I don't understand what the big worry is about Greece. Oh, sure, I know that their economy is a mess, they've made a national sport out of tax evasion and most of their governments since the Junta have been pretty fucking corrupt.
But still. The gross domestic product of Greece is $300 billion or so. That's the GDP of Maryland. Three hundred billion is less than half of what we throw at the Department of Defense. That's about the yearly revenue of BP, give or take a few oil spills.
The EU has a GDP of over $17 trillion. Greece is 1.7% of that. If the fucking Europeans could get their collective shit in one sock, they could weather a Grecian collapse without breaking a significant sweat.
Hell, the global GDP is probably over $65 trillion. If the financial wizards let a default by the Greeks bring the world's economy crashing down, then they really all should be stood up against some walls and shot. For they will be revealed as a bunch of brainless chickens. (Which is insulting to chickens, as even they would seem to have more sense than the collective mass of banksters.)
Jurassic Lark, Part 5
45 minutes ago
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This is why we have to 'sweat Greece':
http://seekingalpha.com/article/619341-how-greece-will-drag-down-europe-and-refuse-to-leave
I've been writing about this and its implications for some time. I suspect the climax is almost upon us.
Unfortunately, the climax we sought has, likely, been delayed. The Greek election results are quite interesting, and may very well result in another 6 weeks of speculation after three days of pronouncements. The New Democracy minority needs some 20 seats to form a government, and there is no obvious partner who hasn't ruled out joining them. Syriza won't try, and PASOK will also punt. If over the next three days, ND cannot find a way to get those 20 or so seats, another 6 week run-up to an election seems certain.
ND would like PASOK, but PASOK has already said they won't join a government with Syriza...Syriza is happy in opposition...no other party (Democratic Left, Independent Greeks, Golden Dawn, or Communists) is willing to join in a government that supports austerity. ND can try to finesse PASOK into a change of heart, or maybe try to draw DL or IG into a coalition, but any government is going to be extremely weak.
Since funds in Greece will likely run out before the next election, it is entirely possible that Europe (read as Germany) will face two equally unpalatable choices. 1) Extend more funds to Greece to keep them staggering through the election and hope the pro-austerity parties can make nice and prevail. 2) Don't fund, and watch Greece crater in the run-up to the election, followed by those leftists that gritted their teeth and voted ND or PASOK to "support the EU/euro" swing to Syriza in response. If the second happens, Syriza would likely get enough seats to form a government alone and Greece would already be on the way out of the euro, if not the EU.
This is important because of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) problem. Ireland may just make it out of that group, but the other three promise to follow Greece over the cliff shortly. Now Greece is 0.37% of world GDP, but the PIIGS total 5.05% (take out Ireland, and it's 4.82%) of world GDP. Suddenly the reason we are worrying becomes a little clearer.
Perhaps the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation was modeled on the Bankers.
P.S. Look into ELA in the euro zone to see how the bankers are hosing us in Greece.
Greece itself is no big deal. But once Greece defaults and leaves the Euro, and the Greeks don't all die the next winter as the EU is promising will happen, every other nation that's in trouble will do the same thing -- Spain, Italy, maybe even Ireland. And when they do that, the German banks are toast.
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