Greek elections

[Diamond]

yeh, but that doesn't rebut Athos' claim that you haven't a clew what you're talking about

A clew? Please clarify?

 

[Pickman's model]

A clew? Please clarify?

don't maunder so, it adds weight to the general belief that you don't know what you're talking about. btw if you can't use google please contact the librarian at your law firm who will - at least initially - be happy to help you.

 

[happie chappie]

Greece may be able to leave the Euro but the Euro won’t be leaving Greece.

A return to the Drachma, while not impossible and may even be desirable for the reasons stated in Post 2512 above, will likely lead to 2 parallel Greek economies - one based on the Drachma and the other on the Euro.

Anyone with any sense and access to Euros will always chose this as a medium of exchange rather than the Drachma which, as Co-op pointed out, is liable to plunge in value.

So rich Greeks will get access to the best goods and services available only to those who can pay in Euros and the poor will have to make do with a rapidly devaluing Drachma.

An analogy would be the old Soviet Union where those who had access to US Dollars, a small minority of mainly powerful people, were able to purchase goods and services that were way beyond the reach of most ordinary Russians.

 

[Diamond]

It's quite clear that Syriza's tactics - and that includes their negotiations - have changed the game. So the "art of the possible" includes the "art of what was previously thought impossible".

For someone who's sounding off about Varoufakis's mistakes and academic foolishness in his 'real life' understanding of Game Theory, I'm surprised that you've missed the obvious element of GT in his resignation (with the added little leaks suggesting that Tsipras "told him to go").

He just did Bad Cop, and now we will have Good Cop.

Syriza also just offered a sacrifice before one was demanded, (The Strong Sacrifice, ie one made from a position of - admittedly temporary - strength) thus wrong-footing the troika and preventing them from "demanding" Varofakis's head and making Syriza "comply with" that demand. This makes Syriza "reasonable" and "moderate" in the eyes of the media and the watching EU public, and allows the troika to make a reciprocal sacrifice without losing face.

He'll be back eventually and obviously deeply involved in strategy in the meantime.

This is not a zero sum game but we have ended up in a place where greek banks have been closed now for seven days.

I met up with a Greek friend with German heritage who grew up in Britain and currently works for the ECB in Frankfurt, although perhaps for not much longer, and the one thing he said to me and other friends via whatsapp before we met up is that he did not want to talk about Grexit because it was too painful on a personal level - he knew too many people wrapped up in it.

But the one thing that he did say was that Syriza are complete eejits and that Varoufakis is a preening tool who has systematically managed to piss off every person of any influence (possibly in the same way that I have on these boards!).

 

[Kaka Tim]

So ... someone who works for the ECB doesn't like Syriza.

Well blow me down.

 

[belboid]

(possibly in the same way that I have on these boards!).

Np, you manage that by being utterly full of shit and talking palpable nonsense. Pretty much no one believes a word you say, or pays you any attention, except for giggles. You have got almost every significant detail over Syriza wrong, and haven't displayed any understanding of the terms you try to use.

 

[Diamond]

Greece may be able to leave the Euro but the Euro won’t be leaving Greece.

A return to the Drachma, while not impossible and may even be desirable for the reasons stated in Post 2512 above, will likely lead to 2 parallel Greek economies - one based on the Drachma and the other on the Euro.

Anyone with any sense and access to Euros will always chose this as a medium of exchange rather than the Drachma which, as Co-op pointed out, is liable to plunge in value.

So rich Greeks will get access to the best services available only to those who can pay in Euros and the poor will have to make do with a rapidly devaluing Drachma.

There’ll also be a massive black market in Euros.

An analogy would be the old Soviet Union where those who had access to US Dollars, a small minority of mainly powerful people, were able to purchase goods and services that were way beyond the reach of most ordinary Russians.

There was an official exchange Rouble/Dollar rate but there was no shortage of people willing to offer far, far better rates just to get hold of Dollars.

Sure but nor will the dollar leave Greece - in fact there is an argument to say that if Greece leaves the Eurozone, the alternative currency of preference will be USD.

But beyond that the wider effects will devastate the Greek economy to such an extent that I would suspect that anyone who has any money and the capability to do so will leave while EU freedom of movement remains.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I met up with a Greek friend with German heritage who grew up in Britain and currently works for the ECB in Frankfurt, although perhaps for not much longer, and the one thing he said to me and other friends via whatsapp before we met up is that he did not want to talk about Grexit because it was too painful on a personal level - he knew too many people wrapped up in it.

And this is all 100%, totally not a steaming pile of bullshit


edited on advice from Diamond

 

[Pickman's model]

But the one thing that he did say was that Syriza are complete eejits and that Varoufakis is a preening tool who has systematically managed to piss off every person of any influence (possibly in the same way that I have on these boards!).

you've also pissed off a number of people here without any influence

 

[Diamond]

And this is all 100%, totally not a steaming pile of bullshit

Are you suggesting that I am not telling the truth?

If so, on what basis and why?

 

[butchersapron]

I'm wondering if there's any mileage to be got out of looking at this via the idea of 'legitmation crisis' concept. Briefly, via habermas + gramsci, modern democratic states are ran around the principles of authority rather than (open imposition) of power, authority is the acceptance of power as legitimate. In the classical sense the idea applied to states, but here i think we have something interesting taking place - namely, the state retaining it's authority but wider bodies losing theirs and being forced back into power.

Within the states based theory that Habermas came up with society (note, not the state) had a number of adaptive, learning mechanisms that could be used to return legitimacy to the state if the state responded adequately (He actually says that the states reaction to this is one way that social progress is made, that it can elevate social organisation to higher level though collective debate and action) - but there simply is no such european society to drive these processes, there is only power. The EU (and the IMF) have no access to the authority-producing stablisation mechanisms that states may develop - and those states that failed to develop them ended up in real crisis, that actually often passed into insurrectionary or revolutionary periods. (Often over many years, see the long Spanish 20s and 30s).

i think a lot of this - if relevant - will be lost in the pared down economic debate. The splitting of the political and economic.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

So ... someone who works for the ECB doesn't like Syriza.

 

[butchersapron]

I was in Plymouth recently and a 40-year-old black man ... said, 'I came here when I was six, I've served in the Royal Navy for 30 years, I'm incredibly proud of my country. But I'm so ashamed that we've had this out-of-control system with people abusing it so badly'."

 

[Diamond]

In fact, you have a track record of getting stuff wrong with regard to my personal life Bahnhoff Strasse.

You seem to have a nastily overactive imagination - perhaps correspondingly in inverse proportion to the mundanity of your personal life...?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Are you suggesting that I am not telling the truth?

I was backing you up, validating your claim in the face of belboid calling you out as a man who tells lies. If your guilty conscience makes you feel otherwise I am more than happy to edit my post?

 

[butchersapron]

Are there any threads that you post on that you don't turn to shit diamond?

 

[Diamond]

I'm wondering if there's any mileage to be got out of looking at this via the idea of 'legitmation crisis' concept. Briefly, via habermas + gramsci, modern democratic states are ran around the principles of authority rather than (open imposition) of power, authority is the acceptance of power as legitimate. In the classical sense the idea applied to states, but here i think we have something interesting taking place - namely, the state retaining it's authority but wider bodies losing theirs and being forced back into power.

Within the states based theory that Habermas came up with society (note, not the state) had a number of adaptive, learning mechanisms that could be used to return legitimacy to the state if the state responded adequately (He actually says that the states reaction to this is one way that social progress is made, that it can elevate social organisation to higher level though collective debate and action) - but there simply is no such european society to drive these processes, there is only power. The EU (and the IMF) have no access to the authority-producing stablisation mechanisms that states may develop - and those states that failed to develop them ended up in real crisis, that actually often passed into insurrectionary or revolutionary periods. (Often over many years, see the long Spanish 20s and 30s).

i think a lot of this - if relevant - will be lost in the pared down economic debate. The splitting of the political and economic.

Bit dense in every sense of the word.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Are there any threads that you post on that you don't turn to shit diamond?

Can the cunt just fuck off please? I knew very little of what's going on in Greece and was finding this thread quite useful until he came along.

 

[co-op]

So rich Greeks will get access to the best goods and services ...and the poor will have to make do with [out]...

How exactly is this scenario different from now?

 

[belboid]

Greece may be able to leave the Euro but the Euro won’t be leaving Greece.

A return to the Drachma, while not impossible and may even be desirable for the reasons stated in Post 2512 above, will likely lead to 2 parallel Greek economies - one based on the Drachma and the other on the Euro.

Anyone with any sense and access to Euros will always chose this as a medium of exchange rather than the Drachma which, as Co-op pointed out, is liable to plunge in value.

So rich Greeks will get access to the best goods and services available only to those who can pay in Euros and the poor will have to make do with a rapidly devaluing Drachma.

An analogy would be the old Soviet Union where those who had access to US Dollars, a small minority of mainly powerful people, were able to purchase goods and services that were way beyond the reach of most ordinary Russians.

I am yet to be convinced that Greece will be thrown out - partly because I think that would be the best solution for it and its ills. But can you imagine what would happen if a weak economy left, and suddenly (well, comparatively suddenly) became successful? That would be the biggest threat to the Euro, rather than any run on banks, etc.

I can well see Syriza striking a deal tho, especially now they've pulled the other three centrist parties in. they were close as damn it prior to negotiations breaking down, so it wont take much at all to close that final gap. Two things are required: firstly the debt rescheduling that everyone apart from Merkel has agreed needs to happen. It's a fucking no brainer, to hold Greece to the current terms and conditions helps absolutely no one. The second would be a serious political restructuring - not just bits of the economy, a bit of messing around with taxes and pensions (tho that would be a part of it), but the creation of a proper civil service, a bureaucracy that will enforce tax regs, and will stop (well, lessen) the rampant nepotism that runs through Greek society. One of the Paul Mason pieces recently made the point that Varafoukis, and all the ministers, are basically running themselves ragged, because they have no one to delegate to, no one else can organise and deliver a press conference, let alone nomine a head of a bank. Nepotism, cronyism, and a history or looking the other way have been part of Greece since the end of the dictatorship. Only by getting rid of that can Greece grow.

The irony, for the EU, is that given the complicity of all the other parties, it is only Syriza who are likely to be in any position to achieve that.

That there would be two currencies running alongside would definitely be the case if they are forced to leave. See Cuba, for example - there would, thanks to tourism, be a much wider set of people than in the old USSR who would have access to hard currency, so it would be a tad fairer, but not vastly.

 

[belboid]

in the face of belboid calling you out as a man who tells lies.

Not what I said. Not much point paying any attention to you if you can't read what is written or just make things up, is there?

 

[co-op]

But the one thing that he did say was that Syriza are complete eejits and that Varoufakis is a preening tool who has systematically managed to piss off every person of any influence (possibly in the same way that I have on these boards!).

So ... someone who works for the ECB doesn't like Syriza.

Well blow me down.

Beaten to it by KT.

By the way Diamond, contra what you say, this *is* a zero-sum game. The better the Greeks do, the worse the creditors do, it's almost definitionally zero-sum. Why get into Game Theory language and arguments when you don't know much about them?

The only non zero solution to this impasse was for the IMF to do what it was originally set up to do and provide liquidity to an economy that is crashing in order to allow it to start growing again. Then it could possibly pay off its debts, everyone's a winner. But this method is predicated on having a currency that can devalue so leaving the euro is aa sine qua non of this route.

 

[Santino]

Bit dense in every sense of the word.

Hard to understand? Not for all of us.

 

[happie chappie]

Sure but nor will the dollar leave Greece - in fact there is an argument to say that if Greece leaves the Eurozone, the alternative currency of preference will be USD.

But beyond that the wider effects will devastate the Greek economy to such an extent that I would suspect that anyone who has any money and the capability to do so will leave while EU freedom of movement remains.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s the Dollar or the Euro (although it’s more likely to be the Euro as that’s the currency already in circulation and the one used by most of its closest neighbours) the principle is the same.

The rich will remain relatively insulated from the effects of a return to the Drachma while the poor will suffer even more than they are now.

 

[MochaSoul]

Can the cunt just fuck off please? I knew very little of what's going on in Greece and was finding this thread quite useful until he came along.

The only way (that I can see) for that to happen, in a reasonable way, is if people ignore him. Trolls, idiots and pigs love the sound of their own voices. That the conversation keeps being derailed to question and comment on his stuff is unfortunate for those of us who feel as you do too.

 

[kebabking]

...i think a lot of this - if relevant - will be lost in the pared down economic debate. The splitting of the political and economic.

i'm not sure i agree with the point regarding the supranational vs the national, given the dependancy of the supranational organs on the national states for power - for example that its Merkel who's the big beast in this affair, not Dhragi - but an interesting peice nonetheless.

 

[killer b]

Can the cunt just fuck off please? I knew very little of what's going on in Greece and was finding this thread quite useful until he came along.

Just don't respond to him. Any of us. It works, if you hold the line.

 

[happie chappie]

How exactly is this scenario different from now?

I think it would be even worse for ordinary Greeks than it is now - but that's just my opinion.

 

[belboid]

I'm wondering if there's any mileage to be got out of looking at this via the idea of 'legitmation crisis' concept. Briefly, via habermas + gramsci, modern democratic states are ran around the principles of authority rather than (open imposition) of power, authority is the acceptance of power as legitimate. In the classical sense the idea applied to states, but here i think we have something interesting taking place - namely, the state retaining it's authority but wider bodies losing theirs and being forced back into power.

Within the states based theory that Habermas came up with society (note, not the state) had a number of adaptive, learning mechanisms that could be used to return legitimacy to the state if the state responded adequately (He actually says that the states reaction to this is one way that social progress is made, that it can elevate social organisation to higher level though collective debate and action) - but there simply is no such european society to drive these processes, there is only power. The EU (and the IMF) have no access to the authority-producing stablisation mechanisms that states may develop - and those states that failed to develop them ended up in real crisis, that actually often passed into insurrectionary or revolutionary periods. (Often over many years, see the long Spanish 20s and 30s).

i think a lot of this - if relevant - will be lost in the pared down economic debate. The splitting of the political and economic.

One of the key things I think Syriza (or at least Syriza barring its Left Platform) want to do is to actually create a modern, bourgeois, state. The legacy of the dictatorship is such that, as I said above, there is no real civil service, no mediator between the government, the oligarchs, and the people. That leads, frequently, to a godawful mess that serves no one very well - not even the existing oligarchs, who are prone to instability and the dangers of explosions from below. But they are still in power, so their impetus to change things is limited - after all, a change might make things worse for them.

 

[Athos]

In negotiation one gives something to get something. Anything the Greek govt. now offers in now debased in value as they've shown themselves to be not particularly good at delivering on things they previously promised with much arsing about, obfuscation and back tracking. So they now have to offer more to get less.

Donald Trump covers this in some detail in The Art of the Deal.

WOW!