Robert Reich - 50% probability Greek default. US banks counter-party debt huge.

[sfpcjock]

Prepare for another Lehman Brothers. Second big bank bailout on the way?

COMMENTS:
Michael Hickey second? this is like the fourth!
Rob Brune How soon?
Erica Tanner more like 100% these wall street oligarchs practically own the world, and they own it through FRAUD.
Rob Brune We need a guestimate of a time-line
Sean Gibner Lets just get on with it already!
Ursula Powers Sindlinger oh lord
Les Kay While crushing Obama's relatively meager job's bill? Don't count on it....look for some ugly in the financial services before the bailouts come.....
Julia Conaway Bondanella We pay and they still get rich. Ugly...
Reece Martin How will legal action against financial inst. affect bailout possibilities?
Sam Sosa Bank of America laying off 30,000
Charles Catalano Greece's economy is so small though. It's the Germans that are giving up, they hold most of that debt.
Perry Conley should we bail them out?
Erica Tanner We(and many other countries) are ENSLAVED to this debt that over 90% isnt even ours, its the Banksters. They are practically everywhere.
Les Kay Iceland....
Maggie Kuo Let those banks fail. They bet against Greek debt *knowing* that it would fail. Just like they did with the subprime mortgages. Tax payers should not be on the hook for their malfescence
Erica Tanner These Banksters think we are so stupid, they screw everything up and then they pose as our saviors(now the savior is World Government), and then do it over and over and over again. Until there is a Revolution, (and since they know people are going to be pissed) they have a police state in place for us. Thanks to the staged 911 it made it easy for them to take away our rights.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Didn't Iceland tell the IMF to fuck off? Greece should as well.

[sfpcjock]

2. Yes, they did. Ireland did not and they basically screwed their economy

...by assuming all the debts, and restructuring with massive austerity programs. Ireland also used to be one of the hottest economies in Europe with a lot of foreign investment. Now they are about dead in the water like England itself which has 3 quarters of stagnant growth after the Tory government's announced austerity measures.

[tsuki]

3. Iceland still uses the Krona, and Ireland uses the Euro. It makes a

big difference if you have a national currency. You control it.

The IMF made a big mistake there. Also, when England refused to extradite the bank managers that had defrauded the banks by giving out huge unsecured loans to each other and banking the money in foreign banks, it angered the population which voted on the bail-out.

They had a rough two years, but are now growing.

The 1400 page report is interesting. It is a blueprint of how the banksta-gangstas and the IMF attack sovereign countries and engineer their downfall.

[xchrom]

4. +1

[sfpcjock]

8. Right

The U.K. situation goes back to about '97 when they began to adopt the same marginal investment strategies as the U.S and reducing the taxes on hedge funds to attract them. That is why Britain now has the most unequal society in Europe and a hot dog costs $4. There's a BBC documentary that I remember talking about it.

[Yo_Mama]

5. Greece will default

They have no possible way to pay the interest on their debt. Even if their average interest rate were 5%, their debt is over 140% of GDP, meaning that interest on the debt alone would amount to 7-8% of GDP. The country can only further impoverish itself trying to pay unpayable debts.

Of course, default for them is also a catastrophe.

[IndyPragmatist]

6. The Lisbon Treaty needs to be revisited

It is best for everyone (Greece and the rest of the Euro-zone) for Greece to leave the Euro. I understand the logic behind the Lisbon Treaty, but there needs to be exceptions.

[Yo_Mama]

7. What happens to Ireland and Portugal?

That's why this is a crisis. Fortunately the other countries are better off in absolute terms than Greece, but Italy is in real trouble now also. It is expected to have a debt/GDP ratio of 120% at the end of this year, and yesterday it sold one-years at a bit over 4.5%. That's a heavy burden in the current economic environment.

I do agree that the EU should make an agreement allowing Greece to exit gracefully from the common currency. There's no point to this any more and it is just causing suffering all around.