Greece tells its creditors to shove it ...

Today the people of Greece participated in a referendum on whether the Greek government should accept the odious, austerity-based terms of another bailout by the European Commission (EC), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).

This was not, as some would suggest, a vote on whether the Greek people are entitled to renege on their obligation to repay their debts. The vast majority of Greeks never benefited in any measure from the succession of loans, which have just gone straight to corrupt bankers and politicians. They were voting on whether the people of Greece should lose national assets to predatory capitalism while enduring cuts to salaries, pensions and essential services, just so that the crooked bankers in Greece could strike deals with the crooked bankers in rest of Europe.

By a comfortable margin of 61% to 39%, the people voted "No", signalling their valiant resistance to the modern-day Nazis, who are attempting to accomplish by financial means what their forefathers could not accomplish militarily in 1941.

Hopefully, this is just the first step and will be followed by:

• Greece's rejection of the the Euro
• The collapse of the European Union
• The collapse of NATO as an effective alliance
• Russia's assertion of her rightful position as the undisputed leader of the Eurasian landmass

I would've voted no if I were Greek too. They were strangled by the conditions of the loans and their economy would have continued to contract until they were little more than a third world country, at which point the EU probably would've found some way to eject them anyways. Greece was a bad bet for the bankers, but they made it and they don't get to bleed the place dry to get every last cent back at the expense of the suffering of millions of Greeks.

Good for Greece. What a farce this "Union" turned out to be.

Yeah never mind that Greece was cooking the books for years to make it's deficits seem smaller.

I'll be shocked if people want to lend to Greece after this. Talk about financial irresponsibility.

This.

The EU is designed to make sure that the rich get theirs and some of everyone else's. Good for the people of Greece asserting their rights to say no to rampant capitalism but they'll make sure Greece is raped raw because they exercised their right to say no.

Not saying Greece was responsible, just saying if you loan, you take a risk that the borrower is irresponsible. If they are, you can try and recoup your money, but you don't get to break out the baseball bats and start taking it to their knees. The Greeks have suffered an unreasonable amount in the last five years, to the point where they are now in a situation equivalent to the Great Depression, that level of shittiness on a nationwide scale is unwarranted and must stop. Restructuring is the only humane thing to do.

yeah well, you got a point there, but these are people in power. Ministers should be people with responsibilities either way because for your information, it's not the people of greece that made all these debts but their governements. Corruption is a word i heard a lot lately and it's a shame for the people of greece that they cannot punish the ones responsible.

But it's not the only problem , they suffered from the economic crisis with the banks as well but because they don't have a very strong economy they have problems recovering. The governements don't do enough to invest in education and companies and if that doesn't change they will never be able to function within the body of europe.

It will certainly be a bigger problem for greece than for europe if they leave europe but it wouldn't be a disaster for greece as well.

Lol **** Russia and Putin.

Germany as well.

Well they've taken the money. Now it's not their problem if somebody wants it back...

this "NO" only satisfies a broken pride for a few days and pride only hurts, it never helps. i believe in a long run they'll be fucked even more.

Greece's economy amounts to 1% of the EU 13 trillion euro GDP... lol

I also think the EU countries should have a referendum on Greece's future in the EU. :)

I lolled when I heard the result... it wont make a bit of difference either way.

So what happens now? War?

I think Greece is fucked either way so at least they're relishing pride before the inevitable sodomy.

Good for them, now go print some drachma.

No. More negotiations will follow, Greece will probably be forced to drop the euro and start printing their own currency. But that's not even a solid fix. They have a real issue of people not paying their taxes.

The people of Greece have made it clear that they are not willing to endure any more austerity measures when they simply don't lead to a viable economy and sustainable debt. The government's proposals for measures that will take from the rich and not the poor as well as for a debt restructuring were met with decline from the Europeans.

All these days prior to the referendum there was a propaganda(from the right-wing parties and the Europeans) trying to scare people into a submissive yes or an ousting from the Eurozone would ensue. Most mainstream private tv stations were hilariously aiding in this propaganda. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, even came out and said that Greece should elect a new governent to deal with the crisis/negotiations. Ironic how the president of the right-wing major opposition party declared his resignation after failing to procure a yes from the people in the referendum.

In other news, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned in light of his conflicts with the Europeans, so as to ease things for the upcoming negotiations. Whether they will see reason or kick Greece out of the Euro remains to be seen.

yaas.

How long will Greece take before it recovers from all this?

@gwynnblade: If the negotiations end happily for both sides these next few days it won't take long for a certain normality to return. There will still be harsh measures and crisis to endure but at least the people will finally see their voices heard and hope for an end to extreme austerity in the future. And more importantly banks will gradually return to ordinary working conditions as they are currently malfunctioning owing to the imposed embargo.

And if the worst happens and Greece is kicked out of the Eurozone, it will take years before the economy starts recovering. For this and other reasons, everyone is against this possibility.

If Greece had been more responsible about its finances, it wouldn't be in this mess.

They are fucked but the "No" vote gives them some extra leverage in the matter. Also the fact that Varoufakis has stepped down which everyone in the EU despised will help negotiations too. The IMF finally agreed the other day that Greece needs some kind of debt relief.

Is the 'happy ending' even worth a try for the big daddys of Europe?

@gwynnblade: Right now it is to no one's benefit a greek exit so yes. It would be a blow to the European economy even a small one. Unless they realize that their political interests are no longer safe in which case, they'd kick Greece in the butt.

This. If you lend someone money, and they don't pay you back immediately, even going as far as to not live humbly so as to afford to pay you back, then screw them. The Greeks voting "No" just goes to show how irresponsible the Greeks are in general. A culture of living off other people's money.

The vast majority of the Greek people didn't see any of the money that they're being expected to repay through cut salaries, cut pensions and cut social services. The money went to crooked bankers and politicians in the previous government.

Holy stick on a shit, who is this guy?

Why would you support Russia, are you fucking stupid?

Greece had way too many social programs (I recall a mandatory 1 month vacation a year and free health care), and didn't tax at all (only 10% if the population pays taxes), they were bound to fail. I hope they crash and burn hard. Neither it's government or it's people seem to have any sense at all. Maybe insane levels of poverty will knock some sense into them.

I don't know what good leverage will do Greece at this point. It's been rocking the financial boat of the euro-zone for a while now, which bolstered euroskeptics and legitimized their once fringe views on the future and the dynamics of the EU. But that dwindles in comparison to the current crisis. I'm not well-versed in economics, but the upshot of the current crisis seems to be the institution of Greece's inability to run a half-decent economy - let alone one on-par with affluent member states - in addition to its lawless approach to the EU scheme.

Greece has but one piece of leverage in this affair: the fact that no one wants a member state to secede or drop the euro lest the idea of the EU be compromised. Greece knows that and is blackmailing the EU accordingly. A compromise that will get Greece back on board may be reached, but it'll only prolong the inevitable; Greece has already seceded from the EU for all intends and purposes.

@Seiki_sands: One quarter of their economy is off the books and no taxes are collected from it. The people voted no the banks are closed. Hows that working for the people of Greece?

This is the part of ot where I criticize someone elses corrupt unstable debt driven economy while ignoring the one I am a part of that is every bit as corrupt and unsustainable.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Even if they stay it'll be out of fear and what kind of union is that? This is just being prolonged because Merkel is a jerk and is not offering any debt relief.

Every country in the EU has those kinds of programs. Greece's real problem is that large parts of their economy solely exist to fund the military and its activities. They spend more of their GDP compared to other EU nations on the military because of conflicts with Turkey. The people/citizens and social programs aren't to blame for this, it's the power of Greece's military over the country's domestic and foreign affairs.

http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/2015/06/16/leaked-paper-should-greece-cut-defence-spending/

Hopefully Mama Merkel stays strong and doesn't budge.

Man, this thing is complicated.

Greece got into the Euro by cooking their books, yes. The allowed large spending programs while also cultivating a culture of tax evasion. That's the simple and boring part, albeit the origin of the mess and the most critical component.

But then it got messy with the imposed austerity which further reduced GDP, which dug the whole deeper, which caused more GDP reductions, which dug the whole deeper, and so forth. I'm not even sure they had a good way out under the environment they were in. They were already under a heavy debt load, but by trying to reduce deficits as drastically as they did while already in a depression they compounded many of the contributing factors and hamstrung the one factor they needed to help - economic growth (well, OK, accommodative monetary policy would have also helped, but without a currency of their own, and with an IMF concerned with inflation at the time, they were limited their as well).

The one big question mark that might have urged a struggling populace to continue to current program was that the very last measurement of GDP showed slight growth, if I recall. That means they may have finally found the bottom.

Of course, that was before the next round of austerity that the IMF wanted to impose, which could have had further contraction effects. Sigh...

Regardless, this move will undoubtedly cause them severe pain in the short term. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe it will be better for them long term to control their own monetary policy. Perhaps being out of the Euro will carry with it a net economic loss. It will be very interesting.... and disheartening.... to watch.

@Seiki_sands: If the terms were bad for Greece, Greece shouldn't have agreed to the terms. It's called a loan and not a grant for a reason: you're supposed to pay it back.

The Greek government made a bad bet on itself, the Greek people have suffered extensively for years trying to account for it.

The bankers made a bad bet on Greece, they have been unwilling to accept the consequences of their actions. If you make bad loans to a shitty credit risk because you didn't do your due diligence, you take a risk on not being paid back. Money lending is a business, bad bets are your expenses and good bets are your revenues, you don't get guaranteed profits.

Then the people need to be putting pressure on the government to stop these programs if they're destroying the economy.

So last I heard, the Greeks said no to the euro zone bailout and the strings attached, because they just want to magically have their debt erased? Just a free handout? No responsibility for the debt you racked up? You just want it to go away?

LOL

That pretext for inflated military spending is difficult to reconcile with both countries' being NATO members.

Still, any hint of dissension in NATO's ranks is good news. The sooner that insidious alliance of warmongers dissolves the better.

So the consensus is that the EU's demise is nigh. Yet we all know the "federalists" won't go down that easy, which means they'll obstinately keep their baby on life support. Wouldn't it be exciting if they surrendered to reality and just stepped up and said "let's dissolve the EU right now"?

is true that most of the money lent to Greece never actually went there cause it was taken out as their debt's payment? can someone enlighten me on this?

What's all this about the EU dying just because of a small troll nation? The UK has been threatening to leave for years, despite getting all these special privileges that no other nation in the EU gets.

There have been mistakes on both sides with banks driving the Greeks into a corner ( they have known that Greece needs debt reduction since 2010) and the Greeks in the other with their lack of proper taxes - all the while this is going on ignoring the problems surrounding the movement of people over the Mediterranean and the unnecessary escalation of problems with Russia. Multi-tasking ftw!?!

Greece should have left the euro zone years ago.Things will be very difficult for the first 5 so years but in the end it will be for the best.

That debt will never be repaid and they(EU) know that very well.

But the Greeks are too lazy... Maybe war is the only option?

War with whom? Maybe of the civil kind.

The Greeks don't pay taxes. I doubt they're any lazier than normal. What is there to war over? Germany invading and demanding they pay back the debt with money they don't have?