Greece and The Coming (possible) Grexit From The EuroZone

[doghouse]

What an asshole

Why? Germany is a democracy too and their citizens get a say in how their money is spent.

 

[Scherensammler]

Apart from a temporary upset at the stock markets I don't see what downside a Grexit would cause for the rest of Europe.
Italian olive oil will still be (secretly) blended with Greek olive oil (which is the better oil anyway, so it's said) and there might be a slight shortage of real feta cheese.
A week Euro is going to help exporting nations like Germany, so it's mostly other, less fortunate countries which will suffer more.

 

[Scherensammler]

Why? Germany is a democracy too and their citizens get a say in how their money is spent.

When did that happen? There will never be a sort of public referendum about vital issues.
Once the MOPs are in, they can decide whatever they want. And the BILD Zeitung will explain to the nation why the decision was right!

 

[doghouse]

Apart from a temporary upset at the stock markets I don't see what downside a Grexit would cause for the rest of Europe.
Italian olive oil will still be (secretly) blended with Greek olive oil (which is the better oil anyway, so it's said) and there might be a slight shortage of real feta cheese.
A week Euro is going to help exporting nations like Germany, so it's mostly other, less fortunate countries which will suffer more.

I've become more inclined to agree lately. The EU will be stronger, the nonsense about loss of prestige and confidence is the same kind of hoeey that led to WWI. The Greeks will be pretty fucked, but they outright voted for it. I'm still not leaning that it will happen, most people still want Greece in the EU, but the odds just went up.

When did that happen? There will never be a sort of public referendum about vital issues.
Once the MOPs are in, they can decide whatever they want. And the BILD Zeitung will explain to the nation why the decision was right!

It didn't happen, the guy was saying it should happen.

 

[Scherensammler]

It didn't happen, the guy was saying it should happen.

I'm afraid the Germans want a leader to tell them what to think and do. Whether it's a Kaiser, Führer or Angela Merkel.
Plus the mainstream media are in a position to influence the voters in a way the government/ elites see fit.
I'm still convinced that there was a lot of propaganda involved when the Grexit was discussed in the past days.
It was indeed well known that Goldmann-Sachs has helped Greece to meet the EU standards back in the days, yet nobody cared.
Greece's debts are mere peanuts compared to what the banking crisis has cost each country, and yet the banks got a lot of tax payer's money to carry on pretty much the same way.

The latest predictions forcast a clear lead for the "No!" campaigners.

 

[doghouse]

Greece's debts are mere peanuts compared to what the banking crisis has cost each country, and yet the banks got a lot of tax payer's money to carry on pretty much the same way.

They certainly aren't peanuts. But that isn't the point.

 

[Scherensammler]

They certainly aren't peanuts. But that isn't the point.

They could have stopped it much sooner, before it got out of hand. Which was pretty predictable to begin with.

 

[Grand Potentate]

The No's have it!

 

[Grand Potentate]

Consequences of the Greek OXI (no) Vote | Ian Welsh

A few points:

1. This isn’t about soaking bankers. Bankers, with some exceptions, were paid off during the “bailouts”. Right now it is taxpayers who are on the hook. If you wanted this done right (lenders take their losses), it had to be done in 2010.
2. The immediate question is if ECB will restore “lender of last resort” services. If it doesn’t (a shocking failure in a central bank) then Greece will be forced to issue its own currency. This may mean, initially, bills denominated as equal to Euros. They won’t sell on the market for equal to Euros, though.
3. Many Greeks who voted “no” seem to think that the vote was a way of giving Syriza a better hand in negotiation (this is what Tsipras said, so it isn’t an irrational belief.) We’ll see whether or not the Troika and the EU are willing to re-start negotiations. If they aren’t, I wonder if Greeks will blame them or Tsipras.
4. The IMF has called for debt reduction and admitted they got it all wrong. How much that matters, I’m uncertain, but it does give space for a deal Such a deal would still involve some austerity measures, just not as many or as harsh.

In the short to medium term this referendum matters more to Greece than Europe. Unless the monetary authorities are completely incompetent they should be able to contain the shocks: Greece’s economy is small; the amount of debt involved is, actually, small as well.

One should not discount the possibility that the ECB and “Institutions” are incompetent and will screw it up, mind you. Their behaviour thus far hasn’t just been cruel, it has been stunningly stupid from a clean technocratic POV. Mandos’s article on “how EUians see this” was important, but it’s also necessary to understand that the actual austerity policies followed were delusional if the ECB (or anyone else) thought they would lead to a sustainable debt load for Greece. They could not and did not.

It’s rarely clear in such situations if the people making decisions believe their own propaganda: did they think it was sustainable and wouldn’t lead to a crisis like this? Did they know it would lead to a crisis and think the Greeks would sit still and take it (not completely unreasonable, actually, given how much pain people have accepted from plutocratic policies in the past.)

I don’t know, but I think it’s the winner’s curse: neoliberalism (and austerity is part of the neoliberal project), has been winning for so long that those who came of age and rose to power during it (essentially all our central bankers, technocrats and politicians) cannot imagine it would ever lose. The look of incredulity is that of the three hundred pound bully when a 90 pound weakling doesn’t buckle. (Again, this doesn’t mean that the technocrats don’t also think they’re doing the right thing morally.)

If I were them, and by that I mean “not me in their position, but them”, I would crush Greece flat and make an example of it. If Greece comes out of this like Iceland, with a healthy economy in 3 years, then other populist movements (left or right) will receive proof that their policies can work. Democracy, as opposed to technocratic rule, will gain legitimacy, and so on.

This is not a prediction: as Machiavelli observed hundreds of years ago (People) are generally destroyed because they are unable to be either wholly good or wholly bad. Doing the right thing from day one would have been an excellent policy. Having done the wrong thing, these decision makers futures are intertwined with it: they will not keep their positions if Europe turns genuinely populist. Worse, that populism will almost inevitably turn against their masters, the oligarchs.

This is unacceptable: to oligarchs Europe is one of the few places actually worth living. Yes there are a few American cities, maybe you might want a vacation home in one of the nice Australian or Canadian cities; but that’s about it. Tokyo’s great, but you don’t speak Japanese. Dubai, despite its beauty and being created exactly for oligarchs is too soulless and boring even for oligarchs. Russia or China: well, China’s polluted, and if Putin or the Chinese Communist party says jump you do it, or you get dead or in jail. Oligarchs don’t rule Russia or China, though they hope to in the future.

This is also a significant moment geopolitically. Putin said that he won’t help Greece monetarily as long as it is in the EMU (uses the Euro.) That’s as good as saying he’s open to helping them if they aren’t. Greece is geographically important, can be used as a pipeline route (or terminus), and could offer Russia a warm water port. There are deals to be made. It’s for this reason that the US Treasury secretary keeps telling the Europeans to cut the debt and make a deal: the US doesn’t give a damn about Greeks suffering; it does care if Greece swings towards Russia.

So the game continues, and it is actually important. Greece is a small country, but it’s not a country whose population is smaller than most cities, like Iceland. Its success or failure at standing up to austerity, neoliberalism and technocratic EUian ideology could make a large difference in whether other, even larger countries, decide to do so. And by “other, even larger countries’ we mean essentially the entire south of the EU: Italy, Portugal and Spain. Ireland might consider it. Finland should consider it and after a few more years of pain in the Euro straitjacket, may well do so.

These countries subsidize the north, and especially Germany, by keeping the Euro cheaper than it would otherwise be (let alone the value of a reborn German Mark.) If they go, Germany’s economy is suddenly going to look a lot less efficient and sell a lot less goods (oh, wait, every advantage Germans have isn’t because they are good people?)

Interesting times, my friends. This is power politics, with huge amounts of real power and massive amounts of money in play: not today, but as consequences of what happens now. The fate of Greece matters, not so much in itself (except to Greeks and kind-hearted souls) but for what it will mean for Europe, NATO, Russia and all the countries in Europe. It could be one of the dominoes which leads to the end of the neo-liberal era.

You’re watching history: while remaining sympathetic to those being ground to pulp by its wheels (or between screams while caught in said wheels), let me suggest that you enjoy the view.

 

[doghouse]

For the non delusional crazy people (which is maybe two of you) there's a good AMA on reddit right now with two of the Economist Europe correspondents.

We are Tom Nuttall and Philip Coggan. We cover European politics and economics for The Economist, most recently focusing on the Greek crisis. AUA! : IAmA

 

[Grand Potentate]

So the ECB has cut the Greeks off. Which is definitely what a lender of last resort should be doing. Looks like its Grexit or bust.

 

[Scherensammler]

Greece has the misfortune that other countries are asking for a better deal as well, like the UK. Cameron is already "threatening" that if he doesn't get a better deal the UK might leave the EU. Not that they actually want to, but they might!
If the EU bosses let is slide with Greece others may follow that are in a difficult economical situation, like Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Especially Italy might have some leverage over the migrant situation.
It appears that every Greek business owner was cooking the books in order to not pay taxes. I'm not an expert, but doesn't that mean that without production and/ or general business there is no growth in a country, which would result in a low rating?

 

[Allen Smithee]

suck it banksters

 

[doghouse]

It appears that every Greek business owner was cooking the books in order to not pay taxes. I'm not an expert, but doesn't that mean that without production and/ or general business there is no growth in a country, which would result in a low rating?

I was digging through the OECD data last night just to see what they had, and holy shit, Greece is in a time warp. They have made literally no productivity gains in 35 years. Which seriously is medieval in nature. I find this stunning. This isn't affected by under reporting if consistent.

 

[Fwiffo]

I'm not an expert, but doesn't that mean that without production and/ or general business there is no growth in a country, which would result in a low rating?

If they reprint the drachma, I'm not sure who will trust them anymore. I foresee dual currencies a la Cuba, Zimbabwe where US dollars or some other currency is used for most transactions and the official currency is an overinflated token.

What assurances or collateral can the nation put up? Maybe we need to go back to moving the Greek treasures to other nations and selling people into slavery because I'm not sure what else they might have that would prove credit worthy.

Russia was able to do it after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they have natural resources and ageing military equipment to sell. Greece has...? Oh wait, there was mention about their wonderful feta cheese and olive oil - but a creditor will only lend money if they own a piece of that production and revenue.

UK is leading in economic growth. It's contemplating leaving because it wants to enter splendid isolation again and not be dragged down by the neighbours. You know if the EU is going bankrupt they are going to go after taxing the City of London.

 

[doghouse]

You know if the EU is going bankrupt they are going to go after taxing the City of London.

That's the thing about the EU. It can never really go bankrupt as it's a nebulous non entity. It's components can go bankrupt, but the EU itself would vaporize long before all of them did.

This is a chance for a springboard to political integration, though still a miniscule chance. If I was Greece I'd be all for it, that no thing is retarded. They could be the Mississippi of the United States of Europe.

 

[doghouse]

The BBC anchors have actually starting laughing as they read updates out of Brussels.

 

[Grand Potentate]

The BBC anchors have actually starting laughing as they read updates out of Brussels.

What's making them laugh? How they're trying to fuck the Greeks into oblivion?

 

[doghouse]

What's making them laugh? How they're trying to fuck the Greeks into oblivion?

Yep. Exactly that. I believe the line was " Ha those dirty fucking Greeks suck. I hope Germany takes all their money".

Get a grip.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Yep. Exactly that. I believe the line was " Ha those dirty fucking Greeks suck. I hope Germany takes all their money".

Get a grip.

Just a little Geo-political sarcasm.

 

[doghouse]

Just a little Geo-political sarcasm.

 

[Russell Street]

 

[John Lee Pettimore III]

I was digging through the OECD data last night just to see what they had, and holy shit, Greece is in a time warp. They have made literally no productivity gains in 35 years. Which seriously is medieval in nature. I find this stunning. This isn't affected by under reporting if consistent.

Can you explain that a little more? I found that absolutely incredible, so I pulled the data. I infer a different conclusion from it, but I trust your judgment over mine.

Productivity - Labour productivity and utilisation - OECD Data

 

[Russell Street]

I must be misreading that as well, because it seems to show Greece as substantially more productive than UK, Germany, US.

 

[John Lee Pettimore III]

I must be misreading that as well, because it seems to show Greece as substantially more productive than UK, Germany, US.

Well, I think it shows that their gains in productivity are higher, which would make sense for a developing country where only 53% of the populace has access to the internet. The US, UK, and Germany have plateaued a bit, which is natural until the next productivity "revolution".

 

[doghouse]

Can you explain that a little more? I found that absolutely incredible, so I pulled the data. I infer a different conclusion from it, but I trust your judgment over mine.

Productivity - Labour productivity and utilisation - OECD Data

I'm tied up at the moment but I will try and get some if the extracts up later

 

[Scherensammler]

 

[doghouse]

Well, I think it shows that their gains in productivity are higher, which would make sense for a developing country where only 53% of the populace has access to the internet. The US, UK, and Germany have plateaued a bit, which is natural until the next productivity "revolution".

Here is some quick and dirty stuff. The first graph shows GDP per hour worked in 2005 PPP dollars. Greece doesn't have labor utilization numbers until 1983, so the early stuff has to be brought back at historical utilization ratios. Greece actually had higher GDP per capita in the 1970's than Germany, so roughly mirroring them is highly generous to Greece. Most stats I have seen jive with these numbers.

This is current GDP per hour worked, which is pretty stark as well, and I included Spain, which scores surprisingly high. Right over the UK.

 

[Monkeyface]

RT is Russian propaganda. Like all new sources, you should be aware of its bias.

 

[doghouse]

RT is Russian propaganda. Like all new sources, you should be aware of its bias.

I have to say it was pretty hilarious for about 30 seconds. That dude on the right is a loon.

Also for everyone's enjoyment, Greeks apologise with huge horse

 

[Fwiffo]

Are we trying to justify to doghouse that the Greek economy and labour force are not a shambles?

 

[doghouse]

How Greece Can Solve Its Debt Crisis - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

 

[LelandJ]

The latest from the ECB suggests that they have raised the ELA "haircuts" on collateral tendered by Greek banks to 45%.

That's obscene -- unless the so-called "assets" are in fact worth nothing.

So let's take the two possibilities:

• The assets are good. The Greek banks should take them back from the ECB and sell them into the market to repay the ECB, keeping the rest of the funds from the sale. With a 45% haircut currently being applied if the prices the banks are holding them at are not frauds then they can easily do this and pay the depositors who wish to withdraw funds while having plenty left over. The amount of collateral (bonds) involved is relatively small compared against the totality of the EU debt marketplace; there would be zero (or nearly so) move in price caused by such a sale. Doing this would shrink the size of the banks involved (perhaps to extinction), but so what? No depositor would lose a nickel and there might be created new business opportunities for new bankers to spring up to fill consumer and business demand.
• The assets are worthless, or at least worth far less than claimed -- and most-importantly, worth less than the haircut marks! If this is the case then the Greek banks have been and are today committing fraud. In this case every one of their executives and managers should be arrested, tried and publicly executed. Yes, in this case the depositor money has been impaired and some will be lost but the people responsible will be properly punished for what they have done, deterring a future similar event.

So which is it?

Either the ECB has no bullets in this gun with their "haircut expansion" because the assets can be easily taken back and sold for more than the haircut value and this is what any rational business person would do or the assets are either worth far less than the haircut value or worse, entirely worthless.

AGAIN: Is this entire charade smoke and mirrors or is the Greek banking system a fraud-laced enterprise that needs to have virtually all of its participants face the harshest possible sanction?

One of these two must be true.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Here is some quick and dirty stuff. The first graph shows GDP per hour worked in 2005 PPP dollars. Greece doesn't have labor utilization numbers until 1983, so the early stuff has to be brought back at historical utilization ratios. Greece actually had higher GDP per capita in the 1970's than Germany, so roughly mirroring them is highly generous to Greece. Most stats I have seen jive with these numbers.

View attachment 7147

This is current GDP per hour worked, which is pretty stark as well, and I included Spain, which scores surprisingly high. Right over the UK.

View attachment 7149

Aren't these numbers susceptible to misinterpretation due to the fact that the Greeks work more hours in a week than any of the other EU countries?

Contrary To What Most People Think, Greeks Work The Longest Hours In Europe [Infographic] - Forbes

Contrary To What Most People Think, Greeks Work The Longest Hours In Europe [Infographic]
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Amidst the financial crisis, ordinary Greeks have earned the unflattering reputation as over-paid and lazy workers who retire far too early. This week, eurozone finance ministers reprimanded Greece for dragging its heels in the two weeks since they reached an agreement on extending the country’s bailout, which did not help. However, contrary to what most people think, Greeks actually work the longest hours in Europe.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that workers in Greece put in an average weekly shift of 42 hours, even more than Germans who only manage 35.3. Some experts claim this is due to the nature of the work in Greece – people put in long hours in the agricultural sector and shops that stay open late. It does not necessarily have anything to do with efficiency.

Interestingly, other countries badly effected by the economic crisis, such as Portugal and Spain, also rank high in the hours-worked list, coming second and third respectively. What about the stereotype that Greeks retire ridiculously early? The average retirement age is 57.8 in Greece. While this is low in comparison to other EU countries, it is not the lowest and margins are very thin – people in the UK retire aged 58.3 on average.

*Click below to enlarge (charted byStatista)

 

[Grand Potentate]

ConchitaWurst What's the feeling like in the land of the dutchmen on Greece? Jeroen Dijsselbloem seems to hate them with the fire of 1000 suns.

 

[doghouse]

Aren't these numbers susceptible to misinterpretation due to the fact that the Greeks work more hours in a week than any of the other EU countries?

Contrary To What Most People Think, Greeks Work The Longest Hours In Europe [Infographic] - Forbes

Contrary To What Most People Think, Greeks Work The Longest Hours In Europe [Infographic]
Comment Now
Follow Comments
Amidst the financial crisis, ordinary Greeks have earned the unflattering reputation as over-paid and lazy workers who retire far too early. This week, eurozone finance ministers reprimanded Greece for dragging its heels in the two weeks since they reached an agreement on extending the country’s bailout, which did not help. However, contrary to what most people think, Greeks actually work the longest hours in Europe.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that workers in Greece put in an average weekly shift of 42 hours, even more than Germans who only manage 35.3. Some experts claim this is due to the nature of the work in Greece – people put in long hours in the agricultural sector and shops that stay open late. It does not necessarily have anything to do with efficiency.

Interestingly, other countries badly effected by the economic crisis, such as Portugal and Spain, also rank high in the hours-worked list, coming second and third respectively. What about the stereotype that Greeks retire ridiculously early? The average retirement age is 57.8 in Greece. While this is low in comparison to other EU countries, it is not the lowest and margins are very thin – people in the UK retire aged 58.3 on average.

*Click below to enlarge (charted byStatista)

They do! This isn't misinterpretation, it actually makes it makes it worse than what even the stats show from a production standpoint. They get almost nothing done.

See here.

It does not necessarily have anything to do with efficiency.

 

[LelandJ]

Long after Greece has left the Eurozone and Germany is using the Deutsche Mark as its currency, the people of the two nations, antagonized to a level unseen since World War II, will be accusing each other of benefiting more from the brief but tumultuous period of the common currency.

In reality, nobody had put a gun to Greece's head and told it to lever up, enriching local oligarchs and corrupt politicians, taking advantage of credit that was artificially cheap only due to the common currency and an implicit monetary, if not fiscal, union.

Germany, whose exports account for nearly 50% of GDP, on the other hand experienced an unprecedented exporting golden age, made possible only due to an artificial currency, the Euro, that was by definition created to be weaker than the Deutsche Mark and benefitted from any bout of weakness in Europe's periphery, such as the past 5 years.

The truth is, when things were good nobody second-guessed any decisions for a second, and since the rising economic tide lifted all boats, nobody cared.

And then the tide rolled out, displaced by trillions in bad loans and gargantuan mountains of sovereign and financial debt, which ultimately would lead to the first, then second, then third and then an all-out cascade of sovereign defaults.

Sadly, the losers - regardless of the propaganda and jingoist rhetoric - are the ordinary, common, taxpaying people of Germany and Greece (and every other European nation), who enjoyed a few brief years of artificial prosperity, which in retrospect was entirely due to debt, masked well by the "currency swaps" and other financial engineering concocted by banks such as Goldman Sachs, in clear violation of the Maastricht treaty which is now a long-forgotten memory of the founding ideals behind the Eurozone.

For every loser there is a winner, and in the case of Greece and its tragedy, just as millions are about to lose everything, a few not only made billions but quietly, under the guise of "sovereign bailouts" transferred their entire risk onto the taxpaying public.

They are shown in the chart below.

It is that transfer of private-to-public risk, which is also the main reason why the public debt of so many European countries, not only Greece, whose debt is record high despite a default to its private creditors in 2012 and where only 10% of bailout proceeds ever made it to the actual economy...

... but the entire periphery has soared in the last few years.

Inevitably, there will be many angry people, because what is about to come to Europe will be hardship unlike anything seen in generations. Our suggestion: before neighbor takes it out on neighbor, study the following map closely because just like Libor was an impossible conspiracy theory until it was a proven fact, what is happening in Europe was propagated and effectuated by one bank more than any other.

This one:

Or, one can ignore this as merely yet another conspiracy theory. And that's fine.

But there is one critical, factual loose end that has to be investigated.

Back in June 2012, the ECB, whose head was the recently crowned Mario Draghi who had less than a decade ago worked at none other than Goldman Sachs, was sued by Bloomberg's legendary Mark Pittman under Freedom of Information rules demanding access to two internal papers drafted for the central bank’s six-member Executive Board. They show how Greece used swaps to hide its borrowings, according to a March 3, 2010, note attached to the papers and obtained by Bloomberg News. The first document is entitled “The impact on government deficit and debt from off-market swaps: the Greek case.” The second reviews Titlos Plc, a securitization that allowed National Bank of Greece SA, the country’s biggest lender, to exchange swaps on Greek government debt for funding from the ECB, the Executive Board said in the cover note. From Bloomberg:



In the largest derivative transaction disclosed so far, Greece borrowed 2.8 billion euros from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2001 through a derivative that swapped dollar- and yen-denominated debt issued by the nation for euros using a historical exchange rate, a move that generated an implied reduction in total borrowings.



“The Greek authorities had never informed Eurostat about this complex issue, and no opinion on the accounting treatment had been requested,” Eurostat, the Luxembourg-based statistics agency, said in a statement. The watchdog had only “general” discussions with financial institutions over its debt and deficit guidelines when the swap was executed in 2001.



“It is possible that Goldman Sachs asked us for general clarifications,” Eurostat said, declining to elaborate further.

The ECB's response: "the European Central Bank said it can’t release files showing how Greece may have used derivatives to hide its borrowings because disclosure could still inflame the crisis threatening the future of the single currency."

Considering the crisis of the (not so) single currency is very much "inflamed" right now as it is about to be proven it was never "irreversible", perhaps it is time for at least one aspiring, true journalist, unafraid of disturbing the status quo of wealthy oligarchs and central planners, to at least bring some closure to the Greek people as they are swept out of the Eurozone which has so greatly benefited the very same Goldman Sachs whose former lackey is currently deciding the immediate fate of over €100 billion in Greek savings.

Because something tells us the reason why Mario Draghi personally blocked Bloomberg's FOIA into the circumstances surrounding Goldman's structuring, and hiding, of Greek debt that allowed not only Goldman to receive a substantial fee on the transaction, but permitted Greece to enter the Eurozone when it should never have been allowed there in the first place, is that the person who oversaw and personally endorsed the perpetuation of the Greek lie is none other than Goldman's Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International from 2002 to 2005. The man who is also now in charge of the ECB.

Mario Draghi.

 

[ConchitaWurst]

ConchitaWurst What's the feeling like in the land of the dutchmen on Greece? Jeroen Dijsselbloem seems to hate them with the fire of 1000 suns.

good question Grand Potentate . although dijsselbloem is a socialist who are generally not cheering for the german christian conservative line of angela merkel, dijsselbloem seems to be a hard liner not inclinded to go ahead with a soft deal the french socialist hollande and the prime ministers from other garlic eatering countries may want to broker.

but who knows.

because the eu wasn't clear to the greek what would happen in case of a no vote, the greeks are now playing with our balls. not presenting any new plans. asking for an intermediate solution, pushing decisions about requiresd reforms further forward.

whether the unclatity from the eu was due to weak leadership from merkel (who may have speculated the greek would never have voted no and thus never thought the current scenario could become a reality) or because the garlic eating socialist french freeloaders were not allowing the eu to be so clear (because they want the greek in the euro so they will be the -financial- worlds main focus instead of other countries such as italy and posdibly france itself) we don't know.

long answer short; we should keep the greek in as nice gestute for the history and culture they gave us, and lesbo and anal sechs for those who enjoy that

 

[doghouse]

I'm not sure how much of this is true, but this guy is pretty close to Varoufakis. Interesting tidbits about strategy and expectation.

Europe is blowing itself apart over Greece - and nobody seems able to stop it - Telegraph

 

[John Lee Pettimore III]

Been digging into Greece a little more. Holy shit.

Public pensions are equal to 18% of GDP. 18%.
Defense spending is 10% of GDP (highest in Europe).
Debt to GDP ration is 177%. The US will be there soon, but still...
Government regulations require that milk can only be on the shelf for a week, so, naturally it costs more than anywhere else in Europe. (Don't get any great ideas Office Pants).
Labor costs are the highest in Europe, but wages are relatively low, meaning a disproportionate amount of the cost is regulatory.