Today, the Greece election results may determine the fate of the Euro Zone crisis. The outcome of the Greek elections will decide whether or not the troubled nation remains as part of the European Union, or breaks off and ends it participation in using the Euro as its currency? Whether Greece will abide by the multi-national agreements to set its fiscal house in order, or just bail out itself printing drachmas? The best polling data for now seems to be a toss-up, with Europe, and the World, awaiting the results. The debt crisis in the Euro Zone is complicated enough, as Spain and Italy teeter on the edge of financial disaster. With the G-20 Summit coming up at the end of June, the battle over austerity and stimulus is reaching a critical mass.
Despite billions of Euros already spent bailing out Greece, the country continues to slide into disarray. The unemployment rate is 22%. Efforts to reign in spending and refinance their debt have been bitter pills which have led to numerous labor strikes and general unrest. Greece epitomizes the problem with European-style Democratic-Socialism. Too much government control, too generous of public employee pensions and benefits. Too small a private sector economic base to tax and draw revenue from.
Greek citizens have been busy of late stocking up on Euros, squeezing as many as they can get out from ATMs. There is little doubt that should Greece revert back to the drachma, inflation will skyrocket. As painful as austerity may seem, a Greek economic free-fall due to hyper-inflation is no real solution. The poor and middle classes will be slammed by the brunt of either. At least with austerity, there is some pathway to a resolution and stability. Wildly printing drachmas would only lengthen the hardships for years, if not generations, to come.
So all eyes are on Greece and its election results today. The Greek elections are the second in two months in 2012. The fate of the Euro Zone debt crisis hangs in the balance at the ballot box. Should a new government be formed that favors rejecting the Euro and returning to using their own currency, the drachma, to pay off their debts, the rest of the European Union could begin breaking up. Spain and Italy are not far behind Greece in facing their moment of truth. Even France may falter, ending the EU once and for all. The G-20 Summit scheduled for starting on June 28 could be the most important meeting of world leaders in our generation, as the outcome will affect the United States and the rest of the world.
June 17th, 2012 at 3:04 am
Greece is a good lesson in what liberals in power do to the next generation. They load government freebies on the backs of their descendents, the pigs they are.
June 17th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Now that the results are out, the message the Greeks give to the Eurozone is cristal clear: we see that we can be given the boot but we roll up the sleeves and clean up the mess: we are prepared to pay out debt. What is missing is the detailed ‘how’ planning. One thing is for certain: Greece has to cut on Administration. Much too many civil servants, almost all well salaried. In the absence of other opportunities (wage level is Greece is significantly higher than in other parts of the Eurozone, i.e. Greece is not competitive when investors are looking for destination to set-up businesses) what do young and well educated Greeks do: become a civil servant.
Austerity is not the solution, just one step in a direction that has to be taken.
The coming weeks will bring either information on how Greece is going to cut on spending or it will bring another round of elections.
Several of the European banks that had to write-off 53.5% of the value of Greek Bonds are still struggeling for survival.
June 17th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
It appears they have voted the pro-bailout faction into power.
At least that is good for now, otherwise it would have been a tumultuous Monday in the market.
The European Union and Euro, however, are on the clock.
Germany only begrudgingly relinquished the Deutsche Mark and will most likely bail on the EU within the next year.
June 17th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
” Too much government control, too generous of public employee pensions and benefits. Too small a private sector economic base to tax and draw revenue from.”
Fckin Einstein.
Your statement should be stapled on everyones forehead and posted across the country.
The only thing thats going to help Greece is if the people have voluntary bake sales while biting bullets.
The fckin “Crisis Pimps” need to go
June 17th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
That picture is a great example of what is wrong with dying liberal cultures like Greece and Italy which look backward instead of forward. In the old days when a public building or church collapsed, they would build one bigger and better. Now they try to build an exact replica because they all worship their past instead of looking forward.
In the Parthenon’s case they are even more ridiculous, stuck with the version that existed 100 years ago. When any part that is still standing falls, they resurrect only that much, but they will not rebuild the entire thing as it was originally or tear it down and build something better.
June 17th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Rebuild the Parthenon?
Hey, why not refubish the Coliseum, rebuild the Pyramids and put a new face on the Sphinx while we’re at it?
Yikes!
June 18th, 2012 at 12:11 am
Far better would be replacing them with something useful that can benefit people more directly. Healthy cultures look forward, not backward.
June 18th, 2012 at 1:26 am
The Parthenon was a public ‘make-work’ project. The Greeks had recently stumbled into a large deposit of silver ore and had more money than they knew what to do with.
June 18th, 2012 at 1:34 am
I’ll give this latest Greek election results about three weeks of relative calm. Then its back to Square One. Karin is correct in that Greece needs a long-term plan to crawl its way out of debt. Austerity will only go so far. Reducing regulations, increasing competitiveness and attracting investment capital are the only practical solutions.
Patrick does have a good idea in that either restore the Parthenon to its original condition, or build a theme park, a la WESTWORLD. The French are planning a Napoleonic theme park, so why not the Greeks, too?
June 18th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yes Andy is right. And to make my point, note that the Parthenon was built on top of an older Greek temple to Athena. The “history first” nuts would today insist that the original temple be preserved and no Parthenon would have ever been built there. So learning this lesson, what really should happen is build something awesome and useful in it’s place, just like Europe use to do when their cultures looked forward. Looking forward is how we got the Sistine Chappel, after all.
By the way, the History Firsters are killing our cultural progress here too. Really annoys me that we are using all that prime real estate in Manhattan to build a useless memorial rather than build something grander and better than the World Trade Center.