Two Hours To Save Europe!

[Timm]

I wonder how the Irish must be feeling. After all they've actually gone ahead and made significant cuts to try and sort their deficit out, only to find that they needn't have bothered!

What do they tend to do when a neighbouring state shafts them?

[Cogs]

He could always claim that by not interfering and by allowing the appropriate euro member countries to sort out the mess that he has saved the world again?

That was actually his answer yesterday in PMQs. He received the same question twice (once from the Tories, once from Gisela Stuart); can the Prime Minister assure us British money won't be used to bail out Greece?

[The Masked Tulip]

TMT: this was never in debate. What has been debated is can governments inflate their way out of a deflationary cycle and will this lead to high inflation? Some on here think the deflationary cycle cannot be turned by government intervention and others think it can and is happening already. Time will tell.

My brain is turning to mush. Deflation, inflation, gold, cash, IRs, house prices, David Icke, baked beans.

[right_freds_dead]

TMT: this was never in debate. What has been debated is can governments inflate their way out of a deflationary cycle and will this lead to high inflation? Some on here think the deflationary cycle cannot be turned by government intervention and others think it can and is happening already. Time will tell.

there is no scope for wage inflation, so we will be in the position of supply prices going up but no wage increases to cope. we will then just get poorer and poorer, to the tune of £800 billion pounds. more than any debt we have paid before and right on the line we can cope with.

yet outside at the moment, the sun still shines weakly.

[tomandlu]

And meanwhile this piece on the bbc pretty much sums up why you should never link your economy with Greece's...

[MinceBalls]

My brain is turning to mush. Deflation, inflation, gold, cash, IRs, house prices, David Icke, baked beans.

David Icke is starting to make more and more sense as the days go by!

[FaTB]

So let me see if i understand this correctly

In simple terms :-

Greece have run out of money

Greece can't borrow any more money

......but they refuse to cut spending.

So Britain will help bail them out by :-

Borrowing it, or printing it ourselves, because we have no money either, and then givng it, or lending it to Greece ???

Have I got this right ?

Edited February 11, 2010 by FaTB

[southmartin]

So let me see if i understand this correctly

In simple terms :-

Greece have run out of money

Greece can't borrow any more money

......but they refuse to cut spending.

So Britain will help bail them out by :-

Borrowing it ourselves, because we have no money, and givng it, or lending it to Greece ???

Have I got this right ?

Yep - sounds about right me

What could possibly go wrong?

(oh, apart from when we need to borrow for ourselves...)

[interestrateripoff]

And meanwhile this piece on the bbc pretty much sums up why you should never link your economy with Greece's...

So basically the entire country avoids paying tax, and why bother when other European taxpayers will make up the shortfall. I wonder if this price is worth paying to bring in Turkey.

['Bart']

Indeed the solution to a debt crisis appears to be more debt

And on that basis, I'm off to the pub to drink myself sober.

David Icke is starting to make more and more sense as the days go by!

Worryingly, I find myself more and more in agreement with him.

It's when I'm standing in Primark looking at turquoise shellsuits that I'll know the tipping point has been reached.

[southmartin]

So basically the entire country avoids paying tax, and why bother when other European taxpayers will make up the shortfall. I wonder if this price is worth paying to bring in Turkey.

Oh I think so, Turkey are being discriminated against at the moment.

Why should they be the only useless country full of leeching benefit fraudsters that don't get to pillage our hard-earned. It's simply unfair on them.

[interestrateripoff]

So let me see if i understand this correctly

In simple terms :-

Greece have run out of money

Greece can't borrow any more money

......but they refuse to cut spending.

So Britain will help bail them out by :-

Borrowing it, or printing it ourselves, because we have no money either, and then givng it, or lending it to Greece ???

Have I got this right ?

No as clearly you don't get the debt is wealth paradigm, Greece can't borrow any more money because it's not wealthy enough, whereas the UK is incredible wealthy due to our debt we can therefore borrow even more money and increase our debt/wealth which we can then share with the greeks who will still remain poor and not understand this debt is wealth paradigm.

So we get more debt and therefore wealthy whilst the greeks get poorer.

I hope this 101 in modern economics has been helpful.

[interestrateripoff]

And on that basis, I'm off to the pub to drink myself sober.

Where are you going I'll meet you? I'd like to drink myself sober at the minute.

[piece of paper]

So let me see if i understand this correctly

In simple terms :-

Greece have run out of money

Greece can't borrow any more money

......but they refuse to cut spending.

So Britain will help bail them out by :-

Borrowing it, or printing it ourselves, because we have no money either, and then givng it, or lending it to Greece ???

Have I got this right ?

Will it stop them going on about their bleedin' marbles?

p-o-p

[Fishman]

Will it stop them going on about their bleedin' marbles?

p-o-p

You mean the marbles they neglected until we rescued and restored them ?

[Deckard]

EU Demands Greek Budget Cuts, Pledges to Uphold Euro Stability

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Euro-region leaders ordered Greece to get the bloc’s highest budget deficit under control and said they are prepared to take “determined” action to staunch the worst crisis in the currency’s 11-year history.

Greek bonds rose after officials including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet brokered the deal before a European Union summit in Brussels. The euro was little changed at $1.3717.

“Euro area member states will take determined and coordinated action if needed to safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole,” President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters. “We fully support the efforts of the Greek government and their commitment to do whatever is necessary including adopting additional measures.”

The accord left open how the EU would respond to a fresh wave of speculative attacks against Greece or countries such as Spain and Portugal, which are also struggling to cut their budget deficits. The statement echoes prior calls for Greece to clean up its accounts and put the government under International Monetary Fund monitoring.

"whatever is necessary"... hmmm, doesn't that sound eerily familiar?

Do you all feel reassured now?

Thought not

[Fishbone Glover]

I don't understand the problem, I was always under the impression that the Greek were blessed and would inherit the Earth....

(Gets coat)

[leicestersq]

The next bit is cut and paste from the BBC website.

"EU leaders have reached a deal on helping Greece tackle its debt crisis, EU President Herman Van Rompuy says.

He gave no further details, but all 27 EU leaders are now set to discuss it. "

Is this a deal that has been done? Surely you discuss something, then do a deal? The EU seem to have done a deal, and are now going to discuss it.

FWIW, my take on this is that they have announced a deal, before it has been done. So there is no deal. This chap Rompuy, appears to be confident that a deal will be reached, so his mis-direction will never be found out. But this is the EU we are talking about. Just how are you going to get 27 countries to agree on something in a couple of hours, given that what is needed is bags and bags of money, to be given by the responsible to the feckless. That might provoke some dissent dont you think.

I think that when this deal is announced, the market is going to have a good old laugh.

It wouldnt surprise me if this time next year, there are more countries in the Poundzone than the Eurozone.

['Bart']

Where are you going I'll meet you? I'd like to drink myself sober at the minute.

I suggest starting in The Bailiffs Arms. We're bound to end up there at some point.

Will it stop them going on about their bleedin' marbles?

Hopefully. The UK needs all the marbles it can get at the moment.

[Deckard]

It wouldnt surprise me if this time next year, there are more countries in the Poundzone than the Eurozone.

[Executive Sadman]

BBC comparing Greece to Lehmans.

Its almost like they deliberately let lehmans go, so everytime thereonin they can point and shout 'if we dont bail out them itll be the next lehmans.

Not sure if i see the connection myself.

[TGP]

Why are we involved in this ?

Look, I can understand the other euro countries getting involved......... Greece is threatening their currency, there is an obvious self-interest there for them. I haven't run the numbers, but I can see a case might be made along the lines of "it's cheaper for us to do this, than take the hit to the euro as that will affect our euro based economy".

But WTF ........ Why are we involved ? It isn't our currency thats being propped up. If Greece goes down, and drags the euro with it (either a little way or more or the whole way) what concern is that of ours ?

So.... while I can see the case for "All the euro countries who have a bit of cash...... pony up and put some in the pot for greece to help save all our hides" why on earth is the UK putting money in the pot ?

Please, someone tell me we're not contributing cash to this.

If we are....... why aren't the yanks and the Japanese also coming to greece's rescue ? They aren't euro countries either, but that doesn't seem to have kept us out of it.

And, I know, I know, we are involved in the EU more generally......... but this is SPECIFICALLY a currency issue. Whats the point of staying out of the Euro currency if we have to dip in and bail it out when it needs it in any case ?

Will the euro countries come to OUR rescue if the pound is the next currency being subject to a concerted specualtive assault ?

I suppose thats one way this could be worth it for us........... if there has been a written quid pro quo "We'll help the Euro out with our pounds if Euro nations come under speculative attack.......... but we expect the Euro to come swinging in to save us if the pound suffers a similar attack".

Is there any indication that Gordon received such a deal in return for sticking cash in the pot for Greece ?

Yours,

TGP

[leicestersq]

BBC comparing Greece to Lehmans.

Its almost like they deliberately let lehmans go, so everytime thereonin they can point and shout 'if we dont bail out them itll be the next lehmans.

Not sure if i see the connection myself.

I think that letting Lehman's go was a godsend, the one correct decision made in the whole of this Credit Crunch.

From what we have found out about Lehman's since, we can see it was a crooked organisation, trading insolvently, defrauding investors and creditors through wilful overstatement of its asset values. Through all of this it paid its insiders top dollar. Oh my, it does sound like Greece.

Letting it go bankrupt put a stop to all of that nonsense. All the money that had been lost, was already lost. But it took a Lehman moment for it to dawn on those who had been defrauded.

Time for a Greece moment.

[yellerkat]

You mean the marbles they neglected until we rescued and restored them ?

Greece was under Ottoman occupation at the time.

More damage was done to them in 19thC Britain than in thousands of years on the Acropolis.

[Snugglybear]

I'm just off to some Irish websites to see how this is playing in the Emerald Isle.