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Holidaying in Greece - any thoughts about how the crisis will change things ?
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dejongj
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I may have put that point a bit crookedly. Of course I support more intake through sustainable economic growth. What I do not support is generating more income through increasing the percentage of the current intake; I.e. Tax rises. That will have an adverse effect.
And yes it is ideology to me, to me we must reduce the dependency on the state to provide for us. We need to establish personal accountability and strive for everyone to become better and less dependent. I do not believe it is healthy nor desirable when the state provides everything. And yes I agree, some of that will have an impact on gdp, it needs to be re calibrated to be realistic. Take the housing benefit changes that are pending. The only people winning under the current system are private landlords. It is a ridiculous situation when you earn good wages that you are dependent on government support for housing. But like the chicken and the egg, are the prices high because people can afford it with government support, or do people need government support because the prices are high
subsidising people to live somewhere where they couldn't live on their own accord is wrong, very wrong in my opinion.
The Greek
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Sorry, I got a bit confused by you saying the Greeks had no-one to blame but themselves, and then two sentences later blaming it all on the Germans and absolving Greece of any blame. More flip-flop than a Greek island...
Well to be honest I'm not here to defend Greece or justify their behaviour. As a Cypriot I care as much for Greece as most Scottish people care about the English.
But as your easily confused I will try and make my point for the final time.
1. Greece have only themselves to blame for their current situation.
2. Greece should pay back what is owed whether they are in or out of the eurozone.
3. Germany should have never allowed Greece to enter the euro zone due to its financial standing and wide spread corruption, instead chose to turn a blind eye and welcome the Greeks with open arms.
Now everyone pays the price!
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to be honest what we need is the countries with strong currency (germany and arguably france) to leave the euro , so that those that remain can prop up their economies by periodic devaluation like they used to with the drachma/lira/peso etc
the euro was a bad idea all round and one of the few sensible decisions the major govt made was to keep us out of it
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also a lender usually lends against collateral -the problem with the subprime bubble was that the collateral was worthless... the problem with the greek situation is that they don't have any ( I assume they sold their gold reserves etc long ago)
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The 'collateral' a nation state has is usually the nebulous guarantee that comes from the fact that states are far less likely to default than your average Joe Bloggs who can declare bankrupt and start again - the consequences of defaulting on governmental debt are so large no country (until now?) would do it unless there were no other choice - so creditors can be assured that the chances of default are slim if the country has a good credit rating. Of course, lower-rated countries have a higher risk of default, and so greater rates are changed to compensate for the risk.
Collateral is a strange concept for governmental debt anyway because the lenders are not (usually) in a position to seize assets directly - the lendee itself would have to sell assets in order to repay the debt and so a certain degree of cooperation/coercion is required. There are some circumstances where a nation state may hold assets situated in the lendor's jurisdiction which can be seized - but these are unlikely to ever represent more than a small portion of the debt and such an action would be more symbolic than practical.
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as far as i can tell from the Greek ferago the consequences of reneging on a governmental debt are negligible - they lose their credit rating and thus have to pay more to borrow in the future, but as their credit was appaling anyway who cares - greece is not exactly an AA+ rated nation , apart from that what consequences are there apart from getting booted out of the euro which they need anyway in order to devalue
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And damaged crockery
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And damaged crockery
And that old birds CDs with the Bazouki music......what was here name?
Anna Mousaka or summat
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Wiki tells me
Nana Mouskouri, born Iōánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer. She was known as "Nána" to her friends and family as a child.
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quality, wouldn't touch that crap with a barge pole would rather risk Capt Wappos's Kebops.
ancient_mariner
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Wiki tells me
Nana Mouskouri, born Iōánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer. She was known as "Nána" to her friends and family as a child.
Nicknamed Banana Mousecurry in our household.
Keith W
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dejongj
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Actually if you had more hair, lots more hair, you look like him. Hmmm, are you coming to the next meet
Keith W
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Actually if you had more hair, lots more hair, you look like him. Hmmm, are you coming to the next meet
Only if you promise not to make me wear a wig
boyfalldown
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That won't get you very far
Monopoly money is probably worth about the same as and other hard cash over there
OldCarlos
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Just got back yesterday from Crete.
Banks were still closed, but no problems at all for tourists using ATM's.
Different story for the locals though. (n)
Take mainly Euro's & you won't have a problem..........................until they run out of things to sell you.
Over the past 3 or 4 years when speaking to local Greek folk, the majority have told us they'd prefer the Drachma & wish they could ditch the Euro, but every time the news channels show `interviews` with folk, or political debates are aired, they tend to say that the majority of Greeks want to stay with the Euro.
On the lead up to that referendum, the news channels were saying that the majority of Greeks would vote YES.
Now you can call me cynical, but was everyone really as surprised at the NO result as they made out?
I think (& have done for some time) that Merket et al have seriously underestimated the feelings of the ordinary Greek people.
Banks were still closed, but no problems at all for tourists using ATM's.
Different story for the locals though. (n)
Take mainly Euro's & you won't have a problem..........................until they run out of things to sell you.
Over the past 3 or 4 years when speaking to local Greek folk, the majority have told us they'd prefer the Drachma & wish they could ditch the Euro, but every time the news channels show `interviews` with folk, or political debates are aired, they tend to say that the majority of Greeks want to stay with the Euro.
On the lead up to that referendum, the news channels were saying that the majority of Greeks would vote YES.
Now you can call me cynical, but was everyone really as surprised at the NO result as they made out?
I think (& have done for some time) that Merket et al have seriously underestimated the feelings of the ordinary Greek people.
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Typical politicians out of touch with the "folks on the ground"
Oh and quite awhile ago some one called her "Meerkat"
Can you see the likeness?
View attachment 41589
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Crete is unlikely to run out of food. fuel, possibly but the Cretans are fairly self sufficient as far as eating and drinking goes. As always, we'll be taking plenty of € rather than relying on cards (mainly because we've been stuck somewhere when there was a power cut rather than ATMs running dry. Luckily the restaurant owner just told us to come back tomorrow and pay, so we did.) when we go back in 6 and a bit weeks.
dejongj
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Well a deal has been reached. I can't help but feel like the current deal is much worse than what they voted against last week.
Yet the official story is that it is best for all. Hmm probably, but I can't help but feel this is not the end of it.
Yet the official story is that it is best for all. Hmm probably, but I can't help but feel this is not the end of it.
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The difference is the last deal didn't involve debt restructuring, whilst the new one does. And restructuring was critical if we weren't going to keep ending up back here every 12 months - there was no point getting a new bailout if the underlying repayment schedule remained unmanageable.
dejongj
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Agreed, however the austerity measures requirements seem much tougher for the people of Greece. The PM may want this, he may even push through a law (has he still got the majority?) but will the people accept it?
This is no way the end in my opinion.
This is no way the end in my opinion.
D
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Interesting video and article on the deal:-
Greece wins euro debt deal – but democracy is the loser
After an all-night negotiation during which Greek prime minister was subjected, according to one observer, to “mental waterboarding”, there is the basis of a deal to keep Greece in the euro. As I write, the Greek side do not have a document, but we have some details.
Greece will have to implement the tough austerity measures demanded by its lenders, plus hand €50bn of assets to a privatisation fund, where sales will be used to pay down debt.
In return it will get a new, third bailout deal reportedly worth €54bn; a promise of discussions on restructuring its debt; and a bridging loan to finance the repayments it cannot make. It is this – plus the imminent reopening of the banks under an ECB emergency lending scheme – that will allow PM Alexis Tsipras to save any kind of face with his own supporters, who are fuming.
If you doubt how it might play on the Greek streets, consider the headline of Dimokratia, a conservative tabloid: “Greece in Auschwitz: Schauble attempts eurozoneholocaust”.
Last night the eurozone leaders presented Greece with an ultimatum that shredded all vestiges of control the government has over the economy going forward, and reversed every law it has put through parliament since being elected with 36 per cent of the vote in January.
While Greeks vented, and the hashtag #ThisIsACoup went viral across the globe, Tsipras and his team negotiated. They knew that to have any chance of getting the deal through parliament they must free themselves of IMF involvement, resist the foreign-held privatisation fund, get some commitment to debt reprofiling and an assurance that the ECB will turn the taps of emergency lending back on to the banks.
I said last night that without these things there was no chance of getting the austerity measures through parliament. It seems this morning that each of the measures has been fudged: so the privatisation fund remains in Athens, not Luxembourg; the IMF invovement is still there but apparently muted; the debt restructuring is there but unspecified.
So I am still not certain this will pass.
To understand what happens next you have to understand that, first, the Greek centre and conservative right is so morally and organisationally shattered by its defeats in the January election and the June referendum that it cannot simply take over.
There is only a parliamentary majority if Tsipras (pictured below) leads it.
The rebels in his party come in two genres: the hard left of the Left Platform, whose leader Panayotis Lafazanis abstained in Saturday’s parliamentary vote and may be sidelined in the coming days; and a more organic left, known informally as the 53 group, whose MPs voted yes on Saturday but can go no further.
The Syriza newspaper Avgi spelled out the party’s approach going into the negotiations: they must accept and vote through the outcome of negotiations in order to stay in power, because the overthrow of a government by the EU is unacceptable (nor indeed possible given the parliamentary arithmetic).
The eurozone took itself to the brink last night, and we will only know for certain later whether its reputation and cohesion can survive this.
The big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs.
It would be logical now for every country in the EU to make contingency plans against getting the same treatment – either over fiscal policy or any of the other issues where Brussels and Frankfurt enjoy sovereignty.
Parallels abound with other historic debacles: Munich (1938), where peace was won by sacrificing the Czechs; or Versailles (1919), where the creditors got their money, only to create the conditions for the collapse of German democracy 10 years later, and their own diplomatic unity long before that.
But the debacles of yesteryear were different. They were committed by statesmen. People who knew what they wanted and miscalculated. It was hard to see last night what the rulers of Europe wanted.
What they’ve arguably got is a global reputational disaster: the crushing of a left-wing government elected on a landslide, the flouting of a 61 per cent referendum result. The EU – a project founded to avoid conflict and deliver social justice – found itself transformed into the conveyor of relentless financial logic and nothing else.
Ordinary people don’t know enough about the financial logic to understand why this was always likely to happen: bonds, haircuts and currency mechanisms are distant concepts. Democracy is not. Everybody on earth with a smartphone understands what happened to democracy last night.
Follow @PaulMasonNews on Twitter
dejongj
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To be honest the only one that has let democracy down has been the Greek prime minister in my opinion. Ok, personally I do not believe it was good for the rest of the EU but hey that is just money, the Greek Prime Minister had a very clear mandate and he went away from it. I don't subscribe to all this emotional historical parallel drawing, the people in Greece should wake up and smell the coffee and take some responsibility for their own situation. And as that is still not happening in general, I can't see this be sustainable, good money after bad...
boyfalldown
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He's elected democratically, I do think he needs to get the best result for his electorate. If that means Greece defaults then so be it. It may not be pretty but when your country has spent how ever many years in deep recession and has stupidly high unemployment something radical needs doing. Even the IMF say there is no way Greece can recover and pay its debts now. If a person, or a company was in this situation they'd go under.
It does look like increasing desperation to keep Greece (wrongly I think) in the Euro, whilst being very punitive about it. At the end of the day a pragmatic solution is needed. What has gone before hasn't worked. More of the same will just leave us here in 2,5 or 10 years time still. I know my lack of knowledge shows here, but did governments take over bank loans to Greece? Either way, when you lend money there is a risk you won't get paid back (personal, company or country lending) - thats why you charge interest and raise the rates the higher the risk. Risk is the key word. Risk hasn't paid off here
I agree about the historical parallels, they just seem stupid. I suspect we're probably not to far away on the sensible course of action, maybe from different viewpoints though
Paul Krugman's blog in the NY times is always an interesting read. He often has a refreshing perspective (and being a Nobel prize wing economist he know's what he's about) http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/killing-the-european-project/?_r=0
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dejongj
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I think things have moved on considerably since he wrote that. Perhaps it is my Germanic background but I can't see the issue with it.
I think the only proper way forward for the euro is a centralised European fiscal policy.
I think the only proper way forward for the euro is a centralised European fiscal policy.
boyfalldown
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I think his writing in general is very informative. I often read that blog.
I think the current terms proposed (as I last read them) seemed to be intended to be vindictive rather then to put Greece on a sustainable recovery (which is better for everyone surely?)
D
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He's elected democratically, I do think he needs to get the best result for his electorate. If that means Greece defaults then so be it. It may not be pretty but when your country has spent how ever many years in deep recession and has stupidly high unemployment something radical needs doing. Even the IMF say there is no way Greece can recover and pay its debts now. If a person, or a company was in this situation they'd go under.
It does look like increasing desperation to keep Greece (wrongly I think) in the Euro, whilst being very punitive about it. At the end of the day a pragmatic solution is needed. What has gone before hasn't worked. More of the same will just leave us here in 2,5 or 10 years time still. I know my lack of knowledge shows here, but did governments take over bank loans to Greece? Either way, when you lend money there is a risk you won't get paid back (personal, company or country lending) - thats why you charge interest and raise the rates the higher the risk. Risk is the key word. Risk hasn't paid off here
I agree about the historical parallels, they just seem stupid. I suspect we're probably not to far away on the sensible course of action, maybe from different viewpoints though
Paul Krugman's blog in the NY times is always an interesting read. He often has a refreshing perspective (and being a Nobel prize wing economist he know's what he's about) http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/killing-the-european-project/?_r=0
Damning words by Krugman. He isn't the first to see the German position as being one of the moral high-ground (not unlike some of the posters here!)
boyfalldown
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If he's correct that Germany simply want to humiliate Greece (which I agree with him on, after all "they voted against us in a democratic referendum") then I don't think Greece can ever recover without defaulting, and leaving the Euro. Which seems to me somewhat stupid of the Germans.
ETA I rather liked the Huffington Post's take on the terms to stay http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...t-with-european-union-revealed_n_7785838.html
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dejongj
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If they are deemed vindictive and unacceptable than Greece shouldn't accept them.
Mr Jonker called them a compromise without winners and good for all.
Ultimately it is a very risky financial undertaking with hardly any guarantee the money will ever be returned. Now if they made the required tough decisions many years ago it would have to come to this.
the black fox
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On the plus side it was reported yesterday that package holidays to Greece were seventy percent cheaper at the moment hhhmmmmmmmm
boyfalldown
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I agree they probably shouldn't accept them. Greece's recent history is a matter of historical fact. They certainly were feckless and if they'd made those decisions then we wouldn't be here. But they didn't and we are. There seems little point crying over spilt milk.
I agree as well its very risky financially. I can't understand the desire to through good money after bad. Let them go, it'd be better long term for everyone. And we'll end up there anyway
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You've probably been and come back... but just in case, we've holidayed in Alikanas several times, and most of the Tavernas are pretty good. Not quite sure what you mean by "proper Greek food" specifically, but there's only a couple of non-Greek-style restaurants. We liked the Lemon Tree, a bit out of the main bit of Alikanas, but quite close, and also the taverna at the eastern end of the main bay (forgotten the name). It's a very small place, and not very lively, which suited us down to the ground. Excellent swimming, shallow warm water but you can swim for a k or so along the beach and back, nice views across to Kefalonia.