http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33403665

Quote:With more than a third of votes counted, results from the Greek referendum suggest voters have rejected the terms of an international bailout.

Well, then - I guess beggars CAN be choosers...

Yes Greeks finally got rid of Brussels fascists, now it's time for Portugal to do the same and start voting for someone who doesn't put profit, privatizations, austerity and corporate welfare above anything else. Go southern Europe, it's time to rebel against these fascists!

I'm betting pro-EU are smashing their heads against the wall considering this result after all the pro-EU propaganda on the media.

The EU was supposed to be about mutual help and respect for different levels of development, about helping each other because we share a common past - It's not what's happening, the only thing the EU cares about is the damn debt, fuck the people, fuck the unemployed, fuck the hunger, fuck children and fuck humanity, just pay the damn debt - Never mind the fact strong countries are dictating this decision and the people (except in Netherlands and France) were never asked if they wanted to be a part of this.

I'm tired of these little fascists, fuck polite speech, I want to kick these fuckers out and behead them as soon as possible. I wouldn't object to any of it. Spain and Italy should do the same. Europe is not America, there was never an agreement in the first place to stick together and form a whole new State, so it's not going to work, and it was never destined to.

Asking debts to be repaid is not fascist, and neither are any of the other stupid decisions that placed Greece where it is today. "Fascist, fascist, fascist" reminds me of Jan from The Brady Bunch, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha". 

Now onto the substance of the matter. A no vote was the right answer. The failure of the loan and the austerity programs rests on the fact that since Greece was tied to the Euro it could not devalue its currency to boost exports, which in practice is required for austerity programs designed as part of changing financial policy to work. Without the increase in exports to offset the money taken out of the economy due to austerity, the economy runs the risk of falling into a depression. Guess what happened? 

Without the ability to manipulate monetary policy, what we see today was inevitable. The brain-trust sitting on top of the troika should have seen this coming. Relying on a no-confidence vote for Tsipras was a mistake and tells me that the EU's only strategy was to rely on political change to force more austerity which clearly hasn't worked and isn't alone the solution.

(July 5, 2015 at 3:14 pm)Homeless Nutter Wrote: Well, then - I guess beggars CAN be choosers...

They can when lenders have not thought through things properly and have loaned money without proper security.  When you loan money to a country, the laws of other countries regarding repayment do not force them to do anything, just like other countries' laws do not make one drive on a particular side of the road or pretty much anything else.

It is when you loan money within a country that that country's laws affect payment.  But loaning to another country, their laws matter, and they can tell you to fuck off if they want to.

Being an Aussie born greek, I can tell you I'm not surprised at all by Greece is in this situation.
I don't blame them in a way, but then again, everytime I was there, the majority of the young adults didn't work.
It's a lifestyle thing..... We wait for parents to die and we keep the family home.
Maybe something like this needs to happen to shake off that mentality, which has been there since forever.
If you go to Greece, they will be the first to tell you how "great" greece was in ancient times, while they sit around in the coffee shop sipping frappachinos.

It is interesting how we in the UK see the EU as a leftist organisation, whilst others in Europe think the opposite.

Greece shoud have left the Euro years ago. The loans have just been papering the cracks in the last few years. Devaluing the currency is the only way I can see it working. Staying in the EU will just see a dwnwards spiral of debt.

The problem of the EU is that if you have one currency and one central bank, then you really need one government too for it to work.

It is now settled, the NO won.
Greece will not undergo the reforms called for by the creditors in order to pay off their debt...
A debt that has been shown to be unpayable...

Also, those reforms tend to affect the middle/low classes, while the upper classes keep accumulating wealth. Not to mention some ludicrous military purchases that the troika insists must not be canceled... why?... because that money would go to some other european country...
In the meantime, all the austerity measures implemented in the past few years have managed to bring greece's GDP down by ~25% within one decade.


(note that the image says "growth", so the accumulated negativity is huge and it's a percentage from the previous year's GDP)


But Forbes disagrees:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/...unpayable/

Quote:the IMF has not said that Greece’s burden is unpayable. Quite the opposite: it’s said that only if Greece doesn’t take its economic medicine is that debt unpayable. The actuall conclusion is that if Greece does what it should do, run modest budget surpluses, not do anything too extreme to damage future growth (which means some supply side reforms that Syriza really don’t like), then that debt can be repaid.

Oh, no, it agrees.... "not damage future growth"? The growth that's already damaged due to all the policies implemented thus far... -.-'

I couldn't care who's fascist or who's a communist... the fact is that the measures imposed by the creditors are only doing worse.
Of course, the greek government could maybe do better... I've heard of many factors that keep people living off the state instead of producing something... like the pension of someone who worked as a public servant goes on being paid, after his death, to the children of that public servant, as long as they don't get married (meaning that they keep living with their parents, huh?).

The thing that comes out of this whole sordid affair is simple: both the greek government and the creditors have their very selfish agendas and can't compromise on the really important parts, preferring to deal with privatizations and get-money-quick-schemes like increase VAT that will only lead to further problems, down the line.

What they need is an impartial party detailing what must be done... this greek government seemed to be as impartial as it could get... but is still too partial... but power corrupts, we all know that.

Quote:In a joint appearance, the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the French president François Hollande said they respected the results of the Greek referendum.

It's a good thing...otherwise






Anschluss.

Min, if they do, they need to dig out their old maps.
Except for a couple of stadiums for the olympics, nothing has changed since the last time!
Even the same potholes are still there!