For months now:

Greece in trouble - stock market slides.
EU develops rescue package for Greece - stocks go up.

Greece reports more troubles - stocks dip.
EU comes to the rescue - Dow goes back up.

Oh-oh, Greece is in trouble again - stocks plunge.
YAY! EU comes up with another plan - stocks soar.

Now Greece is hitting the skids - again - stocks tumble.


Can't those Euros figure out what the heck they are doing?

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
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1999 Toyota Tacoma

Maybe if Greece was allowed to host the Olympics . . .

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1984 300D, 138K

From everything I've read, it's simple to explain; mandatory retirement age is in the early 50s with free government benefits/pensions. Many of the have-nots (malcontents) are protesting in-the-streets about their bennys (government handouts) being cut. Government entitlements have ruined their economy, and they're taking down the other EUs. Similar to what will likely transpire here when government entitlements and handouts grow large enough. The bad news is that unfortunately we're getting there very quickly with the present regime in charge. Do a little reading on it.

That is what got them in this mess to begin with....

Do you have any idea how much those stadiums cost to build?

Not to mention the subway system they installed for the olympics. Add that with a bunch of lazy greeks who only want to work 30 hrs a week and retire at age 55. there is your problem.

I can say all this because I am greek. I have been there many times.

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Eugene

10 E63 AMG
93 300te 4matic
07 BMW X3
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I asked for other opinions, not a lecture.

BTW the other EU countries have pretty liberal social programs too.

My basic question reworded: Why is Greece's EU-brokered bailout see-sawing the stock market with repeated and confusing positive and then negative news?

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
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1999 Toyota Tacoma

Your post clearly reflected you are deficit in knowledge on Greece's economics. All free world economics are social & global - learn the the facts.

How would it NOT have an effect on world markets?

I've read some where that one of Greeks favorite pass-time is evading paying taxes. And that they estimated that they lost something like 30 billion. That combined with a welfare state and you have disaster coming.

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1979 Black on Black, 300CD (sold), 1990 Black 300SE, Silver 1989 Volvo 780, 1988 300CE (vanished by the hands of a girlfriend), 1992 300CE (Rescue).

Peoples of Europe. Rise up!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/world/europe/05greece.html?ref=global-home

The Socialist government of Prime Minister George Papandreou on Sunday announced belt-tightening measures intended to save ¤30 billion, or $39 billion, over the next three years. The plan is part of an effort to clear the way for a ¤110 billion rescue package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund aimed at preventing the country from defaulting on its debt.

The measures, including freezes in public sector salaries, cuts in pensions and higher sales taxes, amount to a cultural revolution in the social contract between state and citizen.

Public sector workers, including teachers and hospital employees, began striking Tuesday. A nationwide general strike planned for Wednesday aims to bring services like public transport to a halt across the country.


Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but you chains!"

Is there an echo in here?

Hmm. Like it's not OUR favorite pass-time?

How much do you think Americans have evaded over the years?

Just think of Prohibition alone, never mind all the other scams, business' " inadvertent omissions" etc.

No one in any country likes taxes and they avoid/evade what they can get away with.

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

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1990 350SDL daily driver alt
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3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

I don't think anyone ( including you and the EU) understands Greece's economics. Maybe that's why the bailout number grew from 0 Euros in December, when the country first signaled trouble but insisted no outside assistance was needed, to a paltry 20bn Euros infusion in February and 3 months later grew to 110bn. Each step of the way had analysts saying that the problem has been 'solved'.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

It would appear that Greece simply lied in order to get into the Euro Zone. According to the EuroZones own rules Greece should never have been let in. Once they were in and the true extent of their graft, corruption, incompetence, overleverage, unproductivity, laziness, what have you - became known the manure hit the fan. Problem is that once they are in they can't really be kicked out without the EU losing face. Especially the ruling elites who sold the whole Euro project to their vassals. Which vassals, particularly in Germany who are mainly stuck with paying for the Greek mess are most unhappy about it, but who cares, it's not as if the political class listens to the peasants anyway. Interestingly there are other countries with similar problems such as Portugal and Spain, or so I've read. And so it looks like this could get to be a far bigger problem for Europe than just Greece. Some have suggsted a worst case scenario resulting in the dissolution of the Euro Zone and a return to individal soverignty and pre Euro currencies. It will be interesting to watch what developes.
You can apparently sustain a massive welfare state for a time, but you have to have an exceptionally productive workforce to fund it. Greece does not.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
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1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

well, let's give credit (so to speak) where it's due. (and yes, it's the usual suspects )


Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.

Greeks aren't very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It's home to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data "cannot be confirmed" or has been requested but "not received."

Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting up government debt.Since 1999, the Maastricht rules threaten to slap hefty fines on euro member countries that exceed the budget deficit limit of three percent of gross domestic product. Total government debt mustn't exceed 60 percent.
The Greeks have never managed to stick to the 60 percent debt limit, and they only adhered to the three percent deficit ceiling with the help of blatant balance sheet cosmetics. One time, gigantic military expenditures were left out, and another time billions in hospital debt. After recalculating the figures, the experts at Eurostat consistently came up with the same results: In truth, the deficit each year has been far greater than the three percent limit. In 2009, it exploded to over 12 percent.

Now, though, it looks like the Greek figure jugglers have been even more brazen than was previously thought. "Around 2002 in particular, various investment banks offered complex financial products with which governments could push part of their liabilities into the future," one insider recalled, adding that Mediterranean countries had snapped up such products.

Greece's debt managers agreed a huge deal with the savvy bankers of US investment bank Goldman Sachs at the start of 2002. The deal involved so-called cross-currency swaps in which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro debt for a certain period -- to be exchanged back into the original currencies at a later date.

Fictional Exchange Rates

Such transactions are part of normal government refinancing. Europe's governments obtain funds from investors around the world by issuing bonds in yen, dollar or Swiss francs. But they need euros to pay their daily bills. Years later the bonds are repaid in the original foreign denominations.

But in the Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.

This credit disguised as a swap didn't show up in the Greek debt statistics. Eurostat's reporting rules don't comprehensively record transactions involving financial derivatives. "The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps," says a German derivatives dealer.

In previous years, Italy used a similar trick to mask its true debt with the help of a different US bank. In 2002 the Greek deficit amounted to 1.2 percent of GDP. After Eurostat reviewed the data in September 2004, the ratio had to be revised up to 3.7 percent. According to today's records, it stands at 5.2 percent.
At some point Greece will have to pay up for its swap transactions, and that will impact its deficit. The bond maturities range between 10 and 15 years. Goldman Sachs charged a hefty commission for the deal and sold the swaps on to a Greek bank in 2005.

The bank declined to comment on the controversial deal. The Greek Finance Ministry did not respond to a written request for comment.


oh, and aren't they involved ( tune to the of $5billion?) with our friend from omaha, the all knowing one.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

So there is a chance that the 110bn Euro assistance might not even halfway fill the hole that the Greeks have dug for themselves. Sounds pretty messy, especially with the creative financing deals. The member countries have been at odds before over the central bank's interest rates, but this will be a test of their true unity. I wonder if the EU has an expulsion clause that sites financial misrepresentation?

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Keep the rich rich and the poor poor is your answer to everything.

Anyone rich has likely got the smarts to keep it. Especially if they earned it.

The stupid will likely always be poor in your equation... You can't fix stupid.