Spiegel: German Government considers Grexit 'unavoidable' if Syriza wins Elections
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...o-disadvantage
Greece at distinct disadvantage if incoming leaders look to exit eurozone
Athens no longer has bargaining power it once held, with demands by Syriza for debt forgiveness likely to be turned down
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...syriza-011.jpg
Hard times ahead? Syriza party leaders, under Alexis Tsipras, are poised to dominate the post-election parliament, but may discover Athens no longer has the bargaining power. Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian
The bookies have cut the odds on a Greek exit from the eurozone to evens now that elections look likely to bring a leftist party to power with a mandate to wage war with Brussels.
The betting is that the Syriza party leaders who are poised to dominate the post-election parliament will discover Athens no longer has the bargaining power it once held.
Four years ago Greece was like the proverbial mouse to Europe’s elephant: tiny by comparison but with the capacity to frighten and destabilise.
Today the eurozone, while still the lumbering giant, has acquired a shrewdness that puts Greece at a distinct disadvantage. Brussels has managed to put a firebreak between it and the potential austerity rebels.
Syriza argues that the right-of-centre coalition’s determination to force through enough cuts to generate annual budget surpluses and thereby repay debt to Brussels, the International Monetary Fund and private lenders is a recipe for endless austerity and poverty. Greater forgiveness should be forthcoming from Brussels, allowing those debts to be repaid over a longer period.
However, eurozone leaders have spent much of the last couple of years shoring up the finances of the other crisis-hit countries, Ireland and Portugal, and binding those nations that came close to collapse, especially Spain, closer to Brussels’ bosom.
Eurozone bailout funds and infrastructure funds are often described as inadequate for the job of spurring growth, but are sufficient to maintain the currency zone’s stability.
It was a different situation in 2010 when the threat of a Greek exit first spooked international investors. Back then the world’s dominant fund managers saw a void at the centre of the eurozone. Worse, they believed a vote by any country large or small to pull out would spell the euro’s demise.
Now, investors believe their money is secure. Stock markets and debt markets, which freaked out in 2010, have discounted a Grexit in their forecasts for the coming year. It would have consequences, just not the seismic ones they once feared.
So without the shock value in this game of brinkmanship, Athens is the only loser.
Worse for Greece, many of the suits in Brussels believe that for all the bleating, it is a wealthy country that only need embark on some redistribution of its own to solve much of its poverty.
The hardened eurocrat thinks Greece, like troubled Italy and Spain, could deal with much of its poverty with crackdowns on obvious corruption and a burgeoning hidden economy.
With this in mind, demands for debt forgiveness from Syriza will be met with smiles and a firm no. From Berlin to Helsinki, there is little support for the voters of Greece.
Oh I do hope Syriza wins the Elections, the polls are certainly indicting so for the elections to be held on the 25th January. True, Syriza may be a far-left party that will only bring disaster to Greece (although how much more than the EU has already managed, who knows) but the good thing about them winning an election is that it is very likely Greece then exits the Eurozone, reintroduces the Drachma currency and devalues: something that will be painful in the shorter term but the mid to longer term will see Greece do much better. And that's why: one the other countries suffering under the foolish Euro see what life is like on the outside, they will in turn be likely to exit. A domino effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_l...#Opinion_polls
A related graph I saw says it all. Each to their own country always works better than utopian idealistic projects.
An ENTIRE decade literally thrown away and wasted across Europe.
The polling in Spain at the moment is also very interesting.
Thoughts?
