# Any realistic way out of the Greece mess whatsoever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508 "2012-02-21T07:01:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/41 "2012-02-21T23:51:35Z")
First off, I want to make a note of Paul Krugman. I know he’s everybody’s favorite left-wing economist. Howewver, first off, he has a habit of making grand pronouncements of opinions as if they were fact, particularly when it’s far outside his actual expertise. He’s a trade theorist, and he knows little more about macroeconomics than any well-educated college graduate. Moreover, he knows nothing more about _public finance_ than the average man on the street. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I at least listen to many experts who disagree. For what it’s worth, here’s what I believe: In the last few years, he further has a habit of handwaving objections to spending other people’s money. This is especially funny in the case of Greece, because there is no such money to spend anymore. Every time Greece needs cash, they basically have to go begging and scraping to Germany. (He likewise seems to be awfully puffed up about “calling” the bubble, when he called it at the wrong time, in the wrong scale, for the wrong reasons, and was beat to it by more accurate predictions.) Frankly, why the Germans should care how much damage is being done to Greece is a question he doesn’t answer. He, and many others, seem to have assumed it automatically came with the Euro, but Germany is not well-situated to continually bail out Greece, let alone the entire southern Eurozone, even if it were interested or had a mroal obligation to do so. And make no mistake, Germany will have to bear the brunt of this burden and really can’t do it for long. Meanwhile, Greece will essentially engage in long, slowly, mouldering collapse rather than getting it over with. Frankly, either Argentina or Peru would be a damn site better than what’s going on, and epect this to repeat down the line, along with new demands from Italy, maybe Portugal, and possibly Spain. Of course, Germany is also part of the problem in a way, because its getting a freakish proportion of foreign exchange. Their economy has exploded because the Euro is underpricing their exports, which is in reverse crushing the economies of southern Europe, now well overpriced. In short, the honest and hardworking German laborer is also sucking out a lot of the vital force from Europe. And the same Greek citizens who are being crushed by forces beyond their control are also lazing it around. Neither might be totally getting what they want, but both make rational choices in response to the environment (stupidly) created. But the issue here is not the relative morality of workers: after all, the German workers aren’t going to do all that for nothing or let all their gains be taxed away to keep southern Europe afloat, and likewise the Greeks can’t work if there’s nothing to make, do, or sell. And tyhis is where so many desperate dreamers, trying to find a way to kleep tye Euro around just _One. More. Day._ fail. You can’t effectively tax total wealth; only income. And you can’t tax income the way you want because (surprise surprise) people won’t pay. There are laws which go far beyond the whims of an increasingly unelected ruling clique. Yes, the only awy out is to bite the bullet and find a way to end the Euro. The EU doesn’t have to go, at least not yet. And it will probably survive _in some form_, if not the dream of a federal state so badly tarnished in recent years. And it will be brutally painful along the way. However, you’re trying to stick together a dozen trains of wildy differing size, scale, and purpose. Are you really surprised they’re running off the rails? Forward thinkers warned about this, and the only thing they got wrong was how badly it would fail and how long Europe’s leaders would dance about avoiding reality. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/42 "2012-02-22T00:02:22Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > He’s a trade theorist, and he knows little more about macroeconomics than any well-educated college graduate. Well, maybe a well educated college graduate who had read his [book](http://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics-Textbook-Krugman-Paperback-Softcover/dp/B000VI37T2). ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/43 "2012-02-22T01:35:30Z")
It’s like 10 years ago Germany married Greece, thinking “I know he’s a rapscallion but he seems so sincere now, and if I work hard I know I can change him!” Such things always end well, don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/44 "2012-02-22T02:08:04Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > So you predict violence in Ireland? I don’t see it happening. Not for a long while yet anyway. 😕 Did you just say you **don’t** predict violence in Ireland?! Has history really come to that?! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/45 "2012-02-22T02:09:14Z")
Treat the country like a failed restaurant and burn it down for the insurance. Say it started with a grease fire. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/46 "2012-02-22T02:10:25Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Why don’t the Germans just buckle down and pay? To me, it is part of being the economic power in Europe. It is like what they faced 16 years ago (they bought East Germansy). Yes, it cost them over $800 billion-but it HAD to be done. Europe cannot thrive with Greece in its current situation-so keep on working and paying taxes. > the thing is, Greece will never reform itself, as long as others keep paying their bills. So the whole thing has to stop-liquidate Greece and end the discussion. Just think of it as like how richer states in the U.S. tax-subsidize the poorer. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/47 "2012-02-22T02:12:41Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Just to expand a little on my previous point, joining the EU led to pretty huge growth rates in peripheral countries. Irelands GDP more then doubled since 2000. Ditto Portugals. Greece’s has tripled. Even if they give back a lot of these gains during the recession, the average Greek or Irishman is much wealthier then he was in 2000, and will probably continue to be so. > > And the experience of Argentina and Iceland suggests that if they default, after contraction they’ll gain back what they loose pretty quickly. In which case the average citizen will be much richer then he was a decade ago. You make all this sound like the growing pains of a fat, happy future for Europe. Really nothing worse than that or more than that?! ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/48 "2012-02-22T09:10:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 > > Did you just say you **don’t** predict violence in Ireland?! > > Has history really come to that?! > > 🙂 I know you’re joking but as pertains violence specifically in reaction to the current political/economic situation, no I don’t see any violence. Our government likes to vilify protests and protestors but most go off without any anti-social behaviour. There are of course exceptions such as the [Dublin Riots in 2006](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Dublin_riots) but pretty much anyone with half a brain could have predicted they’d happen. Note these weren’t related to any economic measures. ---
**Author:** ![robinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/848f3c/32.png) [@robinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinson)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/49 "2012-02-22T18:17:05Z")
Yes, but there are two stupid coyotes and no roadrunner to last out the cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/50 "2012-02-23T21:22:03Z")
Well here’s a novel solution - cut public worker’s pay **retroactively**. > [@](#): > > Salary cutbacks (called “unified payroll”) for contract workers at the public sector set to be finalized today. Cuts to be valid retroactively since november 2011. Expected result: Up to 64.000 people will work without salary this month, or even be asked to return money. Amongst them 21.000 teachers, 13.000 municipal employees and 30.000 civil servants. Simply extend these back to all Greek politicians until you reach the required number of Euros I say. Caveat: all the sources I’ve seen for this link back to [The Press Project](http://www.thepressproject.gr/listen.php?id=13457&date=2012-02-22), a site I’m unfamiliar with, and unsure of its reliability. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/51 "2012-02-23T21:26:50Z")
Oh and the yield for 1 year Greek bonds is now [over 763%](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/greek-1-year-hits-763). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/52 "2012-02-23T22:26:12Z")
Hearing nothing better, I have two solutions. 1. Pass a law in the EU to require that each EU worker spend a week of his or her copious vacation time in Greece. That should help the economy. 2. Convert a significant number of government jobs into that of tax collector, with a bounty for all tax deadbeats turned in. Special bonus for millionaires and Parliament Members. Special double bonus for those in the tax department. Well, it’s something at least. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/53 "2012-02-27T04:27:16Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > All I really “get” about this issue is that Greece going down would bring down the entire world economy with it, and that it happening has at least some inevitability to it (IIRC, some have called these latest actions above “kicking the can down the road” - I think I read somewhere that someone else, dunno who, characterized it as “kicking the can down the road after filling it with explosives”). Probably been said already, but just let them leave the Euro and return to their old currency. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/54 "2012-02-27T04:46:02Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Probably been said already, but just let them leave the Euro and return to their old currency. Slightly edited post I made in another thread a while back about the problems with doing this: Heard a faintly terrifying documentary on the radio last night that covered, in part, the practical mechanism for Greece withdrawing from the euro. The point they were making was that there is no pull-out mechanism, no procedure, because the people who invented this thing didn’t ever consider it would happen. From the moment the monetary changeover would be mentioned by the Greek parliament, there would likely be a full-scale run on every Greek bank as people with euros in them would want to get hold of them and transfer them to non-Greek banks to preserve them as euros before conversion to a currency that would inevitably drop through the floor - something that was relatvely difficult to do from within Argentina, but trivially easy within the EU. Or they’d try to withdraw in euro cash. And that with this in mind the run has actually already started, but only as a trickle from amongst the financially savvy. Thus any announcement that there would be a pull-out would necessarily have to be made simultaneously with an enforced suspension of all the banks. Result: more riots. It takes the biggest private mint in the world - which is in the UK - four months to print up new currency (a situation that was tested with the new Iraq currency). So such a thing would have to be done in private four months before any decision was announced. It may already be being done, either to herald an announcement, or as contingency. It would have to be a ‘conspiracy’ of large proportions, and if word leaked out that this was being done - even if just as a contingency - it would precipitate the bank meltdown before it could be implemented. An alternative would be to mark some euro bills as ‘Greek’ to allow them to be decoupled, but they tried using stickers during the Velvet Revolution to distinguish the same currency between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and the value of Slovak notes fell immediately, and enterprising Slovaks found ways to get rid of the stickers to turn them back into higher value Czech notes. (I was thinking that maybe a very complex hole punch could do the same thing.) Even after the dust settled - if it ever did - the Greek private sector would be up shit creek because of the massive intertwining of business within the EU economic zone. What would happen to the debts owed in euros to non-Greek companies? The resulting litigation could go on for decades. So were Greece to pull out of the euro, the economy would collapse anyway, the public sector paying money that would be worth jack shit, the private sector embroiled in unpayable debts. Things would possibly be worse than under current austerity rules. IMO we’re looking at mass disorder, hyperinflation, martial law. The Zimbabwe of Europe. Scary shit. And then a possible domino effect caused by a Greek pullout, beginning with Portugal and ending who knows where? My opinion, therefore, is that the larger economies, who actually benefit from being part of the eurozone, will do everything in their power to keep Greece in, no matter how counterintuitive it seems at first. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/55 "2012-02-27T05:07:41Z")
Could people better educated then me tell me why leaving the Euro and going back onto the Drachma is such a bad idea for Greece? As I (completely uneducated see it) the Drachma will depreciate greatly against the Euro, dollar, Sterling, pretty much any currency infact shortly after reintroduction. Greece with its tourism and services based economy would all of a sudden be a lot cheaper to do business/ travel to see broken temples and that could help them. Why is it such a bad idea and what am I missing. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/56 "2012-02-27T05:27:43Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Could people better educated then me tell me why leaving the Euro and going back onto the Drachma is such a bad idea for Greece? As I (completely uneducated see it) the Drachma will depreciate greatly against the Euro, dollar, Sterling, pretty much any currency infact shortly after reintroduction. Greece with its tourism and services based economy would all of a sudden be a lot cheaper to do business/ travel to see broken temples and that could help them. Why is it such a bad idea and what am I missing. Please see my post, directly above yours. TL:DR version: the _outcome_ would be desirable, but the _mechanism_ would be dangerous - and more importantly the eurozone fears a domino effect. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/57 "2012-02-27T05:29:09Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Could people better educated then me tell me why leaving the Euro and going back onto the Drachma is such a bad idea for Greece? As I (completely uneducated see it) the Drachma will depreciate greatly against the Euro, dollar, Sterling, pretty much any currency infact shortly after reintroduction. Greece with its tourism and services based economy would all of a sudden be a lot cheaper to do business/ travel to see broken temples and that could help them. Why is it such a bad idea and what am I missing. In short: see [http://www.indexmundi.com/greece/](http://www.indexmundi.com/greece/) Greece imports around $60B worth. Greece exports about $20B worth. Since it really has miniscule hard currency reserves, the only way for it to pay for imports would be with the money received for exports, since Drachma would be worthless, internationally. That means a 66% cut in imports, basically. That’s not just trinkets. That’s oil, electricity, natural gas, factory machinery etc. The economy will go to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/58 "2012-02-27T10:13:49Z")
On Greece taking 4 months to print up new currency: are we sure that this needs to be done? I heard that the Germans maintain warehouses of Deutschmark Notes to use in case they ever come off the Euro. Has Greece not done the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/59 "2012-02-27T11:05:23Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > On Greece taking 4 months to print up new currency: are we sure that this needs to be done? I heard that the Germans maintain warehouses of Deutschmark Notes to use in case they ever come off the Euro. Has Greece not done the same thing? I’d never heard that. Makes sense. Though one wonders if the Greeks would be as sensible as the Germans. I found a [summary article](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16981897) of the programme I heard by the way. It’s pertinent reading. ETA: it confirms the rumour you heard: > [@](#): > > …a prominent German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, has been recalling the Cold War when the Bundesbank kept an entire spare run of the West German currency, the D-mark, in storage - in case East Germany or the Soviet Union managed to compromise the circulating money with forgeries. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508/60 "2012-02-27T11:13:13Z")
Hmm, that’s a different rumour isn’t it. Could the one you heard be a misinterpretation of that one? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-realistic-way-out-of-the-greece-mess-whatsoever/613508.md?page=4)