Elections in Greece set to elect SYRIZA

A sequel to:

Greece defaults
Greece says enough, finally.

The story so far:
Greece was allowed to join the Euro back on the turn of the century despite serious economic problems, such as an inefficient public sector, chronic tax evasion and high public debt (largely due to the efforts of Goldman Sachs to hide these issues).
When the financial crash happened, these problems were exposed and Greece was unable to pay its own way. The EU stepped in and imposed an austerity program (spending cuts and tax rises) in return for cash. Since 2010, Greece has recieved a series of bailouts as each one failed to stabilise its economy. Greece currently suffers from enormous levels of unemployment and poverty and has a stagnant economy.
Most dramatically in 2011, Greece defaulted on its sovereign debt and an attempt to submit the austerity program to a referendum was overruled by the EU in what amounted to a non-violent coup against the prime-minister. An actual military coup was averted by the sacking of many in positions of power. Separately the fascist Golden Dawn continue to have substantial support within sections of the Greek public (and in the Greek police.)

Now...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30623421

The government is collapsing and elections will happen. More than likely these will bring to power the lefty party SYRIZA. SYRIZA promise a war on tax evasion, and a negotiated end to austerity based on debt relief.

German politicans have already said that this isn't an option. So another crisis beckons. Will Greece leave the Euro, will SYRIZA cave in to renewed austerity policies, or will the EU manufacture another power grab to overrule the Greek people?

An interesting few months ahead.

How will this effect Turkey?

Hopefully with stuffing and gravy.

Doubtful that it will at all.

Good for Greece; fuck the irresponsible and stupid German policy on Greece, and the neocon horse it rode on.

Anyone else not care?

We spend enough time discussing American issues. Feel free not to post here if you don't care.

Is there a constituency within Germany that might be inclined to change course on this?

The Green, Linke and Pirate parties all want to change it, but unfortunately none of them place great emphasis on the issue. Sad to say few here are all that interested in Greece.

Isn't it time Greece was broken up into warring city states? They were at the top of their game when they were structured like that.

If the Greeks refuse to balance their books then they should be kicked out of the Euro zone and be suspended from the EU. They have had at least half a decade to deal with the serious structural issues in Greece but have so far refused to do any meaningful reform. Fuck them.

Have you missed the repeated bailout agreements? Those contained lots of reforms. As for balancing the books, they are now running a primary surplus. But achieving an overall surplus requires growth - it's not something that they can just "decide" to do.

The Eurozone needs to move towards fiscal union if it wants to maintain monetary union. The Germans can't expect monetary policy to be set to suit Germany when that will lead to interminable crises in the southern nations.

The state sector is something like 50% of the economy, it takes 6 months and thousands of pages of paper work to get a new company approved and set up, the red tape is legendary, when ever there is an election coming up the first thing the ruling party does is stop collecting taxes. The state owns massive amounts of land and assets which they refuse to sell to pay down debts because they figure if they just hold out long enough the Germans will bail them out again.

They entered the Euro at way to high an exchange rate so now the Greek wages are at German levels but they have 1/4th the productivity of German workers, you can't fire anyone because it is cheaper to just keep them on than to fire a worker, Google maps shows there are tens of thousands of swimming pools in Athens alone but less than a dozen people pay the tax on pools, everyone from politicians, to big companies, to the lowest handiman refuses to pay their taxes and will agree (for a small price) to not give you a receipt so the work is off the books and no taxes are paid. I said it before but I will say it again, fuck them, they are 3rd world filth pretending to be a civilized state and they need to crash and burn until they get their act together.

Giving them more money is just throwing good money after bad because they refuse to make the needed reforms to liberalize their economy and to cut government spending. Yes, it sucks things got to a crisis point but the lazy Greeks have no one to blame but themselves so fuck'em.

No, not structural reforms. Mostly just spending cts and tax increases, which are nice, but don't deal with the heart of the problem, namely why the Greek economy has long sucked so badly. They need massive structural reforms and deregulation.

They haven't bothered to do anything like that.

Because they are the largest Eurozone nation and largest economy, not to mention centrally located in all restricts, don't the Germans kind of call the shots regarding many economic policies and for that matter consider it their right to do so?

So, return Detroit to the native Americans?

I think they wouldn't want it.

My prefered solution is to nuke it from orbit but sealing it off so that nothing gets in or out might also be a good solution without the radioactive after effects.

I wouldn't do anything with Detroit because it's the perfect setting for post-apocalyptic movies. In fact, if you start filming a scene, all kinds of mutants, bandits, gangs, or zombies will probably come out of the woodwork to steal your camera gear and other items, so you don't even have to hire extras.

Reducing complex historical and cultural factors to an entire people being "lazy", and expecting them to balance the books in a situation where they can't devalue their currency is pretty stupid.
Greece is not a third world country. It is a developed country which had failed to modernise its economy. That kind of thing is difficult and takes a long time. However, significant modernisation measures have been a condition of recieving loans and are being implemented. SYRIZA for their part wants "a war" on tax dodging.

Yeah, they shouldn't have been allowed into the Euro, but as the saying goes, we are where we are, and the Greek scenario is simply the most extreme manifestation of the problems with how that currency is designed.

I just wish Greece, Spain and Italy would implode already. The last few years have been like watching a fish out of water, flapping around the boat.

In fact, for my money (somewhat literally), it was right that they joined the euro. Economic unification is both valuable in itself and an expression and vehicle of cultural community, and for the latter, a Europe without Greece just doesn't make sense.

Rick, EVERY Greek government has said they were going to improve tax collection and crack down on tax dodgers but none of them do. Being a leech who never pays his taxes is part of Greek culture and even the politicians who tell the foreigners they are going to xrack down on tax fraud are all themselves commiting tax fraud. Fuck them, the single best thing which can happen to Greece is tolet it crash and burn so the lazy fuckers finally are forced to get their act together. Even now they are refusing to enact reforms and are voting for parties who promise to never reform anything.

They need to be kicked out of the Euro so their new currency can be devalued to a point where it actually makes economic sense for a company to hire a lazy Greek. Oh, and they are lazy; they have the lowest productivity per worker in the EU but think some how the world owes them a German standard of living. Watch them burn and maybe they'll get off their asses and learn to actually work.

If they do stay in the Euro then they are going to need to deregulate everything, privatize everything, eliminate the minimum wage, and fire a large perxe tage of their public workers. They can immigrate to some other country which actually has a functioning economy. Even if they do all that they will have to find a way to slash pension payments since they can't just devalue the currency. Their only hope is to become a free market libertarian utopia because they really have screwed up that bad and they don't really have natural resources to cushion the blow so they need to make a big statement about liberalism and hope it attracts investment away from the rest of Europe.

The big problem is the lazy Greeks are voting to do the exact opposite. They want to not change anything, have the EU just keep giving them money forever, and just be permanent welfare queens who all get to retire with full pensions at age 55 from their government jobs where all they do is sit there and read the newspaper all day.

You can't have that so letting them crash and burn is the best thing you can do for them in the long run. Half a decade of circling the drain hasn't gotten them to liberalize their economy or make it any more attractive for businesses to hire Greek workers, they're still refusing to sell off assets to pay their debts, and so far all they have done is some half ass tinkering on the budget with no structural reforms to improve the economy long term. Enough is enough.

Syriza is just another piper sweetly calling the rats. They promise the sky but they don't tell anyone how they're gonna accomplish all the milk and honey without the money. All they can do is leave the Eurozone, default (preferably in that order) and start printing their own money. Which is, of course, no option for foreign trade. Who'd take the Neodrachma on the world market? Right, nobody. They'll want dollars or euros for their goods.

I know a tumultous Grexit is the wet dream of any political extremist worth his salt (bad EU, bad EU, bad bad EU is where they all come together) but reality tells another story. Greece's best option is the EU, the rest is much much worse. Unless, of course, they want a military dictatorship there once again which might be the only option once the people get fed up eating only olives. I gather the right wing nuts would be happy with that but the goody two shoes leftist nuts would scream. Because, like, that's all they do anyway no matter what. I never hear viable solutions from either side, only promises and nationalist claptrap.

Unfortunately, only austerity, a serious crackdown on tax evasion and somehow attracting/creating competetive industry will set Greece on a course of recovery. It will be a long road and here's hoping the Greeks are smart enough not to entrust it to Syriza or the nazis that are the Golden Dawn.

The one and only good thing I can see in a Syriza win is to finally get rid of the two families who've led Greece to where it is now. Hanging them by the balls from what remains of the walls of Sparta might help ease the popular pain a little.

It's more the stupid German policy on Germany that's at issue. Germany is the motherland of inflation fears and Merkel & Co. want German inflation kept below 2% and have sufficient influence over the European Central Bank to make it happen. However, given the relative states of the German and Greek economies, that means crushing deflation for Greece. If Germany were not deathly afraid of inflation and if Germany therefore were willing to accept 4%-5% inflation in its own economy--moderately high numbers by current standards, but pretty normal historically, not at all high for a post-slump boom, very unlikely to cause significant economic problems, and a far cry from hyperinflation--then Greece might be able to survive on the Euro. The German policy that cripples Greece is based almost entirely on irrational German fears of inflation at home. To the extent that it's based on something else it's based on corruptly protecting the profits of German lending institutions at the expense of borrowers.

A monetary union in which everyone wants unusually low inflation but there's no fiscal union, no systemic transfer of funds to economically depressed areas, is folly.

^^Hammer, nail, head.

Greece will not help itself, and losing Greece from the Eurozone would lead to a chain reaction that would destroy the Euro. Hand the reigns of government over to the EU so they can make the tough choices. Greeks have forfeited their right to sovereignty.

:o

No one has the right to sovereignty and self-rule. That must be bought from foreign bankers.