There is a high likelihood that Grexit will be back on the table. This column argues that Greece can strengthen its negotiating position if it is prepared for exit. Grexit remains a disastrous choice, but it has become the default option for Greece and its creditors. However, preparing for Grexit does not mean leaving the Eurozone. A credible threat point may deliver a better outcome. The purpose of the exercise should be to make Grexit a plausible solution, then not to do it.This was probably Syriza's mistake in their game plan. But I suspect they believed that if they prepared for Grexit and played it as a card, the bluff would have been called and they really, really didn't want to leave the EZ. But without that card, Greece didn't hold much of a hand.
If they try it now, Schaeuble will almost certainly jump for it.
Which would be a good thing and in the end save Greece a lot of grief. But as another post suggests, the real issue for Greece is addressing rampant corruption.
Anyway, this post presents a way to prepare for Grexit so that it is a credible option. Hopefully Greece will reconsider and take it in the future. If the government were preparing for Grexit as an option and using it as a card, this alone would spark a debate in Greece about it, something was not done during the previous negotiation, when Grexit was taken off the table not only as a card but also politically in Greece. It wasn't presented or debated.
vox.eu
Greece should prepare for Grexit and then not do it
Anyway, this post presents a way to prepare for Grexit so that it is a credible option. Hopefully Greece will reconsider and take it in the future. If the government were preparing for Grexit as an option and using it as a card, this alone would spark a debate in Greece about it, something was not done during the previous negotiation, when Grexit was taken off the table not only as a card but also politically in Greece. It wasn't presented or debated.
vox.eu
Greece should prepare for Grexit and then not do it
Charles Wyplosz | Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute, Geneva; Director, International Centre for Money and Banking Studies; CEPR Research Fellow
27 comments:
"This was probably Syriza's mistake in their game plan."
the guy didnt even know they had a Mint....
I don't believe for a minute YV's excuse that they didn't put Grexit on the table because it was too hard to do. They made the decision not to play that card at all. It's becoming obvious that the speculation on Syriza strategy being aimed at getting Greece thrown out of the EZ, putting the blame for Grexit on the troika, was just wrong. They purposely through away their strongest card.
"They purposely through away their strongest card."
And why would that be? It is hard for me to believe too that YV thought it too difficult, at least not technically. At the same time they couldn't believe they could end austerity and throw away memorandum continuing with euro. They followed the footseteps of previous governments who had lied to people and sold them out. You think they haven't played their strongest card yet? This is it, they are playing it now and hoping for Europe to mutate? It just doesn't make sense.
Leaving euro was never in their mind, YV might bhave thought about it remotely, but not Tsipras.
"hard for me to believe too that YV thought it too difficult,"
Youre talking about a guy who didnt even know they had a Mint in the country... even before you get to the part where he would have had to have known how to use it...
He didnt even live in Greece he doesnt even know what the hell is even is going on there...
Same with the new guy the people they are getting for Finance Minister dont even live there... they all have one or even two feet out the door... they are in the international academe they parachute in and screw it all up...
Get a real Greek for a change... cant hurt...
What's the mint story? I haven't heard that one.
"It is hard for me to believe too that YV thought it too difficult, at least not technically."
YV knew they had a mint and knew how to do a Grexit.
The reason he didn't want to do it is because he is a European Nationalist and really, really believes in it. Look at his domain name!
So like all religious believers, the evidence for is discarded and all minor points in support of the position are blown out of all proportion.
So now you have a bunch of disappointed end-timers wondering why the second coming hasn't happened - again.
Grexit is like iron ships, heavier-than-air flight and rocket travel. Completely impossible and incomprehensible to the narrow minded fools who say it can't be done.
I could do it. Call me.
It's becoming obvious that the speculation on Syriza strategy being aimed at getting Greece thrown out of the EZ, putting the blame for Grexit on the troika, was just wrong.
It wasn't speculation. Varoufakis plainly and repeatedly stated something close this. And it pretty much succeeded! - the only thing left was to negotiate a Grexit deal with Schauble et al - which is where overstating the costs would have helped. In essence, events showed it really was and is the strategy of Varoufakis & the majority of Syriza (but unfortunately not the majority of their MPs) - and supported by the majority of Greeks. The problem was that the Tsipras suicide-surrender faction pushed the sane ones out of control, which included Varoufakis (his deputy minister and director general, the #2 & #3 spots resigned with him too btw).
My error was treating YV & AT as the same, because YV was the spokesman, when they became farther apart. I don't know of anyone who Kremlinologized Syriza sufficiently to differentiate the forces - you would have to be a real expert on Greek politics. The worst thing that YV did was bad thinking leading to bad advice - grossly overstating the costs and understating & misunderstanding the benefits of Grexit - but as I said above, this could have had, may still have benefits.
"So now you have a bunch of disappointed end-timers wondering why the second coming hasn't happened - again."
:) The slick totally saved his face didn't he.
Here is an interview of our hero
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/07/20/intv-greece-amanpour-yanis-varoufakis.cnn/video/playlists/amanpour/
He says they had a plan B to issue euro denominated IOUs, but no Grexit
So he is pretty much sticking to Tsipras's guns also
Not sure what some of the above comments are saying. But YV wasn't PM, AT was. YV basically went with the Left Platform / referendum position & was purged. These aren't minor points. Like for most Greeks there is no real evidence that YV was pro-Euro to the point of eternal austerity; unfortunately there is such evidence for Tsipras et al. I think it is pretty clear that YV scared himself with wardrobe monsters about the costs of Grexit, though.
Thinking that Grexit was "a card" is a problem. Is it really one against Schauble, who wants a Grexit? A threat to quit is not much of a threat against a boss who wants to fire you. It is and was the best and most reasonable choice in the likeliest and actual situation of "Good Euro" negotiations failing as they did.
German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble was prepared “to give Greece €50 billion” had Yanis Varoufakis, his Greek counterpart at the time, agreed to his country leaving the eurozone, a high level source who recently spoke to Schäuble has revealed.
The German minister was described by the source like “a true European” who had nothing against Greece, but favoured harsh medicine for a good cause.
Schäuble was reported to assume that the leftist Syriza government would favour leaving the eurozone, a move consistent with its ideology. And he was prepared to put money on the table to encourage it to take this step.
Schäuble was quoted as asking how much Greece wants to leave the euro by France’s Mediapart. This is said to taken place before the 5 July referendum, in which a vast majority of Greeks rejected the international creditors’ proposals.
But according to the information obtained by Heard in Europe, Schäuble had in mind a concrete figure – €50 billion – had Syriza opted for Grexit.….
Schäuble Was Ready To Give Greece €50 Billion To Quit The Euro (HeardinEurope)
ht Ilargi
Yes, It (Grexit) was the best choice and like Krugman said even that had been bad what they went for in the referendum. As can be seen in this video, YV sees Greece continuing with euro, the plan B was just for the emergency liquidity, and that is mostly side talk asny way. What he doesn't realise when he says that Greeks think It is not a good plan and Germans think it is a good plan is that the majority of Europeans don't share his federal dream, nor do the Germans. He is not talking about "the federal dream" but he knows that euro is dysfunctional as it is now and he knows this has to change at some point.
Yes, Tom, "Boss" Schauble was not the bad guy in the end. It is not playing a card in a negotiation to threaten leaving if the boss wants you to go. Greece should have just done some playacting to get a better severance package.
But the negotiations ended up in Bizarro world, where the Germans made a good offer to the Greeks, but the Greeks refused and insisted on being punished. I noted here that that was the direction things seemed to be going.
Kristjan: YV has talked about Grexit seriously, for a long time, and other sources said there was some small amount of internal planning. Also about default within the Euro, whatever that means. I rarely watch videos, they take too much time. I think that the evidence shows that he did not and would not have performed an imbecilic betrayal like Tsipras. He just doesn't realize how imbecilic Tsipras was, because his economic arguments against Grexit don't make sense, and he overstates the changeover costs - which aren't trivial, but they aren't infinite, like staying a bad Euro would be. People often like to make things out to be more complicated than they really are. People are so comfortable with complexity that they get confused about simplicity.
K,
No mint according to YV:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31313#more-31313
Bill found it on Mapquest....
Thanks Maththew, I hadn't read that one
Leaves no doubt what these clowns are all about. Even if he didn't know, wouldn't you find out what your options are if you were serious about it.
Of course YV knew that there was a mint, and that it could be made functional easily. They had talked about taking it over forcefully and printing Euro's or drachma's when the ECB shut down the cash flow. The problem was that it was under the control of the Greek Central Bank - which took its orders from the ECB and not the Greek Government. There was no mint that the Greek government controlled. Forcefully starting a new Central Bank and taking over the mint meant "Grexit" Calgacus is right that Tsipras is the problem, and not YV. YV has stated that there was a 5 person group working on how to do a Grexit - in fact I believe that YV had talked to Mosler about it and other strategies.
But in the end, Tsipras made the decision he made, and V and his deputies resigned. As simple as that.
unfortunatley cannot agree with unknown excuses or any of the lame excuses. Estonia had ruble and didn't have any printing presses whed it adopted its own currency. A company in UK printed all of our money. At the time it had better security features than USD.
K, Auburn here reported that YV was asked about MMT and YV said he was too old to try to pick up a new theory or something like that... These people from the academe, once they get that PhD virtually all just mail it in from there on out...
Was the nut-job guy who shot Schauble a Greek perhaps?
"Witnesses interviewed by a local radio station said that the assailant rose and fired three rounds from a pistol at Mr. Schauble. They said the gunman had curly black hair and was wearing a black leather jacket."
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/13/world/german-interior-minister-is-shot-at-political-rally.html
"In his first act after being sworn in, Tsipras visited the Resistance Memorial in Kaisariani, laying down red roses to commemorate the 200 members of the Greek Resistance executed by the German Wehrmacht on 1 May 1944.[18]"
Probably not the best way to immediately curry favor with a Schauble...
AT also an avowed atheist:
" Tsipras was also the first prime minister to take a civil rather than a religious oath of office, marking a rupture with Greek orthodox ceremonial culture.[16] While reaffirming the good relations between his party and the Church, he generated further religious controversy during a meeting with Archbishop Ieronymos. Tsipras explained that as an atheist who neither married in a religious ceremony nor baptised his children, he would not take a religious oath of office.[17]"
This is not helpful either domestically (probably foments a basic lack of trust with non atheists) although imo should not be a show stopper ... iow one could still figure this out and be an atheist... But an atheist with little to no faith (ie the opposite of we people) forget it that one is never going to get it...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Tsipras
Calgacus
"People are so comfortable with complexity that they get confused about simplicity."
Very true. May we talk? is this you? https://twitter.com/calgacus
Calgacus ... is that in western script, or Kanji/hanzi? Or worse? I'll start running through the iterations.
Not having much luck yet, but the list here is fascinating. Never quite grasped how indirect Chinese script is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese#Derivation_of_characters
lower case? that implies western script
uh, ... the Chinese word for study is 6 characters, (simple or traditional)
Yánjiū (or yanjiu)
the two common Japanese words for math are 5 & 6 characters.
sūgaku or sansū [sugaku or sansu]
That makes 11 or 12 characters in any combination.
Please narrow your definition of asian words for "study" & "math"
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