Greece Has Spent A Half-Century In Default Or Restructuring

Greece Has Spent A Half-Century In Default Or Restructuring (ZeroHedge, July 3, 2015):

On Thursday, we highlighted the pitiable plight of Greek businesses which, facing an acute cash crunch and suppliers unwilling to provide credit ahead of the country’s weekend referendum, are being forced to close the doors.

The country’s banks are set to run out of physical banknotes “in a matter of days” according to a “person familiar with the situation” who spoke to WSJ and Constantine Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, fears the country’s stock of imported goods will only last for two or three more weeks.

Meanwhile, Greeks have resorted to scavenging for food and picking through dustbins for scrap metal and as we noted on Wednesday, this is hardly a recent development in Greece. High unemployment has plagued the country for years , becoming endemic and relegating many Greeks to a life of perpetual and severe economic hardship.

Indeed, as BofAML notes, a look back at the country’s history shows that Athens has been in default or some manner of debt rescheduling for nearly a quarter of the past two centuries. 

GreeceDefaultHistory

The bank goes on to make a rather unflattering comparison between the implied market cap of Greek stocks on Monday and a certain US-based bath towel supplier: “The announcement of a bank holiday & capital controls caused a 20% drop in the local equity market (as implied by ETFs), putting the market cap of MSCI Greece on a par with that of Bed, Bath & Beyond.” 

But Athenians are in no mood for backhanded humor, because as one 83-year old told WSJ this week, “Tsipras has turned this country into North Korea.” 

3 thoughts on “Greece Has Spent A Half-Century In Default Or Restructuring”

  1. Isn’t it typical. Greece never, ever met the criteria for membership of the European Common Market.

    That’s what we were all told it was, a Free Trade Association where Trade Protectionist Barriers were eliminated for members.

    Suddenly, following the collapse of USSR, we find ourselves part of a “Community”, called the EEC.

    This morphs into the EU. No discussion, no formal date of inception, no consultation or even advanced notice, it just slid past everyone and suddenly every member State relinquishes all legal, financial and social control.

    It was always a ruse for power over the many by the few. Lies, lies and more lies.

    Reply
  2. I agree a great deal with Stanley. It was a quick fix by a few small nations to become a large economic power by claiming to be one…….just nobody look too closely. I have followed the Euro since its inception, and it was all a get rich scheme…….they wanted buying power to compete with the US and China.

    Now, nobody is buying…….and the Euro, like the US (and China) is mired in debt. The only product sold on any of the markets is debt, packaged as assets…..just like mortgage backed securities, and other products designed using Enron Accounting. None of the corruption in the markets that caused the biggest global economic crash in history was outlawed or repaired…..All the crooked schemes are alive and well, a few greedy guts running huge funds that rig and control the results of each selling day.

    They borrowed Napoleon’s idea of a Continental System, but allowed each nation to claim its own level of wealth without any central economic oversight and control. They just took each leader’s word for it, pure madness.They used Napoleon’s idea of one common currency, but without being backed with gold. If any of them had a sold cent, they would have refused to join.

    Why did anyone think the Swiss refused? That ought to have warned people.

    The world is now buried in debt. The Greek refusal to keep the lying game going has caused a huge rift in the web of economic lies that have kept a false global system running. Suddenly, the break is there for all to see.

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
    And All the King’s horses, and All the King’s men
    Couldn’t put Humpty back together again……..

    Nothing can put the cats back into the bag………..Germany, France, Italy and Spain are the four nations underwriting 98% of Greece’s debt……None of them can afford such economic exposure and loss…….The money is gone. Greece cannot repay such huge sums. The interest alone must be in the billions.

    Greedy guts and their cohorts the bankers have done it again….this time on a scale that surpasses the fall of Rome……the debt level is so high, so in excess of what the world actually can produce, that it can never be repaid. The global system will collapse, and the greedy guts have only themselves to blame for their excessive losses.

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