Seems like a no-brainer. Greece needs about $20 billion from France and Germany, and they need some cash for a few years until they can get their sh*t in order.
Fine.
Instead of just loaning them the cash, and having the German taxpayers guarantee the loans against default (stupid, stupid, stupid), go ahead and loan them the cash, just like any company in receivership, but have 'em put up the Greek Islands as collateral. Default on the loans, lose the islands. Or enough of 'em to back up the loans. Might just take a few.
Same goes with Spain, Portugal, Iceland, etc. Want loans? No problem. Put up assets, just like everybody else. The EU as one big pawn shop.
And next time, don't listen to realtors on commission and bankers on bonus. They'll screw you every time. It's not like the Euro was real anyhow.
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At least there are beautiful beaches, olive trees, and all of the octopus you can eat for collateral. All AIG could put up was a couple of sleeves of coffee cups and some paper clips.
Why should they? They can just default on their debt, and keep their assets.
If it's good enough for American homeowners, Tischman-Speyer and Morgan Stanley, it's good enough for Greece.
And if you disagree, you are the same level of hypocrite as all the scumbags you rant about on this and previous blogs.
Foreign nvestors in Greek bonds gambled, they lost, *poof* bye-bye capital. Thanks for playing.
My point is that Germany and France should NOT guarantee their loans without collateral.
This whole thing just goes to show that the EU and the Euro are not real. They're fake. The only way out is for them to become states in a new nation of Europe.
If Europe does come together as a country, with a powerful president, finance ministry and military, watch out. If they don't, they're fu*cked.
I'd bet on f*cked. It's the demographics. The maths don't work.
Mark Steyn had a worthwhile article on the mess in Greece: http://article.nationalreview.com/426405/when-responsibility-doesnt-pay/mark-steyn
Does this mean that the U.S. signs over California to China?
-JDF
Off topic: here's another major asshole REALTOR (TM) with a huge self-aggrandizing problem - now we have (Super Hero) Realtor's being just like medical surgeons -
WHY A GOOD REALTOR IS LIKE A GOOD SURGEON
"I was surfing the tv channels a few weeks ago... Everybody knows healthcare ... so I thought "wait a minute. This deserves attention. Reducing deaths in a hospital? Simply? Gotta listen to this."
"In my role as a realtor in Asheville North Carolina ... I follow a checklist - steps put in place to insure that everything has been done -- just as the surgeons and other doctors who follow their checklist find there are 35% fewer complications. Deaths are reduced by as much as 50%. ... often the procedures themselves are completed quicker (which means less anesthesia for the patient)."
Just ask for Dr. Evelyn Zebro - I specialize in Asheville North Carolina - where you'll get good care all the way to closing!
http://activerain.com/blogsview/1525880/why-a-good-realtor-is-like-a-good-surgeon
Does anyone really care about their debt?Idol is on and nascar heads to atlanta.
Mark Steyn had a worthwhile article
The only worthwhile article Mark Steyn could write is his suicide note.
Dear God no! to the Germans and Greek Islands idea. That could cause even more of them to be tourists on those beautiful bits of land and sand. How many of you know what a dangerous thing a Germpack of Deutsche tourists is?
A few years ago, me and the Mrs. were waiting for a ferryboat that was going to take us down the Cinque Terre coast in Italy. We had the misfortune to get between the boat's ramp and a mob of 20-something Kraut kids, led by a boot-and-shorts wearing Ilse the Shewolf guide. She was blowing a whistle, barking orders and making the Germans blitzkrieg on board. We, and a couple families of Italians, almost got shoved into the Med.
I don't dislike Germans in ones or twos, but when you get a crowd of 'em, especially on foreign territory, it's gotterdammerung. Please, Keith, don't encourage German mortgage expansionism!
Ask any Greek, and they will tell you that they dream of the day they are kicked out of the EU. Why? It's too damn expensive. Life was good back in the drachma days. The Greeks will never resort to mortgaging their beloved and profitable islands. They will survive regardless of what happens. They haven't risen too high, so the fall will not be as hard. They are also an agricultural country, and can fend for themselves quite well. Crap, in the town where my home is, the barter system of paying olive oil for a pound of feta is still alive and well.
God Bless em, and F@ck Goldman Sachs and all the other financial terrorists out there for the damage they have done to this country. May they rot in hell.
Keith - re: the islands, Germany's on it. http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100304-25667.html
Keefer,
The irony in all this is that Germany is in way worse financial shape then Greece, they have just been able to cover up the numbers for longer.
I know, I know its them bad hedge funds / CDS blah blah blah ‘s fault
What minority is going into the ovens next?
Muslims?
Or are they now the majority in Europe?
Europe is toast!
Wait….
They may not like our foreign policy with Afghanistan
We need to apologize to the Greeks!
Ahh the good ‘ol HP days when life was so simple, things were clear everything was Bushes fault.
Come to think of it; there was an eyewitness who saw a black sedan with tinted windows taking off burning rubber from the Greek embassy in Guam with a License plate of “G43-WB”, exactly 1 week before the Greeks began spending 30x more then their GDP.
If only we can be like the Europeans and resolve things with dialogue. (Soccer riots don’t count cause its called futball)
In the Netherlands I remember that a "kopje koffie met appelgebak" (Cup of coffee with apple tart) cost NLG 2.50. One year after the introduction of the Euro, that same cup of coffee and piece of pie cost Euro 3.50. I don't know what it is today, but I just remembered that my Dutch neighbors were for a time royally pissed off. You just don't fuck around with a Dutchman's coffee like that.
WHY A GOOD REALTOR IS LIKE A GOOD SURGEON
...because they both lull you to sleep before they carve you up."
buk - cinque terre was amazing, especially if you took the couple of days to hike the towns at a slow pace, stopping along the way. but shhh.. too many tourists already.
wonder what the italians could get for that piece of land? a billion? ten billion?
this idea of selling off land, or mortgaging it against loans, seems crazy today. but just wait. it won't seem crazy much longer.
and you want to know what doomed greece, besides realtors and housing bubbles and a corrupt government cooking the books?
state pensions, and retiring at 55.
those days are long over. especially for countries that ban immigration and aren't having enough babies (hello UK, hello France, hello Italy, hello pretty much all of Europe)
BFD, just print some more money, problem solved folks.
Keith,
Don't give the Chinese any ideas!
Oh...Never mind, we print our own.
RayNLA
cinque terre was amazing, especially if you took the couple of days to hike the towns at a slow pace, stopping along the way. but shhh.. too many tourists already.
The only hiking we did was on the Via d'Amore between Riomaggiore and Manarola, making sure to stop at the cliffside bar in the middle. I woulda been up for more (not ascending to Corniglia, though, not with my sore knees) but Mrs. Bukko is more about gourmet eating than trekking. Almost as cool, and less physically taxing, is to drive to the coast from the Autostrada through Levanto and into Monterosso. The road goes on forever, and it's so narrow and twisty you feel like you could plunge off and die at any second. But the views are freakin' awesome.
Keith's right, though -- the Cinque Terre is a shithole. If you haven't been there, skip it! Leave more room for the rest of us.
Greece should just play ball Wall Street style. Go to AIG and buy a few billion dollars worth of credit default swaps on their own debt. Service their existing debt for a little while longer, don't wanna make it look like a strategic walk away, than in a years time just default. AIG is 77.9% owned by us Treasury. They'll be debt free, abandon the failing Euro, and plush with a few hundred billion US dollars (all in the same day!!!!) Goldman will take the blame. Greece could then sit back and relax. Then as all the other PIIS fail, Greece can be their sub-prime loan sharks(if they want)make 12%.
Bukko
"Keith's right, though -- the Cinque Terre is a shithole. If you haven't been there, skip it! Leave more room for the rest of us."
No worries, you couldn't pay me enough to go to smelly Europe..
The crappiest place on earth can be marketed to gullible tourists because most of us always buy in to
"the grass is greener somewhere else"
Say what you want about any people or culture, reality is that Europeans are snobby and arrogant.
It is more pleasant to hang with toothless Bubba wearing a camo cap while boiling peanuts in a drum over a fire induced with Hickory chips then pretend to enjoy spending time with self-righteous condescending Eurotards over an overpriced uber-glorified brick of cheese.
"It is more pleasant to hang with toothless Bubba wearing a camo cap while boiling peanuts in a drum over a fire induced with Hickory chips then pretend to enjoy spending time with self-righteous condescending Eurotards over an overpriced uber-glorified brick of cheese."
LOL - amen brother!
We were traveling in South America and stayed at a nice B&B run by a lady of German descent. She was second generation and spoke only Spanish and German, but probably the nicest person we met on the entire trip. We were told politely but firmly that breakfast starts at 8 AM, and please be on time.
The next morning we came downstairs to a beautiful breakfast and were finishing our coffee around 8:45 when a blonde lady in pajamas shows up and sits down with the announcement (in broken Spanish) that she is from Switzerland and speaks only German and French. She then loudly calls for the housekeeper to complain that the milk for her cereal is too warm and she wants some coffee.
I was taken aback by her rude attitude, but I politely introduced ourselves and mentioned we are Americans. Swiss Miss then speaks to me in English and says "I am from Davos, the city where they have the economic conference, perhaps you have heard of it?" It was hard not to laugh at this arrogant eurotard, so I simply replied "Oh yes, isn't that the conference where rich people gather every year to give advice to poor people on how they should live their lives?" She stared blankly for a moment and then started drinking her coffee, never said another word to us. We excused ourselves and headed out to thank the hostel owner and pay our bill.
Daisy said...
It is more pleasant to hang with toothless Bubba wearing a camo cap while boiling peanuts in a drum over a fire induced with Hickory chips then pretend to enjoy spending time with self-righteous condescending Eurotards over an overpriced uber-glorified brick of cheese.
You're welcome to them Bubbas, Daisy! I can hang with 'em if I want to, talkin' about the hotrod cars I drove, the places in the South where I lived like the house that used to get waist-deep in water when the crick rose... I've wiped the asses of Bubba and his elderly wife in nursing homes in places like Wauchula, Florida. Yep, I can do Bubba. Trouble is, I don't find him too interesting.
But when I'm with Europeans, I'm not pretending I'm interested. You see, those Europeans have read books. They can talk about stuff like history and ideas and other countries they've been to. Even the working-class ones, like waiters and hotel clerks -- they've got some sophistication.
I find smart more fascinating that ignorant. And I can hold my own in a smart conversation. I don't feel outclassed by anyone above Bubba level.
Plus I LIKE their cheese! I outgrew Kraft American pasteurized process cheese slices years ago. But cheese is like wine. Nobody starts by liking Chateauneuf du Pape. You drink sweet swill like white zinfandel at first, but people who grow in their sophistication eventually work up the quality ladder.
Now you can jeer at eggheads and smartypants, but tell me, Daisy, who runs the world? Who hires and fires the Bubbas? Sophisticated, intelligent people. I'd rather be one of them. Smarter is better -- unless you can't do smart...
So much for the idea of mortgaging those islands...
"Daisy, who runs the world? Who hires and fires the Bubbas? Sophisticated, intelligent people."
Nope, those were the days of real science/engineering careers with the Edisons, Marconis, Hewletts, & Ken Olsons running industries. Today, it's full blown Peter Principle and cronyism.
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