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Grexit
GREXIT
QUESTION: I just read an article about Grexit and the MoU that expires in the summer of 2018. Let’s assume Greece exits EU and the Euro, what would happen to Greece and it’s people? What hardships would Grexit bring to the Greek people and what could individual Greeks do to prepare themselves for these hardships?
Thanks for your blog.
Greetings from Greece!
Cheers,
J
ANSWER: Things will be much brighter once Greece gets out of the Euro. Brussels is desperately trying to keep Greece in the Eurozone for their survival, not what is best for Greece. The major data is published by various agencies that are directly or dependent upon government and they will always champion staying in the Eurozone. If you look beyond those headlines, you see a different picture. Most of our clients in Britain who were against BREXIT, now report that things are much better. Themanufacturing industry experienced a job boom in the last quarter. Compared Q3 2016, the job market data with that for 2017 showed that the manufacturing sector witnessed a 24% increase in advertised vacancies over the past 12 months. Jobs have been created in Britain at a faster pace since the BREXIT vote, despite the headlines of the fake news.
I have explained before that when Britain abandoned the gold standard in 1931, they instantly recovered from the Great Depression. This was the case study that George Warren used to demonstrate to Roosevelt that the dollar had to be devalued to reverse the economic decline. Maintaining the gold standard back then was the equivalent of “austerity” imposed upon Europe by Germany. Everyone just gets this whole issue of currency and the Quantity of Money dead wrong. The Austrian School of economics predates the massive government debt era. Today, the government is the biggest borrower within society and they compete against the private sector reducing economic growth.
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Greece Slides Back Into Recession Amid Riots, Rewewed “Grexit” Calls
Greece Slides Back Into Recession Amid Riots, Rewewed “Grexit” Calls
It was just over a year ago that Greece elected Alexis Tsipras and Syriza amid a flurry of anti-austerity sentiment.
Things didn’t exactly go as planned.
The new PM and his “radical” finance minister Yanis Varoufakis thought they could shake things up in Brussels and wrench Greece from the clutches of Berlin-style fiscal rectitude. As it turns out, Wolfgang Schaeuble is not a man who is easily bested at the bargaining table and after more than six months of negotiations, the imposition of capital controls, a referendum on the euro that Tsipras promptly sold down the river, Greeks ended up facing an outright depression.
In the end, Varoufakis unceremoniously resigned and Tsipras agreed to a third bailout before calling for snap elections that would ultimately see the PM re-elected albeit at the helm of a party that was completely gutted by the arduous bailout talks.
As we and quite a few others warned, the new bailout and the attached terms would do exactly nothing to turn the Greek economy around. We’re all for being responsible with the budget but you can’t very well implement fiscal retrenchment during a depression unless you intend to remain in said depression in perpetuity, but alas, that’s exactly what Brussels forced Greece to do and on Friday we learn that the country has slipped back into recession.
GDP contracted 0.6% in Q4 after shrinking 1.4% in Q3. “With opposition mounting to the government’s pension reform plan, the European Union pressuring it to stem the tide of refugees entering the country and the global market rout hastening the sell-off in Greek assets, dark clouds are gathering again,” Bloomberg writes. Ironically, capital controls appear to have helped the economy perform better than expected:
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The Europe Question in 2016
The Europe Question in 2016
NEW YORK – At the cusp of the new year, we face a world in which geopolitical and geo-economic risks are multiplying. Most of the Middle East is ablaze, stoking speculation that a long Sunni-Shia war (like Europe’s Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants) could be at hand. China’s rise is fueling a wide range of territorial disputes in Asia and challenging America’s strategic leadership in the region. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has apparently become a semi-frozen conflict, but one that could reignite at any time.
There is also the chance of another epidemic, as outbreaks of SARS, MERS, Ebola, and other infectious diseases have shown in recent years. Cyber-warfare is a looming threat as well, and non-state actors and groups are creating conflict and chaos from the Middle East to North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Last, but certainly not least, climate change is already causing significant damage, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent and lethal.
Yet it is Europe that may turn out to be the ground zero of geopolitics in 2016. For starters, a Greek exit from the eurozone may have been only postponed, not prevented, as pension and other structural reforms put the country on a collision course with its European creditors. “Grexit,” in turn, could be the beginning of the end of the monetary union, as investors would wonder which member – possibly even a core country (for example, Finland) – will be the next to leave.
If Grexit does occur, the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU may become more likely. Compared to a year ago, the probability of “Brexit” has increased, for several reasons. The recent terrorist attacks in Europe have made the UK even more isolationist, as has the migration crisis. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour is more Euroskeptic.
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Peak Oil Ass-Backwards (part 3): Forget Austerity and Grexit – it’s Time for a Gretaway!
Peak Oil Ass-Backwards (part 3): Forget Austerity and Grexit – it’s Time for a Gretaway!
So here we are on this precipice of sorts, staring upon the twilight of the industrial economy due to peaking energy supplies and thus peaking credit supplies (as explained in part 2 of this 3-part series).
Simply put, being on the peak oil plateau, and with fossil fuel supplies in general reaching their limits (and getting more expensive to extract), there’s going to increasingly be less and less of the stuff to go around. This means one of two things, the first being that what’s left gets spread around thinner and thinner between all the participants. However, since people of the West (and especially those in the richer parts) have become quite used to their energy-intensive lifestyles and seem to have zero intention of giving them up, this likely implies the implementation of the second approach: cut back on – if not cut off – the fuel supplies to people and nations on the lower rungs of industrial civilization. That way, as the fossil fuel pie continues to shrink, those on the higher rungs don’t have to reduce their share too drastically. In effect, this allows for those in the upper echelons of contemporary civilization to hold on to their Nyet-Flix feeds and iGizmos just a bit longer, until the triaging inevitably hits them as well and/or the bottom just completely falls out.
This triaging can be accomplished in more than one way, but for the time being two methods stand out as the most popular. The first is what we know as austerity – cuts are made upon people’s pensions, hours, welfare cheques, whatever, so that they have less credit (read: money) to buy and indulge in the spoils of industrialization. Unfortunately, living in this modern world of ours means that the basic necessities of life (such as food) also often fall under the umbrella of industrialization, so being triaged can entail much more than an inconvenient loss of iGizmos.
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Is Puerto Rico the New Greece?
Is Puerto Rico the New Greece?
While the world’s attention has been firmly fixed on Greece’s debt crisis and the “Grexit” threat, there is trouble brewing much closer to home. Staying largely in the Greek shadow, Puerto Rico is on the brink of defaulting on its debts. The parallels with Greece are unavoidable, and not just on account of the timing, so it is worth taking a deeper look into whether Puerto Rico is the United States’ own Greece and if its looming debt default could potentially have similar repercussions.
Background
What has been going on with Puerto Rico? In short, once a prosperous Caribbean nation, in the past decade Puerto Rico has seen its economy shrink considerably. This trend, the growing migration of citizens to the mainland, as well as the island’s labor policy, have all conspired to create the perfect storm for Puerto Rico.
Jumping to present day, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla recently told the New York Times that the nation’s $72 billion debt was ‘not payable,’ while Reuters quoted Moody’s as warning that the probability of Puerto Rico defaulting on its securities was approaching 100 percent.
Much like Greece, Puerto Rico has been asking its creditors for debt relief, and much like Greece, it relies on a much wealthier economy to the north. The island’s debt, owed to a combination of creditors, is higher per capita than any US state.
Default Repercussions
With Puerto Rico’s default almost certain, one cannot help but wonder about the potential impact on the US economy, especially given the parallels with Greece and the chaos which the Grexit could unleash not only on the Eurozone but on the world.
In addition to disrupting the life of Puerto Rico’s citizens, the repercussions of a default would ripple through the traditionally low-risk bond market, impacting investors such as retirement funds.
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Varoufakis: “In 1967 There Were The Tanks And In 2015 There Were The Banks”
Varoufakis: “In 1967 There Were The Tanks And In 2015 There Were The Banks”
It was back on January 31 of this year, long before the “game theoretical” approach of Greek negotiations with the Eurogroup and ECB in particular and the Troika, and now Quadriga in general was revealed, that we first forecast with absolute accuracy just what the middle, and end game, of the Greek negotiation with Europe (and vice versa) will be:
… today the ECB’s Erikki Liikanen, tired of pleasantries and dealing with what to Europe is a completely incomprehensible and illogical stance, one which is essentially a massive defection by Greece in the European “prisoner’s dilemma”, and which while leading to a Greek financial collapse and Grexit – both prerequisites to a subsequent Greek economic recovery unburdened by the shackles of the Euro – would also unleash a European depression, came out and directly threatened Greece that it now has 1 month until the end of February to reach a deal with the Troika, or else the ECB would cut off lending to Greek banks, in the process destroying the otherwise insolvent Greek banking sector.
And since only the ECB backstop has prevented a banking sector panic, the ECB is essentially betting the house, and the sanctity of the Eurozone (because after a Grexit all bets are off which peripheral leaves next) that the threat, and soon reality, of a bank run will finally force Varoufakis and Tsipras to sit at the negotiating table with the understanding that not they but the Troika has all the leverage.
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The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion
The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion
“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract.” — The Godfather (1972)
In the modern global banking system, all banks need a credit line with the central bank in order to be part of the payments system. Choking off that credit line was a form of blackmail the Greek government couldn’t refuse.
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is now being charged with treason for exploring the possibility of an alternative payment system in the event of a Greek exit from the euro. The irony of it all was underscored by Raúl Ilargi Meijer, who opined in a July 27th blog:
The fact that these things were taken into consideration doesn’t mean Syriza was planning a coup . . . . If you want a coup, look instead at the Troika having wrestled control over Greek domestic finances. That’s a coup if you ever saw one.
Let’s have an independent commission look into how on earth it is possible that a cabal of unelected movers and shakers gets full control over the entire financial structure of a democratically elected eurozone member government. By all means, let’s see the legal arguments for this.
So how was that coup pulled off? The answer seems to be through extortion. The European Central Bank threatened to turn off the liquidity that all banks – even solvent ones – need to maintain their day-to-day accounting balances. That threat was made good in the run-up to the Greek referendum, when the ECB did turn off the liquidity tap and Greek banks had to close their doors. Businesses were left without supplies and pensioners without food. How was that apparently criminal act justified? Here is the rather tortured reasoning of ECB President Mario Draghi at a press conference on July 16:
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“Something Revolutionary Is In The Air”: Grexit By “Insurrection” Is The “Most Probable” Outcome
“Something Revolutionary Is In The Air”: Grexit By “Insurrection” Is The “Most Probable” Outcome
A week ago, we said the following about the situation faced by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras when he and his new finance minister arrived in Brussels for the final round of bailout negotiations earlier this month:
…the entire world looked on in horror as Alexis Tsipras – who just days earlier secured a crucial referendum victory which by all accounts empowered him to ride into Brussels a conquering hero – was eviscerated by German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble and several like-minded EU finance ministers who smelled blood after Greece submitted a proposal that betrayed the Greek PM’s lack of conviction.
In short, Tsipras made a fatal error. In an act of alarming defiance, he boldly called for a referendum on creditors’ proposals, campaigned for a “no” vote, and then, once 61% of the Greek populace gave their leader a mandate to reject more austerity, he proceeded to resubmit the very same proposal Greeks had just voted against. That told EU officials that Tsipras had no intention of leveraging the referendum outcome and from there, the “mental waterboarding” was on.
Now, Greece is stuck with a deal that promises more of the same austerity measures that have so far served only to prolong an intractable recession and indeed, without some manner of debt relief or re-profiling, the new program has no chance of success.
Given all of this, it isn’t surprising that economists are once again beginning to talk about Grexit, and indeed, who can blame them? It’s difficult to take seriously the idea that the new “deal” has taken a Greek exit off the table when German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble still claims that a Greek exit from the EMU might be the country’s best chance at a “classic” haircut and economic recovery. Here’s Bloomberg with more on why Grexit is “back on the agenda”:
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URGENT WARNING: 6 Signs the Great Crash Is Upon Us!
URGENT WARNING: 6 Signs the Great Crash Is Upon Us!
The Greek default proves that all this endless quantitative easing idiocy couldn’t live up to the promises. It has proved unable to create sustainable long-term recoveries in highly indebted developed countries with poor demographic trends.
The Greek parliament caved into totally repulsive demands, as I said on Monday that it would. They did it out of stark fear of the chaos a Grexit would bring before free market forces resolved their trade and budget imbalances.
I don’t believe they did the right thing. From the looks of the discontent on the ground, many Greeks don’t either. Be that as it may, this can has been kicked just a little further down the road, yet again.
But the whole mess made investors nervous. As did the recent collapse of China’s stock market which just added to the growing concerns.
Investors are right to worry. I’ve been saying for years that the greatest trigger would be the bursting of the massive, unprecedented China bubble.
How can it not?!
Its stock market soared 159% in less than a year. It gained 30% in justtwo months!
Then its stocks took a nose dive, losing 35% in less than 30 days.
Understand that if China’s stock market had lost just 20%, it would have meant nothing. But, as I’ve always said, a drop of 30% to 40% in short order is a clear sign of a first wave down in a major bust. That’s why I’m always telling you to rather be safe than sorry. If you don’t follow a reliable, proven investment strategy – like any of our premium research services, from Boom & Bust, Cycle 9 Alert, Max Profit Alert, BioTech Intel Trader, Triple Play Strategy and Dent Digest Trader – waiting passively for that extra 1% or even 5% is like playing Russian Roulette.
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The Constitution of the EU’s Dictatorship
The Constitution of the EU’s Dictatorship
It’s here:
http://www.esm.europa.eu/pdf/ESM Treaty consolidated 13-03-2014.pdf
That’s the treaty establishing (which was originally done in 2012) the ultimate lending-fund for what the EU now officially considers to be a permanent economic crisis in Europe, of member-nations that are experiencing “severe financing problems,” and that are therefore continually ripe for asset-stripping by aristocrats.
It’s called the European Stability Mechanism.
It’s anything but that. Here is what it actually does:
In other words: it establishes the European bureaucracy to serve global aristocrats, so as to help them asset-strip the European populations of corrupt member-nations. These bureaucrats get transferred back-and-forth between this bureaucracy and the big financial institutions (which also are dependent upon the same billionaires), so that these bureaucratic servants of the aristocracy can themselves gradually emerge as aristocrats, basically joining (now becoming principals, no longer merely agents of) the aristocratic financial war stripping the public.
Here are some key provisions of this “Treaty,” or Europe’s (or the EU’s) new constitution:
Article 34. Professional secrecy. The Members or former Members of the Board of Governors and of the Board of Directors and any other persons who work or have worked for or in connection with the ESM shall not disclose information that is subject to professional secrecy. They shall be required, even after their duties have ceased, not to disclose information of the kind covered by the obligation of professional secrecy.
Article 35. Immunities of persons. 1. In the interest of the ESM, the Chairperson of the Board of Governors, Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, as well as the Managing Director and other staff members shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents. …
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Greece May Not Get Bailout, Grexit “The Better Way”, Schaeuble Says
Greece May Not Get Bailout, Grexit “The Better Way”, Schaeuble Says
Last Saturday, the EU finance ministers who gathered in Brussels in a last ditch effort to keep Greece in the eurozone were forced to confront a rather inconvenient truth. A bailout for Athens would likely cost nearly €80 billion, far more than the €53 billion figure mentioned in the draft proposal submitted by Alexis Tsipras two days earlier. The revised figure included a €25 billion provision for the recapitalization of Greece’s ailing banking sector. A day earlier, we warned that the banks would need at least €10 billion and likely more – “don’t tell Merkel”, we warned.
Judging by the date on a document that began to circulate once the finance ministers began to voice their consternation at the larger figure, Germany had already assessed the possibility that the cost of a potential third program for the Greeks was likely to climb prompting the finance ministry to prepare a document outlining two alternative options for Athens. One of these options was a 5-year Greek “time-out” from the eurozone. Initially (and by “initially” we mean for perhaps a few hours after the document was first distributed) the “time-out” idea was written off as simply another manifestation of Wolfgang Schaeuble’s frustration, but by Sunday it was clear that the idea was no laughing matter – indeed, had the bloc’s sleep deprived leaders not inked a ludicrous agreement at 6am in the morning, the “soft” Grexit scenario might already be well underway.
Now that reports from both the IMF and the European Commission on Greece’s debt sustainability are public, the world is well aware that no one, anywhere, truly believes the Greeks will ever be able to return to economic prosperity if they are forced to labor under their current debt load. In short: a “re-profiling” is necessary.
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This Week In Energy: Oil Prices Hinge On Two Financial Crises
This Week In Energy: Oil Prices Hinge On Two Financial Crises
It has been an eventful week. Two major financial crises are destroying the bullish case for oil.
The Greek crisis continues, although there are signs that some semblance of a solution is at hand. Europe had demanded a new proposal and set this Sunday as the absolute final deadline, ruling out any further extensions. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras offered a new proposal to European creditors on its debt situation and appeared willing to accept most European demands in exchange for some debt relief.
Greece has asked for a three-year bailout, and will make further concessions on austerity, cutting spending in key areas of its economy. But in perhaps a surprise move, creditor nations are looking at offering some debt relief. The international pressure on Europe has grown, with calls to offer some debt relief to a country that is mired in five years of recession (or depression), has 25 percent unemployment, and cannot pay its bills. Even the European Council’s President, former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has joined international calls for debt relief, as part of a loan package. The German Chancellor has been adamantly opposed to debt relief, but with the White House leaning on Europe to act, further austerity in exchange for some debt relief offers all sides a face-saving way out of the crisis. That could pave the way for a financial lifeline to Greece, hours before a hypothetical Grexit from the Eurozone.
Related: OPEC Still Holds All The Cards In Oil Price Game
Meanwhile, Greece announced a 2 billion euro plan with Russia over the Turkish Stream Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that would run beneath the Black Sea, carrying Russian gas to Europe. Greece’s energy minister announced preliminary plans for the project on July 8, just as Greece was entering into the final days of its standoff with Europe over its debt mess.
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The Kicking of the Can
The Kicking of the Can
Hello, Mr. Tusk … New Orders
Yesterday it emerged that the normally hardline European Council president Donald Tusk (the former prime minister of Poland), suddenly felt “debt relief” for Greece was needed after all. While he is undoubtedly correct, it seems to us that he likely received a stern phone call from Washington.
Donald Tusk, the life-like android currently presiding over the EU council, here photographed in hardline mode
Photo credit: Radek Pietruszka / PAP
It is also unlikely to be a coincidence that the IMF released its debt sustainability analysis last week, in what appeared to be a case of especially ill-chosen timing, at least from the perspective of the euro-group. Note here that the IMF only wants the EU to provide debt relief to Greece – the IMF itself intends to get back every cent of its Greek loans.
Politicians in neo-con infested Washington no doubt don’t want to let slip Greece away into the arms of its Russian Orthodox co-religionists, which would almost certainly happen after a Grexit. Such strategic considerations are certainly exercising the NATO bureaucracy and very likely the EU’s movers and shakers as well. A Grexit would also be a victory of the Marxist wing of Syriza (a Pyrrhic victory though it may be), which would over time throw Greece’s continued NATO membership into doubt.
According to press reports from this morning:
“The White House has been putting its immense diplomatic weight behind a debt restructuring for Greece. Treasury secretary Jack Lew made an intervention earlier this week, and seems cautiously optimistic that Greece’s current proposals should be enough to satisfy creditors, and gain some crucial debt concessions in return.
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Varoufakis’ Stunning Accusation: Schauble Wants A Grexit “To Put The Fear Of God” Into The French
Varoufakis’ Stunning Accusation: Schauble Wants A Grexit “To Put The Fear Of God” Into The French
Earlier we reported that Yanis Varoufakis, seemingly detained by “family reasons” would be unable to join his fellow parliamentarians and personally vote in what is likely the most important vote of Syriza’s administration: the one in which he and his party capitulate to the Troika and vote “Yes” to the proposal he and Tsipras urged everyone to reject just one week ago.
Subsequently, it was made clear what these family reasons are:
The self-described “erratic Marxist” will be on the nearby holiday island of … Aegina. In fact, he Tweeted that he reason for his absence is “family reasons”. Nevertheless, two hours before his Tweet was posted, the once obscure academic was spotted on the ferry boat “Phivos”, headed for Aegina, where his wife owns a stylish vacation home.The author of the “global Minotaur” nevertheless sent a letter to the Parliament president saying he would vote “yes” for the proposal, although the letter will not be counted, given that Parliament regulations stipulate that only deputies on official Parliament business are allowed to cast votes via correspondence.
Judgment aside about his decision to take a holiday from a vote that his strategy guided Greece into, it was clear that he has Wifi on the ferry because this afternoon, While V-Fak may well have been in transit, the Guardian released an Op-Ed penned by Varoufakis titled “Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us.” Readers can read it in its entirety here but here is the punchline:
Gold and the “Grexit” Threat
Gold and the “Grexit” Threat
The Everything is Fine Meme
Initially, we were also a bit surprised that the gold price didn’t rise when the threat of a Greek exit from the euro area became more palpable following the breakdown in negotiations and the outcome of the Greek referendum. After all, it was to be expected that “risk assets” would suffer and so-called safe haven assets would be sought after, at least temporarily.
However, upon giving the matter some thought, we have concluded that gold’s lack of a response (in fact, it went slightly down rather than up, so there was actually a response) could actually be explained quite easily. For one thing, speculators increased their net long position in gold futures by more than 20,000 contracts net in the week before the negotiations broke down, apparently in anticipation. While they did so, the gold price barely budged, so in a sense it was “wasted firepower”.
Image via eghtesadnews.com
Prior to the breakdown in negotiations between the troika and Greece, speculators increased their net long position in gold (above the net hedger position is shown, which is the inverse of the speculative position) – click to enlarge.
When no large increase in prices occurred on the Monday after the referendum had been announced, these new positions were quickly liquidated again. The downturn in prices in turn emboldened speculators to add to their short positions, pressuring prices even further.
There are other reasons for the reaction as well. One is that in spite of a bit of a wobble in stocks, the essential “everything is just fine” story hasn’t really been derailed. The dangers of a “Grexit” are probably underestimated and up until recently, no-one believed it to be a likely outcome anyway (it still isn’t, although it is more likely than it once used to be).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
