Explanation of the Greek Bailout

[Haasman]

Explanation of the Greek Bailout.

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the farmer. The farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the tavern. The tavern owner slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything.
No one earned anything.
However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that is how the bailout package works!

[RSTarga]

It would be great if it worked that way. Very entertaining.
More realistically, the German gives the guy 5 euros and says he'll apply the other 95 against the outstanding debt, but the interest will keep rolling. Sort of like a Pay Day loan, but to a country.
The bankers, of course already sold the note at 100% to the German taxpayers who are now left holding the bag of bad debt.
If the bankers were still holding the debt, they would have discounted 45% to 50%.
The Olympics were their first mistake. How a country of 11 million ever expected to pay the debt incurred in that endeavor is beyond me.
End result, the Greeks who can, will march out of Greece to work in Europe. The money they send back will support who is left at home.

[37yrold911]

ah yes, bankers -- didn't Sherson get Greece into the EZ?

whichever Wall St. firm, they made a bunch o'bucks and are long gone

[sithot]

The shite storm:

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.co...n-shitschturm/

[62S-R-S]

Plot thickening... Wolfgang S.

http://marketwatch.com/story/schaubl...ico-2015-07-09

[RSTarga]

Puerto Rico is a fictitious entity, basically a colony with zero autonomy to take even the most basic economic decisions.
It could be our Hong Kong if we loosened the noose around their neck.
Greece is the soft underbelly of Europe. Whoever can leave will, and those who can't, will soon be working for smugglers of all types.
They need at least a 50% write down to ever be able to recover. If the debt is not written down they will never be able to repay, so instead of recovering 50%, Europe runs the risk of recovering nothing.
Maybe Chobani yogurt can buy them, or maybe all the "Greek" yogurt guys together.

[37yrold911]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/op...av=bottom-well

[sithot]

Youtube.com/euroscepticsnl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=jr8wuLgqtI8


Nigel Farage gave the EU a dress-down. "The plan has failed"

"Lead the Greek people out of the Eurozone with your head held high".

OVATION...

[RSTarga]

The Germans need to learn a word, " Pragmatism" an american invention, they sorely need to put in practice.
Just as what was done here in 2008, sometimes you have to sublimate your beliefs in the face of reality.
The whole Greek debt is only, on average 3% of their GDP, swallow half, make it 1.5% and live to fight another day.
If there had been no EU and no Euro, German exports would have been too expensive for the rest of the world. They benefited from a cheap exchange rate and made tons of money. Can you imagine how expensive a Deutschmark would be if there had been no EU?

[37yrold911]

The whole Greek debt problem is really from them being a footstool for the Ottomans - they are actually in better shape than the other former colonies.

I am also not sure how much it really matters to the avg. US citizen - will we lose our olives and feta cheese imports?