Greece Updates

[Mitsui2]

He said Greece's political leaders are striking the right balance between cutting public debt and stimulating economic growth.

Isn't that an important difference between there and here - our boyos are omitting the stimulation bit. Mind you they can hardly be said to be cutting public debt either, since they're funnelling the money to the banks instead.

O well, at least we don't have Greece's tax-dodging problems

[bananarepublic.ie]

I was gathering some info on it, being open EU country just cant blv it they hiding their figures from the normal eyes for 6 yrs. As EU member country how could such thing can happen really baffals me?
If it happend to Zimbabew or North Korea then one can under stand but its OECD country?

Since last thursday Bond market is shunning away from euro bonds, big EU guns France & Germany internally furious.

Asset manager from UK is furious today on newnight. This is out right lie. At its Iceland said "Yes we are screwed", for 6 yrs they cooking up the books in govt. Cant imagine what will a opportunistic bankers in greek will do?


The Greek crisis is Europe's crisis

The economic crisis has raised a bonfire of the vanities. It floored countries like Iceland and Ireland, where the prosperity and property booms were found to be driven by a financial system that went quickly bust. But Greece is on a different level: it's not the banks that are bust but the country.

The incoming Pasok (Pan-hellenic socialist) government discovered that instead of 3%, or even the revised 6% of GDP, the budget deficit was running to 13%. Somebody had been mis-stating the figures; whole tranches of defence expenditure, for example, seem to have been covered up.

And while a 13% deficit - and a 110% national debt for that matter - are not a disaster for a developed country, they cannot really be sustained in a country where, as my Greek barber puts it, "not paying your taxes is a national sport".

[Cassandra Syndrome]

Watching Jeff Randall last night and he was talking to Prof Stiglitz Nobel prize winner.

He claimed that Greece was in a good posiiton and could pay of its debts, and all this talk of bailouts and problems was just scare mongering.

He said Greece's political leaders are striking the right balance between cutting public debt and stimulating economic growth.

Watch the interview on the link below.

Jeff Randall Live: Professor Joseph Stiglitz Says Eurozone Governments Should 'Burn' Speculators | Business | Sky News

Did you see Stiglitz tonight on Newsnight? He got ripped apart by a cocky Hedgefund manage, very bizarre.

[H.R. Haldeman]

Yeah, that was Hugh Hendry who speaks softly but is actually exceptionally rude and confrontational whenever I see him. Massive ego, but I suspect one of those guys who gets it right more often than wrong.

Speaking of egos, here he is with Taleb, Weber et al at the Russian Forum 2010. A very interesting video.

The Russia Forum 2010

[Bi ciuin]

Didnt see Newsnight, but watching Blomberg and they are saying the fears over Greece have almost gone, and its full steam ahead again!

You couldnt make this stuff up, one minute we have a crisis the next its all ahead again.