ECB Pulls The Trigger: Blocks Funding To Greece Via Debt Collateral

a reply to: earthling42

I don’t believe the right direction is making people suffer.

I don’t believe some statistic about balancing a budget when the people are acutely suffering is any indication that they are on the right track

I believe austerity is immoral and bankrupt

originally posted by: Willtell

I believe austerity is immoral and bankrupt

Austerity is simply a tool, and thus can be used wrong.

No doubt ill-considered austerity measures can be "immoral", while well-dosed austerity (at the right time, in accordance with proper structural reforms) is a blessing.

a reply to: earthling42

Good morning, earthling42.

I'd be interested to see the source for those figures. It would be much appreciated.

a reply to: Willtell

Well you're entitled to believe what you want of course, but it cannot be the case that Greece simply spends money which it doesn't have, and the european taxpayer must pay the bill.
They wanted to stay in the eurozone and asked for financial aid which they received.
While it was certainly not wanted by the european taxpayers and even against regulations of the european union, every member state has contributed to a sum of hundreds of billions in bail out money to keep Greece afloat.
Greece got debt reductions, they got the bail out money against an interest of 1.5 percent which is lower than the actual interest against which member states had to borrow.
They do not have to start paying interest until 2023 and also do not have to start repaying before 2023.
But what they must do according to the agreements is clean up their mess, which they obviously refuse to do.
If they don't want to respect the agreements than EU should not want Greece with their problems anymore.

a reply to: ColCurious

Goodmorning ColCurious, here is the link

as for news, our prime minister mr Tsipras said, there will be no compromise, our decisions are that and that alone. No more loans to increase our debt and pay nothing more than the interest, so the debt always increases and becomes even harder to repay. And I believe that everybody wants that, a stop to this madness. They have to take final decisions, how this debt is going to be repaid, not to increase it. Now if they wish to keep my country in a state that cannot repay the debt, is a kind of slow death, so the end result is going to be more catastrophic for eu. Its the same thing, now with less casualties, or in 1-2 years, like a nuke bomb. Its so easy to see whats going on, we dont have to be economists.

Maybe germans want to destroy eu, because they act like ostrich, hiding their head into the sand. They act like austerity is the only way and their goal is to increase the debt as much as they can. So they are stupid, or their final goal is to get as much as they can and disband eu. Well, we cannot accept that anymore. Imagine that the debt of my country, increased the last 5 yeasr by 200 billion.

A question everybody makes, what if the talks in the euromeeting fails, what is going to happen. I see a referendum coming or new ellections. But the prev governments that are german puppets, will never come back in power. They are allready so much exposed.

a reply to: earthling42

Like the economic data coming from the US government can`t be trusted, you also can`t trust that coming from the EU...would you trust economic data which gets artificially inflated with hookers, pot and gambling ?

The 'Depressing' Truth Of Greece's Insolvency

Greece Has Solved Its Unemployment Problem: Slavery

Greece Goes Medieval - 2/3rds Of Wages Paid In Barter

Troika Wants To Strip Greece Of Defense, Auto Industries, Greece Balks: The Troika-Greece Can-Kicking Toxic Loop

Greece Sells 110 Beaches To Appease Troika, "Tell The Russians & Qataris To Hurry Up!"

You see, your country gets looted, no prospect on real improvement and there are slave jobs for you.

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

they disband the office that took all national wealth for sale... Also they took back already, the port of Piraeus, airport and some others.... And more are coming back. Also we saved our waters!!!!! If we elected the same puppets (New democracy party) their first thing was to sell out our waters.

we saved them.

also any agreement about our natural resources, canceled. Thank goodness. Also all house sales in foreign countries (the houses the banks took from citizens) canceled.

The truth is I do not wish Mr Tsipras to give another elections, that will bring him alone in the throne, ultimate power, because he is very popular... I love it as it is, tsipras (left party) and Anel (far right party) together.

a reply to: Ploutonas

originally posted by: Ploutonas
And I believe that everybody wants that, a stop to this madness. They have to take final decisions, how this debt is going to be repaid, not to increase it.

I agree.
We heard alot on our news about Greece recently - but nothing about how exactly Tsipras and Syriza are planning to achieve this.

Maybe you as a greek citizen know more and can help to clarify this?

Otherwise, I'd suggest you cut back on your anti-german sentiment a little.
I don't see how this is helpful to you in any way. It's rather nonconstructive really.
You do know the Troika is not Germany, right?

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

Well, if Greece really wanted to stick it to the ECB all they would have to do is run those printing presses day and night (if they actually have the currency presses) and produce billions or trillions of Euro's and flood the market. Make all of their citizens millionaires and then see what happens. Glass houses tend to shatter when you put too large a load on the roof LOL. Might as well have an exit strategy that involves a scorched earth policy. It'd be like Buh Bye ECB ;-)

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: ColCurious

No, it`s not about Germans against Greeks or the other way around, it`s about ordinary people getting raped by bankster vultures, so we`re all in this together.

Germany is the only country, after the occupy movement became disbanded, which had large protest against the Central Banks, so they are on your side.

I will report more in depth, when their program is more in detail, but the things I could say for sure are :

1) the prev government, gave all the weight to the poor people and they couldnt pay the taxes, imagine they added tax from 1 euro 30%! All the mid class paid far less than a person with 10.000 euro anual income! An example is, a family with 1 kid and 25000 euros income, paid much much less taxes, than a family with 15000 anual income and 2-3-4 kids and if you had more kids, they forced you with more taxes. So what they do now, is to tax free up to 12000 euros anual income and all the rest with more than 12000 euros, will pay much more taxes. This is why nobody could pay taxes, because the poor people couldnt pay them!

2) i could give you a list with only 10 companies in Hellas, that they own 74 billion taxes and debt!!! And the previews government didnt touched them. This radical party is furious against them. And its more than 10 (I only gave you the top 10).

3) they decrease the politician costs and benefits, that will bring hundreds of millions less costs annually. Also they will dismiss the benefit for politicians to have a free car! Right now imagine that the parliament garage, have about 750 cars that each one of them, costs 700.000 euros! All these cars will be sold, including 1 of the presidential airplanes.

4) they will invest into production and exports (this is why they dont force any kind sanctions into Russia, Russia is no1 buyer from us).

5) They increase the wedges in order to restart the internal market, because our market is dead... all shops shutting down.

In the other hand, we have dozen of scandals from the prev governments and their bosses... They will form an investigation team by economists and judges and they will try to analyse how much of the national debt is scanals. Because the prev governments transformed their scandals into a national debt.

and much more that I will be able to write, when we have more information. All the things I ve said, is the things they announced.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

EU seems to be going down the drain-hole anyway, but it would be better if it goes piece by piece...the drama would suck in the whole World including US and Canada if they would that...are you waiting for that ?

a reply to: Ploutonas

This is interesting. I'd even suggest you make a detailed thread about this.

Regarding the first point of the info you already posted - I must say this sounds scary to say the least.
Raising taxes on the middle class is outright stupid, since the middle class is the backbone of a nations economy.

I'm looking forward to a more indepth post.

originally posted by: BornAgainAlien
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

EU seems to be going down the drain-hole anyway, but it would be better if it goes piece by piece...the drama would suck in the whole World including US and Canada if they would that...are you waiting for that ?

Yes, I figure sooner rather than later. Might as well take the hit now when it'll be bad, rather than take the hit when it will be an absolute ef'ing nightmare-Mad-Max-world. If all the economies collapsed tomorrow and people retained "cool" heads, forgave all debts and didn't start any stupid wars out of pride or arrogance, we could all be back on track in a month. If these assholes play this out till the end, I am quite sure there will be blood, oceans of it, because out of pride, arrogance and the unwillingness to state they made a mistake, there will be wars, the power will shut down and people will go into me-only-survival-mode.

So I opt for yes, do it now and let's have a speedy equitable recovery. Try the politicians, bankers and shadow governments for crimes against humanity, after all, they did screw it all up and hurt/killed millions of people out of greed and avarice. If they are found guilty by a jury of ordinary people, hang the bastards. It might be a good message that says, don't do it again.

Cheers - Dave

its what I ve said earlier, its fresh news...

link about early ellections
Tsipras is extremely popular right now and if the talks fail, they are going for early elections to be re-elected and boom. Many Hellenics including me, we dont want tsipras in a standalone power over our country, for many reasons and one of them is far left party! So if early elections come, we do our best to vote NOT the prev governments, but smaller political powers, to balance things...

This time is going to be hard, because statistics shows 70% of the population is with Tsipras, I have to admit, I agree with many of their terms, not all of them, as I am a bit conservative and I dont wish a far left party to open the borders of my country and fill it with immigrants from eastern countries, etc... Its the worst nightmare.

Tsipras is like Chavez now.. lol
(if we see articles like that, the talks are pre-decided to fail is it - all according to their plans).

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

While I agree with you about what needs to happen with the parasites of this World, it would be too nasty for comfort to pull the band-aid too quickly, we would most likely pull all the stitches out of it and bleed to death.

I`m more for letting it collapse somewhat controlled and after that take it back. The real bastards will survive it anyway, so there`s no need to make even more victims and misseray because of them.

A lot get nervous because of the wait, but I`m not one of them, I`m personally very calm about it.

a reply to: Ploutonas

So long as Greece needs money to meet it's financial obligations the debt will rise, that is because greece does not generate enough income.
This is the case with every country that has a budget deficit, including the Netherlands, we have seen our debt rise with 200 billion too over the last 5 years.
It was 250 billion, now it is 463 billion, but the state debt isn't the real problem, the real problem is creditworthiness and huge budget deficits.
If a country does not cut spending, its interest on bonds will rise, which means higher borrowing costs, and thus a even larger growing deficit until it can no langer meet its financial obligations.
So austerity by which i mean cut spending is needed to be or stay financial healthy in the long run.
Its not hiding the head in the sand, it is the only sane thing to do until a budget balance is reached.
The Netherlands has cut spending with 60 billion a year, certainly not fun but it is needed for the long run.

Reading your second reply i see that Tsipras and his coalition have much work to do, i can understand that they are furious if someone with a lower income has to pay more tax than those with a higher salary.
This seems like they were thinking, the ordinary working man is the easiest victim.
I think your example is like we have it here in the Netherlands, tax free till 11000 if i am correct.
Quite understandable that those with a low income are unable to pay taxes, that would be the case everywhere.

a reply to: earthling42

There is no comparison between our marginal income loss compared to huge slashes year over year as has been going on in Greece, even if we had a half of their slashes each year panic would send in with most of us after just 2 or 3 years.

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

While i'm certainly no fan of EU and the euro, i do trust EU a great deal more than Amerika when it comes to economic data.

One can also see a job as a means to be self-sufficient.

But i agree that it is not always like that, the same goes for the Netherlands where people are simply put to work with no other income but their social benefit which will be stopped if they refuse.

What is going on is that the line between private and state property has been wiped away.
While expensive suits earn big money in state companies, the taxpayer takes the losses if they occur, also the losses from the banks which are private companies.
So yes, i agree that we are looted, we have the politicians to thank for that.
The same goes for the situation Europe finds itself in, one big EU and one currency is the ideal which they have been striving for since the 90s.
It has cost us much with still no end in sight.
A few years ago one man said the ideals and dreams are for the artists to realise them through their artwork, not for politicians who should work in service of the people.

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

Yes i know, but one cannot blame us for that, that is down to the fraud and financial mess of the previous greek government(s)
This is why in my opinion the anger should not be aimed at the rest of europe.