The Big Bailout of the Eurozone (Another crisis coming? - Seriously)

[Pub Bore]

Varoufakis has resigned.  The markets are taking that to be a sign there could be some sort of "deal" in the offing.

[Crete Boom]

Can the EU and Germany not just make them have another referendum to get the vote they want like they do with us?

[easytiger95]

i think debt relief is coming - unless the long term debt is made sustainable, no short term measures will mean anything. Youth unemployment in Greece is at 55%. A society cannot function under those conditions.

I think the vision of European leaders needs to be expanded. A narrative of feckless Greeks (no matter how true some of the aspects of it are) serves no useful function in securing the survival of the euro and solidity of the EU. We need something on the scale of the Marshall plan to make the southern economies sustainable and functional, and that means all aspects of their societies, including the immigration crisis.

End game for this has to be much tighter political integration, the forging of a European civic identity, and the willingness of northern taxpayers to help southern compatriots to serve a common good. Otherwise, wrap up the EU and break out the punts.

Interesting times.

[LeoMc]

There no point defaulting unless you do it from the word go, Is Ireland any better off since the Euro was introduced, was life that bad under the punt, i remember it been worth  £1.05 around 1996, now a euro worth 0.72, Should Ireland not have done what the UK done and stayed in the union but kept its currency?

Now if i was Russia i be eying up a few ports for monetary payoffs, that's really put the cats among the pigeons!!

Now I am open to correction but my reading would be that if Ireland had not joined the Euro then when 2007 came along and the bubble burst there would have been no onus on the ECB to step in with loans. Ireland would have went the way of Iceland and the banks would have went under.
This would have been a bigger short term pain (personal savings wiped out for those with no off-shore account) but less long term debts (no Troika).

[armaghniac]

There no point defaulting unless you do it from the word go, Is Ireland any better off since the Euro was introduced, was life that bad under the punt, i remember it been worth  £1.05 around 1996, now a euro worth 0.72, Should Ireland not have done what the UK done and stayed in the union but kept its currency?

Now if i was Russia i be eying up a few ports for monetary payoffs, that's really put the cats among the pigeons!!

Now I am open to correction but my reading would be that if Ireland had not joined the Euro then when 2007 came along and the bubble burst there would have been no onus on the ECB to step in with loans. Ireland would have went the way of Iceland and the banks would have went under.
This would have been a bigger short term pain (personal savings wiped out for those with no off-shore account) but less long term debts (no Troika).

But if Ireland hadn't been in Euro, interest rates would have been higher, property prices 20% less and banks wouldn't have needed as much money.

[LeoMc]

There no point defaulting unless you do it from the word go, Is Ireland any better off since the Euro was introduced, was life that bad under the punt, i remember it been worth  £1.05 around 1996, now a euro worth 0.72, Should Ireland not have done what the UK done and stayed in the union but kept its currency?

Now if i was Russia i be eying up a few ports for monetary payoffs, that's really put the cats among the pigeons!!

Now I am open to correction but my reading would be that if Ireland had not joined the Euro then when 2007 came along and the bubble burst there would have been no onus on the ECB to step in with loans. Ireland would have went the way of Iceland and the banks would have went under.
This would have been a bigger short term pain (personal savings wiped out for those with no off-shore account) but less long term debts (no Troika).

But if Ireland hadn't been in Euro, interest rates would have been higher, property prices 20% less and banks wouldn't have needed as much money.

I am not so sure of that. The Government of the time still had their hands on a number of levers to control lending and spending to reduce the developing bubble. With the ECB and Bank of England both maintaining historically low interest rates it is quite possible that the Irish banks would have followed suit. They still had the capacity to borrow from abroad.

[easytiger95]

Problem was we had historically low interest rates at the wrong times - the start of the euro was just the spark needed. So whilst it meant that Germany could sell their manufacturing goods abroad in a currency much weaker then the deutsche mark, we were borrowing loads of said currency without a thought of consequences.

Which is not to say we didn't throw petrol on the flames ourselves - SSIAs, tax breaks on property, boom getting boomier etc

We really should be suing whichever academic body gave McCreevey and Ahern accounting degrees.

[armaghniac]

Ahern doesn't have a degree! The SSIA wasn't a bad idea, but Aherne made sure that it paid out at the election, if it had paid out a year later when things were beginning to slow it would have done some good.

[trileacman]

Problem was we had historically low interest rates at the wrong times - the start of the euro was just the spark needed. So whilst it meant that Germany could sell their manufacturing goods abroad in a currency much weaker then the deutsche mark, we were borrowing loads of said currency without a thought of consequences.

Which is not to say we didn't throw petrol on the flames ourselves - SSIAs, tax breaks on property, boom getting boomier etc

We really should be suing whichever academic body gave McCreevey and Ahern accounting degrees.

The SSIA was not a poor decision, encouraging saving was something that should've been done alot more, not pissing it up the wall at the Galway races.

[Rossfan]

SSIA was taxing rich and poor people so the Govt. could give free money to people who had enough to spare to put away every month.

[macdanger2]

Did the SSIA not encourage people to save instead of building up debt?

[Rossfan]

It was giving public money to people who didn't need it.

[armaghniac]

The SSIA was a sound idea, promote saving, normally the government justvdoes the DIRT on savers. And the money came from the class of person who pays the most tax.

[Rossfan]

I couldn't afford a feckin SSIA but was paying tax some of which was going straight to the pockets of better heeled people due to that thing.

[armaghniac]

As the purpose of the SSIA was to promote saving rather than spending this was a good use of your tax.