Greek banks closed, capital controls in place.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/28/news/economy/greece-banks-ecb/index.html

And out of the Euro they go.

Fuck 'em. From what I've read on the Greeks, they are the welfare queen than Ronald Reagan hated in the 80s, only less responsible.

Good on Tsipras for refusing to give in to the persecution. There may be hard times ahead for Greece, but their refusal to exist in a perpetual debtors prison means that they are more likely to come through eventually.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the refusal of our politicians to recognise reality, let alone display any leadership, mean that the Euro is probably fucked in the long term. Shame on them. Michael Noonan in particular has been a fucking disgrace throughout.

Can you elaborate on your take on the situation Rick? It seemed to me that the EU gave Greece many opportunities to fix the national policies that led to this?

http://news.yahoo.com/latest-greece-wants-ecb-keep-giving-emergency-help-093416301.html

The German government is warning travellers to Greece to bring cash as the banking system is inoperable and credit card systems may not be functioning.

You've read wrong. Yes, before the crisis hit back in 07/08, Greece was a pretty irresponsibly run country, but since the crisis hit Greece has acceded to every creditor and European Bank demand, has stretched heaven and earth to run as large a primary surplus as possible, has behaved as the model of responsibility according to the people now calling it irresponsible, and that has only resulted in the Greek economy continuing to free fall while those around it recover. What Greece is going through now is actually pretty significantly worse than the Great Depression was, and at this point it's all because Greece has been so damned responsible.

The fact is that if Greece is going to remain on the euro, to continue to service debt denominated in a currency it can't control, then Greece has to be allowed to declare bankruptcy like any other debtor in its situation. From the point of view of Greece and its creditors, Greece is more like an insolvent corporation than a nation with its own currency, and its about time that Greece be treated accordingly. The Greek creditors really do have to choose between taking a haircut and payment in drachmas.

Greece had a lot of options to liberalize the economy and decrease debt and they decided to sit there and do nothing for half a decade. They are awash in stupid regulations like where there are five coal mines ready to be developed with companies which want to develop them but legally they can't because by Greek law only the state owned utility monopoly may operate a coal mine in the country. There are between $100 billion and $200 billion (depending on price at auction) in state owned assets (ranging from public utilities, to a hotel chain, to horse racing tracks, to casinos, to ports, to the state rail road company, to airports, to the state Telcom company, and beyond) which they could have sold or privatized to pay down the national debt but they opted not to do that because unions didn't like it.

They outlaw privitely competition in a whole range of fields such as the smelting of types of metal and they massively over regulate dozens of others to block competition. If they had set to work removing those idiotic regulations their economy would be growing again but I stead the government raised the minimum wage, outlawed new construction of international hotel chains, and wanted to increase pensions despite the fact the government could not pay existing pensions

They could have a growing economy (just like all the other troubled piigs (Spain is now growing faster than Germany)) with at least 1/3 but possibly up to 2/3rds of the national debt paid off from money made via privitizations but they chose to do nothing but double down on stupid. So, yes, it absolutely is their fault for being too childish to make the necissary moves and just hoping they could mooch off of the rest of Europe without changing anything.

Allowing so many state workers to retire at age 55 (in northern Europe retirement age is 65-68) with full pensions even while the government would stop collecting taxes every time their was an election because taxes were unpopular... Well, these dumb shits have no one to blame but themselves. They did this and no one else. The ECB even broke the fucking law propinquity them up after legally they were supposed to stop just because the ECB didn't want to be to blame.

The stupid mother fucker's where borrowing money just to pay the interest on old debt and yet they were STILL unwilling to make the needed changes to public finance. Before the financial crisis blew up the dumb fucks were already finding traditional equity markets wouldn't touch them because of their shit finances and high debt load so they agreed to stupid balloon payment loans from Goldman Sacks because they couldn't get financing any other way due to how high risk they were. No surprise that didn't turn out well.

Then when the crisis did hit, and everything truly went to shit, rather than recognize reality the retards voted for idiots who promised everything would be better if they just spent more money. I agree stimulus is good for economies but the problem was they had no money and no one would loan them money while they weren't in control of their own monitory policy so they couldn't practice monitory easing. Thiseat they had no money to spend nor any way to borrow money.

Even then there were more options despite their lack of control over monitory policy (all involving regulation reform to make their economy more competitive and get the economy growing again) but they didn't do a damn thing.

Greek voters had their heads so far up their own asses they were delusional about how dire the real situation was, no politician dared tell the truth out of fear of being blamed, so they made bad choice after bad choice and they never took their medicine like a big boy. Even know Syriza has been working to bring about default but has been desperately lying in an attempt to pretend someone else is to blame. They are all half whits and the blame rests on them for refusing to be adults about their situation.

Fuck Greece.

I wonder if there is a potential lesson for the United States there?

Of the ass?

I am an american with very little at stake here, and little to no understanding of the nuances of greece's economic woes. I am pretty sure i am supposed to say something completely obnoxious, oversimplified, and dumb as a stump to maintain my official american whitey card. Oh fuck i cannot think of anything to say. Hey @Faceman can you help me be an obnoxious american dumbfuck. You do it all the time and I am in need of a hand here because I might accidentally make a mistake and say something useful.

Oh, and as for greece good luck with that clusterfuck.

Step up. I've got faith in you..........

I really do not have much animosity towards the greeks one way or another. Just the general hope for the best, and please share your wacky cultural moments on youtube.

I guess i could say this is sparta or something like that, but somehow it does not seem to go along with accounting.

Greece hasn't had a primary surplus since last Feb.

Huh? Primary surplus is considered as an annual number, not a monthly. Greece is in primary surplus for the year in the most recent numbers, ahead of it's originally projected primary surplus. And, to the extent that you're silly enough to start talking about monthly numbers when budgeting is done on an annual basis, Greece ran a primary surplus in April.

But right now the Greek economy is in shambles. Continued 25.6% unemployment. The primary surplus has been maintained, despite revenues coming in well below projections, by slashing spending on government programs, leading to further deterioration in expected revenues, leading to pressure to slash even more government spending in the name of "responsibility." They've got a term for a government that continues to do shit like that when there's 25.6% unemployment and an economy that's cratering even worse than that number would indicate on its own. They're called "the guys who were lined up against the wall and shot when the revolution came."

Only if you are a drooling idiot. The major difference, which I am astounded you didn't recognize on your own, is that the US has so many people bidding for the privilage of lending it money (flight to quality) that they are willing to accept net negative interest rates on T-Bills. That means they are paying us for the privilage of loaning us money. Think about that, my red neck friend, because that has profound implications.

To compare no one will loan Greece money at any price because they are worthless deadbeat pieces of shit.

A primary surplus means they can finance their operations using on hand (domestic) generated revenue not counting debt or debt services.

These stupid mother fuckers can't even do that, at least not since last feb, because they screwed the pooch to badly. That means even subtracting principle and interest on their debt they still are not generating enough income to cover their day to day expenses. They have to borrow more just to cover regular operating expenses.

It didn'r have to be this way. It is because they are both stupid and incompetent while their politicians are unwilling to do anything other than cover their asses. Someone has to lead and say here is the hard but real choice. Greeks were too delusional to accept reality so they deserve what they get.

And that's why yellow press propaganda is bad: Somewhere, someone will believe it.

like the war in Iraq, and our war against drugs, and our war against terrorism, not to mention our war on christmas which happens every year right outside bill orielley's window.

This is what happens when shrieking populists come to power. All promises, no money to fulfill them. And the rest of Europe is understandably fed up.

You can't be serious. Are you seriously falling for that?! T&V, the big heros fighting the evil :eu: all alone? Geez. If you make election promises, you better see that you can pay for them.

They gambled, they lost. Unfortunately the whole country lost with them.

This is what happens when shrieking populists come to power. All promises, no money to fulfill them. And the rest of Europe is understandably fed up.

You can't be serious. Are you seriously falling for that?! T&V, the big heros fighting the evil :eu: all alone? Geez. If you make election promises, you better see that you can pay for them.

They gambled, they lost. Unfortunately the whole country lost with them.

The EU forced policies on Greece that made the situation much worse. Repeating disastrously failed policies for a third time is not an opportunity to fix anything.

I suspect that TPTB know this. What's going on is not an effort to fix the Greek economy but (as Tsipras has said) to humiliate Greece, and to set an example to be feared both to other debtor countries (Spain, Italy, Portugal) who might seek debt relief and to the European public who might see any success on the part of Syriza as a reason to get rid of the current incumbents.
It's no basis on which to run a currency union.

No, there isn't. For one thing, Dinner's rant is largely fiction. For another, such a circumstance wouldn't be a problem for the US because we have and control a reserve currency. People who try to find the Greek crisis instructive for the United States are people who do not understand the functioning of national economies.

Funny how the idiot leftists on this board are running to Greece's defense, particularly when you consider the fact that Greece is (and will be) a textbook study on how decades of socialist and left-leaning governments can destroy a country's economy.

Right. Because giving uncontrolled and corrupt international banks the run of the country is step #1 in ensuring a socialist paradise.

Yes, decades of socialist mismanagement, followed now by close to a decade of austerity during a demand side depression. The first part is their own fault, the second part was really bad advice enforced by external powers. Austerity has not served to fix the economy. All it did was delay default. Now, when they do default, the economy is much worse off than it would have been had things been handled properly five years ago. And not only Greece, but the rest of the Eurozone will be worse off for the delayed reckoning.

That's not what I said, but thanks for putting words in my mouth.

The default answer is socialism works, they just weren't doing ot right.

My pleasure. You did say that the policies that got Greece to this point are a textbook study of socialism. Since the policies that got Greece here are unfettered financial corporate cronyism, I have to assume that you identify one with the other.

They weren't doing it at all.