This thread makes me think I should be getting in touch with the good folks at Dillon

I wonder how much profit the top three banking institutions have taken in the last 10 years or so...

Looks like we are in end stage, let the real stupidity begin.

My impression is that the EU is determined to ignore the fundamental issues such as:

1. Greece is bankrupt, no amount of additional loans will fix the situation. First rule of holes...stop digging.

2. The Greeks are right, they need a portion of their debt to disappear, via whatever means you can imagine as they are insolvent and further austerity measures are just flogging the dead horse one more time.

3. The Euro without common political will is a fiction, and the unity of the disparate cultures into a single political union has all the chances of a drunk virgin in a brothel, it may be fun, but no chance of preserving the purity.

4. Open discussion is forbidden as there are too many agendas and too little will to take on the real elephant in the room....the EU as it stands is unstable, unworkable and is successful only in comparison to the states in conflict that have given us the last two world wars.

5. Sovereign debt continues to be an issue....the lending countries for the most part cannot afford to lose their stakes, neither can they politically sell their own increase in debt/exposure when their own balance sheets are overstretched.

....I doubt there is a ball between them....anywhere.....

Dennis

Greece should never had been admitted to the EU. They cooked the books to present favorable balance sheet to Brussels and the voting bloc of the EU. Sure some accounting/finance firms helped them do it, AIG for example. But the Politicians in Greece KNEW the books were cooked. And the voting EU members may have gotten snookered, but that is their fault as well. They should have not so blindly voted them into the EU.

Loans have risks, and the EU is going to have to take a haircut on them. I wouldn't keep loaning money to someone who kept wanting to borrow more, with no concrete plans on repayment of what they had already been loaned.

What is Greece's main source of foreign currency, tourism and a little agriculture. Greece will soon be a very cheap place for a vacation.

Goldman Sachs and others stood to make too much money for Greece not to be admitted. It was a forgone conclusion. Who do you think cooked the books Hugh?

Goldman Sachs cooked the books, but the EU understood the books were cooked. They WANTED everyone in.

There are allot of problems with Greece long before the Germans, WWI and WWII. There are cultural issue..............

My grandparents came to USA in the early 1900's. Both of my grandmothers, who are from the same village, came to the USA for several reasons:

The couldn't go to school past the 6th grade. The verb is couldn't!
There was no opportunity
Women were 2nd class - there was a dowry system.

None of the women went back to the old country whereas 50% of the men did. They couldn't make it here. Both sets of my grandparents never, and I mean never, wanted to go back. There was nothing there. My father, who was born here, told me stories of how there was so much corruption, inflated money and general backwardness (tractors rusting) and animals were still used for agriculture.

Don't confuse the Greece's golden age with the current state.

There is enough blame to spread. I just read this on Huffington Post. I have attached it. I'm no Tina Fey fan but she nailed this as it reflects my opinion and those who parents and grandparents immigrated to the USA in the great wave in the 1900's and again in the 70's.

Greek-Americans Share Concern For Greece, But Disagree On Solutions

I went from primarily Lee equipment to Dillon. I feel like I spent more time with the Lee stuff fixing it, and I spend more time with the Dillon stuff just using it.

And the Greeks wanted in, it was a win. win, win for everybody until the bills came due.

They (EU/Greece/banks) might be able to kick the can a little farther down the road once again, but will of course have an even bigger debt/problem with a worse economy when the money runs out again in a few years.
Unfortunately Greece is the first of the Nations that will face this reality. The other Nations are watching how this plays out so they know what to do for their turn.

Just like drug addicts, rock bottom has to be met before a fix can really be implemented. Hopefully that will not be violent. just really uncomfortable.
"Free" money is the drug of economies, it will poison them till they shake the habit and stand on their own.

OK, I will declare my colours.

I hope the Greeks say 'eff off to the EU, the proposals now on the table according the media (not a reliable source admittedly), essentially demand giving up sovereignty over their lawmaking and finances to outside parties.

Never, never, never would I as a citizen ever countenance that degree of oversight and interference in my sovereignty....I would rather fight to the death than allow this.

Heaven knows they caused their own problems, the deceitful being drawn in by the incapable, but at this point, the horse has fled the barn and it is time to move on.

...and yes, my sympathy for the lenders is the square root of dick-all.

Dennis

One problem the Greeks have never had... They've always been on the right side of history.

How many nations in Europe can claim that?

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AIG, Goldman Sachs, et. al. cooked the books, the Greeks knew it, and I suspect that those in Brussels knew it, or at least should have looked closer, and known better.

Agreed, definitely there was significant motivation to have Greece join the EU at any cost. Reasoning was everything including geopolitically disadvantaging Russia, increasing the Brusselcrat's power, getting a new vassal state for Germany and France et al, lots of money going into Greek hands via the entry loans....endless reasoning.

Now, of course, the roosters are coming home to roost and there ain't no one here but us chickens.

Tspiras has committed the cardinal sin of NOT KNOWING HIS PLACE, alles in ordnung you know and now they are getting punitive.

So many sins of the past, so many misguided socialists spending other people's money, so little leadership and realpolitik that it would be humorous if it was not so terrible.

One report is that the French are ready to make a side funding deal bilaterally which really would put the German fox amongst those French chickens. Talk about EU unity!

If the Frogs and the Krauts split on this issue, it could get very ugly, very quickly.

And yes, I use the epithets with meaning, forcefulness and deliberately.

'effin political leaders, where are good solid brick walls and good firing squads when you really need them.

Dennis

So you are saying a complete lack of ethics in banking at the global level is OK?

Let's all celebrate Arthur Andersen for paving the way of a new generation of "should haves" instead of just relying on honesty and integrity in banking and consulting. The lesson of Arthur Andersen wasn't to not commit fraud, it was do commit it better, in ways so complex no one would understand or know how they did it, and therefor not get caught.

Lack of ethics in most senior people is a given as their world is filled full of greys, no black and white.

And, even given that the entry was unethical....what do you do now?

We The People get to pay for all this stuff....seriously, most European nations are into Greece for about 3% of their national GDP.

Bend me over and bring me joy,
Show me that I'm just your toy,
Give more, oh give me more
Keep goin' 'til my ass is sore
That's true love.


Dennis

I stated what I believe to be a FACT. Where on Earth did I say, or allude to a complete lack of ethics in banking being OK? I'm disappointed in your reading skills Shaun.

Greece LIED to the EU to get in, apparently so did Goldman Sachs, AIG, whomever. Brussels and the EU looked the other way because they were so eager for Greece to join the EU. Like many other geo-political debacles they are all acting like Sargent Schultz "I know nothing, I see nothing". Yet everyone of them is culpable.

Hugh, it's easy for anyone to lie when an independent company helps to create the lie and then confirms the lie to interested parties.

Greece can't lie without Goldman Sachs confirming the lie.

That's the point.

Everything else is pure speculation.

Easy, let them go down. Throwing good money after bad isn't much of a business strategy.