Saturday, March 14, 2015

We all live in a fiat money regime. So what is to stop the Greeks adding €377bn to their Bank of Greece accounts and repaying everyone?  Alternatively create the New Drachma. Valued (by sovereign decree) at par with the euro. And repay with that. I know that the secondary market wouldn't accept that it's valued at par but that's not the point. A sovereign state says their drachma is worth a euro. They give their creditors (except the IMF) lots of them. Lots of red faces and indignation but so what?  Alternatively Greece still has the mandate to print small denomination euro notes. So, provided that they have the paper, print loads and repay in cash. Super Mario would huff and puff and say that they were counterfeit but that would have the whole of Europe worried about their cash....The effect of a default would be extremely serious. Nobody lends money to a government that has just defaulted on existing debts. Rich Greeks have removed their Euros from Greek banks and cannot be forced to bring them back. Greeks in general simply do not pay their taxes. Where can they go now? When they have stripped the pension funds, there will be no pensions. When they leave the Euro, they will print Drachmas which will be devalued continuously until they are worthless. Greeks have mortgages denominated in Euros. The Drachma will be worth a few centimes, if that. I think life will get a lot harder for Greeks before it gets better. = This is false - did anybody hear about Brazil and/or Argentina ??? - these countries periodically file for bankruptcy !!!...Of course the great Europeans especially the "unionists" didn't today's Europeans are just as ill informed as the Americans ! - Well ...We are where we are. Hindsight is invariably quoted by opponents of how things have panned out. There is no doubt that matters could have been better planned from the start or the early days. In which case the whole movement might well never have got off the ground.
I see the EU and Euro as, say, 25% positive. It is a job in progress, not made easier by the ongoing crisis which did NOT started in the US, but in the "world". For whatever reason, there are 28 democratically elected (more or less) national governments who want their countries to stay in the EU with another half-dozen applying for membership (stupid). To date no-one has left. Can they all be wrong?

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