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as a condition of its international bailout were “absolutely necessary”, the country’s finance minister has acknowledged. Athens was forced by its troika of international lenders to slash spending and liberalise the economy to access more than €250bn in financial assistance between 2010 and 2018. The European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF were blamed by many Greeks for the hardest years of the debt crisis, when the nation was blighted by mass unemployment and political upheaval. But Greece is now one of only five countries in the EU running a primary budget surplus. Financial Times 21 May 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/3576843a-de5b-484f-a148-6fa8ab1d59ba?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Horst Reichenbach We’re not occupiers  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2011/11/horst-reichenbach.html   Germany is the largest guarantor of the European Central Bank’s credit default insurance, known as the OMT and provides by far the largest stock of “target” overdraft credit to other European c...

Borttaget från Youtube   Nu återuppstått i jag tror olika skepnader. Kanske ryska troll baserade i Turkiet. Döm själv. ⚠️ Disclaimer: This is a fan-made channel and is not affiliated with Yanis Varoufakis or any political party, organization, or institution he is associated with. The videos are inspired by Varoufakis’s public statements, ideas, and analyses for educational and informational purposes only. A synthesized voice is used and does not belong to Yanis Varoufakis. Visual lip-syncing and dubbed narration are included solely to enhance clarity, create a cinematic experience, and make the content more engaging. Our aim is to present Yanis Varoufakis’s economic thinking and geopolitical interpretations in a format that is both clear and engaging for a wider global audience. We work to ensure that viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing can follow each episode through accurate and carefully prepared transcriptions. Every analysis is shared with respect for Varoufakis’s wor...

  För tio år var Grekland på väg att krascha ut ur EU. Men sedan krissommaren 2015 har landet gått från ekonomiskt fritt fall till att vara ett av få länder i Europa med sjunkande statsskuld. I ena hörnan den så kallade trojkan – Internationella valutafonden, EU-kommissionen och de övriga euroländerna som ställt upp med två stödpaket sedan eurokrisen och som inte ville låna ut en euro till utan omfattande motkrav. I den andra ett folk som redan protesterat våldsamt under år av kraftiga åtstramningar och som sett sin köpkraft decimeras samtidigt som arbetslösheten skjutit i höjden, samt en ny vänsterregering som lovade att få till en ny, bättre ppgörelse och ett slut på krisen. Vad som faktiskt hände under Greklandskrisen, och vad som ledde fram till den, kan fylla böcker.  Radarparet som tog över förhandlingarna med Bryssel var premiärministern Alexis Tsipras och hans finansminister, den färgstarke och frispråkige ekonomiprofessorn Yanis Varoufakis. – Det är en sorts finanspol...

  Förslaget innebär en dubblering av budgeten. Utgångsbudet från EU-kommissionen ligger på cirka 2 000 miljarder euros https://www.svd.se/a/Mnybrm/snala-sverige-maste-bereda-sig-pa-fight-om-eu-budget Johan Hakeluis om EU beskattningsrätt Samma EU-sång, gång på gång.  Idén om beskattningsrätt på EU-nivå bygger på en envis förnekelse av vad demokrati faktiskt är.  EU-fanatikerna tar varje tillfälle att rulla ut en europeisk superstat. Varje kris är en möjlighet för dem.  Pandemin var rena bonanzan. Och ni vet hur det är nu: ett jävla elände. Ryssland, tullar, Trump, Kina, klimatet, migrationen, och så vidare, och så vidare.  Och kommissionen försitter inte tillfället. EU behöver en större budget, säger den. Men oroa er inte. ”Ni” – det vill säga medlemsstaterna – behöver inte betala mera. Vi kan fixa det själva. Bara ni ger oss beskattningsrätt.  Beskattningen är kronan på verket. Att ha rätten att dra in andras pengar är den ultimata makttrippen Fransmän vil...

Högst statsskuld hade Grekland, 152,5 procent av BNP, följt av Italien med 137,9 procent och Frankrike med 114,1 procent.  Lägst statsskuld hade Bulgarien med 23,9 procent.  https://www.di.se/live/nagot-lagre-budgetunderskott-i-eu-s-medlemslander/

Grekland gick i slutet av 2008 in i en långvarig ekonomisk kris.  Under de efterföljande fem åren sjönk landets BNP med ungefär en fjärdedel  DI 17 March 2025 https://www.di.se/live/grekland-slipper-skrapstatus-for-forsta-gangen-sedan-2010/

  EU-kommissionens förslag om att länder ska kunna runda EU:s budgetregler under en viss tid för att låna pengar till försvaret  Ledarna ska även dryfta ett nytt låneupplägg på motsvarande 1.700 miljarder kronor, som ska kunna användas för gemensamma försvarsinvesteringar. Utöver Ursula von der Leyens förslag har Tyskland inför mötet väckt idén om en mer djupgående reform av EU:s stabilitets- och tillväxtpakt Romano Prodi, Commission president from 1999 to 2004, asserted in October 2002 that the stability pact was “stupid” because it provided for sanctions on countries already in financial difficulties. Prodi: It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created." https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/11/tyskland-dumpar-sitt-overskottsmal.html Skiftet välkomnades av Greklands premiärminister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, som passade på att påpeka att hans land länge förespråkat mer finanspolitisk flexibilitet. ”Grekl...

  Only the second half of the 700-page volume covers Merkel’s time as chancellor, when she shared the spotlight with Putin, Xi, Obama and Blair.  Instead, much of the focus is on her experiences growing up, studying and working as a physicist (and marrying her first husband) in East Germany before reunification — a country, she reminds us at the outset, which no longer exists. The East is what shaped Merkel.  Recalling a conversation she had in late 1990 with the head of the Treuhand Agency tasked with privatizing East German businesses, Merkel expressed her frustration with the loan decisions made by the agency’s “arrogant, twenty-somethings.”  Straight out of law school, they knew everything except how people work, prioritizing “young West German bankers who are just like themselves” over Easterners with a business idea.  Former SED party members, on the other hand, eloquent and adept at making grandiose promises, were successful all over again. “Unscrupulousn...

Tysklands ekonomi avstannat, tillväxt i Portugal, Italien, Grekland och Spanien Greece had the worst economic slump in a developed country since the Depression.  Now, some 15 years later, for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain — labelled the ‘PIIGS’ by some analysts in the past — the tables have turned. Germany had no increase in economic activity at all over the past four years, and the Bundesbank has warned that this stagnation may drag on well into 2025 Tourism was boosted by pent-up demand for travel and higher savings during the pandemic. In Spain and in Greece, tourist arrivals are up at double-digit rates  “A 30 per cent disadvantage in unit labour costs that existed over the first decade of the currency union has been offset,” The newfound economic fortunes of Europe’s debt crisis countries can in part be traced a €800bn debt-funded investment programme launched during the pandemic. The so-called NextGenerationEU Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece are the main r...

 — the countries at the centre of the 2010 to 2015 Eurozone crisis. This story of success in Greece defies all the doomsayers and hotheads of 2015, when the country briefly flirted with leaving the euro under its populist-left Syriza government.  The lesson to learn from the crisis over a decade ago is the value of solidarity across Europe, enabling sovereign debts to be put on a sustainable basis with support from more financially secure countries.  Conditionality attached to this support was vital, despite its political difficulty. Kicking the can down the road, as happened often from 2010 to 2015, was also necessary to foster difficult compromises. Chris Giles Financial Times 11 December 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/9ae38922-bb81-459f-83f9-2eaa4cb38fcf

  The world has changed, but the EU’s worldview hasn’t changed with it Last week, I attended a meeting of mainly European intellectuals and policymakers in the Italian Alps.  One belief that everyone in Trump’s camp shares is that China has been a free rider in the global trading system, and that the resulting imbalances must be corrected. US today is “in the position of some blend of the UK, France, and Weimar Germany in 1930”.  America is a global financial centre with the world’s reserve currency, but also the world’s largest debtor with a hollowed out industrial base. If the US succeeds in decoupling its economy from China’s without major inflation or a market crash, the EU would be even more exposed to Chinese mercantilism As former EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy put it in a main stage session at the Grand Continent summit last week: “The EU is predictable, slow, and rules based. Trump is the opposite. While intellectuals debated in the Alps, the French government...

Just after the onset of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, disclosures of financial mismanagement in Greece almost plunged the country into bankruptcy and resulted in a loss of confidence in bond markets. A number of countries experienced big increases in government borrowing costs, with yields on government debt in Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain rising from about 2% in 2009 to between 7% and 20% in 2011,  and Greek 2-year bond yields rising to 200% in 2012 In addition, the crisis threatened the survival of the euro, which was introduced in 1999. A French sovereign-debt crisis would be a problem for the eurozone, economist says Vivien Lou Chen MarketWatch 3 December 2024 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-investors-watch-french-budget-mess-amid-memories-of-eurozone-debt-crisis-c1118671 Quantifying the Impact of ECB Policies during the Debt Crisis https://www.nber.org/digest/feb18/quantifying-impact-ecb-policies-during-debt-crisis We use open market operations to steer inte...

The contagion to the rest of the euro zone has so far been minimal — suggesting that the European Central Bank’s promise to act as a lender of last resort, made under duress in 2012, is still having a powerful effect.  When the bloc’s sovereign debt crisis  https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/fixed-income/european-sovereign-debt-crisis/ broke out in 2010, there was thought to be a real solvency risk attaching to countries at the European periphery, particularly the so-called PIIGS — Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.  The Macrons and Trumps on Bastille Day 2017.   This time around, the extra spreads that they must pay to investors compared to bunds have remained very stable.   John Authers Bloomberg 3 december 2024   https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-03/france-s-cold-hasn-t-spread-to-rest-of-europe-yet Anders Borg (TT): Den stora risken var att Grekland skulle utlösa en kris i italienska, franska och tyska ban...

  Is France heading for a Greek-style debt crisis? “For the moment, it is a complete exaggeration,” At the height of its debt crisis, the yield on Greek debt climbed above 16 per cent.  The Greek economy had cratered, made worse by punishing austerity measures, and Athens engaged in a bitter fight with Berlin and Brussels over the terms of a Eurozone bailout. Financial Times 28 November 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/a3dc5b2b-3061-48fe-8961-75081e2cc7cc France May Not Be Greece, But It Is Europe Marine Le Pen’s budget brinkmanship is a manageable risk. Longer-term institutional and political crisis is not. Lionel Laurent Bloomberg 29 november 2024 France May Not Be Greece, But It Is Europe - Bloomberg Anders Borg (TT): Den stora risken var att Grekland skulle utlösa en kris i italienska, franska och tyska banker https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2012/02/anders-borg-tt-den-stora-risken-var-att.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 29 November 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.c...

Jag hittade detta när jag letade efter något annat på min blogg.  Det får bli Favorit i repris med ny etikett. Martin Sandbu, the economics leader writer for the Financial Times, skrev (FT 2 april 2012) en ledare som argumenterade emot att Grekland och andra länder borde lämna euron. Han borde veta vad han pratar om. Hans meriter är inte dåliga."Sandbu has a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University". Nuförtiden verkar fisksoppeargumentet,  att det är lätt att göra fisksoppa av ett akvarium, men svårt att ångra sig och försöka göra ett akvarium av fisksoppan,  ha bytt ut till liknelsen att det är lätt att göra citronsaft av citroner, men svårt att göra citroner av citronsaft. Ekonomerna gör framsteg, vill jag lova. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2012/04/eurokrisen-fisksoppan-och-elitens.html Margit Gennser brukade säga att de ingen elit, de är ...

  Ryssland kommer att vara ett hot mot Europa för lång tid framöver. För att vi ska kunna möta detta krävs en politik som bygger på militär styrka och ekonomiska reformer som ger ekonomisk tillväxt och stärker de ekonomiska strukturer som bygger samhällelig säkerhet. Europa måste växla över till en snabbare tillväxt som kan ge oss en roll när det gäller utvecklingen av AI, digitalisering, nya material, moderna energi­källor, avancerad industri samt strategiska råvaru­tillgångar för att Europa ska kunna vara en ledande partner och kraft i den globala ekonomin.  Det kräver en revidering av all EU-lagstiftning de senaste 20 åren. Förre ECB-chefen Mario Draghis rapport... Vi behöver för detta en avreglering som vitaliserar den inre marknaden och som fördjupar och utvidgar den in i alla de medlems­stater vars lagar och regler fortfarande skyddar tjänste­sektorn, nationella företag och monopol. Gunnar Hökmark SvD 6 november 2024 https://www.svd.se/a/zA9MOK/gunnar-hokmark-europa-beho...

  Proposals to integrate the supply chains of the British and German defence industries, and ease rules on military procurement, collide head on with the big push by France and Brussels for an integrated EU defence industry, under a newly-minted defence commissioner, all linked to the EU’s law-making machinery, and therefore subject to the European Court of Justice. This emerging structure is highly protectionist and designed to keep “third countries” well away, especially Britain.  Sir Keir aims to win over Germany, bringing it closer to Holland, the Nordics, Poland, Italy and others less wedded to EU ideological purism and defence mercantilism. The EU institutions can bring almost any member country to heel if it strays too far Enforcers toppled an elected Greek government in 2010, and toppled the elected Italian government in 2012 after Silvio Berlusconi threatened to take Italy out of the euro.  In both cases they parachuted in an EU loyalist. They starved Greek banks...

Humans can survive whole days without food, shelter or internet, but they can’t last long without water.  Which is why it’s so weird that American humans keep rushing to live in places where water is increasingly scarce.  The latest dry hot spot is Texas. The state’s growing population is outstripping its water resources, and climate change will only make it worse. Questions about why Americans keep migrating so relentlessly toward the climate crisis instead of away from it.  People escaping wildfires and high housing prices in, say, California are moving into the path of new disasters, with fresh opportunities for financial ruin . Mark Gongloff Bloomberg 4 september 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-09-04/texas-water-problems-like-arizona-but-bigger Greece Is Learning to Live With Wildfires https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-09-06/greece-wildfires-how-technology-is-helping-mitigate-impact-of-blazes

  CNN 4 August 2024 Overtourism has become a major buzzword in travel in recent years as popular destinations struggle to balance their need for visitor dollars with the quality of life of their residents and maintaining a desirable and sustainable environment for all. On Santorini, according to some, it’s not simply a case of too many tourists. “The truth is that the island is empty. Right now is like never before, it’s the worst season ever.” https://edition.cnn.com/travel/santorini-greece-overtourism-cr uise-visitor-cap/index.html The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history:  the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini Under bronsåldern domineras vår värld av tre blomstrande civilisationer. Men inom loppet av bara 50 år kollapsar de alla, en efter en.  https://www.svtplay.se/video/KMVxoG3/varldens...

The far right’s acceptance of the euro means that possible Victory in France’s election is unlikely to lead to financial crisis. Veterans of European crises got a sickening sense of deja-vu this past week. Since a debt crisis beginning in Greece in 2009 almost destroyed the euro, investors have been alert to anything that threatens the survival of the European Union or the common currency shared by 20 of its 27 members.   As Europe’s far-right parties have crept closer to power, their stated goals have shifted from leaving the EU to reforming it from within.  The underappreciated story of Europe’s election season isn’t the fragility of the EU and euro, but their resilience.  The debt crisis that began in Greece in 2009 exposed the common currency’s underlying contradictions.  By allowing countries with higher inflation such as Greece and Spain to borrow at the same low interest rates as Germany, it fueled the growth of unsustainable debts. Yet the euro survived ...