Griekenland, of De Val van de Euro #2

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:37 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:
Maar nu, nu zijn het opeens luie donders? Nu moet er loon ingeleverd worden en de pensioenen omhoog? Met alle respect, maar dat is zéker niet het primaire probleem.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:44 schreef Reya het volgende:

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Waarom niet? Juist zo'n dergelijke welvaartsgroei kan tot al te optimistische toekomstvoorspellingen leiden, waartegen dan excessief wordt geleend. Bovendien is het ook wat minder dramatisch om een stap terug te zetten als je kort daarvoor nog vijf stappen vooruit hebt gezet. Tenslotte is een dergelijke hervorming ook een mooie gelegenheid om en passant corruptie en andere twijfelachtige praktijken aan te pakken die niemand ten goede komen. Als daar geen bereidheid toe is, dan zal ik er geen oog minder om dicht doen, maar ga dan niet lopen huilen als je vervolgens wordt geconfronteerd met de consequenties.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:43 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Olijke vrind, het is mijn keuze ook niet maar..
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Er zijn wel meer landen die in hoogconjunctuur een begrotingstekort van 3% halen en in laagconjunctuur dat weer wat op laten lopen. Van 1990 tot 1995 was Griekenland in een transitiefase (net als andere aan het Oostblok verbonden landen zoals Finland).

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Pijnlijker zijn imo de grote tekorten op de lopende rekening geweest sinds de eeuwwisseling. Dat is nog veel meer een brevet van onvermogen gezien de moeite die is gedaan om kapitaal aan te trekken en de economie te versterken (met enig succes dus). Waardoor dat komt weet ik niet precies.
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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:54 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Denk je nou echt dat een einde aan de corruptie wordt gemaakt? Dat gaat echt nooit gebeuren en dat kan ook niet.

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Je beantwoord ook in het geheel niet mijn stelling dat het probleem daar niet zit. In de sfeer van de pensioenen zijn al mid jaren 90 maatregelen genomen in Griekenland zoals wel in meerdere Europese landen. Maatregelen in de zin van de kostenkant, niet zozeer de structuur en het stelsel. Helaas.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:54 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:


Je beantwoord ook in het geheel niet mijn stelling dat het probleem daar niet zit. In de sfeer van de pensioenen zijn al mid jaren 90 maatregelen genomen in Griekenland zoals wel in meerdere Europese landen.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 13:11 schreef pberends het volgende:
Inflatie VK hoogst sinds november 2008

Even de Britten sarren .

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 13:17 schreef Digi2 het volgende:

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Dat wordt simpel afgedaan als een tijdelijk fenomeen vanwege een BTW verhoging.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 13:22 schreef Reya het volgende:
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Europe cannot afford to rescue Greece

By Otmar Issing

Published: February 15 2010 14:18 | Last updated: February 15 2010 14:18

To bail out Greece or not? The question is grabbing headlines daily. Supporters of a bail-out argue that if Greece collapses, others would follow. Financial markets have already identified the next candidates. As such, European economic and monetary union is at risk. Only financial aid and “solidarity” with highly indebted members can rescue the euro.

It is certainly true that this is a decisive moment for Emu – but for the opposite reason. Greece will continue to receive support from several European Union funds. But financial aid from other EU countries or institutions that amounted, directly or indirectly, to a bail-out would violate EU treaties and undermine the foundations of Emu. Such principles do not allow for compromise. Once Greece was helped, the dam would be broken. A bail-out for the country that broke the rules would make it impossible to deny aid to others.

It seems that quite a number of observers have forgotten what Emu is, and what it is not. The monetary union is based on two pillars. One is the stability of the euro, guaranteed by an independent central bank with a clear mandate to maintain price stability. The other is fiscal solidity, which has to be delivered by individual member states. Member countries are still sovereign. Emu does not represent a state; it is an institutional arrangement unique in history.

In the 1990s, many economists – I was among them – warned that starting monetary union without having established a political union was putting the cart before the horse. Now the question is whether monetary union can survive without such a political union. The current crisis must be handled in such a way as to produce a positive answer. The viability of the whole framework – nothing less – is at stake.

By joining Emu, a country accepts its rules. Greece, moreover, also knew that adopting a stable currency that was not controlled by its own central bank implied a total break with the past. Devaluation of the national currency and an inflationary monetary policy were no longer options. A single monetary policy is implemented by the European Central Bank and it is the responsibility of each country to adjust its economic policies so that this one size fits all.

Participation in Emu brings huge advantages. The benefits of joining a stable economic area are greatest for countries that were unable to deliver such conditions before. Thanks to the euro, Greece has enjoyed long-term interest rates at a record low. But instead of delivering on its commitment at the time of entry to reduce public debt levels, the country has wasted potential savings in a spending frenzy. The crisis with which it is now confronted is not the result of an “external shock” such as an earthquake, but the result of bad policies pursued over many years. Bailing out Greece would reward such behaviour and create moral hazard of a dimension hardly seen before.

In this context, one conclusion becomes obvious: financial assistance for countries that violated the terms of their participation in Emu would be a major blow for the credibility of the whole framework. By its construction, Emu is a “no transfers” community of sovereign states. Transferring taxpayers’ money from countries that obeyed the rules to those that violated them would create hostility towards Brussels and between euro area countries. Among ordinary people, it would undermine a badly needed sense of identification with the great project of European integration.

This moment is a turning point for Emu, and for the future of Europe. Most observers point to the high risks – which cannot be denied. However, any crisis also presents an opportunity. This is a big chance – probably the last for Greece, and others – to adapt fully to a regime of stable money and solid public finances.

For Emu, the crisis represents a final test of whether such an institutional arrangement – a monetary union without a political union – is viable for an extended period of time. Lax monitoring and compromises when it comes to observing implementation of rules have to stop. Emu is a club of states with firm rules accepted by entrants. These rules must not be changed ex-post. Governments should not forget what they promised their citizens when they gave up their national currencies.

The writer is president of the Centre for Financial Studies and a former member of the European Central Bank’s executive board

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0(...)ee-00144feab49a.html

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Greece’s Goldman Sachs Swaps Spawn EU Dispute on Disclosure

A dispute is unfolding about how long European Union officials have known that Greece used derivatives to conceal its growing budget deficit.

Greece turned to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2002, just after adopting the euro, to get $1 billion in funding through a swap on $10 billion of debt, Christoforos Sardelis, head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency at the time, said in an interview last week. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, was aware of the plan, he said. Risk Magazine also reported on the swap in July 2003.

“Eurostat was not until recently aware of this alleged currency swap transaction made by Greece,” spokesman Johan Wullt said by e-mail yesterday.

The disagreement about who knew what and when comes amid the worst crisis in the euro’s 11-year history. The existence of the swaps, which allowed Greece to delay payments and shrink its reported budget deficit, is fueling questions about whether Greece used the contracts to mask the fact it was struggling to comply with the currency’s membership criteria from the early days of its entry into the eurozone.

“Greece falsified deficit statistics, and that can’t be legal,” said Wolfgang Gerke, president of the Bavarian Center of Finance in Munich and honorary professor at the European School of Business. “Greece needs to be kicked out of the EU because otherwise there will be new copycats, and that could lead to the next catastrophe on financial markets.”

EU regulators pressed Greece yesterday to disclose details of currency swaps after an inquiry by the country’s finance ministry uncovered a series of agreements with banks that it may have used to conceal mounting debt.

Legal ‘At the Time’

One issue is whether Greece was legally obliged at the time to notify Eurostat. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said yesterday the use of swaps was “at the time legal.” The contracts are now no longer legal, and Greece doesn’t use them, he said during a question-and-answer session at a conference in Brussels yesterday.

Eurostat has required information about swaps since 2007, Wullt said. The watchdog doesn’t need to be notified of individual deals, he added.

“It is legitimate if the underlying exchange rates and the interest rates of such swaps are calculated from the observed market rates and this is something we will have to assess,” European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj said yesterday.

EU regulators have blessed the use of derivatives contracts to let countries curb their deficits. In 2001, the Commission, the EU’s regulatory arm, approved Italy’s use of derivatives that helped to reduce its budget deficit in 1997. Italy swapped fixed payments on a three-year, yen-denominated bond in 1996, for a floating rate, allowing it to temporarily cut the amount of interest paid on the debt.

‘Lurking in the Shadows’

European politicians this week criticized New York-based Goldman Sachs for arranging the Greek swap and are pressing for more disclosure. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats aim to push for new rules that will force euro-region nations and banks to disclose bond swaps that have an impact on public finances, financial affairs spokesman Michael Meister said yesterday.

“Goldman Sachs broke the spirit of the Maastricht Treaty, though it is not certain it broke the law,” Meister said in an interview yesterday. “What is certain is that we must never leave this kind of thing lurking in the shadows again.”

Joanna Carss, a London-based spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, declined to comment.

Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker said euro-area finance ministers discussed Goldman Sachs’s and Greece’s use of derivatives on the fringes of a meeting yesterday in Brussels.

Cross-Currency Swap

The Goldman Sachs transaction consisted of a cross-currency swap of about $10 billion of debt issued by Greece in dollars and yen, Sardelis said. That was swapped into euros using a historical exchange rate, a mechanism that implied a reduction in debt and generated about $1 billion of funding, he added. Sardelis declined to give specifics on by how much the swap reduced the country’s reported deficit or debt.

Greece, whose burgeoning budget deficit caused it to fail the criteria for joining the single European currency in 1999, joined the euro in 2001. Member nations must keep deficits at less than 3 percent of gross domestic product and trim national debt to less than 60 percent of GDP under the pact.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who came to power in October, more than tripled the country’s 2009 deficit estimate to 12.7 percent, and officials last month pledged to provide more reliable statistics after the EU complained of “severe irregularities” in the nation’s economic data.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 12:37 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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Het is wrang dat Griekenland heel lang als een successtory werd gezien. Nog maar sinds 1974 is het een democratie.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 16:25 schreef faustkern het volgende:

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Ditzelfde geld ook van Spanje en Portugal, beiden nog niet zo lang een democratie. Ik betwijfel echter of het tot leven brengen van Franco een goede oplossing is voor de probleem. Tenzij het plan is om de falange de opdracht te geven de banken sector echt op te schonen

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 16:41 schreef Deprater het volgende:
De sterkte en het voortbestaan van de euro als geheel, ligt in het zonder pardon durven laten vallen van zwakke broeders

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 16:41 schreef Deprater het volgende:
De sterkte en het voortbestaan van de euro als geheel, ligt in het zonder pardon durven laten vallen van zwakke broeders en de banken die investeerden in die zwakke broeders.

Was dat Goldman Sachs? Jammer dan, de EU staat niet garant voor individuele leden

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 17:32 schreef Posdnous het volgende:
Lijkt me inderdaad volkomen nutteloos. Een sterke Griekse economie is ook goed voor de rest van Europa.

Men moet alleen veel beter toezicht gaan houden (en niet alleen bij Griekenland) dan tot nu toe gebeurd is.

Bovendien is het volstrekt lachwekkend besprekingen over toetreding van Oost-Europese landen of Turkije te gaan houden als je Griekenland er om deze kwestie al uit wil sodemieteren.

Hou dan gewoon een gemeenschap van een paar sterke economische landen en bemoei je niet met de rest.

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 17:38 schreef Your_honor het volgende:

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Is de Griekse economie ooit sterk geweest? Volgens mij was Griekenland wel een aardige economie ten tijde van de Griekse oudheid maar sindsdien is het niet erg super dacht ik?

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Op dinsdag 16 februari 2010 17:10 schreef Your_honor het volgende:

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En wat dan? Oke, de zwakkere broeders worden vermoord, uit de EU gegooid. Dat is politiek niet eens haalbaar. Laat staan dat je dan een complete volks stroom hebt van mensen die onze kant op komen. Bij nader inzien, dat gebeurt al