Greek referendum ridiculous.
I get it, and I don't. Basically, it amounts to the person leading the country trying to save face. You can read that as; being a coward.
There is absolutely no need for a referendum on the topic. The idiot was voted into office SPECIFICALLY on the platform of not accepting austerity measures. One might argue, the referendum was effectively decided by his election.
Sure, now that he is in power, he has the capability to make good on his promises or change his mind. But he has opted to do NEITHER. Instead, to avoid taking the blame himself, he is putting his parties platform campaign and promises to a referendum. He is the political equivalent of the captain of the Costa Concordia. The ship is sinking and he is fleeing trying to leave everyone else behind to deal with the aftermath.
But worse than that, not only has he called a referendum on insanely short notice. He is even trying to tell the people how they should vote in it. And speaking in a rally for that side! What the actual f***?
If I were a Greek citizen, I don't think anything would be more insulting to me than being forced to make a decision on behalf of an elected member of parliament that was part of the campaign he were elected on. Especially when that person already seems to have a clear idea of which side of the vote he hopes wins. If matters had changed and the PM was himself uncertain of the course of action to take, or if he were at least willing to keep is mouth shut and simply act as an impartial party I think it would be slightly less infuriating.
Yes, the outcome has a rather huge potential to affect the outcome of the country. And, if this weren't pretty much the only element to the current governments campaign I would completely agree that a referendum is the way to go. But that isn't the case.
Beyond that, I don't have any answers. I don't know what the future holds for either a yes or no vote. What I get out of this whole ordeal is that Greece is so far in the hole that bailout money is basically just covering interest payments and paying off privately held debt and that austerity is largely believed to just worsen the situation rather than enable Greece to improve their situation. In which case, bailing them out more just means more money for those investing to lose when Greece as a country declares bankruptcy. And, I think Greece needs to exit the Eurozone (and perhaps the EU as well) to do that.
But, I am not a financial expert. So don't read too much into my words. If I were to wager on the best course of action for Greece, it probably would be to leave the Euro and EU. Internationally their currency would be worthless for the foreseeable future, but being relieved from their crushing debt might actually enable them to, over time, rebuild a stable economy.
The only better solution would be to continue to receive bail out funds if Greece's creditors could be convinced to eliminate interest payments. The problem is any debt not held by non-Eurozone members. Within the EU, it amounts to forgive the interest or run the risk of never seeing the loans repaid. For external creditors, they would probably just extort the money from other members of the Eurozone if Greece exited the currency. It also, of course, makes no sense to Eurozone member countries to give Greece money to payback other Eurozone countries.
The final option would perhaps be to have Greece "sell itself" to one of the Eurozone members. Have another country or consortium of countries take Greece in exchange for absorbing their debt. This is probably the most ridiculous thing to consider, since such a referendum would probably never pass. On paper it is probably the smartest move, in reality it is probably the dumbest thing I could suggest :). If Greece were adjacent to say, Germany, it might be a little less daft.
There is absolutely no need for a referendum on the topic. The idiot was voted into office SPECIFICALLY on the platform of not accepting austerity measures. One might argue, the referendum was effectively decided by his election.
Sure, now that he is in power, he has the capability to make good on his promises or change his mind. But he has opted to do NEITHER. Instead, to avoid taking the blame himself, he is putting his parties platform campaign and promises to a referendum. He is the political equivalent of the captain of the Costa Concordia. The ship is sinking and he is fleeing trying to leave everyone else behind to deal with the aftermath.
But worse than that, not only has he called a referendum on insanely short notice. He is even trying to tell the people how they should vote in it. And speaking in a rally for that side! What the actual f***?
If I were a Greek citizen, I don't think anything would be more insulting to me than being forced to make a decision on behalf of an elected member of parliament that was part of the campaign he were elected on. Especially when that person already seems to have a clear idea of which side of the vote he hopes wins. If matters had changed and the PM was himself uncertain of the course of action to take, or if he were at least willing to keep is mouth shut and simply act as an impartial party I think it would be slightly less infuriating.
Yes, the outcome has a rather huge potential to affect the outcome of the country. And, if this weren't pretty much the only element to the current governments campaign I would completely agree that a referendum is the way to go. But that isn't the case.
Beyond that, I don't have any answers. I don't know what the future holds for either a yes or no vote. What I get out of this whole ordeal is that Greece is so far in the hole that bailout money is basically just covering interest payments and paying off privately held debt and that austerity is largely believed to just worsen the situation rather than enable Greece to improve their situation. In which case, bailing them out more just means more money for those investing to lose when Greece as a country declares bankruptcy. And, I think Greece needs to exit the Eurozone (and perhaps the EU as well) to do that.
But, I am not a financial expert. So don't read too much into my words. If I were to wager on the best course of action for Greece, it probably would be to leave the Euro and EU. Internationally their currency would be worthless for the foreseeable future, but being relieved from their crushing debt might actually enable them to, over time, rebuild a stable economy.
The only better solution would be to continue to receive bail out funds if Greece's creditors could be convinced to eliminate interest payments. The problem is any debt not held by non-Eurozone members. Within the EU, it amounts to forgive the interest or run the risk of never seeing the loans repaid. For external creditors, they would probably just extort the money from other members of the Eurozone if Greece exited the currency. It also, of course, makes no sense to Eurozone member countries to give Greece money to payback other Eurozone countries.
The final option would perhaps be to have Greece "sell itself" to one of the Eurozone members. Have another country or consortium of countries take Greece in exchange for absorbing their debt. This is probably the most ridiculous thing to consider, since such a referendum would probably never pass. On paper it is probably the smartest move, in reality it is probably the dumbest thing I could suggest :). If Greece were adjacent to say, Germany, it might be a little less daft.
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