Most money exists electronically these days. Cash on hand is a liability to the business. It can be stolen, lost, and even if it isn't, it's just sitting there and not making more money. I used to work part time for an armored car company, and it just happened to have the route my own little hometown bank was on. They never got more than $50k a week. There were banks in smaller towns that got $15k, and most of it in bricks of change.Originally Posted by RevolverRob
The question I have is how will Greek people pay their mortgage. Unlike the USA, most EU mortgages are not held in the country. For years, there was a discounted rate if the loan was denominated in Swiss francs and, of course, Germany and France loaned money. So, if you have the funds in your account, but the mortgage company is in Berlin, how do you pay the mortgage? Electronic transfers out of the country are blocked, and I have no idea if a check written to a Berlin bank will be honored by an Athens bank. How can the bank foreclose? This is the kind of contagion that concerns me.
The other thing that I have noted is how fast credit cards became worthless in Greece, foreign and domestic. Cash on the barrel head is the order of the day.
It's getting real in Greece.
True story.
Wife is a banker and has to turn people away all the time. Everything from people getting pissed and wanting to empty their account and go elsewhere, to people getting a large check from a person who has an account through said bank. Once you reach certain sums of money, the cash has to be "ordered", a bank isn't just going to close it's doors because a few wealthy people drain their vault.
Apparently, Greek stores will soon start running out of food. Local suppliers won't extend credit, of course, and much of the food comes from outside the country and no one is willing to ship anything into Greece because all payments are blocked.
Friends in Athens think that the ECB will start supplying credit to the banks again if they Greeks vote yes, and say that the anger at the government is going to create an overwhelming "yes" vote, but that is only a guess. If the Greeks vote "no," the banks will go under (with the ECB owed something like 150 billion Euros for that alone); depositors will have to take a huge haircut; tax payments will stop because the economy is freezing up, and Greece will unable to pay that legion of pensioners and government employees in Euros.
To keep the whole thing from imploding, the Greek government will have to start circulating tax anticipation notes or something like that, and that "money" will drive Euros out of circulation.
In short, the country is in melt-down and the only question is how awful it will be. Right now the answer appears to be "pretty awful at best."
Socialism has once more worked its very special magic.
Unfortunately, this lesson will be lost on most Americans.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
Unfortunately, it would appear the Greeks have voted NO on accepting the EU terms offered - http://www.wsj.com/articles/polls-cl...dum-1436113280
Unsurprisingly we have panic buying and the Greeks are approaching rapidly pure social chaos and breakdown - http://news.yahoo.com/sugar-flour-ri...QDBHNlYwNzcg--
The lesson here is simple. Have the following: 1) Marketable Skills that can earn you money. 2) Have enough cash to move yourself and your loved ones out of the country, if necessary. 3) Have a valid passport. 4) Have a plan to leave a country that is collapsing.
If I were a Greek citizen, I would have left Greece six months ago for greener pastures elsewhere, when Tsipras was elected. You know who is always hiring men and women under the age of 35? The military. Greece's military is done? Fine, join the French Foreign Legion. Money is money is money, earn some. Now Greece runs the danger of becoming the new Serbia or Bosnia in the region. A haven for criminal elements and a major zone for drug, weapons, and slave trafficking.
-Rob
Nahh, Rob, I think this is just the slowest motion game of chicken. Greece didn't blink this time, so now Zie Germans and the ECB will have to come to the bargaining table with Greece.
Sure Greece will have to trim it's pensions and get everyone paying taxes, but the ECB will have to extend the loan longer and reduce the rate or.....the Eurozone experiment begins to unwind.
It's like the old saying, "If you owe the bank 5k, then you're screwed, but if you owe the bank 350bn, then the bank is screwed."
They'll drag this on and on. We'll revisit all the PIIGS once again, one by one as the reality of socialism flowers like a festering wound on a limb that no one has the gall to cut off, because that would be mean.
Fairness leads to extinction much faster than harsh parameters.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Can't Happen Here Syndrome.
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