My thoughts on this:
1. I'm not a fan of democracy, and I'm certainly not a fan of the far-left, but you take your victories where you can. If this is the first crack in the EU/globalist project, then I'll take it. I have been eagerly awaiting these very results for weeks now. The twenty fifth of January has been on my calendar for some time.
2. For that very reason, the powers in the EU/Troika absolutely cannot let Greece leave because there are a number of other elections coming up this year (UK in May; Spain, which has also suffered economically, in December). Anti-establishment parties are on the march in Europe right now. It doesn't matter that they often have widely different reasons for existing, and wildly different objectives (including some that are diametrically opposed). What matters is that if one bolts, it could embolden the others and lead to a rush for the exits. The globalist elite know this and cannot allow the risk of even one of them making a run for it.
My guess is then that to some extent, concessions will be made to Greece. The trouble is that that will make no one happy, and will actually make everyone unhappy. If Syriza doesn't deliver the full deal and is seen to sell out even one iota, Greeks will be livid. Likewise, if Greece is seen to get a free pass, Germans and other Northern Europeans will also be livid (and scared that every other ailing nation will play "chicken" with them). This will create massive headaches for Merkel and her ilk in the north.
I see this entire situation as a case of there being no good guys, and no good options. Yes, the Troika are a bunch of pricks. However, the Greeks are also a bunch of lazy, entitled pricks living in a fantasy land. As others have mentioned, you can't work twenty five hours a week, retire at fifty, engage in a massive amount of black market activity AND expect a well-funded state to provide you with all sorts of social programmes. If you want to live like Germans or Finns then you need to act like Germans or Finns. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
This gets to the fundamental flaw with the European project, and more broadly, the globalist project. Greeks are not Germans. Whether for genetic, cultural or governmental/bureaucratic reasons, Greece has a lot more in common with the dysfunctional Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa than it does with Western Europe. There is a natural limit on "Europe". We can split hairs on where that passes (i.e. Does it end at Piedmont/Lombardy/Venice, do we include central Italy, Slovenia, etc.? Does it pass through the Pyrenees or somewhere in France? What about in the east? How about Ireland?), but it's pretty bloody clear that it is a long way from Attica. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you try, you're just going to continue to piss off people on both sides of the line.
At some point, Europeans are going to have to come to terms with the fact that Greece isn't really European, or that there are multiple, largely incompatible Europes. Greeks are deluding themselves if they think they can be (and live like) Germans or Finns. Germans are deluding themselves if they can make everyone else like them and have one big happy, cooperative, productive family. It's not going to happen. These kinds of changes occur on a timescale of centuries, if they occur at all. You can't just manufacture them over the span of decades.
3. Now, as for what's actually going to happen in Greece, here's my prognosis:
In any economic crisis/debt crisis, there are only a handful of possible solutions (or combinations thereof):
1. GDP growth
2. Increased taxes
3. Spending cuts
4. Currency devaluation (in Greece's case, abandoning the euro)
5. Money printing/inflation
6. Default
Number 1. is the only "nice" one, but that's just not going to happen without some combination of the others first, and also without Greeks fundamentally not being Greeks anymore. People can say there just needs to be economic stimulus, but money doesn't grow on trees. At some point, debts either have to be repaid or people stop lending money to deadbeats. We've had years of worldwide economic stimulus and it's had little to no effect. At some point, a reset in expectations needs to occur and people in many countries just have to accept that they can't live as they grew accustomed to in the lead up to the GFC. If Greece had bitten the bullet then, it would have been painful, but they would have got it over with and maybe been on their way to recovery by now. Yet they didn't really want to bite the bullet, and others didn't want them to either. Thus, the problem is much worse.
It's clear that the Greeks aren't getting 1., and they don't want more of 2. or 3. (they'll get them later anyway, but in the short term, maybe they can postpone them just a little). They're basically going to have to go with a combination of 4., 5. and 6. (then followed by 2. and 3. when they realise they're in deep shit and have no more handouts). Obviously, there's a fair overlap between 4. and 5., but they're different enough in this case to separate them.
Anyway, 4. would lead to a direct impact on the cost of living for Greeks because the price of imports would sky-rocket. On the other hand, anyone exporting or bringing in foreign currency (e.g. the tourism industry) would become much more competitive, and so see improved prospects. Of course, results would not be distributed evenly, and so there'd still be a lot of pain. Would Greece's new competitiveness compensate for the increased cost of imports? Only somewhat, but probably not enough. Still, it would probably be somewhat of an improvement on the current situation. (What wouldn't?) Furthermore, provided the government can sort itself out on the enforcement/corruption side (okay, so stop laughing and just pretend), it might lead to increased tax receipts even without tax increases, and thus also improve service provision somewhat.
5. This would be a tax by stealth and would entail a cut in living standards as people would lose purchasing power. The outright effects of this would be no different to 2. and 3.
6. Default would mean that people would be unwilling to lend Greece money at anything but very high rates. Greeks would be able to celebrate the erasure of their debt for all of about five minutes. Then the reality of sky high borrowing costs would hit them and they'd see the government unable to wave its magic wand and provide everyone with Finnish style social services. In other words, default is not a magic bullet, though it's likely to be tried (or forced). The piper has to be paid, and if he isn't, the piper is unwilling to play his tune again without a pound of flesh (to mix metaphors).
All of that is a way of extending on my thesis that there are multiple Europes and at some point, Greece is just going to have to accept that it's really part of the Lesser Europe than the Greater Europe. I suspect that at some point, a couple of other countries (notably Spain) are going to have to accept that also.
TL;DR:
*Globalist elites will try their hardest not to let Greece leave the euro/EU
*Greece will end up leaving anyway and will try all sorts of magic bullets which will largely fail (though improve its situation somewhat, though also bring more pain for some time)
*Eventually, everyone is going to have to accept that there are effectively two Europes, and Greece (amongst others) is in Lesser Europe
Deluge: As for buying euros, here's a better strategy. Go out to Flemington Racecourse tomorrow and pick the sixth horse in the fifth race. Unless I really knew about this kind of stuff I wouldn't touch the euro with a ten foot pole right now. Even a lot of "experts" are going to get this one really, really wrong.
1. I'm not a fan of democracy, and I'm certainly not a fan of the far-left, but you take your victories where you can. If this is the first crack in the EU/globalist project, then I'll take it. I have been eagerly awaiting these very results for weeks now. The twenty fifth of January has been on my calendar for some time.
2. For that very reason, the powers in the EU/Troika absolutely cannot let Greece leave because there are a number of other elections coming up this year (UK in May; Spain, which has also suffered economically, in December). Anti-establishment parties are on the march in Europe right now. It doesn't matter that they often have widely different reasons for existing, and wildly different objectives (including some that are diametrically opposed). What matters is that if one bolts, it could embolden the others and lead to a rush for the exits. The globalist elite know this and cannot allow the risk of even one of them making a run for it.
My guess is then that to some extent, concessions will be made to Greece. The trouble is that that will make no one happy, and will actually make everyone unhappy. If Syriza doesn't deliver the full deal and is seen to sell out even one iota, Greeks will be livid. Likewise, if Greece is seen to get a free pass, Germans and other Northern Europeans will also be livid (and scared that every other ailing nation will play "chicken" with them). This will create massive headaches for Merkel and her ilk in the north.
I see this entire situation as a case of there being no good guys, and no good options. Yes, the Troika are a bunch of pricks. However, the Greeks are also a bunch of lazy, entitled pricks living in a fantasy land. As others have mentioned, you can't work twenty five hours a week, retire at fifty, engage in a massive amount of black market activity AND expect a well-funded state to provide you with all sorts of social programmes. If you want to live like Germans or Finns then you need to act like Germans or Finns. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
This gets to the fundamental flaw with the European project, and more broadly, the globalist project. Greeks are not Germans. Whether for genetic, cultural or governmental/bureaucratic reasons, Greece has a lot more in common with the dysfunctional Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa than it does with Western Europe. There is a natural limit on "Europe". We can split hairs on where that passes (i.e. Does it end at Piedmont/Lombardy/Venice, do we include central Italy, Slovenia, etc.? Does it pass through the Pyrenees or somewhere in France? What about in the east? How about Ireland?), but it's pretty bloody clear that it is a long way from Attica. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you try, you're just going to continue to piss off people on both sides of the line.
At some point, Europeans are going to have to come to terms with the fact that Greece isn't really European, or that there are multiple, largely incompatible Europes. Greeks are deluding themselves if they think they can be (and live like) Germans or Finns. Germans are deluding themselves if they can make everyone else like them and have one big happy, cooperative, productive family. It's not going to happen. These kinds of changes occur on a timescale of centuries, if they occur at all. You can't just manufacture them over the span of decades.
3. Now, as for what's actually going to happen in Greece, here's my prognosis:
In any economic crisis/debt crisis, there are only a handful of possible solutions (or combinations thereof):
1. GDP growth
2. Increased taxes
3. Spending cuts
4. Currency devaluation (in Greece's case, abandoning the euro)
5. Money printing/inflation
6. Default
Number 1. is the only "nice" one, but that's just not going to happen without some combination of the others first, and also without Greeks fundamentally not being Greeks anymore. People can say there just needs to be economic stimulus, but money doesn't grow on trees. At some point, debts either have to be repaid or people stop lending money to deadbeats. We've had years of worldwide economic stimulus and it's had little to no effect. At some point, a reset in expectations needs to occur and people in many countries just have to accept that they can't live as they grew accustomed to in the lead up to the GFC. If Greece had bitten the bullet then, it would have been painful, but they would have got it over with and maybe been on their way to recovery by now. Yet they didn't really want to bite the bullet, and others didn't want them to either. Thus, the problem is much worse.
It's clear that the Greeks aren't getting 1., and they don't want more of 2. or 3. (they'll get them later anyway, but in the short term, maybe they can postpone them just a little). They're basically going to have to go with a combination of 4., 5. and 6. (then followed by 2. and 3. when they realise they're in deep shit and have no more handouts). Obviously, there's a fair overlap between 4. and 5., but they're different enough in this case to separate them.
Anyway, 4. would lead to a direct impact on the cost of living for Greeks because the price of imports would sky-rocket. On the other hand, anyone exporting or bringing in foreign currency (e.g. the tourism industry) would become much more competitive, and so see improved prospects. Of course, results would not be distributed evenly, and so there'd still be a lot of pain. Would Greece's new competitiveness compensate for the increased cost of imports? Only somewhat, but probably not enough. Still, it would probably be somewhat of an improvement on the current situation. (What wouldn't?) Furthermore, provided the government can sort itself out on the enforcement/corruption side (okay, so stop laughing and just pretend), it might lead to increased tax receipts even without tax increases, and thus also improve service provision somewhat.
5. This would be a tax by stealth and would entail a cut in living standards as people would lose purchasing power. The outright effects of this would be no different to 2. and 3.
6. Default would mean that people would be unwilling to lend Greece money at anything but very high rates. Greeks would be able to celebrate the erasure of their debt for all of about five minutes. Then the reality of sky high borrowing costs would hit them and they'd see the government unable to wave its magic wand and provide everyone with Finnish style social services. In other words, default is not a magic bullet, though it's likely to be tried (or forced). The piper has to be paid, and if he isn't, the piper is unwilling to play his tune again without a pound of flesh (to mix metaphors).
All of that is a way of extending on my thesis that there are multiple Europes and at some point, Greece is just going to have to accept that it's really part of the Lesser Europe than the Greater Europe. I suspect that at some point, a couple of other countries (notably Spain) are going to have to accept that also.
TL;DR:
*Globalist elites will try their hardest not to let Greece leave the euro/EU
*Greece will end up leaving anyway and will try all sorts of magic bullets which will largely fail (though improve its situation somewhat, though also bring more pain for some time)
*Eventually, everyone is going to have to accept that there are effectively two Europes, and Greece (amongst others) is in Lesser Europe
Deluge: As for buying euros, here's a better strategy. Go out to Flemington Racecourse tomorrow and pick the sixth horse in the fifth race. Unless I really knew about this kind of stuff I wouldn't touch the euro with a ten foot pole right now. Even a lot of "experts" are going to get this one really, really wrong.