Greece referendum: ‘No’ vote ahead

38 Comments on "Greece referendum: ‘No’ vote ahead"

Ralph on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 2:01 pm 



No vote at 61% with more than half the votes counted.

No is going to win it by 3 to 2

What next? Unless the EU backs down Greece will be in melt-down in a few days. Without more cash the banks all close and the country stops working altogether. All trade and imports cease.

It becomes a cash economy without enough cash.

zoidberg on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 2:35 pm 



They’ve recently printed 13 billion in Euro cash notes according to zerohedge I read. Don’t be so sure. Question is will the “y” marked Euro notes be cancelled?

Plantagenet on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 3:10 pm 



Now that Greece has voted “NO” to the EU bailout, it won’t be long until we see the Drachma make a comeback in Greece.

At 1,000,000 Drachmas to the dollar, vacations in Greece will be a real bargain!

Jimmy on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 3:28 pm 



If Greece goes with its own devalued currency they won’t be able to afford imports of oil and food. Devaluing ones currency was a good strategy when energy was cheap and getting cheaper but now that it’s not the strategy is a bad one. It will result in starvation. Greece will soon go the way of other failed states.

joe on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 4:06 pm 



I wouldn’t quite say they are out yet. But its not possible to go on as before. We are into uncharted territory in EU politics. Imagine the FED was a body without any kind of oversight. Then imagine a 5 year negotiation with Kansas to payback money the FSD had made it take a loan on to bail out staten island, imagine that Kansas couldn’t pay, so instead held a plebiscite on the terms of a deal which would fire most government workers and take away pensions from those who had spent their lives paying into it (even before the Euro), tats where Greece are. Willing to talk but unwilling to sacrifice is people. That’s the job of good government. The Euro itself has caused this, because the Greeks suffer from the effect of a strong currency, most of these government pensions were from Drachma times. The ball is in Merkels court now, she is goin to either make or break Europe with her next decision. The UK has an in/out referendum comin up next. She needs to do something pretty special now. I still think the banksters are going to burn her and the IMF to save the Euro though.

freak on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:03 pm 



You can not continue to pile on more and more debt to pay off existing debt. The sooner Greece faces up to the reality that there are no free lunches the better off they will be. Iceland seems to be doing fine not live in survitude to the Bankers.

apneaman on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:05 pm 



How the hell has Japan managed to go so long printing money/debt?

Davy on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:17 pm 



Freak, Iceland did not have to go through a nasty divorce.

Davy on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:18 pm 



Ape Man, Japan is the 3rd largest economy in the world with a high private savings rate.
http://thesovereigninvestor.com/dollar-collapse/bank-of-japan-will-print-money/
“The only reason why the country has been able to accumulate so much debt without having a crisis is because about 94% of Japan’s debt is held domestically. But this source of demand is weakening.”

HARM on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:24 pm 



Freak has it right. The IMF & ECB offered a really bad “kick the can” deal that would only have prolonged mass unemployment, austerity and misery for ordinary Greeks. Iceland, Argentina, and others have proven there is life after default, and furthermore, a country can actually recover FASTER when it repudiates debt that cannot be repaid.

What cannot be repaid won’t be. If the Greeks (and German bankers) had owned up to this fact 6 years ago, they would both be in far, far better shape today. And blackmail by the ECB and their pointless tantrums about a “Grexit” is what caused the current run on the banks and panic buying –not the “no” vote.

Plantagenet on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:29 pm 



If Greece repudiates its debt to the EU, then it will break the agreements it made with the EU and it will be booted out of the EU.

Greece will then have no choice but to reinstitute the Drachma.

Davy on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:33 pm 



Different animal Harm comparing Iceland and Argentina to Greece misses the point that Greece is not independent and can’t become independent overnight. This will drag on as the talk continues with the Greek economy tanking. This is very risky for all players including the global financial system especially with China in financial turmoil. China is actually a bigger deal if that crisis is mishandled. I don’t see a happy ending just more baggage for the global train wreck.

HARM on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:35 pm 



@Jimmy,

Actually Greece is a net-exporter of food, and can easily feed its own population of 11 million. The only reason it imports any food is largely to cater to the demand from rich consumers and foreign tourists (who want their favorite foods year-round, regardless of season), as well as inefficient crop subsidies that discourage efficient use of home-grown crops.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/140003/article/ekathimerini/community/why-does-greece-import-so-much-food

HARM on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 5:41 pm 



“If Greece repudiates its debt to the EU, then it will break the agreements it made with the EU and it will be booted out of the EU.
Greece will then have no choice but to reinstitute the Drachma.”

And if that does indeed happen (not yet clear), it would be even easier for the Greek economy to recover, as Greece would now be in control of its own currency. They could devaluate/print money as needed to reverse deflation and grow their exports. Otherwise known as “Keynesian stimulus”, which worked reasonably well in the U.S. after 2008, though sadly minus the badly needed banking and tax code reforms.

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/greece-cpi-year-on-year-change-inflation-deflation_chartbuilder.png?w=640

Davy on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 6:20 pm 



Harm, last I understood it takes money to buy food, grow food, cook food, and dispose of food. It does not matter if a country can grow all its own food if its economy cannot manage food as a resource and vital commodity. All countries have monoculture driven food export concerns. We are talking import export and that is where the conflicts get messy with food. No developed country to my knowledge has local markets that can sustain that country without food insecurity in a financial crisis.

There is going to be some serious discomfort going around Greece if this tumbles out of control. Sure this is not Egypt facing a food crisis from economic collapse but Greece could still be a country in chaos nonetheless. I imagine knowing Europe’s history they will muddle through this with no one happy but the worst avoided. That is a big if though because these are uncharted waters.

HARM on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 6:39 pm 



@Davy,

I’m sure there will be some bad short-term consequences and blowback for this decision, but then no difficult but necessary long-term political move is all wine and roses afterwards, is it?

Re: money and food, it’s more accurate to say that it takes energy to buy food, grow food, cook food, and dispose of food. And considering that 13% of Greeks work in agriculture or fishing vs. Germany’s or USA’s 2%, I’d say they’re a lot better positioned for “self sufficiency” and a temporary loss of financial debt instruments than we are, wouldn’t you agree?

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS

Ask yourself, who will be better off if the global banking-industrial complex collapses –people who are relatively “backward” and more accustomed to living in a low-growth barter economy, or people who cannot grow their own food in high-growth “advanced” economies?

HARM on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 6:43 pm 



Greece is joining the expanding list of “canary in the coalmine” poster-children for the new de-growth global economy. At least they’re getting an early start on the process by repudiating unsustainably high debts and rejecting blackmail by the global finance cabal. Good for them!

Plantagenet on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 7:02 pm 



Greece will be serious trouble after Grexit. Its government spends far more then it takes in through taxes—thats why it has needed loans and bailouts.

Without securing more loans from the EU, the Greek government will have no choice but to slash pensions and government spending to levels far below what it faced due to “austerity.”

apneaman on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 7:52 pm 



Euro Margin Call

“It is difficult to make heads-or-tails out of the Greek melodrama playing out at this moment. To default or not default, in the eurozone or out. Who knows? Observers are confused and so are the participants, what is clear is that the stakes are very high. The group designated to absorb the hardest blows cling to the bottom of the economic mast; workers, pensioners, students and suckers lured into investing in countries like Greece … then again, maybe not. There is the chance of contagion, anything is possible including the chance that some tycoons might lose their fortunes. ”

http://www.economic-undertow.com/2015/07/03/euro-margin-call/

apneaman on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 7:53 pm 



Is that what Obama said Planty?

Makati1 on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 8:00 pm 



And then there is Russia and China, just waiting to get their foot in the door of Greece and a base in the Mediterranean. I doubt that Greece would be without aid in their time of need, do you?

Plantagenet on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 8:03 pm 



@apeman

If you want to know what obama said so you can follow his lead, then why don’t you google it up yourself?

Cheers!

joe on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 12:41 am 



This stare down just heated up. The ECB decides today if it wants to continue to fund Greece with emgency money. If no, then Greece must default and immediately announce its going to settle its debts with whateve money it has, probably dollars, then it will either negotiate a deal with Europe or announce a new currency. It wont happen that way though, the ECB loses everything if it punishes the greeks, but the greeks also violated a big idealogical principle, that national sovereignty is irrelevant in the Federal EU. That domestically elected officials reach consensus on behave of regions, Greece has laid down a Confederate challenge of a states right to determine its own destiny. They could be punished for that.

apneaman on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 2:29 am 



I think I’ll go with Vicky Nuland on this one. “Fuck the EU”

Davy on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 2:56 am 



No, Harm, It would be better to say it takes energy and economics to grow food. I know I had a 1000 acre corn and soy farm in and around 2000. I now am engaged in a small management intensive grazing of cattle and goats which is a permaculture technic of raising stock animals. Energy must be managed and applied by economics to produce a crop never more so than at a national level. Harm if you want to compare Greece to the US you will have a difficult time considering the size and GDP of the two. Maybe compare Greece to an individual state would work better.

In todays globalized world we have the unfortunate situation of global monocultures that must be distributed within a global financial arrangement. Countries import and export per their comparative advantage in agriculture. Listing fishing as a self-sufficiency of a country is a poor use of the term and concept in today’s world. Fisheries are dying especially from the Europeans who are among the worst along with the Asians as exploiters of global fisheries.

I agree with you Greece is ahead in the collapse adjustment and mitigation process but again they are a small country and GDP to be comparing to the rest of the developed world. Backward can be an advantage in certain situations. I would not use the word backward I would use local and traditional.

I am in northern Italy now with my wife at here families village. It is located in the Dolomites. The farming here is much more traditional and local than other areas of Italy and the rest of the developed world. The same would be true in many areas of Greece. Yet, Greece is a huge producers of olives in large monocultures. Their population is far too large to survive locally and traditionally.

The issues with local and sustainable will always be the proximity of population overshoot. Many regions that appear self-sufficient will not be in a collapse because of the large population concentrations nearby. Resources will be bled off destroying local sustainability. This is the inconvenient truth of our overpopulated globalized world. We have just about succeeded in making man completely dependent on the global because of consumption practices of globalism and overpopulation of so much of the global world.

Davy on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 3:04 am 



Mak said, “Then there is Russia and China, just waiting to get their foot in the door of Greece and a base in the Mediterranean.” What a joke Mak on a couple of levels. This shows your lack of understandings of a complex global world of finance. Countries don’t just loan countries money it goes through a system of complicated financial structures. In this case the EU and IMF in Euros.

Last I seen China has a collapsing equity market they are going to try to bail out. This is inconvenient because before the market shit on them they were going to bail out the huge debt of their local governments. Now China is up to their eyeballs with problems. Russia is not even on the list of countries capable of lending money to Greece at the levels needed. Please explain that one Mak? Russia is a basket case of problems.

penury on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:18 am 



As long as the IMF and NATO maintain a over riding interest in the Greek outcome, we need to just quit listening to what the people say, but watch closely what they do. Never let a crisis go to waste, and our State Dept has plans in place for this situation. I am certain that Congress will call for “Boots on the Ground”.

BobInget on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:28 am 



Watch for China to step up to the plate as they often do. Greece could substitute US currency
for euros. This might help degrade over-valued dollars responsible for lower oil prices.

Dozens of nations already use USD’s as their only currency. Many have GDP’s greater then Greece.

Bahamas
Belize
Bermuda
Cambodia)
Cayman Islands US)
East Timor
Ecuador
Federated States of Micronesia (South Pacific)
Marshall Islands (near Micronesia actually)
Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS dollar always = 37¢ US)
Palau (east of the Philippines)
Panama
Zimbabwe

(if you ever wondered where all those dollar coins
minted here in the US have gone, visit one of the above nations.

BobInget on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:45 am 



There are too many more important issues facing the world then Little Old Greece.
I’ll give this ‘crisis’ one more week before Greece falls back into obscurity.

Greece today must be called a “White Swan Event” the entire financial world won’t collapse on account of one bank not paying off another.
In fact speculators are rushing in to buy Greek financial instruments at bargain prices.

The Chinese stock market lost over 50% of value
in the last few weeks, triple what Greece owes.

If anything, Greece has no ‘bubble’ to burst.
This entire crisis is nothing more then Germany blackmailing Greece into ‘behaving’ proper German, not sloppy Greek.

That’s why Greece is a “white swan”. We’ve seen them before, many times.

ghung on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:49 am 



Yeah, Davy, China announced yesterday their plan to keep their market bubbles inflated:

Here’s what Beijing is doing to help stabilize the market:

1) Regulators announced late on Sunday that China’s central bank will provide capital to China Securities Finance Corp., which will in turn make additional financing available for margin lending. That’s the practice of buying stocks using borrowed funds. When margin bets go sour, investors are forced to quickly pay back huge amounts of cash.

2) China’s 21 largest brokerage firms said on Saturday they would spend a whopping 120 billion yuan (about $19.3 billion) to buy stocks in hopes of stabilizing the market. The firms said they will actually purchase stock funds themselves, and keep buying until the Shanghai Composite reaches 4,500, a level the index last saw on June 25….”

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/05/investing/china-stocks-crash/index.html?iid=EL

Maybe they can buy Greece on margin, eh? Anyone who doesn’t sense that this global bitch is going down,, soon, please explain your position.

BobInget on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 12:24 pm 



I believe everyone knows by now how China’s market bubbles will flatten then reinflate.
Remember China’s market wet up 100% this year before it lost half its value.

I’m much more concerned about how Israel and Saudi Arabia handle Iran’s power resurgence if a multi nation nuclear agreement is approved.
Or.
How do Israel and Saudi Arabia (newBF’s) deal
with expanding bombing to include Iran.
The Saudis have duel purpose in bombing Iran.
The most urgent, Iran’s boots are gaining influence in Iraq fighting off Islamic State.
Islamic State is a Saudi creation.

Secondly, if Iran manages to make a nuclear
weapon small enough for missile delivery, that endangers Saudi Supremacy in the Arab world.
Sure-Nuff Israel finds common cause with KSA.

It’s also possible Iran has, in the last ten years, already developed or purchased nuclear weapons. After all, ask Israel do they have nukes? Israel refuses to answer. I believe it’s against the law in Israel questioning domestic nuclear weapons.

Baptised on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 1:11 pm 



Don’t forget everything is for sale and Iran has the oil to buy it.

Stephen on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 12:35 am 



I think it will really shift power. There may be some banks that fail. But the people of Greece said “No” to extreme austerity and that they are not accepting a bailout that does nothing for the country’s unemployment situation. The people are sick of extreme austerity measures imposed by creditors. This sets the stage for one of many possible scenarios, such as:

1) A Debt Jubilee or partial jubilee

2) A bailout that does something about Greece’s economic and unemployment issues and requires less austerity measures.

3) An exit from the Euro currency or European Union as a whole

4) A default on debts, leading to deflation and IOUs, possibly leading to bank failures.

5) Greece losing international allies or trade partners and/or gaining other ones it did not have before (perhaps more Russian or Chinese influence).

6) Hyperinflation if currency conversion and printing money is used.
6)

Kenz300 on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 9:20 am 



The Greek people made a game of avoiding their taxes. The wealthy with big homes, yachts and swimming pools declared incomes of taxi drivers and got away with it. The tax collectors just looked the other way and let it go. Paying taxes in Greece was considered a joke. The tax collection system does not function properly with little or no enforcement.

The free ride is over…. The tax cheaters need need to pay their fair share.

Hubbert on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 7:36 pm 



It is kind of funny how some country like Greece is forced to face reality but others are not.

What is the difference between Greece and America?

The answer is No. So, why is Greece forced to face reality when America is just as bankrupt?

Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 8:34 pm 



Hubbert, Greece is the size of Michigan in population and lower in GDP and You want to compare Greece to the US. What is in your Wallet?

apneaman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 8:52 pm 



Reserve currency – MIC

Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 8:57 pm 



Now we know why Brics are bricks and they can’t fly. China the last driver of the global system is imploding. On the other side of the world the European Piigs are wallowing in Greek mud pit. Of course we know how screwed up the US is. Surely the European and Chinese stink will whiff into North American markets when they wake up tomorrow like a toxic cloud of panic. The US markets are ready for a hit despite the cocky attitude it is priced in already. Check out this Asian news:

China Crashes Most Since 2007 Amid “Panic Sentiment”; Over Half Stocks Suspended, PBOC Promises “Liquidity Support”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-07/china-futures-plunge-8-over-half-stocks-suspended-margin-debt-crashes-most-record

For a record 12th day in a row, Chinese margin debt balances have dropped with today’s 8.5% collapse the largest in history. As of last night, there were around 570/1694 Shenzhen stocks halted/suspended and hundreds more on the Shanghai bourse leaving more than 54% of all Chinese stocks frozen. China continues to try to manage leverage down (raising margin requirements on stock futures) while encouraging speculation (easing rules for insurers to buy blue chips and financing the purchase of smaller company shares directly) and CYNK’ing the entire market – if it’s not open, you can’t sell it and the price cannot fall! It’s not working as CSI-300 futures are now down 7.9% in the preopen. China appears to be trying to manage leverage…