I was heavily involved in the Labour In campaign group across mid and south Wales.
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I was heavily involved in the Labour In campaign group across mid and south Wales.
Socrates
Player Valuation: £6m
A truly representative snapshot of the country. Bonfire of the Vanities.
Only allowed to post 20 images. If you want see them all, I'm afraid there's more, see below. But I wouldn't bother. By the end they all merge into a autumnal greying vision of Britain.
https://www.leavemeansleave.eu/who-we-are/
contact@leavemeansleave.eu
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I particularly like this photo of Mike Wood MP (no, me neither) who looks pleased as Punch as he shows off his new UFO.
Not one of them look like they have ever gone without a single meal in their entire lives.
Brexit for the common man indeed.
A lot of people are going to lose their jobs, homes and livelihoods to pay for their fine dining.
They won. We lost, whatever way we voted.
Get over it. There are still plenty of immigrants around to blame.
In fact, once we are on our own, we won't just have the EU to blame for our ills, we'll have the entire world to blame for not buying our stuff and those unelected bureaucrats at the WTO.
But the gravy train will keep on running for the "right people".
abelard
Player Valuation: £35m
to be fair, since 2010, the Tories have voluntarily imposed a miniature version of this on Britain...
Greece’s “Bailout” Was a Disaster for Greece
https://www.barrons.com/articles/greeces-bailout-was-a-disaster-for-greece-1535137822
Some bailout that turned out to be.
The European Stability Mechanism disbursed its final tranche of loans to the Greek government on Aug. 6. On Aug. 20, the program officially ended, although the loans are not expected to be fully repaid for another half-century.
If their purpose was to support the Greek economy, the emergency loans must be considered a failure. Since 2008, the economy has shrunk by a quarter, and more than 400,000 Greeks have emigrated. House prices are down 43%. Bank credit to the private sector has contracted by a third. Fixed capital formation after depreciation has been consistently negative since 2010. More than €70 billion ($81.4 billion) worth of assets, including infrastructure, housing, and business plant and equipment, has been destroyed because of a lack of maintenance—a staggering loss for a €180 billion economy.
The outcome is less surprising when one realizes why the loans were originally made. The goal was never to help the people of Greece, or even the Greek government, but rather to help its creditors in the rest of Europe.
After Greece joined the euro area in 2001, foreign investors poured in. This led to a boom in domestic consumption and investment. Greek residents spent far more than they earned, with the result that the current-account deficit ballooned from about 5% of gross domestic product in 1999 to 10% by 2006 and to 14% by 2008. Mortgage debt increased by a factor of seven. Inflation remained relatively tame—about 3.5% a year on average from 2002 through 2007—which suggests spending was broadly rising in line with productivity, even if the financing of that spending was clearly unsustainable.
While Greece’s private nonfinancial sector increased its debt by just as much as the Greek government, households and businesses mostly borrowed via long-term loans from domestic banks. The Greek government, however, borrowed mostly in the form of bonds that needed to be regularly rolled over. By the middle of 2009, the government owed more than €230 billion to non-Greeks—roughly 70% of its total financial obligations after excluding intragovernment lending. Meanwhile, the branches and subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks operating in Greece had ballooned to nearly €200 billion in assets.
The Greek government needed constant additional borrowing from abroad to service its debts. That was easy before the financial crisis, since Greece’s rapid growth and apparent convergence in living standards with the richer parts of Western Europe made it an attractive investment destination. After the crisis, however, foreign investors pulled back, hitting both the Greek government and Greece’s banks. While the banks had a large supply of foreign assets to help them repay their creditors, the government was less fortunate.
Had Greece been a country with its own currency, such as the Czech Republic or New Zealand, the central bank could have plugged the funding gap and prevented an abrupt collapse in spending. Membership in the euro area removed that option. The government and the banks owed debt in a currency the Bank of Greece could not print, and the European Central Bank was not keen on helping.
The textbook response would have been for the government to default on its debt and get a loan from the International Monetary Fund to help smooth out the adjustment. The amount of money required to buy time after a restructuring would not have been large compared with the nearly €300 billion that ended up being lent.
That option was blocked, however, by a coalition of Greece’s “European partners” and the U.S. They were still traumatized by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and had come to believe that its default had made the financial crisis far worse than it otherwise would have been. The result was a firm commitment to avoid any reduction in what the Greek government owed.
Their concern was not about what a default would do to Greece, but about what it would do to them. In addition to the €230 billion in potential losses on government debt, which by itself might have been enough to wipe out the capital of many large European banks, foreigners had another €120 billion in exposure to Greek banks. Greek banks did not have much exposure to Greek government debt—only about 8% of total assets in 2009—but it was still more than their total capital and loan-loss reserves.
Restructuring the government’s debt would therefore have required either the partial liquidation of the Greek banking system or an explicit bailout of Greece’s banks paid by someone else. Again, this should have been doable, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet were terrified about how it might affect the still-fragile Euro-American financial system.
Instead, the result was a series of loans made to the Greek government so that it could repay its foreign private-sector creditors. As Yiannis Mouzakis of MacroPolis calculated in 2015, only €27 billion—or 11% of the money lent to the Greek government by the IMF and the European governments—was actually used to help cover the budget deficit and pay arrears to Greeks. By contrast, 70% of the “rescue” loans went directly out the door in the form of principal repayment, interest payments, and incentive payments to foreign bondholders. (The rest went to bank recapitalization.) As if that were not bad enough, the loans came with strict conditions to raise taxes and cut spending, exacerbating the downturn into a catastrophe on par with the Great Depression.
There was no political will in 2010 to spend hundreds of billions of euros to bail out Dutch, French, and German banks. To Greece’s eternal misfortune, however, there was enough “solidarity” to launder that Northern European bank bailout through the Greek government.
Greece’s “Bailout” Was a Disaster for Greece
https://www.barrons.com/articles/greeces-bailout-was-a-disaster-for-greece-1535137822
Some bailout that turned out to be.
The European Stability Mechanism disbursed its final tranche of loans to the Greek government on Aug. 6. On Aug. 20, the program officially ended, although the loans are not expected to be fully repaid for another half-century.
If their purpose was to support the Greek economy, the emergency loans must be considered a failure. Since 2008, the economy has shrunk by a quarter, and more than 400,000 Greeks have emigrated. House prices are down 43%. Bank credit to the private sector has contracted by a third. Fixed capital formation after depreciation has been consistently negative since 2010. More than €70 billion ($81.4 billion) worth of assets, including infrastructure, housing, and business plant and equipment, has been destroyed because of a lack of maintenance—a staggering loss for a €180 billion economy.
The outcome is less surprising when one realizes why the loans were originally made. The goal was never to help the people of Greece, or even the Greek government, but rather to help its creditors in the rest of Europe.
After Greece joined the euro area in 2001, foreign investors poured in. This led to a boom in domestic consumption and investment. Greek residents spent far more than they earned, with the result that the current-account deficit ballooned from about 5% of gross domestic product in 1999 to 10% by 2006 and to 14% by 2008. Mortgage debt increased by a factor of seven. Inflation remained relatively tame—about 3.5% a year on average from 2002 through 2007—which suggests spending was broadly rising in line with productivity, even if the financing of that spending was clearly unsustainable.
While Greece’s private nonfinancial sector increased its debt by just as much as the Greek government, households and businesses mostly borrowed via long-term loans from domestic banks. The Greek government, however, borrowed mostly in the form of bonds that needed to be regularly rolled over. By the middle of 2009, the government owed more than €230 billion to non-Greeks—roughly 70% of its total financial obligations after excluding intragovernment lending. Meanwhile, the branches and subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks operating in Greece had ballooned to nearly €200 billion in assets.
The Greek government needed constant additional borrowing from abroad to service its debts. That was easy before the financial crisis, since Greece’s rapid growth and apparent convergence in living standards with the richer parts of Western Europe made it an attractive investment destination. After the crisis, however, foreign investors pulled back, hitting both the Greek government and Greece’s banks. While the banks had a large supply of foreign assets to help them repay their creditors, the government was less fortunate.
Had Greece been a country with its own currency, such as the Czech Republic or New Zealand, the central bank could have plugged the funding gap and prevented an abrupt collapse in spending. Membership in the euro area removed that option. The government and the banks owed debt in a currency the Bank of Greece could not print, and the European Central Bank was not keen on helping.
The textbook response would have been for the government to default on its debt and get a loan from the International Monetary Fund to help smooth out the adjustment. The amount of money required to buy time after a restructuring would not have been large compared with the nearly €300 billion that ended up being lent.
That option was blocked, however, by a coalition of Greece’s “European partners” and the U.S. They were still traumatized by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and had come to believe that its default had made the financial crisis far worse than it otherwise would have been. The result was a firm commitment to avoid any reduction in what the Greek government owed.
Their concern was not about what a default would do to Greece, but about what it would do to them. In addition to the €230 billion in potential losses on government debt, which by itself might have been enough to wipe out the capital of many large European banks, foreigners had another €120 billion in exposure to Greek banks. Greek banks did not have much exposure to Greek government debt—only about 8% of total assets in 2009—but it was still more than their total capital and loan-loss reserves.
Restructuring the government’s debt would therefore have required either the partial liquidation of the Greek banking system or an explicit bailout of Greece’s banks paid by someone else. Again, this should have been doable, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet were terrified about how it might affect the still-fragile Euro-American financial system.
Instead, the result was a series of loans made to the Greek government so that it could repay its foreign private-sector creditors. As Yiannis Mouzakis of MacroPolis calculated in 2015, only €27 billion—or 11% of the money lent to the Greek government by the IMF and the European governments—was actually used to help cover the budget deficit and pay arrears to Greeks. By contrast, 70% of the “rescue” loans went directly out the door in the form of principal repayment, interest payments, and incentive payments to foreign bondholders. (The rest went to bank recapitalization.) As if that were not bad enough, the loans came with strict conditions to raise taxes and cut spending, exacerbating the downturn into a catastrophe on par with the Great Depression.
There was no political will in 2010 to spend hundreds of billions of euros to bail out Dutch, French, and German banks. To Greece’s eternal misfortune, however, there was enough “solidarity” to launder that Northern European bank bailout through the Greek government.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
to be fair, since 2010, the Tories have voluntarily imposed a miniature version of this on Britain...
Greece’s “Bailout” Was a Disaster for Greece
https://www.barrons.com/articles/greeces-bailout-was-a-disaster-for-greece-1535137822
Some bailout that turned out to be.
The European Stability Mechanism disbursed its final tranche of loans to the Greek government on Aug. 6. On Aug. 20, the program officially ended, although the loans are not expected to be fully repaid for another half-century.
If their purpose was to support the Greek economy, the emergency loans must be considered a failure. Since 2008, the economy has shrunk by a quarter, and more than 400,000 Greeks have emigrated. House prices are down 43%. Bank credit to the private sector has contracted by a third. Fixed capital formation after depreciation has been consistently negative since 2010. More than €70 billion ($81.4 billion) worth of assets, including infrastructure, housing, and business plant and equipment, has been destroyed because of a lack of maintenance—a staggering loss for a €180 billion economy.
The outcome is less surprising when one realizes why the loans were originally made. The goal was never to help the people of Greece, or even the Greek government, but rather to help its creditors in the rest of Europe.
After Greece joined the euro area in 2001, foreign investors poured in. This led to a boom in domestic consumption and investment. Greek residents spent far more than they earned, with the result that the current-account deficit ballooned from about 5% of gross domestic product in 1999 to 10% by 2006 and to 14% by 2008. Mortgage debt increased by a factor of seven. Inflation remained relatively tame—about 3.5% a year on average from 2002 through 2007—which suggests spending was broadly rising in line with productivity, even if the financing of that spending was clearly unsustainable.
While Greece’s private nonfinancial sector increased its debt by just as much as the Greek government, households and businesses mostly borrowed via long-term loans from domestic banks. The Greek government, however, borrowed mostly in the form of bonds that needed to be regularly rolled over. By the middle of 2009, the government owed more than €230 billion to non-Greeks—roughly 70% of its total financial obligations after excluding intragovernment lending. Meanwhile, the branches and subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks operating in Greece had ballooned to nearly €200 billion in assets.
The Greek government needed constant additional borrowing from abroad to service its debts. That was easy before the financial crisis, since Greece’s rapid growth and apparent convergence in living standards with the richer parts of Western Europe made it an attractive investment destination. After the crisis, however, foreign investors pulled back, hitting both the Greek government and Greece’s banks. While the banks had a large supply of foreign assets to help them repay their creditors, the government was less fortunate.
Had Greece been a country with its own currency, such as the Czech Republic or New Zealand, the central bank could have plugged the funding gap and prevented an abrupt collapse in spending. Membership in the euro area removed that option. The government and the banks owed debt in a currency the Bank of Greece could not print, and the European Central Bank was not keen on helping.
The textbook response would have been for the government to default on its debt and get a loan from the International Monetary Fund to help smooth out the adjustment. The amount of money required to buy time after a restructuring would not have been large compared with the nearly €300 billion that ended up being lent.
That option was blocked, however, by a coalition of Greece’s “European partners” and the U.S. They were still traumatized by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and had come to believe that its default had made the financial crisis far worse than it otherwise would have been. The result was a firm commitment to avoid any reduction in what the Greek government owed.
Their concern was not about what a default would do to Greece, but about what it would do to them. In addition to the €230 billion in potential losses on government debt, which by itself might have been enough to wipe out the capital of many large European banks, foreigners had another €120 billion in exposure to Greek banks. Greek banks did not have much exposure to Greek government debt—only about 8% of total assets in 2009—but it was still more than their total capital and loan-loss reserves.
Restructuring the government’s debt would therefore have required either the partial liquidation of the Greek banking system or an explicit bailout of Greece’s banks paid by someone else. Again, this should have been doable, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet were terrified about how it might affect the still-fragile Euro-American financial system.
Instead, the result was a series of loans made to the Greek government so that it could repay its foreign private-sector creditors. As Yiannis Mouzakis of MacroPolis calculated in 2015, only €27 billion—or 11% of the money lent to the Greek government by the IMF and the European governments—was actually used to help cover the budget deficit and pay arrears to Greeks. By contrast, 70% of the “rescue” loans went directly out the door in the form of principal repayment, interest payments, and incentive payments to foreign bondholders. (The rest went to bank recapitalization.) As if that were not bad enough, the loans came with strict conditions to raise taxes and cut spending, exacerbating the downturn into a catastrophe on par with the Great Depression.
There was no political will in 2010 to spend hundreds of billions of euros to bail out Dutch, French, and German banks. To Greece’s eternal misfortune, however, there was enough “solidarity” to launder that Northern European bank bailout through the Greek government.
This just went to show that the supposed Euro solidarity is actually only for the benefit of the few, Greece not being one of them.......
Did Britain step forward and lend money to Greece with no strings attached then? I must have missed that. I thought we didn't even offer much to the EU bailout that did happen.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
We are not in the Euro........
But could have loaned them money with no strings attached. Would you have been happy with that use of taxpayers money?
roydo
in memoriam - 1965-2024
Dont think the ECB/Germany bailed Greece, (and others) out with no strings attached mate.
This man has absolutely no idea what he is talking about
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
So could the USA, Canada and all sorts of countries who don’t belong to the Euro. Which bit of ‘we are not in the Euro’ do you not get......the Euro contains more than enough countries to look after itself, well certainly to look after Germany and France.....
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
They bailed themselves out. Most of the money went straight to German and French banks.....
roydo
in memoriam - 1965-2024
Yeah, I know. Like you, I dont get why the Euro is even raised in this thread. Whilst its not irrelevant to the EU, it certainly is to the UK/Reason to leave/stay.
dead_soft
Player Valuation: £35m
Just a spectacular idiot who knows some long words, a posh accent and a an embarrassing love for decorum.
He offers nothing of use to politics in this country
The binman chronicles
Player Valuation: £80m
To politics no, but to science he could open up amazing possibilities because I'm sure he proves that either time travel or waking up after being cryogenically frozen is possible. Personally I hope that he goes back to 1910 soon.
Foot Long Hot Dog
Player Valuation: A packet of pork scratchings
Unfortunately he’s far from an idiot, he’s now trying to suggest that a hard Irish border isn’t a big deal (despite not having one forming an integral part of the GFA and now U.K. law as well) as he realises that not having a hard border effectively scuppers his ‘no deal’ dream. As we’d be reported to the WTO on day 1 of our independent membership and before we’d agreed quotas etc with all of the 60 nations that we currently deal with via the EU.
Why haven’t his motives been more thoroughly examined? This man knows fine well a destructive no deal Brexit is going to cripple U.K. manufacturing and farming, as even his ‘go to’ economic expert - Minford has openly said this to the CSC. He’s moved 2 of his companies funds to Ireland to protect their ability to trade. He’s a complete charlatan who somehow gets away with peddling absolute nads due to his public school accent and 19th Century vocabulary.
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