Osiris Fraternal Order

Smenkhara wrote:Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:22 amReminds me of a joke I read in Er is Wieder Da a while ago...

A Portuguese, a Greek and a Spaniard all go to a brothel. Who pays?

Germany.

Good one Kemi. I'm going to use that one today

Welp, wrong again. The Germans don't mistrust the Greeks as much as I thought. The temporary EU holiday rider in the agreement is an interesting idea.

Its an interesting agreement. At least the EU isn't pulling money out of nowhere.

Do you think Tsipras can sell it?

I hope so, or the ripples will harm the world as a whole. It occurs to me that Turkey must have really mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the Greeks and the Turks have always hated one another, and largely still do. On the other, the two countries are neighbors and part of several of the same organization, so the economic collapse of Greece, if it plays out that way, is likely to cause significant harm to the Turkish economy.

That's an interesting angle. Greece is very insular. Tourism and shipping are the only exports of significance. I wonder how much of Turkey's economy is intertwined with Greece's. I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Maybe later.
But it will certainly be tough being Greek if they default and are shut out of the capital markets. A lot tougher than it is now with their 25% unemployment rate and six years of contraction.

Yet despite it all they won't submit to austerity measures.

You don't think raising taxes and cutting pension benefits amounts to austerity measures?