Greek PM scraps referendum on Greek debt plan

[vy65]

http://news.yahoo.com/greek-pm-scraps-referendum-greek-debt-plan-144719929.html;_ylt=AssYcP5YxstyTXZSOGq6H1ys0NUE;_ ylu=X3oDMTNtNm8yNDFjBG1pdANKdW1ib3Ryb24gRlAEcGtnAz YxMjkxNzBiLTQ1ZDItM2Y0MC04ZDBlLWNjODNiZmQwOTFlYwRw b3MDMQRzZWMDanVtYm90cm9uBHZlcgM5MGY0ODU5MC0wNjJiLT ExZTEtYWEyZi02YjY2YmM2MmU1Mzc-;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

[vy65]

What a fucking mess

[MannyIsGod]

Sounds like the people with the real power in Europe are starting to flex their muscle. Looks like the shit works the same everywhere.

[JoeChalupa]

Oh great.

[boutons_deux]

Just another reason that admitting Greece to EU was a mistake.

Greece is really an undeveloping country.

[cheguevara]

what a fucking monkey that CEO ehem, I mean PM is

[boutons_deux]

EU Leaders Threaten Greece With Expulsion From the Eurozone

If you had any doubts about the intent of the Eurobailouts, the latest news should settle them. The game plan was to severely limit Greek sovereignity and assert the primacy of creditor rights, even if they came at the expense of democracy. Greece, as we described in a post earlier today, threatened to blow up the bailout by having a referendum. That measure, even if it took place before year end, would create massive uncertainty and wreak havoc with other efforts (for instance, getting China to contribute cash to the levered EFSF, the bailout funding vehicle. As we’ve detailed in earlier posts, it is unworkable in the absence either of ECB backing or substantial outside funding).

The Eurocrats have decided to try to push Greece into line, threatening expulsion from the Euro (note, not the EU) if Greece does not back down. From a practical matter, if the Greeks were to turn down the bailout package, it would lead to a banking crisis, making a Eurozone exit a not that much more traumatic incremental move with considerable upside. And under the Maastrict treaty, Greece cannot unilaterally exit (although as various commentors have pointed out, Nato is not going to send in tanks if the Greeks were to do so).

But this may be an appeal to the Greek public, or more likely, an effort to break Greek prime minister’s Papandreou’s thin coalition on the eve of a vote of no confidence. Recent polls show 66% of the Greek public favors remaining in the Euro (some NC readers questioned those polls, and I’d love to see how the questions were posed). Greece has already made some concessions, moving up the referendum date to December 4 or 5 when it had been targeted for January. Note that this is before the time when Greece is expected to run out of cash, mid-December, and the officialdom (per the Wall Street Journal) has not disbursed the quarterly aid payment of €8 billion that Greece needs to remain solvent beyond that date.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/eu-leaders-threaten-greece-with-expulsion-from-the-eurozone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29

[DarkReign]

Cowardice in government, unless of course those poll numbers are accurate (about support among citizens for the EU bailout).

If the people want the bailout, then the point is moot.
If the people do not want the bailout, then this is a pure and aggressive financial takeover of Greece.

[Winehole23]

What happened in the last few days is something quite shocking to the Eurocrats. Someone actually asked the people of his own democratic country if they approve of deep and lasting austerity as a worthwhile price to keep the euro. So finally, we have a rogue force in EU decision-making: democracy. I know there are enormous systemic risks in delaying the implementation of the deal made last week; but there are also profound long-term risks in pushing for the deeper European integration required of this crisis without popular, democratic consent.

I'd prefer temporary chaos that can cede to a democratic reality; than a papered-over deal, hated by the southern European population, that could lead to a populist explosion down the line, especially if another recession hits. We're already seeing the paradox of accelerating the loss of sovereignty past the popular national will: you actually increase nationalism and division, rather than ameliorating them. In other words, the EU begins to defeat its own reason for existing.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/what-happens-if-greece-leaves-the-euro.html

[ChumpDumper]

Wouldn't the next general election be a referendum on staying with this plan?

[Winehole23]

Sure.

[boutons_deux]

Greece Spins Out of Control

Returning to Greece in October after three months away, I found the state close to dissolution and people in despair. The collapse is no longer just economic, or political, or social, but epistemological: it is almost impossible to make sense of what is happening. The air is full of threats and rumors that change every day: plans for new cuts and taxes, shifting deadlines to register for this or that exemption, warnings of punitive measures for those who don’t comply. No one knows what to believe; no one can plan beyond tomorrow. Conspiracy theories of all sorts rush in to fill the gaps, chaotic as the black graffiti scrawled on all the walls.

The government has abdicated many of its basic functions, paralyzed by internal dissent, by the unenforceable measures demanded by the EU and IMF, and by the rage of its own employees, who for days at a time have occupied major ministries. The police are overwhelmed and underpaid and angry. Large tracts of the city have become no-go zones except for those unfortunates, many of them immigrants, who are condemned to live there. Destitute men push carts full of scrap metal to sell (a day’s haul might fetch 7 euros if you’re lucky); junkies shoot up on the pavement; men walk in and out of brothels full of trafficked women. For two weeks a garbage collectors’ strike left towering heaps of rubbish to fester on every corner: empty food cartons, rotting vegetables, scraps of meat, torn clothes and toilet paper, waiting to be picked over by the poorest of the poor.

http://www.thenation.com/article/164344/greece-spins-out-control?rel=emailNation

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[TDMVPDPOY]

if they get kicked out, what happens to the debt thats already loaned out...

nothin beats writing down bad debts when they were printed out of nothing