Grexit

Its looking like Tsipras has really overplayed his hand / misread the mood of the country. He went for a referendum, presumably convinced the voters would back him by voting No in an attempt to blackmail the lenders - but Ashcroft polling reckon the Yes vote is odds on.

 

Ashcroft polling was miles out then!

Any islands going cheap over there ?

Ashcroft polling was miles out then!

 

Yep They're on a roll after the general election. They'd struggle to predict Christmas day atm.

Any islands going cheap over there ?

 

I suspect everything is going cheap if you can pay in cash.

Any islands going cheap over there ?

 

 

This is going for approximately £1m

 

http://www.vladi-private-islands.de/en/island+buy+st-athanasios-island+greece+europe-mediterranean-sea/

Don't expect a receipt and you may have to pay direct to a Swiss bank account.

This is going for approximately £1m

 

http://www.vladi-private-islands.de/en/island+buy+st-athanasios-island+greece+europe-mediterranean-sea/

 

Bit of a scraggy rock though. They say it is possibly the only private island in Greece, that surprises me. That part of the Mediterranean has enormous scope for attracting the mega yachts and ll the money that brings.

If you had a class of 19 kids that was being dragged down by one of them, what do you think would happen?

Edited 7 July, 2015 by TopGun

 

Sorry for the large font - I can't find a way to reduce it. Interesting figures don't you think?

If you had a class of 19 kids that was being dragged down by one of them, what do you think would happen?

 

It would get bullied, its results would fall even further and the overall standard of the group would suffer.

 

What's your point?

 

Sorry for the large font - I can't find a way to reduce it. Interesting figures don't you think?

 

Good point.

 

Sorry for the large font - I can't find a way to reduce it. Interesting figures don't you think?

those companies did try to do something about their actions. The Greeks have done nothing in the last 5 years to try and rectify things. Im not sure i want to pay higher taxes so that the Greeks can retire early on index linked pensions and also don't think they should pay their taxes.

Iam happy for the EEC to try and reduce their debt, but not if we are going to be back here in a couple of years time

Good point.

 

Not really. Most of those bailouts were governments buying new issues of shares in banks. Shares which can and have been later sold at a profit. That's totally different to Greece borrowing money to fund a lifestyle they weren't earning and then expecting the rest of Europe to pick up the tab AND to continue to pour money down the black hole. .

From Greg Palast......

 

In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.

 

Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.

 

Is Goldman that stupid?

 

Goldman is stupid—like a fox. The deal was a con, with Goldman making up a phony-baloney exchange rate for the transaction. Why?

 

Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then. Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit. Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.

 

Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates.

 

The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain, Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.

 

Cool. Fraudulent but cool.

 

But flim-flam isn’t cheap these days: On top of murderous interest payments, Goldman charged the Greeks over a quarter billion dollars in fees.

 

When the new Socialist government of George Papandreou came into office, they opened up the books and Goldman's bats flew out. Investors' went berserk, demanding monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt.

 

Greece's panicked bondholders rushed to buy insurance against the nation going bankrupt. The price of the bond-bust insurance, called a credit default swap (or CDS), also shot through the roof. Who made a big pile selling the CDS insurance? Goldman.

 

And those rotting bags of CDS's sold by Goldman and others? Didn't they know they were handing their customers gold-painted turds?

 

That's Goldman's specialty. In 2007, at the same time banks were selling suspect CDS's and CDOs (packaged sub-prime mortgage securities), Goldman held a “net short” position against these securities. That is, Goldman was betting their financial "products" would end up in the toilet. Goldman picked up another half a billion dollars on their "net short" scam.

 

But, instead of cuffing Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein and parading him in a cage through the streets of Athens, we have the victims of the frauds, the Greek people, blamed. Blamed and soaked for the cost of it. The "spread" on Greek bonds (the term used for the risk premium paid on Greece's corrupted debt) has now risen to — get ready for this––$14,000 per family per year.

An insight into the mind of Greg Palast (C.2002). The man's a fruitcake.

An insight into the mind of Greg Palast (C.2002). The man's a fruitcake.

 

Palast a fruitcake? You must elaborate......I am keen to understand how Greece has arrived at the position they are in...any info is gratefully received. Ho did the EU approve Greece's membership, I had read elsewhere that Goldman Sachs cooked the books to enable Greek membership. Greg Palast goes into some detail. Is he wrong?

see the Greek chap is quitting

see the Greek chap is quitting

 

Is that a Greek exit?