Strike in Greece!

[Beet]

The unions are stupid. I hope the government crushes them. Other countries have taken austerity measures; why can't Greece?

Update:

On the other hand, what the credit ratings agencies did was genocide. Make no mistake. Where were they on private debt- subprime in 2004, 2005, 2006? If they had been a FRACTION as vigilant back then we would not be in this mess!

Greece can pay its debts. Sovereign debt has been remarkably resilient during this crisis until the credit rating agencies stepped in. Now they're going to create the very problems that their ratings supposedly are meant to warn against. This whole incident just shows that private corporations can bring sovereign nations to their knees. It is genocide.

On the other hand, the Greeks have no choice but austerity. This strike isn't going to help anything and will just make things worse.

[Sam Spade]

They're not just one the PIGS for nothing, you know...

[Beet]

I don't understand why Italy is included in the PIGS... you never hear about them.

[Sam Spade]

I don't understand why Italy is included in the PIGS... you never hear about them.

You will.  First things first though.

[Beet]

I don't understand why Italy is included in the PIGS... you never hear about them.

You will.  First things first though.

If we reach that point we're screwed, so you better be wrong.

[Sam Spade]

I don't understand why Italy is included in the PIGS... you never hear about them.

You will.  First things first though.

If we reach that point we're screwed, so you better be wrong.

Oh, on these matters I always hope I'm wrong.  It doesn't appear that I've been so far, however, even though timing has really been a bitch (always is).

Nevertheless, the correct comment for now is "we'll see."

Btw, on a somewhat related note, I hope you caught a lot of the movement from the top.  Still think there's a bit more to go for now... 

[Beet]

"We'll see" is always the correct comment, but it's never a very interesting one.

Edit: Also, what's interesting about Spain is that unlike most other Euro countries, the economy is showing no signs of recovery whatsoever. Unlike Italy, whose unemployment is still rising but whose economy is now growing, Spain's economy is still shrinking. Greece and Spain are the only two Eurozone countries still in recession. That suggests that something different is going on in these two countries as opposed to the rest of the Eurozone.

[Sam Spade]

"We'll see" is always the correct comment, but it's never a very interesting one.

Not always - some outcomes are so virtually certain that saying "we'll see" is a waste of time (not to mention misleading).

My gut says I should remove the "we'll see" from this one too, btw.  But I'm not that ego-centric.

[Beet]

"We'll see" is always the correct comment, but it's never a very interesting one.

Not always - some outcomes are so virtually certain that saying "we'll see" is a waste of time (not to mention misleading).

My gut says I should remove the "we'll see" from this one too, btw.  But I'm not that ego-centric.

If you're not providing any analysis, it is pretty boring.

[Sam Spade]

"We'll see" is always the correct comment, but it's never a very interesting one.

Not always - some outcomes are so virtually certain that saying "we'll see" is a waste of time (not to mention misleading).

My gut says I should remove the "we'll see" from this one too, btw.  But I'm not that ego-centric.

If you're not providing any analysis, it is pretty boring.

Ok, then let me be blunt.  The PIGS sovereign debt is crap, meaning a ticking time bomb.  We know why.  They have no real interest in cutting things because they regularly assume the EU, whoops I mean Germany, will bail them out.

It's one of those situations where if one of them goes, all of them will go, eventually.  And if Germany bails one of them out, all of them will get bailed out.  Either way trashes the Euro and destroys the Yen carry trade - henceforth a lot of what we saw today.  It just took a couple of almost failed bond auctions and typical chutzpah on the part of one of the PIGS to tip it over (a bit).

And I'm not even including Ireland and Eastern Europe - at least with a most of Eastern Europe there's no direct connection to the Euro other than currency pegs, so this just becomes a bank solvency issue.

[Beet]

Fair enough, but unwinding the yen carry trade? I thought that unwound a year ago. If you were loaning out yen to borrow in some other currency over the past year up until late November you were losing money. The talk was all of a dollar carry trade about three months ago.

I don't think it's all that unreasonable to have the EU provide some help to its most struggling members, provided that these members also agree to steep cuts. After all, the EU controls the money supply of all of these nations, and like it or not their fates are tied together as you hinted at, so it has some responsibility to all of these nations. Obviously though there should also be cuts and the unions' demands are unreasonable-- which may be the reason for the markets' reaction today and why there may be future volatility if the unions continue to resist.

[Sam Spade]

Fair enough, but unwinding the yen carry trade? I thought that unwound a year ago.

Not really.  Sure, it was unwound to some extent, but it's still there.  Look at what happened to the Yen today.  The dollar was really a sideshow in that game.  The Yen said to me today - "deleveraging".  And also "we're concerned about sovereign debt blowups in Europe".

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There was/is a dollar carry trade going on (whose participants are getting hurt, of course).  And btw, the downturn in the equities and high-risk bond markets occurred the same time that the dollar reached a strength point where those in a carry trade could feel it.

But don't think, in any way or form, that the dollar carry trade is anything but a miniscule point in comparison to the massive yen carry trade.  It never had the time to develop is the point I think I'm getting at.

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It's not unreasonable, but no one is going to do what you propose.  Partially because doing so would send all the EU back into recession, assuming they ever got out of there to begin with.

[Хahar 🤔]

Are these unions KKE-aligned?

[2952-0-0]

But what is the *purpose* of having carry trades at this particular time? Virtually all the world's biggest economies have had rock-bottom interest rates for over a year now.  I don't think the minuscule spreads between, say, 0.25% and 0.75% is work the currency risk.

[Beet]

Are these unions KKE-aligned?

The main striking union is the 2 million strong General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), representing private sector workers, and has called a general strike. Last December it sided with the regime during the December 2008 riots. Therefore, I doubt it is communist aligned.

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Australian interest rates have been 3 to 3.75%. And part of the carry trade is betting that a certain currency will fall, it seems.

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Why would a German bailout send all the EU back into recession? It seems a Greek default would be more likely to do that.

[Јas]

I don't understand why Italy is included in the PIGS... you never hear about them.

It's because their is no certainty, or at least uniformity, as to whether the I stands for Italy or Ireland (leading to the PIIGS variant also appearing at times).

When first constructed it pretty much exclusively referred to us, but increasingly it seems to refer to Italy instead.