1 Ikus http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31021.

2 Honelako kontraesanak daude, ingelesez: “The respondents were also sure (mostly) that the Greek government would come to some sort of agreement with the Troika:

46% believe that there will be an agreement between the Greek government and lenders, 29% answered “probably yes”, 9% answered “no”, 10% answered “probably not”. Although a significant minority did not think that the process reflected what we might call “negotiations”: On the question whether the government has negotiated hard with Greece’s lenders 43% answered “yes”, whereas 29% said that the negotiation was “non-existent” … Another poll was reported on May 11, 2015 from enikos.gr which told us that – More than 85% of Greeks want to stay in Eurozone. Only “12.2% wish the opposite”. Further, contrary to the other poll: Nearly 75 (74.1%) of respondents think that Greece and its Euro partners will try to find a common ground and reach an agreement with mutual concessions, while just 20.6% thinks the opposite. And: More than 70% (71.9%) of respondents says the Greek government should make mutual concessions in order for Greece to remain in the Euro zone.”

3 Ingelesez:

1. 91.7 per cent of the respondents thought that the Greek government “should not accept an increase in VAT (Value-Added Tax) concerning basic commodities, 89.4% is against salary reductions and 85.8% against pension cuts”.

2. “More than 7 out of 10 of the respondents (75.2%) think the government should not accept the reduction of Social Solidarity Benefit for Pensioners (EKAS) or the reduction of the number of people who are receiving it.”

4 Ingelesez: “… despite the strong support for Syriza, only “21.3% of the respondents think the government should accept an agreement with our Euro partners only in case that such agreement includes all the demands of Syriza, even if that bring about a Grexit.” But interestingly “nearly 40% (39.1) would opt for Grexit and implementation of other policies” if the concesssions required involved further cuts in “salaries and pension and increase in taxation”.

So how does one make sense of that seemingly inconsistent set of majority preferences? It is clear that a significant minority understand that the only option if the ‘red-line’ is crossed is to exit. But still, a majority of Greeks do not want to accept or, perhaps, do not understand, that they – You can’t have your cake and eat it.”

5 Ingelesez: “Syriza was elected to stop austerity and it defined some sort of ‘red line’ beyond which it was unacceptable to cross. So there is a resonance of that in the opinion polls. The Greeks will tolerate cuts but not in certain areas.”

6 Ingelesez: “Unless it leaves the Eurozone, it has to strike a deal with the Troika (however it is named these days). Without the credible threat of exit, all the bargaining power is in the hands of the creditors. They appear more concerned with enforcing the austerity dogma than the possibility that the Greeks will not be able to meet their debt repayments.

After all, the ECB, which holds a significant portion of Greek’s public debt knows (but would not admit it) that it can just write the debt off without impeding its own operations. That is the capacity of the currency issuer.”

7 Ingelesez: “Syriza doesn’t have a credible threat because it has failed to educate the people of the costs and benefits of exit against on-going austerity. The logic of its electoral success was that it could march to Brussels and tell the elites that austerity was over and everyone would shake hands and that would be it. The logic of the Eurozone, however, the antithesis of fiscal activism, unless the activism is of the austerity bent. If they concede to Greece that austerity is damaging and there is an alternative, then the game is up for them. The whole structure and rules of the monetary union would be seen to have failed. So there is no way there will be significant concessions from the Troika.”

8 Hemen dator katastrofea: “An exit from the euro would lead to a run on the banks and the collapse of the Greek banking system. If Greece was shut out of international money markets, the temptation would be to meet the government deficit through printing money, leading to rapid inflation. People’s savings would be wiped out. And an effective devaluation might do little for Greece’s balance of payments anyway, except possibly through tourism. Poverty would become increasingly widespread.”

9 Truke tasak dela eta: “Then the question would be the conversion rate between the new currency deposits and the former Euro-denominated deposits. If the new currency depreciated significantly, then in the short-term there would be losses in the exchange. But we have seen it in Argentina and, more recently, Iceland, once the crisis is over, the exchange rate adjusts back and what were initially losses are reduced or even converted to gains. It is not an unambiguous disaster.”

10 Gobernuak “… can set yields through appropriate central bank intervention should it wish to (unnecessarily) continue issuing debt.

If the “international money markets” don’t like the yields on the bonds offered then the central bank can purchase all the tender each time. And, of course, such a government would not have to issue any debt at all. So it could fund domestic expenditure include a national Job Guarantee and infrastructure revitalisation to the limit of the available real resources. No one would surely suggest that there are no idle labour resources that could be brought back into productive use via appropriately targetted job creation policies.” Ikus Who is in charge?

11 Ingelesez: “… the hyperinflation bogey is always introduced when it becomes obvious that the ‘international financial markets’ scare is non-binding. Whenever governments increase their deficits, mainstream economists and their pawns in the financial media make claims about the likely inflation that they say will result. The large fiscal and monetary stimulus packages introduced by many governments to offset the GFC have not resulted in the predicted inflation. It isn’t the first time that the doomsayers have been proven wrong. When QE was first introduced in Japan in the 1990s, mainstream economists rushed to predict that the massive expansion in central bank reserves would be inflationary.”

12 Are gehiago, “… to the extent that the new currency depreciated somewhat (I don’t think it would much because it would be initially in short supply), exports would be boosted.”

13 Ingelesez: “The elites are desperate for Greece to remain in the Euro because it can never become a demonstration case of how bad the common union actually is. While it stays in the monetary union, it can be blamed for profligacy and the workers can be accused of being lazy or overindulgent, especially when spurious comparisons are put out with Germany.”

14 Ingelesez: “… once Greee leaves the Eurozone, then it will become obvious to all that the austerity lie is a lie. Greece would grow quite quickly from day one and demonstrate, just as Argentina did, the capacity of ones own currency.”