Perspectives on the global economic changes

[Theo_Fidel]

Suraj saar,

Are we really in deflation. That is terrifying to hear!

[Suraj]

The Chinese aren't producing cheap goods and taking piles of printed paper for it. They're trying to fix that. And in the process the US loses out the source of cheap artificially stimulated demand from all those goods from them. As to your question, as the yak herder complained: stocks volatile, oil down, gold down, jobs feeble. What do you conclude ?

[amit]

^^^^^^^
CTs make for nice entertainment reading. Only problem is they become boring and predictable after a while. Why don't you expand your post with some facts and data points?

I have done this before. I do not wish to rehash the same arguments.

Good. Like I said, CTs are nice entertainment but become boring if repeated often enough.

[chanakyaa]

Lew and Lagarde raise pressure on EU to avoid Grexit

Greece’s Debt Due: What Greece Owes When

Is it a coincidence that a flood of negative news hits the newswires at the same time BRIC summit in Oofa?

7th BRIC Summit

[Austin]

Is it a coincidence that a flood of negative news hits the newswires at the same time BRIC summit in Oofa?

7th BRIC Summit

Thats expected and its become more profound when they opened BRICS bank and went for currency swapping.

BRICS to switch to national currency settlement soon - VTB head

[panduranghari]

Good. Like I said, CTs are nice entertainment but become boring if repeated often enough.

I do not want to go into the same details again because it takes unnecessary band width.

Just for starters, this is the problem with classifying problem as northern and southern europe.

In the western parlance, northern europe is protestant christianity. southern is catholic. the premise on which the west rose ( as its taught in the west) is due to the protestant work ethic. AS long as we are willing to accept this, we can rise within their system. However, to go to the top, you have to be a White Anglo Saxon Protestant- WASP for short. If it was not for WASPs the world would be a lot poorer, so the understanding goes.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1810722

The idea of western economics comes from 1776 book by Adam Smith and his 'invisible hand' hypothesis. The theory works for an ideal economic man - who is rational, thoughtful, individualistic and self centred. This theory has a foundation in the idea that ideal man is fundamentally a Christian who goes to the church. And like the man who is worshipped in the church, there is no place for a woman in this discourse.

American exceptionalism though not implicitly stated so (open to be corrected) - has basis in the ideas of the church.


What will an economic man do- he will get everything he can for his self. He cares none about the environment. Loot. take. steal. beg. borrow. whatever. And this is still what the American economic models work on.

[amit]

I do not want to go into the same details again because it takes unnecessary band width.

Just for starters, this is the problem with classifying problem as northern and southern europe.

In the western parlance, northern europe is protestant christianity. southern is catholic. the premise on which the west rose ( as its taught in the west) is due to the protestant work ethic. AS long as we are willing to accept this, we can rise within their system. However, to go to the top, you have to be a White Anglo Saxon Protestant- WASP for short. If it was not for WASPs the world would be a lot poorer, so the understanding goes.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1810722

The idea of western economics comes from 1776 book by Adam Smith and his 'invisible hand' hypothesis. The theory works for an ideal economic man - who is rational, thoughtful, individualistic and self centred. This theory has a foundation in the idea that ideal man is fundamentally a Christian who goes to the church. And like the man who is worshipped in the church, there is no place for a woman in this discourse.

American exceptionalism though not implicitly stated so (open to be corrected) - has basis in the ideas of the church.


What will an economic man do- he will get everything he can for his self. He cares none about the environment. Loot. take. steal. beg. borrow. whatever. And this is still what the American economic models work on.

You know, there's something called over-analysis. A lot of it happens on online forums and BRF is no exception. The other more problematic approach, IMO, is to first settle on a conclusion and then go out and search out "facts" that fit this conclusion. The more outlandish and cryptic the message the better is sounds - at least that's the idea.

I've seen too much of this, not only on BRF but elsewhere including in the analysts community.

I personally like to keep it simple. My point about the fact that in general countries in Northern Europe are more frugal than the ones in the southern part comes from reading of data from sites such as this and this. In the second link there's a chart. Have a look at the names of the countries towards the right hand side of the Y axis. Particularly take the case of Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania. There are others but I'm choosing these three because they were impoverished countries from the Soviet bloc who have recently joined the Euro zone. Look at the government debt of these three countries. And, yes, before I forget, do also look up if they are Protestant or Catholic (or in Romania's case Eastern Orthodox, which even further removed from the WASP meme), also look up their geographical location.

PS: This is a bit off topic for this thread but let me briefly say that this idea of the power of the Church, especially in Europe is a bit overblown IMO. I think ethnicity, nationalism and even racialism have more sway than this Protestant and Catholic work ethic meme. IMO Christianity's influence in Europe is waning which is why the highly organised Church is looking to Asia (India included) to augment falling numbers. The Church revenue model depends on donations from followers and Asia is expected to have the richest "followers" provided their souls can be saved (polite word for "harvested"). They would be able to contribute more than the impoverished masses in Africa and the only slightly better off folks in Latin America.

The Pew Research slide is interesting:

[Arjun]

There most definitely exists a marked difference between Northern and Southern Europe in metrics related to economic dynamism as well as innovation. This is not a recent difference - but rather something that has existed for a millennia or more.

Whether this is due to Protestantism or geography - or due to Germanic genes is a different matter. I personally think ethnicity is key. In any case, it makes no different to us if Protestantism shows better attainment characteristics than Catholicism or vice versa...

[amit]

Whether this is due to Protestantism - or due to Germanic genes is a different matter. I personally think ethnicity is key. In any case, it makes no different to us if Protestantism shows better attainment characteristics than Catholicism or vice versa...

I would think it could be genetic or cultural derived from the fact that the population in this part of the world evolved in a cold and harsh climate where you tried to make what little food you got go a long way. This Protestant-Catholic stuff completely ignores the fact that civilization in Europe evolved in a pre-Christian era. Ethnic traits are far stronger than religious mumbo jumbo.

Now I certainly agree that some folks (I'm not saying anyone in BRF because this is a common phenomenon outside of this forum as well) have tried to use these traits to fashion this Catholic-Protestant work ethic nonsense.

Even if we believe the theory then how can one explain that uber Catholic places like Poland are among the most fiscally responsible in the EU? And mind you Poles, Czechs and the Romanians are actually less well off on the average than the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians and even the Greeks - well the Greeks before the sh1t hit the ceiling.

[Arjun]

I would think it could be genetic or cultural derived from the fact that the population in this part of the world evolved in a cold and harsh climate where you tried to make what little food you got go a long way. This Protestant-Catholic stuff completely ignores the fact that civilization in Europe evolved in a pre-Christian era. Ethnic traits are far stronger than religious mumbo jumbo.

Now I certainly agree that some folks (I'm not saying anyone in BRF because this is a common phenomenon outside of this forum as well) have tried to use these traits to fashion this Catholic-Protestant work ethic nonsense.

Even if we believe the theory then how can one explain that uber Catholic places like Poland are among the most fiscally responsible in the EU? And mind you Poles, Czechs and the Romanians are actually less well off on the average than the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians and even the Greeks - well the Greeks before the sh1t hit the ceiling.

One can draw conclusions from US data on income by religion as well. Evangelical population as expected comes out at the bottom. Catholics and Protestants are otherwise same - Orthodox tends to be highest within Christianity. Jews and Hindus of course beat the pants off anyone else...

Any inferences may be misleading since ethnicity probably has a bigger role in these outcomes than religion.

[amit]

Arjun,

I guess we are saying the same thing in different ways. I agree with your post.

[panduranghari]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/destruct ... ublished=u

After forecasts in my first book "Mass Capitalism: A Blueprint for Economic Revival", in the article "Macroeconomic Cycles & Business Models" published on 18 March 2015, I made a forecast based on Macroeconomic cycles of the nature that

'My forecast is that starting July 2015, stock markets across the world will begin to fall and by October 2015 we will have an event like the Black Monday of 1987.'

Lo and Behold, Greece Crisis started erupting alongwith stock market crash of China in July 2015. It is a matter of time that US Stock market will also get entangled into this rout. I suspect that just to prevent the collapse of US stock market, it is a high possibility that trading on the NYSE floor could be halted several times in coming months up to October 2015 when I predict that Global crony Capitalism will meet its demise due to a complete collapse.

So, Now what lies ahead for this world? These macroeconomic cycles are not controlled by any country's government but they are essentially cycles of nature. I also mentioned in my upcoming book with Morgan & Claypool (to be available by end of August 2015) "Sustaining Moore's Law : Uncertainty Leading to a Certainty of IoT Revolution" that there is a way to overcome these macroeconomic cycles and avoid huge unemployment in economy. While my macroeconomic forecasts are right on target so far, I assure you that by October 2015, US stock market would also experience a crash akin to 2008. However, World economy is not heading for something bad but is in a transition to a new golden age based on the ideas of 'Economic Democracy'.

<snip>

"Money earned must be spent to keep it in circulation. Put it to good use which is the best protective investment. The water of pond has inflow and outflow systems. That keeps its water clean."

"I don't want the money earned by; Exploiting others, causing pain to others, working against the interests of the religion and begging before the enemy."

[Theo_Fidel]

Any inferences may be misleading since ethnicity probably has a bigger role in these outcomes than religion.

Nope. Ethnicity has zero to do with it. This is a very racist thing to say though one hears it often in India. One should not listen to it.

There are no miracles, no magic bullets and no excuses. I can personally attest to that.
NI has failed miserably at educating its women and continues to pay a terrible price. Even now all folks do is find excuses. Also to be honest even now I’m not sure a 60% education rate in NI is the same as a 60% education rate in SI. I also have a lot more confidence in the TN 80% literacy rate than the Odisha 75% rate. The years of education, esp for women is much higher in TN.

WRT EU Look at years of education. Esp. womens education. Northern EU women have more years of education and their societies have benefitted from. They also began educating their women earlier and still benefit from the generational effect. Other than a few exceptions all the btter performing countries will be grouped at the top. WRT Germany all I can say is 12 years of school in Germany must count for more than 12 years of school in Greece!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _in_school

Look at public expenditures on education. All the Northern EU countries cluster amongst the heaviest spenders.

[Satya_anveshi]

Chinese are invested in US RE, which is at maddeningly high . Expecting those guys to exit so interest rate increase this year is... fugget it.
I hope soothie soosai sheets keep themselves busy in middle-yeast and don't venture flying into buildings with insurance opportunities, then it will be truly 2001 deja vu all over again.

Will Chinese buyers flee or flood US housing?

Chinese are now the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. housing. They poured $28.6 billion into properties in the past year, more than double the investment of number two, the Canadians, according to the National Association of Realtors.

[ramana]

Satya_Anveshi, I think they will increase as their faith in Chinese stock-market will be eroded for HNIs.


Was in SF last weekend near the Bay Bridge waterfront area. Most of the apt units are being snapped up by overseas Chinese from mainland and HK. The sales office overseas is selling sight unseen. Average $1.25M for one-two bedroom apts. The rest by NRI kids working in start-ups.


From Market Watch

Chinese stock markets jumped on Thursday , as did equities in Europe, where investors were waiting for Greece to submit a fresh set of reform proposals before a midnight deadline. Greek banks and the Athens stock market remain closed until Monday.



Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, said U.S. stocks are still in a long-term sideways trend.

"Most of the market reaction is due to overseas headlines and because markets are not always rational, some headlines have greater impact than others, even though logically they should not," Cieszynski said.

"For example, the impact of China's stock market crash is probably bigger on the U.S. than Greece, but Wednesday's selloff was not particularly big. And because the selloff was not big, we are not seeing a bigger bounce," he said.

"In our view, China is in the midst of a triple bubble, with the third biggest credit bubble of all time, the largest investment bubble (proxied by the investment share of GDP) and the second biggest real estate bubble," wrote Jeffrey D. Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James.

"Plainly, the Chinese 'crash' is having more of an impact on world markets than the Greek Gotcha despite the media's machinations. Yet, I continue to think our markets are in a bottoming phase that is typified by the kind of whipsaw action we have seen this week," Saut wrote in a note to investors.

[Satya_anveshi]

Ramana ji, there is publicly known part of Chinese investments in RE and there are other ways to participate/fund mostly on the debt side (think of all that was happening prior to crash). Putting a $20-$30B for Chinese involvement on a >$1T market does not do justice nor does it move any needle for it to become a topic of discussion/view in media.

it is far larger and hence the threat. And it won't increase. People tend to hook on the game they are familiar with (more at home) and overlook occasional shock. So, my gut feel is folks will make for a higher exit from US RE and re-focus back home.

[Arjun]

Nope. Ethnicity has zero to do with it. This is a very racist thing to say though one hears it often in India. One should not listen to it.

There is substantial variance between the Germanic and Romance regions of Europe. There are differences between Indian castes. There are massive differences between Han Chinese and other Mongoloid ethnicities in East and SE Asia.

Wishing these differences away will not make the problem disappear. There ARE ethnic differences in educational and income attainment, that need to be studied and explained.

I don't believe this difference is a result of genetic factors - but rather a result of cultural factors, norms and attitudes developed over many generations. There is nothing racist whatsoever in my attitude. I am not a believer in HBD, btw.

[JE Menon]

>>Greece has few natural resources other than the sea and tourism. Its love affair with socialism is well documented. The government was seen as a source for jobs and benefits. Somewhere the idea of national productivity got lost with its people immigrating mostly to the western hemisphere. As far as I can see they are still eat up with it and unrequited about socialism. Western Anatolia was part of Greek civilization 1000's of years until the Turks drove them out. They've never recovered. They have suffered invasion after invasion. So I suppose they deserve some pity. Unfortunately history has shown if you get to feeling sorry for yourself, you are screwed.

A brutally blunt one from TSJ, but I think that about sums it up.

[UlanBatori]

Greeks are simply some of the best entrepreneurs in the world. The Gujarat of Europe (what special natural resources are located in Gujarat except its people?) I was wondering how they became great in the distant past - why all those dreamy men wearing saris and sandals and flowers and weeds on their heads gathered there to shoot the breeze. With their fantastic scenery and mostly nice weather and very central location, Greece is ideal as a financial/business/academic thought center of the world. Trouble is that after WW2 they have been under one brutal military dictatorship or corrupt regime after another. If they find a way to shake free of those, Greece will rise again in spectacular fashion. Extremely wealthy and powerful diaspora. They need a leadership that will shake off both the EU and NATO, and kick out the Pakis etc that infest them. Where is Ulysses when he is needed?

I think they need to say to the EU and the IMF, and deal individually with each creditor - get them to sign on where they will get back their principal, a decent low interest and some reward for patience. Tell them to go screw themselves if they expect 13% interest when the Ulan Bator Horses' As*es Bank only gives 0.0001% on my Prime Money Market Account. Enlist the diaspora to support this - open up FDI to them, barter some of the islands to them if needed. $150B is easy for those guys.

[Neshant]

Lagarde is a total stooge of the European countries that put her into the IMF chairmanship. She represents their interests, not that of the members of the IMF.

Now watch how even more IMF "loans" are channeled to Greece to pay German & French banks. 3 to 5 years on, Greece will again default on the IMF with an even bigger outstanding loan amount. Rinse & repeat until a lot of bad European bank debt (aka loans Greece will never repay) gets transferred from European banks to the IMF by the Lagarde types running it.

Behind the scenes, US & EU can settle the loss of their IMF share among themselves. But that leaves Asia & South America members of the IMF holding the bag.

____

Greek PM wins backing for concessions; EU, IMF give positive signals

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/greek ... ector.html

[Rahul M]

slightly OT

Whether this is due to Protestantism - or due to Germanic genes is a different matter. I personally think ethnicity is key. In any case, it makes no different to us if Protestantism shows better attainment characteristics than Catholicism or vice versa...

I am always mystified by the paeans sung to 'protestant ethics'. if you actually go through martin luther's sayings, it seems to be little more than a fundamentalist intolerant ideology -- a christian wahabism if you will.

[panduranghari]

Rahul M, absolutely. The problem is the theory of economics as it was born in the west and as its taught there and also in India is very much based on the theories of Adam Smith. There is enough evidence to show those theories are not complete and wont work as long as you discount the non Christians, women from the equation. These things wont be acknowledged by the western economists because their survival depends on it. But if you analyse it impartially it will make so much sense to eliminate these ideas from our books. They do not still form a part of our psyche. We have lots in our heritage that we can pick up and start teaching, unlike the debunked western economic concepts.
-----

BTW, Greeks accepted the austerity measures in return for the bailout. It was always going to happen. There was never an intent to leave Euro. They know life outside Euro will be far worse than within.

It should give us all a chance to reflect, why did Greece (un?)willingly choose austerity to exit? How many other nations will be walking the same path? Greece must be wondering - Tanha tanha yahan pe jeena ye koi baat hai Koi saathi nahin tera yahaan to ye koi baat hai

[Arjun]

I am always mystified by the paeans sung to 'protestant ethics'. if you actually go through martin luther's sayings, it seems to be little more than a fundamentalist intolerant ideology -- a christian wahabism if you will.

Its a bunch of bull...'Protestant work ethic' probably did make some sense in the era it was proposed as a hypothesis to explain the divergence between Catholic and Protestant performance. Its been continuously downhill since then unfortunately. The hypothesis met its natural death soon enough when the Irish started performing just as well as the Protestants in the US. After the ignominy of the Catholics catching up, they had to suffer those half-Asian Orthodox Christians turning out to be at the top of the Christian ranks, and then of course we had the phenomenon of Jews, Hindus and Confucians outstripping everyone else in work ethic and performance.

Evangelical Protestantism obviously scrapes the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality of converts, which is why they try to distinguish in the US between 'mainstream' protestant churches and evangelical ones.

[amit]

Max Weber's theory (more correctly mumbo jumbo) on Protestant work ethics had its brief day in the sun in the early part of the 20th century. But to say modern Western economic thinking is still influenced by it? That's as much mumbo jumbo (or CT giri) as the stupid theory itself.

[amit]

IMO Tsipras always knew that the only way forward was to accept the Euro zone measures. But he also knew that would destroy his political career as the measures would begin to bite. So, again IMO, he hatched this idea of a referendum on a deal that was already off the table after shutting down the banking system and creating panic so that there would be a Yes vote - in fact early projections showed 57 per cent of Greeks were in favor of Yes vote. In that case he would have resigned and waited in the sidelines as a martyr and let someone else clean up the mess and get unpopular and come back as a saviour. The No (which surprised many folks) put paid to that and now he has to bear and grin.

You will notice many points in the Greek proposal is the same or similar to what ECB had initially asked for. So if he agreeable to that then why the initial Dada giri?

[TSJones]

IMO Tsipras always knew that the only way forward was to accept the Euro zone measures. But he also knew that would destroy his political career as the measures would begin to bite. So, again IMO, he hatched this idea of a referendum on a deal that was already off the table after shutting down the banking system and creating panic so that there would be a Yes vote - in fact early projections showed 57 per cent of Greeks were in favor of Yes vote. In that case he would have resigned and waited in the sidelines as a martyr and let someone else clean up the mess and get unpopular and come back as a saviour. The No (which surprised many folks) put paid to that and now he has to bear and grin.

You will notice many points in the Greek proposal is the same or similar to what ECB had initially asked for. So if he agreeable to that then why the initial Dada giri?

to see a Bison herd on the move and united is an awesome thing. However, it is all together a different thing to get them to go where you want them to be. Absolutely a miserable, thankless task at times. And often leaving you trampled. can be very rewarding if you succeed however......

[amit]

^^^^^^^

I can see why the Yak herder likes this bison herder so much

They have a lot of stories to swap from the trail.

On a more serious note TSJ, nice analogy.

[ldev]

The people believed in Tsipras, he did not believe in himself!!

The result is the classical Greek tragedy!!

Thespis....Tsipras.....same same??

[panduranghari]

The people believed in Tsipras, he did not believe in himself!!

The result is the classical Greek tragedy!!

Thespis....Tsipras.....same same??

Then why do Milton Friedman and Robert Mundell not agree with what is considered as a problem today i.e Greece?

Homo sapiens generally tend to focus on the minutiae of any situation, or else on what everyone else is saying about it. And in the case of the euro, that would be "the debt" or "Greece". Somehow most people always seem to miss the giant big-picture elephant tromping about the room. And in this case, that elephant is the euro's severed link to the nation-state. When Duisenberg said this was a "first", he meant it.

"The one really new development is the euro, a transnational central bank issuing a common currency for its members. There is no historical precedent for such an arrangement."

In the world of currencies, there are many varieties. The way a nation chooses to manage its currency relative to the world outside its boundaries can have a wide range of effects and consequences, ranging from long-term stability to periodic hyperinflation. If you want a hard currency, then, ideally, you want it managed by someone else—a disinterested third party.

"A hard fixed rate is a very different thing. My own view has long been that for a small country, to quote from a lecture that I gave in 1972, “the best policy would be to eschew the revenue from money creation, to unify its currency with the currency of a large, relatively stable developed country with which it has close economic relations, and to impose no barriers to the movement of money or prices, wages, and interest rates. Such a policy requires not having a central bank. Panama exemplifies this policy, which has since come to be called 'dollarization.'"

Currency instability is a common problem for smaller nations. The hard fixed exchange rate is one way a small country can share the same currency stability enjoyed by larger nation-states. This is in contrast to the (dirty) floating exchange rate among most large, modern economies or the pegged rate of countries like China today, where a central bank uses brute force to try and overpower the normal market adjustment mechanism in order to maintain its desired valuation peg.

Bretton Woods was a pegged system, and one of the characteristics of pegging seems to be the buildup of market pressure that must be periodically released through a currency crisis like we saw in 1933, 1971 and again in the 90s with Mexico and East Asia. The market wants what the market wants, and trying to fight a force as powerful as that always ends in tears for someone. But sometimes the market simply bypasses the choices of the currency manager by using secondary media of exchange.

ONE WORLD, ONE MONEY - Robert Mundell and Milton Friedman debate the virtues—or not—of fixed exchange rates, gold, and a world currency.

[JE Menon]

>>I think they need to say to the EU and the IMF, and deal individually with each creditor - get them to sign on where they will get back their principal, a decent low interest and some reward for patience. Tell them to go screw themselves if they expect 13% interest when the Ulan Bator Horses' As*es Bank only gives 0.0001% on my Prime Money Market Account.

[UlanBatori]

Per this site, as of June 30, Greece owes 220B Oiros. I don't know how much of that is bloated interest due to prior defaults, and how much is principal. Do they borrow like ARMs? Today Euro = 1.12 USD. So 220 B is $264B.

Funny thing is, per this site (US-based), Greece owed $352B as of March 25!!!
So has Greece suddenly paid back $132B in 3 months? Or is the whole debt calculation completely bogus, like Mr. Haney of Green Acres?

The other funny thing is that per the Money conversion as of March 25, the Euro was only $1.09, but now it is $1.2? How, if the USD has been going up and the Oiro down?
All seems like Madarssa math to me.

[Suraj]

The prospects of no longer a Grexit makes the Euro stronger implicitly. However, I'm disappointed that Greece caved in. I'd have been happier if they made the ECB eat their losses.

[member_27845]

[The other funny thing is that per the Money conversion as of March 25, the Euro was only $1.09, but now it is $1.2? How, if the USD has been going up and the Oiro down?
All seems like Madarssa math to me.

UB : the euro has been trading at 1.09-1.11 to the Dollar for last 4 months

You probably saw 1.12 as the rate and mistook it for 1.20

[UlanBatori]

You probably saw 1.12 as the rate and mistook it for 1.20

True onlee Still, in 2015 it seems to be coming HIGHER, makes no sense. If the USD is rising, the Eurozone is basically in doodoo, why is this so?
To put it another way, 1 Oiro will buy much more gold now than a year ago. And crude oil. And natural gas. And hugely more Carbon. Interest rates are low - even Greece manages to sell bonds at 4.95%.
So why is there any crisis in EuroZone? All seems contrived in the extreme.

[chanakyaa]

You probably saw 1.12 as the rate and mistook it for 1.20

True onlee Still, in 2015 it seems to be coming HIGHER, makes no sense. If the USD is rising, the Eurozone is basically in doodoo, why is this so?
To put it another way, 1 Oiro will buy much more gold now than a year ago. And crude oil. And natural gas. And hugely more Carbon. Interest rates are low - even Greece manages to sell bonds at 4.95%.
So why is there any crisis in EuroZone? All seems contrived in the extreme.

"Distress" has been converted into "Crisis" using esteemed international media houses. Forces fighting Ru$$ia using Ookrane at the expense of EYoo, are the same forces fighting "YooRo" at the expense of "Geece"

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." - (Quote by some politician)

[Neshant]

Interest rates are low - even Greece manages to sell bonds at 4.95%.

Where did you read Greece manages to sell bonds as 4.95%?

It was 20% yield on their 10 year bond prior to their default and it must be even higher now :

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/ ... bond-yield

[UlanBatori]

Gee, Neshant, don't u know that UB News & Conspiracies peddles nothing but the finest?
See Wikipedia:

In April 2014, Greece returned to the global bond market as it successfully sold €3 billion worth of five-year government bonds at a yield of 4.95%.

So how did things go so far downhill in 15 months? I think the Indian bond issue was at 8 percent or so back in 1998. Of course global interest rates were higher then. But 20% is extortion (Honesty compels me to state that I would not lend my paise to Greece even at 100% pa, unless it were backed by real-estate as collateral, and that held as escrow in Ulan Bator, given how smart their netas are. If they default as expected, can one reasonably go occupy a mansion on the Mediterranean, given the friendly nature of one's neighbors? Will the plumbing work? The lights come on? Have the police been paid salaries in the past year?)

[Neshant]

I'm not sure why you're talking about early 2014 when its currently mid 2015.

What it was is irrelevant. 10 yr Greek govt bonds are today practically worthless unless another round of bailouts & "loans" are extended. All these loans are nothing more than a backdoor bailout of European banks. The "loans" will never be repaid in full. The banks and Greece however have to put some time distance between the "loan"and the actual default event so people forget that its been nothing more than a transfer of wealth from the public to private banks.

All these dud loans held then by the public will be paid for through belt tightening not of bankers (as it should have been) but of the public.

When you said :

even Greece manages to sell bonds at 4.95%

its clearly not true.

And btw, 20% was about 10 days prior to their default.

[Austin]

There was this comment made today by an expert on NDTV profit which said like Indian Stock Market at some 92.5 % of GDP is far over valued compared to China stock market at 55 % of GDP , is this True ?

[ldev]

Greek government bond yields for various maturities and prices, 3 to 30 years from left to right on various dates recently. It will be interesting to see where they trade at after today's bailout.


Date
Maturity (Years)
3
PriceYield %
5
PriceYield %
10
PriceYield %
15
PriceYield %
20
PriceYield %
30
PriceYield %
25/06/2015 71.35 22.25 71.40 15.18 58.40 10.50 54.00 9.61 50.89 9.21 50.43 8.57
24/06/2015 72.00 21.63 71.00 15.34 59.30 10.29 55.00 9.41 53.70 8.74 53.00 8.18
23/06/2015 70.00 23.31 69.00 16.27 55.90 11.10 52.20 9.95 51.50 9.10 51.00 8.48
22/06/2015 64.70 28.17 63.70 18.93 51.20 12.33 46.90 11.09 46.10 10.10 45.80 9.34
19/06/2015 63.50 29.33 62.50 19.56 50.44 12.54 46.07 11.28 45.39 10.25 45.10 9.47
18/06/2015 63.20 29.59 62.30 19.66 50.20 12.60 46.70 11.13 46.20 10.08 46.20 9.27
17/06/2015 64.00 28.68 63.70 18.88 50.00 12.65 44.10 11.75 43.33 10.68 43.17 9.84
16/06/2015 64.00 28.64 63.70 18.87 51.10 12.34 46.90 11.08 47.00 9.92 46.00 9.30
15/06/2015 65.60 27.06 64.00 18.71 51.70 12.18 47.75 10.88 47.25 9.87 46.80 9.16
12/06/2015 68.30 24.54 67.30 17.02 55.60 11.16 51.00 10.19 50.00 9.36 49.50 8.71
11/06/2015 67.00 25.69 66.25 17.54 54.50 11.43 49.50 10.50 49.50 9.45 49.00 8.79
10/06/2015 67.50 25.14 66.50 17.39 54.10 11.53 50.00 10.39 49.50 9.45 49.00 8.79
09/06/2015 68.00 24.66 67.00 17.13 55.00 11.30 51.10 10.16 50.50 9.27 50.10 8.61
08/06/2015 68.30 24.36 67.40 16.93 56.05 11.03 51.10 10.16 50.60 9.25 50.60 8.53
05/06/2015 70.62 22.34 71.10 15.18 57.62 10.65 53.80 9.62 50.00 9.35 52.60 8.23
04/06/2015 71.00 21.99 70.60 15.40 58.37 10.47 53.93 9.60 53.40 8.77 52.60 8.23
03/06/2015 69.80 22.92 70.00 15.66 55.87 11.07 51.35 10.10 51.18 9.14 50.66 8.52
02/06/2015 69.00 23.58 68.00 16.59 55.50 11.16 52.00 9.97 50.50 9.26 50.00 8.63
29/05/2015 70.10 22.62 69.80 15.73 56.59 10.89 52.20 9.93 51.70 9.05 51.30 8.42
28/05/2015 69.65 22.97 68.60 16.29 56.20 10.98 51.50 10.07 50.75 9.22 50.50 8.55
27/05/2015 67.10 25.07 66.50 17.27 53.47 11.66 48.98 10.59 48.30 9.66 50.00 8.62
26/05/2015 68.83 23.53 68.24 16.42 54.24 11.46 50.49 10.27 50.00 9.35 50.00 8.62
25/05/2015 69.90 22.60 68.27 16.40 55.07 11.25 50.50 10.27 50.00 9.35 49.97 8.63
22/05/2015 69.70 22.74 67.40 16.81 54.85 11.30 50.44 10.28 49.20 9.49 49.07 8.77
21/05/2015 69.35 23.01 68.03 16.50 56.37 10.92 52.12 9.93 51.55 9.07 51.50 8.39
20/05/2015 70.44 22.02 69.61 15.74 55.71 11.08 51.70 10.02 51.20 9.13 52.00 8.31
19/05/2015 69.00 23.20 68.63 16.19 54.52 11.37 51.19 10.12 50.50 9.25 50.50 8.54
18/05/2015 72.37 20.42 68.01 16.47 58.87 10.32 55.29 9.32 55.00 8.51 54.80 7.91
15/05/2015 74.00 19.14 73.00 14.20 57.52 10.63 53.09 9.74 52.58 8.90 52.55 8.23
14/05/2015 73.10 19.81 72.20 14.55 57.85 10.56 54.01 9.56 53.54 8.74 53.40 8.11