Euro Area

[Kagemusha]

All countries lending money to Greece are making a profit. We sell Dutch bonds on the market at 2,5 % and use the money to buy Greek bonds at 9% or something in that order.

AII

Yes but we are the only ones getting direct cash from Greece.If the Greek bonds dive further.You will not be getting anything.Just read the article.

[gaelic cowboy]

Yes but we are the only ones getting direct cash from Greece.If the Greek bonds dive further.You will not be getting anything.Just read the article.

But is this not a bilateral loan like the UK-Ireland so different terms apply, your still on the hook for all the bailout money you pledged to the various funds already.

[Kagemusha]

But is this not a bilateral loan like the UK-Ireland so different terms apply, your still on the hook for all the bailout money you pledged to the various funds already.

I am now only talking about the latest arrangement. Before the current situation the initial premise was that Greece would be able to pay their debts. In my opinion that is more or less money lost already.
While other Euro Nations are continuing with that hope.With this arrangement, Finland is securing that no matter if Greece can pay or not.We will not be dumbing any further money on them without direct guarantees.

[gaelic cowboy]

I am now only talking about the latest arrangement. Before the current situation the initial premise was that Greece would be able to pay their debts. In my opinion that is more or less money lost already.
While other Euro Nations are continuing with that hope.With this arrangement, Finland is securing that no matter if Greece can pay or not.We will not be dumbing any further money on them without direct guarantees.

But if it's gone why give them more?? what this actually says is Finland thinks Germany will pay any price and so Finland can get away with a bit of profit taking.

In effect your politicians believe the bailout money will be paid, I must say you and me are agreed though the knockout/bailout money is toast.

[Kagemusha]

But if it's gone why give them more?? what this actually says is Finland thinks Germany will pay any price and so Finland can get away with a bit of profit taking.

In effect your politicians believe the bailout money will be paid, I must say you and me are agreed though the knockout/bailout money is toast.

No it does not necessarily say that. Essentially what this deal is about is that Greece is paying in cash about 40% what we are guarateeing of their debt. This money will be invested by Finland.Nothing says in the agreement that it will be invested into Greek bonds.It might be invested for example to German bonds, but the bottom line is that the 40% of the total sum as guarantee enables for Finland to get our money back through low risk investments in any case.

[gaelic cowboy]

No it does not necessarily say that. Essentially what this deal is about is that Greece is paying in cash about 40% what we are guarateeing of their debt. This money will be invested by Finland.Nothing says in the agreement that it will be invested into Greek bonds.It might be invested for example to German bonds, but the bottom line is that the 40% of the total sum as guarantee enables for Finland to get our money back through low risk investments in any case.

Yes I understand that but Greece would have a hard time paying up if the bailout fails, the government most likely thinks it wont happen and the deal is a sop to the electorate really of Finland.

[Kagemusha]

Yes I understand that but Greece would have a hard time paying up if the bailout fails, the government most likely thinks it wont happen and the deal is a sop to the electorate really of Finland.

Well as said in the article Greece have to pay the guarantee or Finland will not guarantee their debt, so the pay up has to be imminent. A guarantee paid afterwards is no guarantee at all.

[Adrian II]

Yes but we are the only ones getting direct cash from Greece.If the Greek bonds dive further.You will not be getting anything.Just read the article.

The Dutch PM and Finance Minister deny that there is such a Finnish-Greek deal. Well, is it official or not?

According to The Hague any such deal would (1) apply to all EU eurozone members lending money to Greece and (2) require approval from the other eurozone members.

So, what's up Helsinki-side?

AII

[Tellos Athenaios]

I take the words of the Dutch PM and Finance clowns with a grain of salt. Especially when they contradict a deal they had nothing to do with, when they actually contradict the people who supposedly did sign off on it.

[Adrian II]

I take the words of the Dutch PM and Finance clowns with a grain of salt. Especially when they contradict a deal they had nothing to do with, when they actually contradict the people who supposedly did sign off on it.

That's why I'm asking. Those two ****brains don't have a clue.

AII

[Brenus]

When you divide between North and South, where do you put France?

[Tellos Athenaios]

When you divide between North and South, where do you put France?

In many ways, France is quite on the other side of any kind of divide. From the way it handles worker protests to the bigger than life qualities in the person of Mr. Sarkozy to the language and cultural divide to a certain flair and attention to detail whilst neglecting the overall state of maintenance (i.e. beautiful, well kept flower beds on roundabouts or besides pavements, in towns full of dilapidated buildings and patchy road works).

In other ways, Mr. Sarkozy and the French élite will probably convince themselves that even if they do not have Germany's economic weight they are in some sort of leadership position which compels him -whatever it is about- to be “on the forefront” if it concerns “Europe”. So wherever we might draw any divide, France will end up included anyway.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If you ask me there are several possible solutions to the problem of not having a nice even Euro.

1 Divide the North and South.
2 Unshackle the ECB
3 Integrate fully (not the new Sarkozy/Merkel fuzzy announcement I mean a federal state)
4 Eurobonds

To be honest option one is the best really in my view but it would prob take maybe 5 to 10 years in order to not cause a major flight of capital out of the Eurozone.

What there doing is trying to convince people in the South to accept lower everything along with higher inflation which balances the equation as a whole (Great for Germans the pressure is off them, not so great for Southern workers or there unemployed hence the rioting)

The only reason Ireland is bucking the trend is because we have reduced our costs of doing business, we have low inflation and it's getting lower plus were exporting a lot outside the Eurozone
We still however owe a lot due to the bailout which limits our growth potential due to austerity, Spain Italy Greece and Portugal have none of the things to be hopeful about that I stated are present in the Irish economy and all of the same bad ones.

Also it helps when your population is highly mobile and also crucially young enough still to relocate both internally and abroad.

So gaelic, do you think that if Ireland had not accepted a bailout, and the attendant millstone, it would now need one?

I wonder myself.

When you divide between North and South, where do you put France?

cut the country in half, same with Italy, people keep telling us we need more federalism in the UK, what's good for the Briton is good for the European.

[gaelic cowboy]

So gaelic, do you think that if Ireland had not accepted a bailout, and the attendant millstone, it would now need one?

I wonder myself.

We cant know for sure, but it could have been done.

The garauntee was only started because there was a potential run on Anglo threatening the whole system, it was supposed to end in the back end of 2010.

The back end of 2010 was when the ECB started there funny business with our banks, once they got us bailedin they extended the bailout and refused haircuts.

The way I see it after the garauntee would have lapsed, the Irish banks would have failed burning banks all over Europe. Bank failure in Ireland has consequences however we cannot foresee, my guess is that even France and Germany could have been badly hurt in a Lehmans style credit crunch

SO it depends on what your more afraid of either bailing us out or scalping bondholders.

[Fragony]

When you divide between North and South, where do you put France?

Somehere safe hopefully

@ teh paddie, what if we keep the euro as a coin to pay for a bread, and reintroduce the Deutsche Mark or the Dutch guilder for business in the Northen regions. Either would be solid trustwise, euro would probably drop, making export from the south worth the trouble again. We'll have a north and south without anyone getting all that hurt no?

disclaimer: I am economically challenged. or generally really

[Sarmatian]

Somehere safe hopefully

@ teh paddie, what if we keep the euro as a coin to pay for a bread, and reintroduce the Deutsche Mark or the Dutch guilder for business in the Northen regions. Either would be solid trustwise, euro would probably drop, making export from the south worth the trouble again. We'll have a north and south without anyone getting all that hurt no?

disclaimer: I am economically challenged. or generally really

Unfortunately, this crisis isn't about the euro and it wouldn't simply disappear even if manage to magically make an instant and perfect transition to old national currencies.

Let's say Greece reintroduces the drachma, what would happen? Total economic collapse. Greece isn't an exporting nation and cheaper Greek products abroad wouldn't help Greek economy to balance it out. At the same time, rampant inflation would make it impossible to make any long-term plans. Who would invest drachmas in Greek bonds with drachmas losing worth daily? You bought bonds worth a 1000 euros and two weeks later your bonds are worth 200 euros.

Also, the notion that crisis in the southern Europe wouldn't affect northern Europe if national currencies still existed runs contrary to logic. European economies are so interconnected that slowing down of Italian and Spanish economies would certainly be felt, pesetas and liras or euros.

Another thing thrown around here is that you can not have single currency if you don't have same level of development -> bollox. Do you think that GDP of American states are equal? California 2 trillion and Wyoming 38 billion. GDP per capita varies between around 70.000 (Delaware) and 35.000 (South Carolina), if we discount District of Columbia which has 170.000. Tax levels are also not the same across the United States. By contrast, difference for GDP per capita between EU states is 32.000 (Netherlands) and 11.000 (Romania (which isn't even in the EMU)), if we discount Luxembourg which has 70.000. Not such a big difference compared to US, is it? And if use only EMU countries, the difference is even smaller.

So, Euro is not the problem and it never was. The story is used now by Eurosceptics looking for a cheap argument because it's easier to blame the Euro than to explain what's happening to the electorate. Why should Germans and French spend their money to bail out Greece? Because it is their investment. They hold most of the debt - if Greece defaults, that deficit moves from Greek to their economies.

[Kagemusha]

The Dutch PM and Finance Minister deny that there is such a Finnish-Greek deal. Well, is it official or not?

According to The Hague any such deal would (1) apply to all EU eurozone members lending money to Greece and (2) require approval from the other eurozone members.

So, what's up Helsinki-side?

AII

It is telling that Euro media is not even putting it out,our financial minister Jutta Urpilainen put it out on tuesday like i di..The question is why is this not in bbc or deutchewelle, nor le monde

[Louis VI the Fat]

It is telling that Euro media is not even putting it out,our financial minister Jutta Urpilainen put it out on tuesday like i di..The question is why is this not in bbc or deutchewelle, nor le monde

I'm sure the Finnish-Greek deal will receive due attention in Le Monde once it has explained to its readers what a Finland is.




Louis - almost an anagram of Suomi

[Adrian II]

It is telling that Euro media is not even putting it out,our financial minister Jutta Urpilainen put it out on tuesday like i di..The question is why is this not in bbc or deutchewelle, nor le monde

It was too late for me yesterday to call a Helsinki spokesperson, but a Dutch parliamentarian has spoken to a Finnish government minister and the minister confirmed that Finland has indeed signed the deal with Greece.

Like I said, our PM and Finance Minister have **** for brains. They have another parliamentary debate coming and I wouldn't be surprised if it proved to be their undoing. About time.

AII

[Fragony]

It was too late for me yesterday to call a Helsinki spokesperson, but a Dutch parliamentarian has spoken to a Finnish government minister and the minister confirmed that Finland has indeed signed the deal with Greece.

Like I said, our PM and Finance Minister have **** for brains. They have another parliamentary debate coming and I wouldn't be surprised if it proved to be their undoing. About time.

AII

ouch, but what then. We are soooooooo low on capable people in the country of reversed gravity they all fall up and stay there. It's ok that JK la B came out but he's supposed the one who gets it ad rectum not me

[Brenus]

“The problem is bankers are not popular anywhere right now eh, France and Germany will have a tough time convincing people to continue secretly bailing out busted banks.”
Yeap, especially when all the alleged solutions are failing. Greece is worse now than before after the IMF ECB and EU “bail out”. The debts increase because the politicians allowed the banskers to plunder the country.
But now, unlike when it was Argentina, it is known that these “solutions” don’t work. Well, easy enough to understand: You fire a lot of people hence you cut the activity so the taxes don’t come in the state’s coffers. So the banksters, the same that imposed to you the cut, declare that because you have less incomes, you are a risk, so they increase the rate of your interests, So when you have sold every things, that you population is massively unemployed and the rate of poverty drastically increase, you realise that the country is near to unrest and riots.
But for ideological reasons, the Triad can’t change politic. So the Triumvirate now try to avoid a total collapse in breaking the same treaty it imposed on the European Populations in issuing Eurobonds and allowing countries to borrow money at the same rates than the banksters. That would have halted all attacks on Greece if it would have been done before. But the fraudsters can’t do it openly as they only protection against jail and to get their bonuses is to pretend to still stick to the Lisbon Treaty.
The Rich are now facing a dilemma: To be taxed or to lose everything in next crash. But, we have people who explained as that to tax the Rich is not the solution…
What to do, what to do?

Tax the capital at the same rate than the work? The Rich will go somewhere else, we were told… So have a good journey…

“Que se vayan todos”

[Fragony]

'Yeap, especially when all the alleged solutions are failing. Greece is worse now than before after the IMF ECB and EU ?bail out?. The debts increase because the politicians allowed the banskers to plunder the country.'

Yeah it's not right, I got enough already I don't need anything from the Greeks. I am really sorry for them it wasn't me. I think I'm turning into a born-again leftie. Banks are rotten they destroy