German migrants in Greece aren't flavour of the month either.

Now who'd have thought that anything remotely like this could have resulted from the EU's perfectly logical and measured drive towards monetary and political union?...

Frankly a country/government that allowed it's hairdressers to retire at 50 with a full pension whilst failing to garner in enough taxes from it's citizens really has to face up to realities eventually.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Frankly a country/government that allowed it's hairdressers to retire at 50 with a full pension whilst failing to garner in enough taxes from it's citizens really has to face up to realities eventually.

That goes without saying and makes the decision to admit them into the Eurozone even more ridiculous.

[nashville]

A terrible state for a country to be in,

[Derek]

So Greeces masterplan after rejecting the offered bailout pretty comprehensively is to offer to sign up to the bailout pretty much in full.

That familiarity stems from its great similarity to the bailout proposals put to Greece by the creditors - the eurozone governments, the European Central Bank and the IMF - last month.
Pretty much everything wanted by the creditors is there - with the odd tweak or softening, but nothing which looks as though it ought to be noxious to them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33475455

[Osem]

Does anyone really believe the Greeks will stick to the deal, if accepted, or is this just another stay of execution?

Originally Posted by Osem

Does anyone really believe the Greeks will stick to the deal, if accepted, or is this just another stay of execution?

Some German politicians are asking the same question according to The Guardian. It does appear that Greece has folded entirely when it became clear they were in no position to make demands.