Ardennes posted:

I just checked and Slovenia's GDP per capita in PPP terms is 31k and Greece is 26k, he is completely wrong by a wide margin.

If anything Greece has lost already more than a decade at this point and its GDP is down to where it was during the early 2000s and in all likelihood is going to continue to regress. It may be permanently crippled.

Lagotto posted:

I have no idea where your narrative is based upon, it is really the other way around, southern Europe's bubbles popping triggered a European wide recession. The underlying economic fundamentals up north are better though, so they were less effected.

Charlie Mopps posted:

GDP is the dumbest number, no matter if its per capita or not. Here in the Netherlands politicians are starting to look at alternative ways to define if the country is getting richer, because they are finally realizing that GDP is a completely worthless number. We've been hearing about GDP growth over here for the past few years but if people dont notice it in their paychecks, who the gently caress cares about it.

GaussianCopula posted:

Why would you believe that France, without the US and UK, who are both no (longer) members of the EU, would stand a chance against Germany?

GaussianCopula posted:

It's the Dolchstoß-Legend of the Left that it were German banks that got bailed out while the South had to bear the costs. It's not like the Spanish bailout fund was strictly limited to bailing out Spanish banks and most of the German banks that were bailed out by the state already repaid their bailout loans.

Reuters posted:

LONDON, June 29 (IFR) - German lenders will be among the biggest beneficiaries of a Spanish bank bailout, with rescue funds helping to ensure they get paid back in full for poor lending decisions made in the run-up to the financial crisis, and helping politicians in Berlin avoid a politically sensitive bank bailout of their own.

German lenders were among Europe's most profligate before 2008, channelling the country's savings to the European periphery in search of higher profits. Spanish banks borrowed heavily to finance a property boom, and still owe their German peers more than 40 billion euros, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

German banks were facing deep losses linked to potential Spanish bank failures. However, a bailout of Spanish banks - backed initially by Spanish taxpayers and potentially later by the European Stability Mechanism - will ensure creditors won't take losses, making the bailout effectively a back-door bailout of reckless German lending.

"There are a number of political considerations for Germany here," said Jens Sondergaard, senior European economist at Nomura. "The Spanish bailout in effect is a bailout of German banks. If lenders in Spain were allowed to default, the consequences for the German banking system would be very serious.

Last night European leaders agreed to allow the ESM to lend directly to banks for recapitalisation purposes. Although this breaks with a former policy of lending to banks through national government, something that pushed up financing costs for them, it leaves German and other creditors off the hook.

Among European lenders, those in Germany are by far the most exposed to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy, with outstanding loans worth 323 billion euros at the end of last year, according to BIS data. Bankers say little has changed since then, with lenders unable to sell or hedge those loans. German lenders' exposure to Spanish banks, corporates and governments amounts to 113 billion euros; their Italian exposure is 103 billion euros.

Total periphery exposure equates to about 4 percent of the 7.3 trillion euros of assets held by German banks and almost an eighth of the country's annual GDP. Perhaps because of the size of the exposure, Germany has continually pushed against private sector losses - and was initially hostile to writing down Greek government debt.

"Germany has resisted recapitalising domestic banks since the first Greek bailout in 2010," said Ebrahim Rahbari, an economist at Citigroup. "But with Spain and Italy, it's a completely different order of magnitude. Recapitalisation needs wouldn't be moderate, but could bring down individual banks or even the banking system."

Pluskut Tukker posted:

Charlie Mopps posted:

GDP is the dumbest number, no matter if its per capita or not. Here in the Netherlands politicians are starting to look at alternative ways to define if the country is getting richer, because they are finally realizing that GDP is a completely worthless number. We've been hearing about GDP growth over here for the past few years but if people dont notice it in their paychecks, who the gently caress cares about it.

GaussianCopula posted:

Yes, all banks are interconnected

YF-23 posted:

That's easy, just do GDP for the bottom 80%.

Libluini posted:

They win because Germany is on their side

YF-23 posted:

That's easy, just do GDP for the bottom 80%.

GaussianCopula posted:

Yes, all banks are interconnected and if the Spanish banking system goes tits up that would have serious implications for the German (and pretty much every other European) banking system.

GaussianCopula posted:

And now that Italy wants to do the same thing, which is no longer allowed and Germany wants Italy to follow the rules and bail-in the creditors, Germany is the bad guy again, because they want people to stick by the rules.

Pluskut Tukker posted:

There's a big problem but there's no need for an immediate showdown.

GaussianCopula posted:

Yes, all banks are interconnected and if the Spanish banking system goes tits up that would have serious implications for the German (and pretty much every other European) banking system.

And now that Italy wants to do the same thing, which is no longer allowed and Germany wants Italy to follow the rules and bail-in the creditors, Germany is the bad guy again, because they want people to stick by the rules.

You really can't have it both ways.

Arglebargle III posted:

So are the repeated bailouts and austerity for the periphery done to protect over-leveraged German banks' razor-thin margin of solvency or not? Last page you called that idea a nasty word, and now presented with evidence you change the subject.

GaussianCopula posted:

They are done primarily to protect the banking systems in their own countries but the fact that no one wants a second Lehman Brothers is also a factor. The Dolchstoß-Legend part is that German banks were the primary beneficiaries, which is absurd.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Couldn't Spain have done an Iceland and just restructured the banks into healthy banks serving domestic interests and unhealthy banks owing a ton of money to German and French banks? In which case, German (and French) banks would be the primary beneficiaries of the solution, as there existed another that would better serve Spain but which would leave Germany and France having to deal with their own banks.

GaussianCopula posted:

Nope, you can't discriminate against businesses (or citizens) from other EU countries.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Alright. Couldn't you then create a bank for depositors (of any kind) and one for creditors (of any kind)? That wouldn't discriminate according to citizenship.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Couldn't Spain have done an Iceland and just restructured the banks into healthy banks serving domestic interests and unhealthy banks owing a ton of money to German and French banks? In which case, German (and French) banks would be the primary beneficiaries of the solution, as there existed another that would better serve Spain but which would leave Germany and France having to deal with their own banks.

punk rebel ecks posted:

What would you guys recommend Greece to do to stop their recession?

Lagotto posted:

I don't think Greece is still in a recession.

Friendly Humour posted:

Greece is still in a recession.

Lagotto posted:

I haven't seen the Q2 figures yet, but am hopeful they finally recovered from SYRIZA's little stunts.

Friendly Humour posted:

You mean the Troika's stunts.

MiddleOne posted:

Lagotto you have a very curious view of events.

GaussianCopula posted:

You are aware that depositors and creditors are legally pretty much the same category, both loan money to the bank.

Lagotto posted:

It would have been far cheaper for Germany, The Netherlands and France etc. to bail out their own banks directly, something they have had to do to an extent already anyways.

I always advocated for this, clean start and all. Would have been the end of the banking union and the EMU though, so the politicians opted for the monstrosity we are in right now.

Lagotto posted:

I don't think Greece is still in a recession.

GaussianCopula posted:

Yes it was the Troika that forced the referendum just to ignore it's results.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Can you explain why it would have meant an end of either of those two? Was there no way to do the cheap solution, then create a pan-European framework that could deal with any future cases?

Friendly Humour posted:

Yes, they really did. They forced their will on Greece despite the referendum.