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Europe
Greece will run out of money soon
2012-05-14
Greece's deputy prime minister has said the country will run out of money in six weeks unless it honours its bitterly-disputed EU bailout deal. The deputy prime minister also warned that chaos could boost the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which won an unprecedented seven per cent of the vote, and 21 seats, in Sunday's election.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph, Theodoros Pangalos said he was "very much afraid of what is going to happen" after Greek voters rejected the deal in elections last Sunday.

"The majority of the people voted for a very strange mental construction," he said. "We want to be in the EU and the euro, but we don't want to pay anything for the past."
That's the history of your country over the past 2500 years -- hide everything from the Emperor, King, Prime Minister or General, and yet demand everything from the state. Why is this a surprise?
The main beneficiary of the election, the hard-Left Syriza coalition, came a startling second on a promise to tear up the deal, which promises EU loans to keep massively-indebted Greece afloat, but demands crippling spending cuts in return. Germany, the principal lender, has said it will stop payments if Greece breaks its promises on spending.

Mr Pangalos warned: "There is a school of thought that says the Germans are bluffing. They need Greece and will never throw us out of the eurozone. But what will happen, which is almost certain, is they will not give us the money to pay our debts.
"We will be in wild bankruptcy, out-of-control bankruptcy. The state will not be able to pay salaries and pensions. This is not recognised by the citizens. We have got until June before we run out of money.
The Germans could well be bluffing. The German economy needs export markets or else it's SOL. The Greeks can't buy German goods unless they have money. So there you go.
"We have been spending the future for half a century. What [the anti-bailout forces] are really asking from the EU is not just to pay our bills, but also to pay for the deficit which we are still creating.

"I'm sure the Germans don't want Greece to leave the euro. What I don't know is how much they're willing to pay. It depends on the German man on the street. Is he willing to pay his taxes to save Greece? I doubt it."
The German citizen on the street? Hans, Frans, Dieter and Mustafa? I doubt they're willing to pay a pfennig. But they're not in charge...
After each of the top three parties at the election failed to form a government, Greece's president, Karolos Papoulias, will on Sunday hold last-ditch talks to cobble together a national unity coalition. The alternative is a fresh election next month which polls show Syriza is likely to win.

Mr Pangalos compared Syriza's charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras, to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. "Are the Germans going to pay for a guy that wants to imitate Chavez?" he said. "Except that Chavez has oil, and an army."

The deputy prime minister also warned that chaos could boost the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which won an unprecedented seven per cent of the vote, and 21 seats, in Sunday's election.

"In the places where the police voted, the fascists got 25 per cent," he said. "They are a serious threat. They have used violence already -- you don't know where it will stop.
"You know how it happened in Germany -- it started with the Jews, then the Communists, then everybody -- it could happen here. This is the country, after the Soviet Union and Germany itself, with the biggest percentage of [Second World War] casualties in its population."
If Greece isn't serious enough to want to save itself, if all it wants to do is blame others, if the only people it can turn to are socialists (bolshevik or national), then perhaps that's what the Greeks deserve. Let them spend two generations in the wilderness; then perhaps they'll behave more like Hungary or Latvia...
Mr Pangalos's Pasok, the Greek Socialist Party, lost three-quarters of its seats at the election after voters blamed it for the bailout deal and the cuts, which have caused enormous hardship but failed significantly to reduce Greece's debt.

The economy has shrunk by 8.5 per cent in the last year. More than a fifth of the population is out of work and youth unemployment is almost 54 per cent.

Pasok, together with the main conservative party, New Democracy, previously won up to four-fifths of the vote. Last week, the two established pro-bailout parties were reduced to 32 per cent between them.

The streets are calmer since the election. Though Greeks are fearful, there's also satisfaction at the blow they've dealt to their former rulers. But the casualties of the bailout are everywhere. On the pavements, junkies openly inject in the middle of the day. And what is striking about Athens beggars is how clean and well-groomed so many are: not stereotypical street-dwellers, but working and professional people deep down on their luck.

Yiannis Bournos, Syriza's European policy spokesman, told The Sunday Telegraph that Greece could afford to reject the bailout deal because European policymakers dared not risk Greece triggering a domino effect -- and a potential depression - across Europe.

"Mr Schaeuble [Germany's finance minister] is pretending to be the fearless cowboy on the radio, saying the euro is secure [against a Greek exit]. But there's no way they will kick us out," he said. "If we left the euro, the financial markets would attack Italy. If you owe 3000 euros to the bank and don't pay, they will kill you. If you owe 10 billion euros, they will do everything for you."

He criticised the deputy prime minister's remarks, saying: "Mr Pangalos is in his own sphere. When reality does not agree with him, reality has a problem. It's unbelievable to see the same representatives of the banking interests and of neoliberalism saying that nothing can change. It reminds me of religious fundamentalism. There have been so many changes in Europe in the last two weeks."

Mr Bournos said that even if the EU cut off payments the Greek government could still pay salaries and pensions from its domestic tax revenues. He said the country would seek alternative sources of financing from China, Russia and the Middle East.
The Greeks have always been willing to trade in the Soviet Russian orbit...
Left-wingers hope that the election of a new socialist president in France, together with concerns expressed in Italy and the Netherlands about the austerity package, will soften hearts in Berlin. At least in public, however, German officials continued cranking up the pressure yesterday.

"If Athens doesn't stand by its word, that is a democratic decision," said the Bundesbank chief, Jens Weidmann, in an interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "But that means the basis for further financial aid falls away."

Mr Weidmann insisted the consquences of Greece leaving the euro "would be more serious for Greece than the rest of the eurozone".

Jonathan Tepper, an economist with Variant Perception, said a debt default and Greek euro exit would happen at only moments' notice after weeks of denials by all concerned.

"To avoid immediate runs on banks, it would be done in a 'surprise' announcement over a weekend when markets and banks are closed," he said. "If necessary, Monday and Tuesday would be declared bank holidays as well."

During this period, diplomats in Athens have been told, cash machines would be turned off and all banks closed. Inside, staff would be "redenominating" euro notes into the new drachma, probably by rubber-stamping them. Capital controls would be imposed to stop Greeks transferring money out of the country electronically and border checks would be reinstated to prevent them taking out unstamped euros in suitcases.

Mr Tepper is one of a growing number of economists who believe that the so-called "Grexit" might actually be better than years and years of EU-mandated misery. "In the past century, 69 countries have exited currency areas with little downward volatility," he says. "The experience of emerging-market countries, such as Argentina, Russia and the 'Asian tigers,' shows that the pain of devaluation would be brief, and rapid growth and recovery would follow."

Most economists think that a new, free-floating drachma would immediately crash by up to 50 per cent against the euro and other currencies, effectively halving the value of everyone's savings and spelling catastrophe for those on fixed incomes, like pensioners.
Posted by:Steve White

#15  DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > MERKEL TELLS GREECE TO BACK [EU-demanded] SPENDING CUTS, OR FACE
[EuroDollar = EU?]EURO EXIT.

versus

* CHINA DAILY FORUM > [Ex-Minister]CHRYSOHOIDUS: GREECE FACES CIVIL WAR IFF FORCED TO LEAVE EURO.

* SAME > RUSSIA TODAY - "EUROPE ON BRINK OF ARMED-REVOLUTION".

Mama Russia to save US-World + OWG-NWO + JudeoChristianity.

* TOPIX > HOLLANDE FRANCE AGENDA SIMILAR TO "OCCUPY" MOVEMENT, e.g. in USA.

Rise of SARKOLLANDE = US to begin proudly surrender like France???

* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > WORLD BRACES FOR EURO BREAKUP.

OWG "BIRTH PAINS", but the UNO = future "Star/
Stellar" Space Socialist OWG Hospital has no Demapol, etc. to give to the Babes.

No anti-Pain drugs for the Babes, + no Milyuhns-n-Dilyuhns of Cigarette/Cigar Packs for the nervous Daddy-os to smoke.

[FRANCE-BELOVED JERRY LEWIS = "ROCK-A-BYE-BABY" END SCENE here, where super-nervous, Quintuplet Daddyo Jerry is comically smoking 00-000's of cigarettes at one time in hospital baby ward].

On a separate note, as usual it once again looks like 1960's-1970's Guam Taotamonas were on the money. as per the probs of a new EU that didn't even exist yet back then. THE US IS NOT IMMUNE AS PER OWG NAU.

Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-05-14 22:40  

#14  Ya' beat me to it, #5 Broadhead.
Posted by: Barbara   2012-05-14 18:27  

#13  Its crazy, but I think the US is about to ask for money from the Euro Nation which they got from us, in order to help pay for Afghan.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2012-05-14 16:03  

#12  The German economy needs export markets or else it's SOL. The Greeks can't buy German goods unless they have money.

So the Greeks can't buy German goods if they don't have German money given to them by Germans?

You'd think the Germans would have more sense than to skip gaily down the Ponzi path,
Posted by: Gabby Cussworth   2012-05-14 16:00  

#11  Greece will run out of money soon

They ran out of money a long time ago that's why they're running out of others peoples money now.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-05-14 13:17  

#10  You know how it happened in Germany -- it started with the Jews, then the Communists, then everybody -- it could happen here.

Somehow I just can't picture Greek storm troopers conquering all of Europe.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2012-05-14 12:04  

#9  More from ZeroHedge if you can take it...

Greece Explained in One Picture
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2012-05-14 11:52  

#8  Greece leaving the EUro only means speculation about when the Spanish leave will commence. It makes much more sense and would be easier if Germany left the EUro. That would be ripping the Band-Aid off.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2012-05-14 11:25  

#7  spelling catastrophe for those on fixed incomes, like pensioners.
Not to mention retired politicians, judiciary, non-attending public servants or those poor suffering denizens of the Isle of The Blind.
Posted by: tipper   2012-05-14 11:04  

#6  They can simply print physical Euros and essentially force the ECB to write the issuance as a loan to them (at no interest). They will not run out of money, unless they want to.
Posted by: rammer   2012-05-14 09:59  

#5  Should not the headline say: "Greece will run out of other people's money soon"? I thought they already ran out of their own a while ago...
Posted by: Broadhead6   2012-05-14 09:40  

#4  GOOD. Time to rip the bandaid off instead of that slow shit. No more bailouts
Posted by: Frank G   2012-05-14 07:51  

#3  That's the answer. Print the drachma. The Socialist answer. Need more print more. Tax, tax, tax and spend.
Posted by: Dale   2012-05-14 07:43  

#2  Most economists think that a new, free-floating drachma would immediately crash by up to 50 per cent against the euro and other currencies, effectively halving the value of everyone's savings and spelling catastrophe for those on fixed incomes, like pensioners.

But, but, but isn't that the ultimate goal of all governments? The currently programme of theft creeping inflation takes so very long.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-05-14 04:01  

#1   I imagine the Chinese economy needs export markets even more than the German one does.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2012-05-14 00:47  

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