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Scientists are discussing the mechanism of the bankruptcy after the news for the new increase of the budget deficit

12 September 2010 / 13:09:42  GRReporter
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Scientists of different nationalities, including Greeks declared there is no doubt in the possibility for Greece to suspend payments on its debt. As GRReporter already wrote the deficit in the budget is growing again due to a sharp decrease in its income statement. For the first eight months of the year, budget revenues have grown by only 3.3 per cent compared to the same period last year, while in the Memorandum signed by the Greek Government and the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and European Central Bank  is provided for an increase of 13.7 per cent. Thus the budget deficit has shrunk by 32.2 per cent while in the Memorandum is stipulated a decrease of 39.5 per cent.
    Dubious effectiveness of the Rehabilitation Plan supports the Greek spread-s at a level of around 1000 points - ie just as much as they were in May before the signing of the Memorandum with the three institutions. Although the Greek government prefers to ignore the importance of this fact, the international financial institutions notice it. U.S. investment bank JPMorgan Chase has announced that the three-yeara plan of 110 billion euro for the rehabilitation of the Greek economy is not sufficient to solve the problems of the country. JPMorgan Chase suggested that it should be followed by another three-years plan in order to have a chance of success.
    Another American bank Morgan Stanley also notes that Europe is experiencing two crises - the bank crises which two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers has not yet faded out and the crisis with the debt to PIIGS and both crises are mutually nourishing one another. And the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development openly announced the recently held with great success banking stress test-s to be framed up and do not reflect the true state of the banks on the Old Continent.
    Greek Foreign debt continues to grow but at a slower pace, the country is entering in a deeper recession than expected, and the situation in the eurozone is not that pink as well. These circumstances give reason to a group of scientists economists to conclude that the rescheduling of the payments on the Greek foreign debt is inevitable and begin to examine the mechanism in which this will happen. According to them in a year or two Greece will have a foreign debt exceeding 150 percent of the GDP of the country, the subsidy of 110 billion euros will be consumed and Europe will be facing a dilemma to either openly acknowledge the bankruptcy of the Greek state with all of its disastrous consequences for all banks creditors of Greece or take out from its pocket another package of 110 billion euros, as proposed by JPMorgan Chase, which of course will be linked to new painful reforms.
    As the newspaper "Imerisiya" points out the question is not whether Greece will go bankrupt but who will pay the bill. I.e. whom would Greece stop paying - bank creditors or to its citizens. Professor David Harvey reminds that when recently U.S. giants United Airlines General Motors have stopped paying their debts, they stood in court and said: "the only way for us to survive is to stop paying our employees". And the U.S. Court responded: "Great. Then stop paying". According to the renowned economist Professor this is the only opportunity for the Greek Government. He compares the Greek economy to a sick tooth, which the government instead of deciding to remove at once regardless of the pain, it acceptes to live with it another 20 years and for it to continue to hurt.
    In turn the New York Times newspaper estimated that public and private debts of Greece, Spain and Portugal together exceed 2.6 trillion euros. According to the professor from the Aristotle University oin Thessaloniki Spyros Marketos European banks are under the enormous pressure of those debts. He argues that if Greece decides to reschedule only 15-20 percent of its debt, this will immediately cause a banking crisis in the eurozone and mainly in France and Germany. "When I say banking crisis I mean bankruptcy of banks with unpredictable consequences," explains the scientist and clarifies that at present each newborn baby in Greece has already accumulated 30,000 euros in debt which it will be paing throughout its entire life.
    Mathematicians calculated that in order for Greece to be able to pay its debt, it must have an annual GDP growth of at least 5% - something even the biggest populists politicians do not dare even to mention publicly, let alone to promise of being able to provide it. The profit of the enterprises decreased in direct proportion to the reduced market demand, it is accompanied by the banking crisis and very small liquidity and on top of all of this is added the huge foreign debt.
    Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou promised at the opening of the Thessaloniki Fair to reduce the business taxes and to eliminate the bureaucracy standing in the way of the large investments. His words did not cause an enthusiastic response from the depressed businessmen who came to hear his speech at the International Exposition. As one of them told GRReporter, the efforts of the cabinet  to revitalize the economy are: "Too little, too late".

Tags: bankruptcy of Greece foreign debt crisis Thessaloniki fair George Papandreou Economy
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