Grécia - Tópico principal

[Incognitus]

Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog
JUN 29 7:10 AM Jun 29 7:10 am 83

The Awesome Gratuitousness of the Greek Crisis

Barry Eichengreen asks himself why his influential analysis, suggesting that the euro was irreversible now appears wrong. Surely in a direct, mechanical sense what we’re seeing is the process I warned about five years ago:

Think of it this way: the Greek government cannot announce a policy of leaving the euro — and I’m sure it has no intention of doing that. But at this point it’s all too easy to imagine a default on debt, triggering a crisis of confidence, which forces the government to impose a banking holiday — and at that point the logic of hanging on to the common currency come hell or high water becomes a lot less compelling.

But doesn’t the ultimate cause lie in wild irresponsibility on the part of the Greek government? I’ve been looking back at the numbers, readily available from the IMF, and what strikes me is how relatively mild Greek fiscal problems looked on the eve of crisis.

In 2007, Greece had public debt of slightly more than 100 percent of GDP — high, but not out of line with levels that many countries including, for example, the UK have carried for decades and even generations at a stretch. It had a budget deficit of about 7 percent of GDP. If we think that normal times involve 2 percent growth and 2 percent inflation, a deficit of 4 percent of GDP would be consistent with a stable debt/GDP ratio; so the fiscal gap was around 3 points, not trivial but hardly something that should have been impossible to close.

Now, the IMF says that the structural deficit was much larger — but this reflects its estimate that the Greek economy was operating 10 percent above capacity, which I don’t believe for a minute. (The problem here is the way standard methods for estimating potential output cause any large slump to propagate back into a reinterpretation of history, interpreting the past as an unsustainable boom.)

So yes, Greece was overspending, but not by all that much. It was over indebted, but again not by all that much. How did this turn into a catastrophe that among other things saw debt soar to 170 percent of GDP despite savage austerity?

The euro straitjacket, plus inadequately expansionary monetary policy within the eurozone, are the obvious culprits. But that, surely, is the deep question here. If Europe as currently organized can turn medium-sized fiscal failings into this kind of nightmare, the system is fundamentally unworkable.

Krugman

É a tal coisa de uma bolha de crédito criar uma economia artificial que parece maior do que realmente é na ausência dessa expansão de crédito. Depois as receitas do Estado são apuradas sobre essa realidade insustentável, e as despesas expandem até ultrapassar essas receitas insustentáveis.

Daqui, assim que a expansão de crédito termina ou abranda substancialmente, uma parte da economia desaparece, e com ela desaparece uma parte das receitas do Estado. As despesas, porém, têm muito mais dificuldade em cair, e aliás, como desaparece uma parte da economia o desemprego dispara pelo que até ficam com tendência de subida. Logo o que antes parecia um déficit pequeno (ou até um superávit, como em Espanha) rapidamente se transforma num déficit monstro. E claro, 7% não era um déficit pequeno e estava nesse momento (devido à dinâmica acima), subavaliado (na realidade era muito maior).

O Krugman não parece ver isso, porque diz que a diferença era pequena - logo ignora toda essa dinâmica.

Eu expliquei esta dinâmica antes do estoiro. Ela mantém-se válida e explica o que observámos entretanto.

[Vanilla-Swap]

Parece que vai ser a noticia de amanhã.

http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/581754/What-happens-if-Greece-defaults

[vbm]

É deixá-los emprestar. Esses empréstimos são feitos entre empresas, etc, e não entram grandemente para a conversa aqui. Quando não há dinheiro não se empresta mais, não se consome mais e tudo funciona correctamente sem surpresas.

Não são entre empresas, nem mesmo só entre bancos.

Os industriais abrem nos bancos os créditos documentários
das suas exportações, recebem o dinheiro cash e
não têm mais nada a ver com o  cliente. Mas,
os bancos esses implicam-se mais,
não raro, sindicam empréstimos
de longo prazo, e inúmeras
vezes, tudo só se ultima
com aval do governo.

Claro que os governos dos países
importadores também são responsáveis
porque consentem nesse comércio
quando não são eles próprios
até os que compram
sem nunca tencionarem
pagar o que quer que seja!

[vbm]

É a tal coisa de uma bolha de crédito criar uma economia artificial que parece maior do que realmente é na ausência dessa expansão de crédito. Depois as receitas do Estado são apuradas sobre essa realidade insustentável, e as despesas expandem até ultrapassar essas receitas insustentáveis.

Daqui, assim que a expansão de crédito termina ou abranda substancialmente, uma parte da economia desaparece, e com ela desaparece uma parte das receitas do Estado. As despesas, porém, têm muito mais dificuldade em cair, e aliás, como desaparece uma parte da economia o desemprego dispara pelo que até ficam com tendência de subida. Logo o que antes parecia um déficit pequeno (ou até um superávit, como em Espanha) rapidamente se transforma num déficit monstro. E claro, 7% não era um déficit pequeno e estava nesse momento (devido à dinâmica acima), subavaliado (na realidade era muito maior).

O Krugman não parece ver isso, porque diz que a diferença era pequena - logo ignora toda essa dinâmica.

Eu expliquei esta dinâmica antes do estoiro. Ela mantém-se válida e explica o que observámos entretanto.

É realmente uma descrição analítica e explicativa.
Pode haver mais causas, mas essa mecânica é real.

Pena, é a incapacidade de governos tipo portas-relvas-coelhos-e-quejandos,
lusos ou gregos, fazerem orelhas moucas de quem sabe economia e indica como as coisas são!

[Lark]

Joseph Stiglitz to Greece’s Creditors: Abandon Austerity Or Face Global Fallout

Nobel laureate tells TIME that the institutions and countries that have enforced cost-cutting on Greece "have criminal responsibility"

A few years ago, when Greece was still at the start of its slide into an economic depression, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz remembers discussing the crisis with Greek officials. What they wanted was a stimulus package to boost growth and create jobs, and Stiglitz, who had just produced an influential report for the United Nations on how to deal with the global financial crisis, agreed that this would be the best way forward. Instead, Greece’s foreign creditors imposed a strict program of austerity. The Greek economy has shrunk by about 25% since 2010. The cost-cutting was an enormous mistake, Stiglitz says, and it’s time for the creditors to admit it.

“They have criminal responsibility,” he says of the so-called troika of financial institutions that bailed out the Greek economy in 2010, namely the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. “It’s a kind of criminal responsibility for causing a major recession,” Stiglitz tells TIME in a phone interview.

Along with a growing number of the world’s most influential economists, Stiglitz has begun to urge the troika to forgive Greece’s debt – estimated to be worth close to $300 billion in bailouts – and to offer the stimulus money that two successive Greek governments have been requesting.

Failure to do so, Stiglitz argues, would not only worsen the recession in Greece – already deeper and more prolonged than the Great Depression in the U.S. – it would also wreck the credibility of Europe’s common currency, the euro, and put the global economy at risk of contagion.

So far Greece’s creditors have downplayed those risks. In recent years they have repeatedly insisted that European banks and global markets do not face any serious fallout from Greece abandoning the euro, as they have had plenty of time to insulate themselves from such an outcome. But Stiglitz, who served as the chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, says no such firewall of protection can exist in a globalized economy, where the connections between events and institutions are often impossible to predict. “We don’t know all the linkings,” he says.

Many countries in Eastern Europe, for instance, are still heavily reliant on Greek banks, and if those banks collapse the European Union faces the risk of a chain reaction of financial turmoil that could easily spread to the rest of the global economy. “There is a lack of transparency in financial markets that makes it impossible to know exactly what the consequences are,” says Stiglitz. “Anybody who says they do obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Over the weekend the prospect of Greece abandoning the euro drew closer than ever, as talks between the Greek government and its creditors broke down. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was elected in January on a promise to end austerity, announced on Saturday that he could not accept the troika’s “insulting” demands for more tax hikes and pension cuts, and he called a referendum for July 5 to let voters decide how the government should handle the negotiations going forward. If a majority of Greeks vote to reject the troika’s terms for continued assistance, Greece could be forced to default on its debt and pull out of the currency union.

Stiglitz sees two possible outcomes to that scenario – neither of them pleasant for the European Union. If the Greek economy recovers after abandoning the euro, it would “certainly increase the impetus for anti-euro politics,” encouraging other struggling economies to drop the common currency and go it alone. If the Greek economy collapses without the euro, “you have on the edge of Europe a failed state,” Stiglitz says. “That’s when the geopolitics become very ugly.”

By providing financial aid, Russia and China would then be able to undermine Greece’s allegiance to the E.U. and its foreign policy decisions, creating what Stiglitz calls “an enemy within.” There is no way to predict the long-term consequences of such a break in the E.U.’s political cohesion, but it would likely be more costly than offering Greece a break on its loans, he says.

“The creditors should admit that the policies that they put forward over the last five years are flawed,” says Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University. “What they asked for caused a deep depression with long-standing effects, and I don’t think there is any way that Europe’s and Germany’s hands are clean. My own view is that they ought to recognize their complicity and say, ‘Look, the past is the past. We made mistakes. How do we go on from here?’”

The most reasonable solution Stiglitz sees is a write-off of Greece’s debt, or at least a deal that would not require any payments for the next ten or 15 years. In that time, Greece should be given additional aid to jumpstart its economy and return to growth. But the first step would be for the troika to make a painful yet obvious admission: “Austerity hasn’t worked,” Stiglitz says.

time

[Incognitus]

É a tal coisa de uma bolha de crédito criar uma economia artificial que parece maior do que realmente é na ausência dessa expansão de crédito. Depois as receitas do Estado são apuradas sobre essa realidade insustentável, e as despesas expandem até ultrapassar essas receitas insustentáveis.

Daqui, assim que a expansão de crédito termina ou abranda substancialmente, uma parte da economia desaparece, e com ela desaparece uma parte das receitas do Estado. As despesas, porém, têm muito mais dificuldade em cair, e aliás, como desaparece uma parte da economia o desemprego dispara pelo que até ficam com tendência de subida. Logo o que antes parecia um déficit pequeno (ou até um superávit, como em Espanha) rapidamente se transforma num déficit monstro. E claro, 7% não era um déficit pequeno e estava nesse momento (devido à dinâmica acima), subavaliado (na realidade era muito maior).

O Krugman não parece ver isso, porque diz que a diferença era pequena - logo ignora toda essa dinâmica.

Eu expliquei esta dinâmica antes do estoiro. Ela mantém-se válida e explica o que observámos entretanto.

É realmente uma descrição analítica e explicativa.
Pode haver mais causas, mas essa mecânica é real.

Pena, é a incapacidade de governos tipo portas-relvas-coelhos-e-quejandos,
lusos ou gregos, fazerem orelhas moucas de quem sabe economia e indica como as coisas são!

Esse governo chegou DEPOIS desta dinâmica estar em movimento. Quem teria que ter acautelado isso seria o governo anterior.

[Incognitus]

Joseph Stiglitz to Greece’s Creditors: Abandon Austerity Or Face Global Fallout

Nobel laureate tells TIME that the institutions and countries that have enforced cost-cutting on Greece "have criminal responsibility"

A few years ago, when Greece was still at the start of its slide into an economic depression, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz remembers discussing the crisis with Greek officials. What they wanted was a stimulus package to boost growth and create jobs, and Stiglitz, who had just produced an influential report for the United Nations on how to deal with the global financial crisis, agreed that this would be the best way forward. Instead, Greece’s foreign creditors imposed a strict program of austerity. The Greek economy has shrunk by about 25% since 2010. The cost-cutting was an enormous mistake, Stiglitz says, and it’s time for the creditors to admit it.

“They have criminal responsibility,” he says of the so-called troika of financial institutions that bailed out the Greek economy in 2010, namely the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. “It’s a kind of criminal responsibility for causing a major recession,” Stiglitz tells TIME in a phone interview.

Along with a growing number of the world’s most influential economists, Stiglitz has begun to urge the troika to forgive Greece’s debt – estimated to be worth close to $300 billion in bailouts – and to offer the stimulus money that two successive Greek governments have been requesting.

Failure to do so, Stiglitz argues, would not only worsen the recession in Greece – already deeper and more prolonged than the Great Depression in the U.S. – it would also wreck the credibility of Europe’s common currency, the euro, and put the global economy at risk of contagion.

So far Greece’s creditors have downplayed those risks. In recent years they have repeatedly insisted that European banks and global markets do not face any serious fallout from Greece abandoning the euro, as they have had plenty of time to insulate themselves from such an outcome. But Stiglitz, who served as the chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, says no such firewall of protection can exist in a globalized economy, where the connections between events and institutions are often impossible to predict. “We don’t know all the linkings,” he says.

Many countries in Eastern Europe, for instance, are still heavily reliant on Greek banks, and if those banks collapse the European Union faces the risk of a chain reaction of financial turmoil that could easily spread to the rest of the global economy. “There is a lack of transparency in financial markets that makes it impossible to know exactly what the consequences are,” says Stiglitz. “Anybody who says they do obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Over the weekend the prospect of Greece abandoning the euro drew closer than ever, as talks between the Greek government and its creditors broke down. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was elected in January on a promise to end austerity, announced on Saturday that he could not accept the troika’s “insulting” demands for more tax hikes and pension cuts, and he called a referendum for July 5 to let voters decide how the government should handle the negotiations going forward. If a majority of Greeks vote to reject the troika’s terms for continued assistance, Greece could be forced to default on its debt and pull out of the currency union.

Stiglitz sees two possible outcomes to that scenario – neither of them pleasant for the European Union. If the Greek economy recovers after abandoning the euro, it would “certainly increase the impetus for anti-euro politics,” encouraging other struggling economies to drop the common currency and go it alone. If the Greek economy collapses without the euro, “you have on the edge of Europe a failed state,” Stiglitz says. “That’s when the geopolitics become very ugly.”

By providing financial aid, Russia and China would then be able to undermine Greece’s allegiance to the E.U. and its foreign policy decisions, creating what Stiglitz calls “an enemy within.” There is no way to predict the long-term consequences of such a break in the E.U.’s political cohesion, but it would likely be more costly than offering Greece a break on its loans, he says.

“The creditors should admit that the policies that they put forward over the last five years are flawed,” says Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University. “What they asked for caused a deep depression with long-standing effects, and I don’t think there is any way that Europe’s and Germany’s hands are clean. My own view is that they ought to recognize their complicity and say, ‘Look, the past is the past. We made mistakes. How do we go on from here?’”

The most reasonable solution Stiglitz sees is a write-off of Greece’s debt, or at least a deal that would not require any payments for the next ten or 15 years. In that time, Greece should be given additional aid to jumpstart its economy and return to growth. But the first step would be for the troika to make a painful yet obvious admission: “Austerity hasn’t worked,” Stiglitz says.

time

Portanto a melhor forma de evitar o estoiro era fazer mais daquilo que meteu a Grécia à beira do estoiro, principalmente levando em conta que seria necessário emprestar MAIS dinheiro a um devedor que se aprestava a incumprir sequencialmente várias vezes.

Faz todo o sentido. Isso é totalmente absurdo -- seria necessário pedir a credores que estavam acagaçados (com toda a razão) com a possibilidade vindoura de um incumprimento, para aumentarem a sua exposição a esse devedor.

Faz todo o sentido. Que absurdidade.

[Lark]

Greece Over the Brink

It has been obvious for some time that the creation of the euro was a terrible mistake. Europe never had the preconditions for a successful single currency — above all, the kind of fiscal and banking union that, for example, ensures that when a housing bubble in Florida bursts, Washington automatically protects seniors against any threat to their medical care or their bank deposits.

Leaving a currency union is, however, a much harder and more frightening decision than never entering in the first place, and until now even the Continent’s most troubled economies have repeatedly stepped back from the brink. Again and again, governments have submitted to creditors’ demands for harsh austerity, while the European Central Bank has managed to contain market panic.

But the situation in Greece has now reached what looks like a point of no return. Banks are temporarily closed and the government has imposed capital controls — limits on the movement of funds out of the country. It seems highly likely that the government will soon have to start paying pensions and wages in scrip, in effect creating a parallel currency. And next week the country will hold a referendum on whether to accept the demands of the “troika” — the institutions representing creditor interests — for yet more austerity.

Greece should vote “no,” and the Greek government should be ready, if necessary, to leave the euro.

To understand why I say this, you need to realize that most — not all, but most — of what you’ve heard about Greek profligacy and irresponsibility is false. Yes, the Greek government was spending beyond its means in the late 2000s. But since then it has repeatedly slashed spending and raised taxes. Government employment has fallen more than 25 percent, and pensions (which were indeed much too generous) have been cut sharply. If you add up all the austerity measures, they have been more than enough to eliminate the original deficit and turn it into a large surplus.

So why didn’t this happen? Because the Greek economy collapsed, largely as a result of those very austerity measures, dragging revenues down with it.

And this collapse, in turn, had a lot to do with the euro, which trapped Greece in an economic straitjacket. Cases of successful austerity, in which countries rein in deficits without bringing on a depression, typically involve large currency devaluations that make their exports more competitive. This is what happened, for example, in Canada in the 1990s, and to an important extent it’s what happened in Iceland more recently. But Greece, without its own currency, didn’t have that option.

So have I just made the case for “Grexit” — Greek exit from the euro? Not necessarily. The problem with Grexit has always been the risk of financial chaos, of a banking system disrupted by panicked withdrawals and of business hobbled both by banking troubles and by uncertainty over the legal status of debts. That’s why successive Greek governments have acceded to austerity demands, and why even Syriza, the ruling leftist coalition, was willing to accept the austerity that has already been imposed. All it asked for was, in effect, a standstill on further austerity.

But the troika was having none of it. It’s easy to get lost in the details, but the essential point now is that Greece has been presented with a take-it-or-leave-it offer that is effectively indistinguishable from the policies of the past five years.

This is, and presumably was intended to be, an offer Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, can’t accept, because it would destroy his political reason for being. The purpose must therefore be to drive him from office, which will probably happen if Greek voters fear confrontation with the troika enough to vote yes next week.

But they shouldn’t, for three reasons. First, we now know that ever-harsher austerity is a dead end: after five years Greece is in worse shape than ever. Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened. With banks closed and capital controls imposed, there’s not that much more damage to be done.

Finally, acceding to the troika’s ultimatum would represent the final abandonment of any pretense of Greek independence. Don’t be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn’t about analysis, it’s about power — the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.

So it’s time to put an end to this unthinkability. Otherwise Greece will face endless austerity, and a depression with no hint of an end.

Krugman

[secret]

Joseph Stiglitz to Greece’s Creditors: Abandon Austerity Or Face Global Fallout

Nobel laureate tells TIME that the institutions and countries that have enforced cost-cutting on Greece "have criminal responsibility"

A few years ago, when Greece was still at the start of its slide into an economic depression, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz remembers discussing the crisis with Greek officials. What they wanted was a stimulus package to boost growth and create jobs, and Stiglitz, who had just produced an influential report for the United Nations on how to deal with the global financial crisis, agreed that this would be the best way forward. Instead, Greece’s foreign creditors imposed a strict program of austerity. The Greek economy has shrunk by about 25% since 2010. The cost-cutting was an enormous mistake, Stiglitz says, and it’s time for the creditors to admit it.

“They have criminal responsibility,” he says of the so-called troika of financial institutions that bailed out the Greek economy in 2010, namely the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. “It’s a kind of criminal responsibility for causing a major recession,” Stiglitz tells TIME in a phone interview.

Along with a growing number of the world’s most influential economists, Stiglitz has begun to urge the troika to forgive Greece’s debt – estimated to be worth close to $300 billion in bailouts – and to offer the stimulus money that two successive Greek governments have been requesting.

Failure to do so, Stiglitz argues, would not only worsen the recession in Greece – already deeper and more prolonged than the Great Depression in the U.S. – it would also wreck the credibility of Europe’s common currency, the euro, and put the global economy at risk of contagion.

So far Greece’s creditors have downplayed those risks. In recent years they have repeatedly insisted that European banks and global markets do not face any serious fallout from Greece abandoning the euro, as they have had plenty of time to insulate themselves from such an outcome. But Stiglitz, who served as the chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, says no such firewall of protection can exist in a globalized economy, where the connections between events and institutions are often impossible to predict. “We don’t know all the linkings,” he says.

Many countries in Eastern Europe, for instance, are still heavily reliant on Greek banks, and if those banks collapse the European Union faces the risk of a chain reaction of financial turmoil that could easily spread to the rest of the global economy. “There is a lack of transparency in financial markets that makes it impossible to know exactly what the consequences are,” says Stiglitz. “Anybody who says they do obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Over the weekend the prospect of Greece abandoning the euro drew closer than ever, as talks between the Greek government and its creditors broke down. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was elected in January on a promise to end austerity, announced on Saturday that he could not accept the troika’s “insulting” demands for more tax hikes and pension cuts, and he called a referendum for July 5 to let voters decide how the government should handle the negotiations going forward. If a majority of Greeks vote to reject the troika’s terms for continued assistance, Greece could be forced to default on its debt and pull out of the currency union.

Stiglitz sees two possible outcomes to that scenario – neither of them pleasant for the European Union. If the Greek economy recovers after abandoning the euro, it would “certainly increase the impetus for anti-euro politics,” encouraging other struggling economies to drop the common currency and go it alone. If the Greek economy collapses without the euro, “you have on the edge of Europe a failed state,” Stiglitz says. “That’s when the geopolitics become very ugly.”

By providing financial aid, Russia and China would then be able to undermine Greece’s allegiance to the E.U. and its foreign policy decisions, creating what Stiglitz calls “an enemy within.” There is no way to predict the long-term consequences of such a break in the E.U.’s political cohesion, but it would likely be more costly than offering Greece a break on its loans, he says.

“The creditors should admit that the policies that they put forward over the last five years are flawed,” says Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University. “What they asked for caused a deep depression with long-standing effects, and I don’t think there is any way that Europe’s and Germany’s hands are clean. My own view is that they ought to recognize their complicity and say, ‘Look, the past is the past. We made mistakes. How do we go on from here?’”

The most reasonable solution Stiglitz sees is a write-off of Greece’s debt, or at least a deal that would not require any payments for the next ten or 15 years. In that time, Greece should be given additional aid to jumpstart its economy and return to growth. But the first step would be for the troika to make a painful yet obvious admission: “Austerity hasn’t worked,” Stiglitz says.

time

Portanto a melhor forma de evitar o estoiro era fazer mais daquilo que meteu a Grécia à beira do estoiro, principalmente levando em conta que seria necessário emprestar MAIS dinheiro a um devedor que se aprestava a incumprir sequencialmente várias vezes.

Faz todo o sentido. Isso é totalmente absurdo -- seria necessário pedir a credores que estavam acagaçados (com toda a razão) com a possibilidade vindoura de um incumprimento, para aumentarem a sua exposição a esse devedor.

Faz todo o sentido. Que absurdidade.

Os grandes amigos dos gregos são aqueles que não fazem nenhuma intenção de lhe emprestar dinheiro. Como estão protegidos toca de lhes dar palmadinhas nas costas.

[Automek]

Os americanos sempre sentiram que o euro era uma ameaça à hegemonia mundial do dólar e sabem que se mandarmos a Grécia borda fora o euro fica muito mais forte.
Daí que o Krugman, Stiglitz e outros avençados americanos defendam que a ajuda à Grécia devia continuar para deteriorar ainda mais a zona euro.
Um pouco em linha com o pateta do Obama que anda com palhaçadas de telefonemas para a Merkl, mas meter o cacau para ajudar a Grécia até Domingo isso tá quieto.

[Incognitus]

Greece Over the Brink

It has been obvious for some time that the creation of the euro was a terrible mistake. Europe never had the preconditions for a successful single currency — above all, the kind of fiscal and banking union that, for example, ensures that when a housing bubble in Florida bursts, Washington automatically protects seniors against any threat to their medical care or their bank deposits.

Leaving a currency union is, however, a much harder and more frightening decision than never entering in the first place, and until now even the Continent’s most troubled economies have repeatedly stepped back from the brink. Again and again, governments have submitted to creditors’ demands for harsh austerity, while the European Central Bank has managed to contain market panic.

But the situation in Greece has now reached what looks like a point of no return. Banks are temporarily closed and the government has imposed capital controls — limits on the movement of funds out of the country. It seems highly likely that the government will soon have to start paying pensions and wages in scrip, in effect creating a parallel currency. And next week the country will hold a referendum on whether to accept the demands of the “troika” — the institutions representing creditor interests — for yet more austerity.

Greece should vote “no,” and the Greek government should be ready, if necessary, to leave the euro.

To understand why I say this, you need to realize that most — not all, but most — of what you’ve heard about Greek profligacy and irresponsibility is false. Yes, the Greek government was spending beyond its means in the late 2000s. But since then it has repeatedly slashed spending and raised taxes. Government employment has fallen more than 25 percent, and pensions (which were indeed much too generous) have been cut sharply. If you add up all the austerity measures, they have been more than enough to eliminate the original deficit and turn it into a large surplus.

So why didn’t this happen? Because the Greek economy collapsed, largely as a result of those very austerity measures, dragging revenues down with it.

And this collapse, in turn, had a lot to do with the euro, which trapped Greece in an economic straitjacket. Cases of successful austerity, in which countries rein in deficits without bringing on a depression, typically involve large currency devaluations that make their exports more competitive. This is what happened, for example, in Canada in the 1990s, and to an important extent it’s what happened in Iceland more recently. But Greece, without its own currency, didn’t have that option.

So have I just made the case for “Grexit” — Greek exit from the euro? Not necessarily. The problem with Grexit has always been the risk of financial chaos, of a banking system disrupted by panicked withdrawals and of business hobbled both by banking troubles and by uncertainty over the legal status of debts. That’s why successive Greek governments have acceded to austerity demands, and why even Syriza, the ruling leftist coalition, was willing to accept the austerity that has already been imposed. All it asked for was, in effect, a standstill on further austerity.

But the troika was having none of it. It’s easy to get lost in the details, but the essential point now is that Greece has been presented with a take-it-or-leave-it offer that is effectively indistinguishable from the policies of the past five years.

This is, and presumably was intended to be, an offer Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, can’t accept, because it would destroy his political reason for being. The purpose must therefore be to drive him from office, which will probably happen if Greek voters fear confrontation with the troika enough to vote yes next week.

But they shouldn’t, for three reasons. First, we now know that ever-harsher austerity is a dead end: after five years Greece is in worse shape than ever. Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened. With banks closed and capital controls imposed, there’s not that much more damage to be done.

Finally, acceding to the troika’s ultimatum would represent the final abandonment of any pretense of Greek independence. Don’t be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn’t about analysis, it’s about power — the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.

So it’s time to put an end to this unthinkability. Otherwise Greece will face endless austerity, and a depression with no hint of an end.

Krugman

Essa é uma posição mais sensível - mais federalismo.

Mas com mais federalismo, ainda assim a Grécia sofreria e não receberia grandes excepções de tratamento. Receberia aliás MENOS excepções de tratamento. Tal como a Flórida, um dos fulcros da brutal bolha imobiliária, não recebereu excepção de tratamento.

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/gdp/florida/

[Incognitus]

* S&P LOWERS GREECE LONG-TERM RATING TO 'CCC-'; OUTLOOK NEGATIVE

* S&P SEES GREECE COMMERCIAL DEFAULT 'INEVITABLE' ABSENT CHANGES

* S&P SEES CHANCE GREECE LEAVES EUROZONE AT 50%

[5555]

Contagem decrescente. Mas não se sabe bem para quê

Observador.pt

Alexis Tsipras enviou hoje uma carta aos seus parceiros europeus com um pedido desesperado: prolonguem o resgate até depois do referendo.

http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/files/2015/06/letter_PM-Luxembourg.pdf

É um pedido duplamente curioso. Primeiro, porque o líder do Syriza foi eleito numa plataforma que prometia romper com o resgate. Depois, porque a decisão de convocar um referendo para depois do fim do período de resgate foi tomada pelo próprio Tsipras que, antes de o fazer, não avisou ninguém nem procurou garantir que a Grécia não ficaria, a partir de amanhã à noite, sem apoio externo (e sem dinheiro).

Essa carta é por isso mais uma estranha peça de um puzzle de muitas estranhas peças que não há forma de encaixarem. Nem elas, nem a interpretação sobre o que está em jogo ou sobre as reais intenções dos diferentes protagonistas.....

[Lark]

um dos três estarolas acabou de ajudar o lado do 'não' ao apelar par a o voto no 'sim'.

Juncker urges Greeks to vote 'yes' in referendum
 
EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker urged Greeks on Monday to back a cash-for-reform package rejected by their government, saying a 'no' vote in Sunday's referendum would mean Greece was turning its back on the European Union.

Following a breakdown of talks between Athens and its creditors, Juncker delivered a withering criticism of the Greek government which called the referendum and which advised Greeks to vote against creditor proposals.

"The whole planet would consider a Greek 'no' to the question posed... as meaning that Greece wants to distance itself from the eurozone and from Europe." he told a news conference.

"I will say to the Greeks who I love deeply: you mustn't commit suicide because you are afraid of death.... You must vote yes, independently of the question asked."

Juncker said he still believed a Greek exit from the eurozone was not an option, but cautioned that he alone could not necessarily protect Athens from other leaders who may disagree.

At a rare emergency news conference at the Brussels headquarters of his European Commission, Juncker ran through what he said was a fair offer made to Greece, which was socially fairer than the government had sought - effectively appealing over the head of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

"Playing off one democracy against 18 others is not an attitude which is fitting for the great Greek nation," Juncker said.

The Commission president said he felt deeply distressed and betrayed, believing until late on Friday that both sides were pushing towards a deal.

"Our sole concern has been to make a fair and balanced deal.

This is certainly a demanding and comprehensive package, but it is a fair one... This is not a stupid austerity package," he said.

kathimerini/Reuters

[Tridion]

in Twitter

francesca coin ‏@fcoin Há 2 horas

Tens of thousands in front of the Greek Parliament now for a NO to the #Troika. #OXI!



"O povo unido jamais será vencido". 

[Incognitus]

Contagem decrescente. Mas não se sabe bem para quê

Observador.pt

Alexis Tsipras enviou hoje uma carta aos seus parceiros europeus com um pedido desesperado: prolonguem o resgate até depois do referendo.

http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/files/2015/06/letter_PM-Luxembourg.pdf

É um pedido duplamente curioso. Primeiro, porque o líder do Syriza foi eleito numa plataforma que prometia romper com o resgate. Depois, porque a decisão de convocar um referendo para depois do fim do período de resgate foi tomada pelo próprio Tsipras que, antes de o fazer, não avisou ninguém nem procurou garantir que a Grécia não ficaria, a partir de amanhã à noite, sem apoio externo (e sem dinheiro).

Essa carta é por isso mais uma estranha peça de um puzzle de muitas estranhas peças que não há forma de encaixarem. Nem elas, nem a interpretação sobre o que está em jogo ou sobre as reais intenções dos diferentes protagonistas.....

O mais incrível é que se fizessem isso e depois o referendo tivesse o resultado pretendido pelo Tsipras, a Europa arrotava mais 10-20 biliões de EUR via BCE.

Não faz qualquer sentido sequer pedir isso, é absurdo.

[Incognitus]

O Tsipras a alucinar.

* TSIPRAS: CALL ON PEOPLE TO REJECT CREDITORS PROPOSAL

* TSIPRAS: THE HIGHER THE 'NO' VOTE THE STRONGER WE WILL BE

* TSIPRAS: GREECE WILL NOT BE THROWN OUT OF EURO, COST TO GREAT

* TSIPRAS: COST OF THROWING COUNTRY OUT OF EURO AREA IS ENORMOUS

Ele tem razão que o custo de meter a Grécia fora do Euro é enorme (mamam a ELA).

Mas o problema é que mantendo a Grécia dentro, esse custo sobe ainda mais...

[Kin2010]

Esta frase do Krugman:

"Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened"

... está certa e sugere que o GREK não deve andar longe dos mínimos que alguma vez alcançará. Estou a perder, mas preparo-me para triplicar o investimento se descer mais.

[Zel]

o facto do referendo nao ser sobre o euro revela que os gajos do syriza entao muito empenhados em culpar a uniao europeia pelas consequencias do que vira a seguir

[Kin2010]

O Tsipras a alucinar.

* TSIPRAS: CALL ON PEOPLE TO REJECT CREDITORS PROPOSAL

* TSIPRAS: THE HIGHER THE 'NO' VOTE THE STRONGER WE WILL BE

* TSIPRAS: GREECE WILL NOT BE THROWN OUT OF EURO, COST TO GREAT

* TSIPRAS: COST OF THROWING COUNTRY OUT OF EURO AREA IS ENORMOUS

Ele tem razão que o custo de meter a Grécia fora do Euro é enorme (mamam a ELA).

Mas o problema é que mantendo a Grécia dentro, esse custo sobe ainda mais...

Penso que o Draghi e o Constâncio foram cúmplices com a Grécia, ao subirem a ELA assim. O Weidmann estava constantemente a propor parar a subida da ELA e foi ignorado.

Acho que isto ainda está tudo cozinhado para dar grandes chances de a Grécia se manter no euro. Primeiro porque é verdade que a saída causará as tais grandes perdas no Target2. Segundo porque agora que os gregos experimentam 1 semana com os bancos fechados, vão ter muito mais medo, e isso incliná-los-á a votar Sim. Terceiro porque a falta de pagamento ao FMI amanhã não vai ser necessariamente fatal: o FMI pode dar-lhes 1 mês de prazo para pagarem, ficam apenas em Arrears e não em Default. Portanto se votarem sim em 5-7 ainda vão  tempo de aceitar o novo resgate e aí têm tempo de pagar ao FMI o que têm em arrears. Quarto, ainda há muita gente, 65% da população, que não votou Syriza e está muito escaldado com tudo isto. Os outros partidos vão mexer-se.