Greece bank run

So apparently there was a small run on banks at the close of business in Greece today.
I've been kinda OCD'n about the financial markets the last few days since the jp Morgan
Situation came to light. I'm not much for fear mongering but I think this week is going to
Be a huge one for Greece and here at home and pretty much the whole world!

Here's the link
m.cnbc.com...

reply to post by Flyzoid


I'm confused as the markets have only just opened in Greece, not closed?

Anyway the Greeks have been the sacrificial lamb to the Merkel slaughter, this was planned. It was the only way to weaken the Euro to make Germany competative with the East's manufaturing might.

reply to post by Flyzoid


This run was not small.

Central bank head George Provopoulos told him savers withdrew at least 700 million euros ($894 million) on Monday, the president told party chiefs.

Source: Reuters

Greece is trying to form an emergency cabinet today (Wednesday) and get a better grip on things.

Folks, please read up on the United States Depression Era bank runs. Be prepared.

reply to post by Ameilia


I thought it may have been considered small due to it being only 700 million
and Greece potentially defaulting on 100's of billions of euros. It is considered big
I suppose, but this is just the tip of the ice berg. Next thing you know. The US fed will be speaking of
QE3! Reminds me of this video.
m.youtube.com...

Originally posted by Ameilia
reply to post by Flyzoid

 

This run was not small.

Central bank head George Provopoulos told him savers withdrew at least 700 million euros ($894 million) on Monday, the president told party chiefs.

Source: Reuters

Greece is trying to form an emergency cabinet today (Wednesday) and get a better grip on things.

Folks, please read up on the United States Depression Era bank runs. Be prepared.

Exactly... this was exactly the way the elitist bankers #ed up the economy in the 20s which later lead to the 2nd world war after years of depression.
WHY DO WE KEEP SURRENDERING OURSELVES TO THE WILL OF BANKS?! I say burn them all down... start at the top... or... and leave union banks alone.

I heard about this on the news earlier. That's an even bigger run than they were saying. I know...LOL...big shock.

The far left party that is gaining ground in Greece is rejecting all austerity and bailout plans, or so I understand. I just don't think there's any good way out here. When people get as scared and angry as the Greeks seem to be right now, the tendancy isn't to think clearly or make the best choices.

The talking heads on the news were discussing how far the Grecian mess would spread and what that might mean. I think a lot of the damage will be dependent on how close to collapse Spain and Italy already are, and what kind of internal social issues are going on. If the Eurozone enters a worse case it'll be as much due to social and cultural spasms as economic ones.

It would seem that the President of Greece, is at least thinking laterally, in that he proposes a Government comprised largely of non-politicians?

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Not sure what to make of that really, should it be admired or seen as an act of desperation, because if things are not resolved by June, he has to call another election.

www.bloomberg.com...

Things do indeed seem ominous...

YAY........i mean *eh hem* this is terrible.........

Let the dominos fall where they may...if it is to be, then so be it.

honestly this is the kick in our complacency that we need no matter how horrific it comes in terms of humanity.

Time to reboot and start over....hopefully we learned something this time around.

wonder if "non-political" leaders means bankers?? to me it does sound like it would be an attempt to circumvent the democratic process, since they can't do what they want with it in place because none of the people are buying it..

if the politicians can't find the will power to screw the people more, then we can find a few hitlers and mousolinis to do it! or something to that effect.

and. hate to say this, but it really does not sound like we learned anything this time around... maybe how to more effectively screw people over, but that is about it...

Well the problem in Europe is the debt to GDP levels, I have had a look at the main culprits on Wikipedia, but I doubt its accuracy

Greece 165.3% debt to GDP
Italy 120.9%
Portugal 108.5%
Ireland 108.4%
France 86.5%
UK 85.7%
Spain 69.3%

The reason why I doubt the accuracy is that I know the last report I read in a UK broadsheet had the debt at 66% GDP. I suspect that France will be the big teller in this as they have lots of capital tied up in the PIIGS and with their new government also promising an end to austerity, we may see their dept baloon. I suspect Italy will fast follow Greece and we may end up with a two tier Europe.

In my opinion, the ongoing withdrawal of savers money to the tune of €800m is hugely significant if you believe the story that there may only be a couple of billion euro left "liquid" in the Greek domestic economy.

Source:socioecohistory.wordpress.com...

Look at it from an average savers point of view:
If you were lucky enough to still have a bit of money in a savings account in Greece, when you hear of all the rumblings of an exit from the Eurozone, your country cannot form a new Government, the man in charge proposes a "new" government made up mainly of non politicians, and if this cannot be agreed on, a re-election has to take place in June; and to top it, the party making headway in your country is far, far left, would you leave your money in a Bank?
NO!, anywhere but the bank, literally under your mattress would be deemed safer, and I think this is why this is happening and will continue to happen, at least until you could see things improve.

reply to post by flice

WHY DO WE KEEP SURRENDERING OURSELVES TO THE WILL OF BANKS?! I say burn them all down... start at the top... or... and leave union banks alone.

Maybe you can clue me in to something.
Who spent the money?
The banksters or the citizens retiring at 50?
The banksters or the public works projects?

Please explain how the banks caused this problem.
If you destroy all the banks where do you go when you want to purchase a house or a business?

Greeks are afraid of waking up one morning and finding out that their currency was switched from the euro to the drachma overnight.

One thing we need to bear in mind also is that the Tourist industry generates around 15% of the countries annual income.

www.theodora.com...

Can it realistically rely on this in 2012? Would you choose to holiday in Greece? If you can afford to take a holiday at all. My point is that this factor may only serve to worsen the situation, leaving existing small businesses in Greece, reliant either directly or indirectly on tourism revenue, in an even more precarious position.

In short, as the below link cites, written earlier today, "Greece Is Running Out Of Time"

wallstreetpit.com...

Originally posted by samkent
reply to post by flice

 

WHY DO WE KEEP SURRENDERING OURSELVES TO THE WILL OF BANKS?! I say burn them all down... start at the top... or... and leave union banks alone.

Maybe you can clue me in to something.
Who spent the money?
The banksters or the citizens retiring at 50?
The banksters or the public works projects?

Please explain how the banks caused this problem.
If you destroy all the banks where do you go when you want to purchase a house or a business?

The banks caused this problem through the creation of artificial wealth, gambling with other people's money, and failing in their duty to protect the investments of their customers.

The banks failed because they were using the pool of all assets to gamble in a primarily fictitious market for their own profit, they repeatedly lost, and the people have been ordered to pay that gambling debt.

The government of Greece failed in that they should not have entered the Euro - and unstable currency where government policy and spending varied from one nation to the next.

I'm pretty tired of seeing people blaming the Greeks and suggesting they retire too early, or don't pay tax. While there were certainly unrealistic ambitions in those regards, you're conveniently neglecting the price of living in that country, the employment rates, the massive corruption from the top down...

It must be real easy to blame the people rather than the criminal bankers and politicians of that country. The fact is we all know who is primarily responsible. The people cannot simply "decide" that they can retire or that they can avoid paying tax. That is facilitated by government, a government elected to keep a country stable and functioning. They failed, because they had the bankers in their back pocket.

The Greeks were living this way pre Euro because their economy was benafitting from a weak currency and tourism. The Euro spoilt this for them but the people are accustomed to their ways. I wish you could retire at 50 here, more likely 75 by the time I get there (if i get there). The Greek people are not to blame, the whole Euro project is.

Originally posted by Mufcutcakeyumyum
Can it realistically rely on this in 2012? Would you choose to holiday in Greece? If you can afford to take a holiday at all. My point is that this factor may only serve to worsen the situation, leaving existing small businesses in Greece, reliant either directly or indirectly on tourism revenue, in an even more precarious position.

I would absolutely holiday in Greece. It's a beautiful country with so much history to see. The people are so nice too, welcoming of everyone.

Tourism can still flourish in Greece, as long as they can remain competitive and as long as there are still enough travelers able to afford to leave their own country for a few weeks.

In my personal opinion, now is the time to become protectionist. When Greece leaves the €, the people should do what they did in Argentina following the IMF robbery there. They need to seize all corporate facilities and take them over, employ, produce, sell internally. They need to do what we should all be doing and become self-reliant.

The first thing the government should be doing is securing the farming land currently in private hands (corporations). They need to be able to feed their people, this is a priority.
Then they should be securing power generation and water distribution. I dare say that much of that is in the hands of corporations too.

They will have no other option than to replace their currency (obviously) and they can continue as long as they have everything they need to maintain their own social commerce.

As far as I can tell, they left it too late in Argentina, the government failed to initiate the takeover of the necessary infrastructure and the people eventually made the choice to do that themselves. This led to a lot of instability that was completely unnecessary.

The cooperative working model has been proven to be successful. People can collectively own and operate a business and provide employment for many more than would otherwise be employed in the standard model. We've seen this work already.

To boost employment in Greece they need to remove the corporations siphoning wealth out of the country and replace those services with cooperatives. Much of the money would remain in the country, many more would be employed in stable businesses, and within ten years Greece would be a model for the rest to strive toward.

reply to post by detachedindividual


I too would holiday in Greece, and agree with what you say, you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I think that an average family who is lucky enough to take a holiday this summer may choose to avoid Greece given what they have heard in the news etc etc, and choose an alternative destination.

As an additional take on it all, I would support a push to urge people to holiday there, boosting the economy and helping to drive growth. However, with Italy and Spain on a similar track, would singling out Greece be fair?

The whole in or out of the euro as well as a suggested dual currency have all been discussed, and all mean pain in differing guises. If I were in Greece, I would take pain if given the chance to make my own choices of how my country was to emerge from all of this. In otherwords, let the Greek people make their own choices, as oppose to having austerity imposed on them from overseas.

Does that make sense?

reply to post by detachedindividual

I'm pretty tired of seeing people blaming the Greeks and suggesting they retire too early, or don't pay tax. While there were certainly unrealistic ambitions in those regards, you're conveniently neglecting the price of living in that country, the employment rates, the massive corruption from the top down...

So do we blame the French? It's their country. It's their way of life. It's their politicians.

reply to post by detachedindividual

The banks caused this problem through the creation of artificial wealth, gambling with other people's money, and failing in their duty to protect the investments of their customers.

The banks failed because they were using the pool of all assets to gamble in a primarily fictitious market for their own profit, they repeatedly lost, and the people have been ordered to pay that gambling debt.

Show me an example of the banks creating artificial wealth.
Since when is it the banks responsibility to protect someone elses investment?

Now if you are talking of the mortgage derivitives then you are once again blaming the wrong entity.

Lets say a bank has 1million to lend to home buyers. Once it's gone they can't lend anymore. Unless they package all those loans into a security and sell it on the open market. Then they get back say 1.1 million.
They did not price those securities. The open market did.
Did they do anything wrong? No. This is normal business practice.

If you want to blame anyone blame the government.
The government forced Freddie and Fanny to lower the standards for home loans.
Why did they do this you ask? To pump the economy for political reasons. Home sales drive all other sales.
This system worked for decades until all the reliable first time buyers were gone and all that remained were people with bad/no credit.
The government created the bubble not the banks. The government couldn't stand the repercusions of a flat economy.
But face it if the population growth is almost flat so should be the economy.