Greece 2012

[Beet]

There is no such thing as "anti-austerity," except as a lie, a dream. The pot at the end of the rainbow to that one is north of the Alps.

[Beet]

There is no such thing as "anti-austerity," except as a lie, a dream. The pot at the end of the rainbow to that one is north of the Alps.

The pot was already given over at very low interest rates years earlier and the leprechauns now want it back and they are very, very persistent.

Just give it to them - not what they had but enough to prevent disaster from occurring. The well-being of one's neighbor is one's well-being, as well, to some extent. I would say the same about post WWI reparations as well.

[Beet]

New Democracy could form a coalition with Pasok, but from this tweet from Radiobubble's Spyros Gkelis suggests might not happen.

PASOK officially states that won't participate in any government without SYRIZA in it #Greece2012 #rbnews

If that is true, what was the point of even having an election? There will never be a national unity government. This is Weimar! They need a coalition of the sane parties.

[Beet]

They wouldn't be any worse off than they were before the election. If the logic is that they want to bring in more parties to share in unpopular decisions because they think they can't survive electorally, well they will never bring the Nazis and Communists together and god help us if those are the only two parties taking an opposition role.

[Beet]

It would be nice if someone would actually step up to the plate in that country and not constantly try to shift the burden to someone else.

[Beet]

She noted that the ND-PASOK coalition could not work again
because it had been 'battered' by the people and that the
country could not be governed by 41 percent of the electorate
with 59 percent opposed.

Thats interesting, because PASOK had no problem governing with 43% of the electorate in 2009

Not really a good comparison; PASOK and ND polled together almost 80% against 43% today.

Yeah but ND wasn't in government.

[Beet]

What I'm saying, and what Jaichind is saying, is that PASOK claims that a government whose parties got 41% between them wouldn't have democratic legitimacy, yet in 2009, they had no problem forming a government whose only party got 43%.  I didn't realize that there's a magic number between 41 and 43 that they think gives democratic legitimacy.  

Because the election that PASOK won was a "normal" one,  before the memorandum. This time makes sense what PASOK spokeswoman is saying.

Syriza is ahead in Samos, a KKE stronghold.

An election is an election. It isn't invalid just because the issues in one are different from the issues in another.

Another election is not likely to produce any more satisfactory result than this one, as long as ND and SYRIZA are at loggerheads.

Besides, what PASOK is asking for is basically that all the non-KKE/Golden Dawn parties form an unpopular coalition, forcing anyone who is against the government to vote KKE or Golden Dawn. This is a recipie for Golden Dawn's emergence as a big national party, the worst possible scenario. It is absolustely craven for PASOK to puts is own party interest ahead to risk this. They are making Samaras into Bruning and themselves into the hapless German SPD.

[Beet]

A national unity government isn't going to happen. All PASOK is doing is deepening the crisis by preventing the country from having a badly needed government.

[Beet]

Of course, the 'anti-bailout' SYRIZA's campaign consists of promising an even bigger bailout, even though it's not theirs to promise.

[Beet]

ATHENS--The radical left Syriza party that won second place in Sunday's Greek elections will not participate in a government with the conservative winner, New Democracy, which is expected to form a coalition with the Socialist Pasok party this week.

"We will fight tooth and nail to persuade Syriza to participate," said a senior official of Pasok, whose leader has called repeatedly for a broad government of national unity. "But failing that, we will not leave the country ungoverned," he said.

Pasok officials added that they would seek to form a government with New Democracy and smaller parties such as the Democratic Left.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120617-701186.html

Such a government would have 160+ votes, similar to or more than PASOK started with in 2009.

[Beet]

Tonight on CNBC, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera leads CNBC special documentary on "A Greek Tragedy." 8PM (eastern US, I assume)

Watch here
http://www.zahistation.com/watch-cnbc-live

[Beet]

Where's the CNBC special report? I must have gotten the time wrong.

The Greek people have once again put in a heroic effort. The ball is now in Germany's court.

This government has six months to achieve internal devaluation, fix the current account, balance the primary deficit, and generally meet the targets of the IMF/Troika agreement. F__king around isn't going to do it any more. The success depends on things like opening up the professions (for real, not just passing a law that says 'we'll open the professions' but when you actually see more taxis on the streets), massively slashing government payrolls and government salaries, and the like, instead of enacting new taxes. Cost cuts should be focused on operations, while infrastructure and other projects to boost growth should not be cut.

[Beet]

Since it appears that many civil servants have already seen their salaries cut by 3, how will you "slash government payrolls and salaries" ?

What are Greece's current unit labor costs? What is the month-over-month and year-over-year rate of CPI compared to Germany? What is the current account balance? What is the non-interest expenditure and its change over the past year, two years, three years?