Ο βασικός αρθογράφος της μεγάλης συντηρητικής εφημερίδας της Μ. Βρετανίας Jeremy Warner δημοσίευσε πρόσφατα μια ενδιαφέρουσα ανάλυση υποστηρίζοντας την άποψη ότι, η Ελλάδα όπως και άλλες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες θα πρέπει να φύγουν απο την ευρωζώνη. Αλλά αυτό γράφει πως δεν πρέπει να γίνει χαοτικά στα πλαίσια της επερχόμενης σύγκρουσης μιας κυβέρνησης του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ που είναι πολύ πιθανό να έρθει στα πράγματα με τους Ευρωπαάιους εταίρους. Κι΄αυτό γιατί τώρα
πια οι Ευρωπαίοι έχουν θωρακίσει επαρκώς την ευρωζώνη και μια τέτοια σύγκρουση θα είναι σε βάρος της Ελλάδας. Τα πιο ενδιαφέροντα σημεία του άρθρου παρατίθενται στην αγγλική πιο κάτω.
The bottom line is that Greece, and a number of other eurozone nations, do indeed urgently need to leave the euro - but not in the politically chaotic fashion that would occur in the event of a Syriza election victory. To be forced out on the back of unilateral default would be a deeply destructive outcome.
We are not, of course, yet at that stage, and my sense is that it probably won’t come to that. If an election is triggered, Syriza’s current poll lead will likely melt away once Greeks come to look down the barrel of the awaiting gun and think about the consequences of pulling the trigger.
But say Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s leader, does emerge victorious, what then? There is hardly any chance of the rest of the Eurozone agreeing another debt restructuring, and no chance at all if Syriza is serious about the rest of its agenda, including reversing wage and pension cuts, structural reforms and so on.
Mr Tsipras, nevertheless, seems to think he can get his way simply by threatening to blow up the euro anew. It worked before, so it can work again, he figures. He’s wrong. If the rest of the Eurozone thinks it is sufficiently prepared to withstand a Greek default without significant mishap, then his bluff will be called. Mr Tsipras must then do his worst or be exposed as a man of straw.
In the first instance after repudiating debts, the ECB would refuse to renew liquidity support to the Greek banking system, worth around €40bn as things stand, or a sum equivalent to 20pc of the Greek GDP. This would soon cause another collapse in output, and necessitate swift withdrawal from the euro so as to allow the Greek central bank to crank up the printing press to fill the funding gap and pay the government’s bills.
The new currency would plummet, inflation would climb, and pretty soon Greeks would be experiencing something close to the full scale economic wipe-out described in Adam Fergusson’s terrifying book about the hyper-inflation of Weimar Germany – “When Money Dies”.
Mr Tsipras thinks he can default and stay in the euro, that he can, to put it another way, both repudiate his debts and maintain the value of his assets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The two things move together.
None of this is to argue that Mr Tsipras is wrong to seek a further debt restructuring. There is no chance whatsoever of Greece, or for that matter several other periphery Eurozone economies, repaying their debts. For Greece, this would be the same with or without Mr Tsipras’s unhinged political agenda. Only the creditor nations of the north refuse to acknowledge this reality. The current set-up is completely unsustainable.
New research by the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s lends strong support to this contention. Despite five years of crisis induced macro-economic adjustment and recalibration, debt imbalances within the Eurozone have actually got worse, not better. S&P estimate that Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal - the eurozone’s top-four external debtor nations - will owe a total of €1.85 trillion to non-residents by the end of 2014, compared with €875 billion a decade earlier. Aggregate current account deficits have been substantially closed, but within the Eurozone, they persist at relatively high levels, causing inter-indebtedness to continue climbing.
πια οι Ευρωπαίοι έχουν θωρακίσει επαρκώς την ευρωζώνη και μια τέτοια σύγκρουση θα είναι σε βάρος της Ελλάδας. Τα πιο ενδιαφέροντα σημεία του άρθρου παρατίθενται στην αγγλική πιο κάτω.
The bottom line is that Greece, and a number of other eurozone nations, do indeed urgently need to leave the euro - but not in the politically chaotic fashion that would occur in the event of a Syriza election victory. To be forced out on the back of unilateral default would be a deeply destructive outcome.
We are not, of course, yet at that stage, and my sense is that it probably won’t come to that. If an election is triggered, Syriza’s current poll lead will likely melt away once Greeks come to look down the barrel of the awaiting gun and think about the consequences of pulling the trigger.
But say Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s leader, does emerge victorious, what then? There is hardly any chance of the rest of the Eurozone agreeing another debt restructuring, and no chance at all if Syriza is serious about the rest of its agenda, including reversing wage and pension cuts, structural reforms and so on.
Mr Tsipras, nevertheless, seems to think he can get his way simply by threatening to blow up the euro anew. It worked before, so it can work again, he figures. He’s wrong. If the rest of the Eurozone thinks it is sufficiently prepared to withstand a Greek default without significant mishap, then his bluff will be called. Mr Tsipras must then do his worst or be exposed as a man of straw.
In the first instance after repudiating debts, the ECB would refuse to renew liquidity support to the Greek banking system, worth around €40bn as things stand, or a sum equivalent to 20pc of the Greek GDP. This would soon cause another collapse in output, and necessitate swift withdrawal from the euro so as to allow the Greek central bank to crank up the printing press to fill the funding gap and pay the government’s bills.
The new currency would plummet, inflation would climb, and pretty soon Greeks would be experiencing something close to the full scale economic wipe-out described in Adam Fergusson’s terrifying book about the hyper-inflation of Weimar Germany – “When Money Dies”.
Mr Tsipras thinks he can default and stay in the euro, that he can, to put it another way, both repudiate his debts and maintain the value of his assets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The two things move together.
None of this is to argue that Mr Tsipras is wrong to seek a further debt restructuring. There is no chance whatsoever of Greece, or for that matter several other periphery Eurozone economies, repaying their debts. For Greece, this would be the same with or without Mr Tsipras’s unhinged political agenda. Only the creditor nations of the north refuse to acknowledge this reality. The current set-up is completely unsustainable.
New research by the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s lends strong support to this contention. Despite five years of crisis induced macro-economic adjustment and recalibration, debt imbalances within the Eurozone have actually got worse, not better. S&P estimate that Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal - the eurozone’s top-four external debtor nations - will owe a total of €1.85 trillion to non-residents by the end of 2014, compared with €875 billion a decade earlier. Aggregate current account deficits have been substantially closed, but within the Eurozone, they persist at relatively high levels, causing inter-indebtedness to continue climbing.
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