European financial concerns

[pellaz]

for people on this forum living in the UK, Europe, other places:
has the slant on the news any different than whats been published in say the New York Times?


-is a larger country like Italy a concern for a Greece like default and thus be a more difficult fix.
-is all this more of a political issue, totally not a financial one?
-how is this effecting things where you live?

[marshlander]

I have no understanding of the technical aspects of the current situation. I barely make enough money to live on as it is, am facing homelessness within the next four weeks and have a meeting in less than an hour to see if I can borrow some money to go and live in a trailer park for old people situated in the middle of a dying brownfield industrial area.

The UK still uses sterling rather than the Euro, so I guess we are not as directly affected by what has happened in Greece, Ireland and Portugal (and what looks like happening in Italy and has seen the first bank bite the dust in Belgium) as those countries that are. Ireland's situation seems to have had more of an effect on the UK since they are apparently an important export market for the UK and the collapse of their economy has dire consequences for many business in Britain. That is why the UK has pumped money into the Irish economy. That seems okay though, because when we run out of cash here, the Bank of England just prints some more.

Is that how it works, Fred?

[Almac]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Hi Marshlander, I am so sorry to hear about your troubles, I hope and pray that everything works out fine for you.

The sad truth is, many people in Britain have become improvised. There has been a rise in pauper burials not seen since the 1970s because a lot of people just don't have the money to put a deposit down for a relation's funeral. Our unemployment rate is going up, while our Government is becoming more and more laissez-faire. The Government is cutting public sector jobs but at the same time the private sector is not picking up the slack has this Government was expecting. We are not in the Euro-zone, but a far larger slice of our trade base is in Europe, the Republic of Ireland being one of our biggest customers. So if European banks and governments gets a cold we feel the pain too. It must be remembered that banks lend to each other, so we can't really be isolated from what is going on. [/COLOR]

[Inchante]

What Marshlander and Almac said sound very similar to the financial situation in the United States. We too are increasingly laissez-faire, but have been heading that direction since 1979, repealing much of what was established under FDR's New Deal. Now, however, there is a political subgroup in the Tea party dedicated to pushing it even further to the right (and the U.S. was never all that left leaning to begin with). And, as Marshlander said, The U.S. Federal Reserve has printed quite a bit of money to try and stifle the hemorrhaging here.

There are two big differences, however, Congress has utterly failed so far to establish meaningful austerity measures here, and of course--in true American fashion--the National debt here makes that of Greece, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal look like the interest owed on a car payment.


I am interested. I know we have many people on gay speak from continental Europe. I would love to hear from them on this topic. I would also like to know how the protests in Europe (what we call Occupy Wall Street here) are doing and how they are viewed by the rest of the public?

[fredv3b]

Marshy I am very sorry to hear about your current status.

A Greek default is manageable, the Greek debt is only large relative to their small economy. However most of what the rest of Europe saved from not propping up the Greeks would then need to be spent supporting the banks that own Greek bonds.

An Italian default would be catastrophic. If Europe lacks the political will to support Greece, the bond markets will not believe that it would support Italy.

The problem is purely financial, but the solution is in large part political. On the other hand we wouldn't be in this mess if we hadn't allowed Greece to get away with 'creative accountancy'.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[James]

an overall default by euro banks on the other hand would be devastate the world economy

[Inchante]

[pellaz]

looks desperate enough for the whole EU thing to be Foobared ?