Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Ya, default is default in some ways. I suppose that just by looking like they are trying though might make it a more orderly default than simply coming right out and saying "no, you're on your own!"
Its pretty ugly though. A lot of northerners wanted states like Greece in the union for their own reasons a few years ago. Now that things are not looking good though, they want them out. Thats a tough position in some ways.
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Germany has never wanted anything to do with Greece. If Goldman Sachs wouldn't have cooked the books in 2001 no other EU country would have wanted Greece in the EU either. In 2001 Goldman Sachs engaged in a series of apparently legal but nonetheless repellent deals designed to hide the Greek government's true level of indeptedness. For these trades Goldman, which in effect, handed Greece a $1 billion loan - carved out a reported $300 million in fees. The machine that enabled Greece to borrow and spend at will was analogous to the machine created to launder the credit of the American subprime borrower-and the role of the American investment banker in the machine was the same.
The Investment bankers also taught the Greek government officials how to securitize future receipts from the national lottery, highway tolls, airport landing fees, and even funds granted to the country by the European Union. As anyone with a brain must have known, the Greeks would be able to disguise their true financial state for only as long as 1. lenders assumed that a loan to Greece was as good as guaranteed by the EU (read Germany), and 2. no one outside of Greece paid very much attention. Inside Greece there was no market for whistle-blowing, as basically everyone was/is on the racket.
Defaults are never orderly....