excerpt from http://www.smh.com.au/business/nerves-on-edge-as-greece-teeters-20110616-1g64n.html?skin=text-only "While Australian banks have minimal exposure to Greece, executives concede if credit market volatility continues, bank funding costs could move higher."
from 68-82, I was lucky my folks emigrated, many of my family suffered deeply during the 80's, high unemployment and crime, there's a lot of deep wounds from those days, I don't expect everyone to understand but from a working class point of view Thatcher is not liked ......at all.
Yes, I can understand that completely. I was there through it all. Still, my opinion holds. After the almost total destruction of Britain in the '70s by Wilson and Calaghan, she resurrected Britain from the dead. Some of it wasn't pretty though, that is a fact and I guess your own view will depend largely on your circumstances at the time. John Major wasn't in the same league as her and Blair and Brown have continued the same old socialist agendas.
I knew who you were referring to immediately [Thatcher] hence my play on your Tory stance Anyway I cannot start dialogue on this as I get a bit frazzled, peace to all
To stop the Greek banks going bust, the Govt could introduce a scheme similar to what the Argentinians did whereby people are limited to a maximum withdrawal of $300 per week. And locking accounts with over 'x' number of dollars. This helped spawn the creation of today's "debit cards" which linked directly to people's funds but were not credit based. I'm not sure how the Greeks would take it...they may well storm the banks anyway and shut them down by force. It's been theorised that the only reason this worked in Argentinea (sp?) is because the people had such a high tolerance to adversity! I don't think the Greek people are displaying this particular trait. And good on 'em too!
So what is the point of the over 10% default insurance if the US banks providing the service would go bankrupt if there is a claim on that insurance? Anyone can provide such a service, but because they are too big to fall the US government would bail them out, so ultimately the US taxpayers are the collateral on the Greek borrowing.
Yeah, I knew you knew. In fact, I would be amazed if there was anyone who didn't know. Peace - indeed, wouldn't it be nice?
So we will see new bailout, before QE3, sound logical bcoz they will have more time to estimated value of QE3.
I found this article while researching some things on Greece and its inclusion in the EU and potentially its exit. I thought it was a fascinating piece exploring many dimensions of the EU "circus"..... http://www.globalpolitician.com/26186-macedonia-european-union This paragraph was very interesting...
So... Anyone care to extrapolate what a dissolution of the EU or collapse of the Euro would mean to the man on the street? Mom and Pop investors? Us Aussies? Will that be a European SHTF scenario with widespread mayhem, or will people shrug it off and leave finance nerds to cross the T's and dot the lower case J's?
I think the answer is kind of implied in your own question there Ag-ness. Repercussions will be highly localised across the globe and more so in a diverse region such as Europe. I think Europeans are already retreating within their own borders and even within their own regions in a sort of centripetal movement contrary to the whole openess of the EU ideal. The borders are historically pretty fluid within Europe and moreso with the current Schengen Agreement, but it is actually culturally extremely fragmented and tightknit, which is to say, even people within the same country treat their countrymen as foreigners even though, in physical terms, they don't live that far away from each other. This is expressed primarily through language variations and visual differences (ethnicity) and secondarily through cultural paraphernalia: clothes, styles, food, housing, etc. I expect a pretty firm backlash against foreigners. If major parties around Europe fail to address the "alien" question in their borders then far right demagogues could rise up. But I don't see it as particularly likely given how far right from centre major parties are in most major European countries. Sure there are rumblings in Austria, Sweden, Germany, etc. But they will remain that. YMMV with smaller countries though. When you look at Europe economically you can pick out all the cream pretty easily. If you get a map of Western Europe and start drawing circles around the most economically viable areas you'll find they are all pretty easy to identify and all clumped together. Wealth is really very centralised there, as is the case most places globally. Disparity has increased alarmingly over the past decades, although Europe has not been as extreme as some other places. Beyond that cream, there is a lot of deadweight in Europe. 500 million odd people, most just clinging to the side of economic region trying to live of the fat of the beast. That economic baggage is getting squeezed already and it will get worse as those with power and wealth tighten ranks in the face of the ongoing economic onslaught. Will that result in the mayhem in the streets you suggested? Quite likely it will I think. But again, as with Greece, it will be localised and mostly people will go on about their business, though in a significantly diminished economic capacity. Re. the Euro question - currencies come and go, it's not the end of the world. I think the Euro will be redefined not scrapped, but at that point it'll all be about semanatics and face saving. It will not survive in its current form, just as the EU will not as a whole. The Schengen Argeement has now been broken by core countries like France and Sweden. The crumble has begun. I always said the deathknell for the EU project was December 31st 2007 when a host of Eastern European countries were introduced into the Schengen pact. You can't have open movement with that kind of economic disparity. Romania and Germany are just a few hours apart by car, but they are worlds apart economically. Places like the border between Austria and Hungary are where the whole problem of the EU plan have come to a head. Vienna is spitting distance from a vastly different world in provincial Hungary and yet they are meant to act as a single economic entity. The result is widespread criminality and dissatisfaction. Relative wealth disparity is enormous. Although there is clearly positive transfer of wealth and cultural interaction, this only functions somewhat gracefully in times of economic expansion. I doubt the general trends I outlined will be significantly different in places outside Europe, but how they manifest themselves specifically will vary greatly. Australia is a much more uniform and homogeneous place than Europe so it's probably easier to successfully describe trends relevant to many as has been done on silverstackers at length.
Don't worry us Europeans have a long tradition in choosing populist, demagouges, far right extremists and other super dictators that dream of nothing short of world conquest. Well be fine.
