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[Grim Portent]

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/should-apple-buy-greece-10244988.html

So basically it's a 175 billion euro investment with conventional revenues of 0 euros for 10 or 15 years, after which the money would start paying normal dividends.  In order to justify it they would need to get 10.75 billion euros in benefits from the deal beyond the money.  An internet cookie to whoever can think of the least horrifying thing worth 10 billion euros a year.

My opening bid: organ farm.

Televised pensioneer cagefighting, it'll probably fall a little short on the revenue, but the merchandising would be worth a fortune.

[Radio Controlled]

Drugs. All of it!

[Owlbread]

-snip-

[mainiac]

You?  No I'm talking about the twits in Brussels and Frankfurt.  Unless you become president of Scotland I wont see editorials by you filling the newspapers.

[Owlbread]

You?  No I'm talking about the twits in Brussels and Frankfurt.

I'm very sorry mainiac, I completely misunderstood. I thought you meant people like myself and Helgoland. That'll teach me not to read geopolitics threads at 3am after eating only 500 calories in 24 hours.

It's alright.  Deep down I love you.  I hope you know that you crazy bekilted bastard.

I do and I love you too, mainiac.

[mainiac]

It's alright.  Deep down I love you.  I hope you know that you crazy bekilted bastard.

[MarcAFK]

Greece, 10 billion a year.... Apple...... There's a golden joke about mythology in there somewhere.
But seriously, what about solar power, government enforced state owned solar generation on every buikding, and for shits and giggles we could enclose the isthmus of Corinth into a massive tidal power plant( fuck the tourists )

[mainiac]

Those would represent investments unrelated to the "buyout".  Unless owning the debt of the country doubles their revenues...

[martinuzz]

Despite Greece being very corrupt, and without the nescessary qualifications, the EU more than gladly welcomed them into the euro-zone.
As soon as Greece joined, in januari 2001, Goldman Sachs was called to the scene, to clear up Greece's national balance with secret and dubious constructions, so it would be compliant with EU standards to qualify for being granted additional loans.

It is worth noting that all parties, including the EU financial inspection, were completely ok with this improper business.

Especially the German and French banks grabbed the opportunity to make a LOT of money by selling even more loans to Greece than it had before entering the euro-zone. These same banks, as we have since learned, were 'too big to fail'. The bankers knew this in advance, as we have since learned from public inquiry and parliamentary investigation, yet, they saw no moral objections whatsoever to treat themselves to a free lunch, including large bonus desserts, paid by future taxpayer's money.

That the Greekish elite, that, on behalf of the people, accepted the responsability, and thus is just as guilty, took good care of themselves as well, is also a known fact, proven by a long list of names that has been uncovered by the Greekish parliament, and released into publicity. The same list also showed just how much money was transferred to foreign tax paradises.

All the abovementioned affairs thrived under conservative, and social democrat governments, working under the watchful eye of EU public institutions, and not under the present "incompetent" Syriza government of Tsipras.

Then, the bank crisis arrived, and billions of euros of public money were used to save the banks that were 'too big to fail'. Part of this money, 240 billion was used in Greece. There probably weren't any Greeks that ever saw that money, since it went straight to paying those same German and French banks, that had already enjoyed their free lunch.

Aren't those bankers just as much of a fraud as the corrupt Greekish elite? And why do we still allow tax paradises on European soil?

If the Greekish Szyriza party really deserves to be called "incompetent", I daresay that, scaled to their contribution to the European GNP, their incompetence is not much more than 2% of the total European Incompetence.

[Erkki]

In the meanwhile Russia is very very super angry about Finland not letting 6 people, who happen to be on the EU sanctions black list and are not allowed to enter EU, of the dozen-ish people Russia had assigned to its party participating in OSCE's council meeting in Helsinki. Russia has now canceled its participation. Russia considers this "an openly hostile act" as it was put to the Finnish ambassador in Moscow, Himanen, by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday.

edit: I guess it would have been an impossibility to just use people who are allowed to travel to EU... But then again Russia has been long reluctant to participate in negotiations and making decisions in basically any international organizations. Divide and conquer I suppose; much more comfortable to just directly influence convenient targets partners.

[scriver]

It's funny how that is an "openly hostile act" but firing flares at Swedish planes aren't.

[Erkki]

Ummm yeah, although personally I dont think dropping flares is hostile. Silly, but not hostile, it's not like they'd help at all should a Flygvapnet or NATO interceptor actually open fire. They belong to aerobatic shows...

[Helgoland]

The trick is to impose meaningful reform to prevent this happening again. And by reform I don't just mean "sell off all state assets to the private equity firms that are licking their chops". Privatization alone doesn't solve the problem, it just funnels whatever money is left into a few hands. Greece needs structural reform of its economy and budgetary process.

I totally agree! But unfortunately the EU still is composed of 28 sovereign states, which means that the EU can't simply force Greece to do structural reforms. And guess what every Greek government since 2010 - including the Syriza/ANEL coalition! - has avoided until now.

And I'd wager that if significant reforms were undertaken or even just credibly (!) started, the rest of the Eurozone would quietly and without great noise slip in some debt relief in the next round. It's all quid pro quo here, one needs to keep that in mind.

[Sergarr]

EU can't simply force Greece to do structural reforms

Austerity was forced onto Greece and it's pretty damn structural, given how they destroyed the Greek quality-of-life.

But I guess they're not structural enough for you.

[Culise]

EU can't simply force Greece to do structural reforms

Austerity was forced onto Greece and it's pretty damn structural, given how they destroyed the Greek quality-of-life.

But I guess they're not structural enough for you.

I disagree.  It played merry havoc on the people, but it didn't actually fix anything regarding the structure of the government or economy.  The same corruption, the same issues all still exist in Greece; it's just that the players have changed from people like Papandreou to people like Tsipras.  In terms of field-levelers, it was more of a neutron bomb than a conventional nuke.

Obviously, though, that shouldn't be taken to mean that more austerity is automatically the answer, because I'm not so certain that is necessarily the case.  The answer, for Greece, is likely either going to be a default or to be to leave both the Eurozone and related free-trade regions (that is, the EU as a whole, though they may try to simply repudiate the economic conditions relating to capital controls, which is the important bit), institute full capital controls to prevent economic flight, and either inflate or default their way out.  This will completely devastate the Greek economy as exports tank and a massive secondary economy in Euros emerges (since no one will use drachmas for anything they aren't required by law to handle), as well as killing any government that makes the attempt (most likely only figuratively, hopefully), but...well, there aren't many pleasant ways out of this at this point. 

At least, though, that's a quick way out.  The problem is that the issue has become so thoroughly politicized, so thoroughly publicized, that letting it sit quietly and gradually recover via a much more moderately-reduced expenditures and stimulation of economic growth is no longer practical.  Japan, for instance, has endured decades of stagflation and a debt-to-GDP ration on par with Greece, but it's not perceived as being on the verge of failure by its primary (internal, as opposed to external, which is another key difference) debtholders.  Belief, in matters of economy, has a power all its own, and the reduction in confidence in Greek economic stability has been as much a killer as its actual structural weaknesses, in part because it's led to people trying to jam all sorts of half-baked medications down its throat with no regard for proper dosage.