Bitcoin Forum

I don't really understand the organization structure of EMU. Does Greece central bank have the right to create euro? Who controls greece central bank? Why couldn't Greece central bank print some Euro to repay their IMF and ECB loan???

I don't think so I believe it is the ECB..The EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK that prints the Euro as it is a centralized currency of the Euro Union. If it could print euros there would not be this liquidity problem. Greece though must become independent though because it's like one man controls the whole of the Greek Economic System, Mario Draghi so it doesn't make sense to me..

The Bank of Greece, a member of the European System of Central Banks is the national central bank of Greece. It is a partially state owned S.A. share company with special privileges, with special restrictions and duties :) It cannot operate as a commercial bank and the percentage of shares that can be under Greek state ownership cannot exceed 35% In short, Greece central bank can't do shit as European System of Central Banks operate it  :'(

they can only print dracma, which at this point, they are really equal to toilet paper, and one of the reason why they can't leave euro so easily

greece central bank as it is right now, it's kind useless

Good Question, However an other alternative would be that it's time for Greece to print their own currency, forget about Euro and let them have their own. It will have bad impact on their economy but it will recover once they started to act upon it, they must adopt their current situation and keep going on until it become stable.

Wrong assumption. If they start printing Drachma banknotes in the near future, its value and the exchange rate can't be predicted right now. It will depend upon the economic conditions and the trade balance. At least in the initial few months, I believe that the Drachma will be stable. Then depending upon the economy, it will either move up, or move down.

well you are guessing as well, i believe that it will be worthless at first, it can gain some traction, if euro will be seen as a bad thing or if they can restart from zero and be good at restarting, not a given for sure

if their move will be inconclusive, their currency will be shit too

You can't make something out of nothing. Banks are storing money and if there's no money there's not much they can do besides lying they still have it ;)

The FED and every other central bank would disagree.  You can make a lots of shit from nothing and sell it to people for something.

All national central banks in the Eurozone are members of the ECB and can vote as such. The ECB is the only entity that can emit Euros. This means that a single country's central bank is effectively powerless in regard to monetary policy if it has no support from other ECB members.

So the Greek National Bank could introduce a parallel currency (and devalue it as they see fit), but that wouldn't help the country's debt problem, because the debts are denominated in Euro.


The Drachma will devalue sharply from day one and adjust downward to the real economic ability of Greece. Assuming a different outcome is delusional.

Drachma won't be stable, how can it be? Introducing a new currency is no small feat. Recent cases - East Germany's adoption of the deutsche mark, the Czech-Slovak divorce of 1993,
and the creation of the euro itself - benefited from years of careful planning and broad popular support. If Greece were to abandon the euro, it would have neither.
While a poll commissioned this week by Bloomberg found the vote too close to call, it showed that 81 percent of Greeks want their country to remain in the euro zone.
Many economists, though, say that would be difficult after a 'no' vote - even if in the long run the country might benefit from such a shift.
The Greek banking system is dependent on support from the European Central Bank, which might be withdrawn in that event.
That could force Greece to create its own means of exchange - a new drachma - to keep its economy running. And that will be a mistake.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-04/printing-the-drachma-the-messy-future-of-a-post-euro-greece (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-04/printing-the-drachma-the-messy-future-of-a-post-euro-greece)

I think Greece central bank indeed create euro, but not notes (I have noticed that each European country mint their own version of 1 euro and 2 euro coins, they are not the same look at different country. And they are inter-exchangeable: you can spend Spanish euro in France, etc...

But the question is still organizational: What makes Greece central bank listen to ECB's directive? Maybe they are from the same banking family? Or they have some kind of contract that Greece central bank must follow if they want to join EMU?

And to make a new currency value stable is very easy, just back it use gold and assets, and it usually works very well: People don't exchange gold with the new currency, they feel confident about the new currency when they CAN exchange gold with it

I don't think so. The Greek central bank will try hard (at least in the initial few weeks) to limit the devaluation of the Drachma (by buying Drachma from the Forex market). But everything will depend upon the volume of Drachma banknotes which they print. I hope that, at least in the beginning, it will be in small volumes. So it won't be that hard for the central bank, to control the exchange rates.

I dont even think they could print drachma because one the rules to join the Eurozone is for the countries to stop printing local notes and destroy their printing presses.

Greek economy is in chaos and cant even sustain itself between its spending and incomes. It has no real assets, gold, foreign reserve to backup Drachma's value! How is it possible for them to control the  exchange rates?

Doubt that alone could stop it. But it will take time for them to return to the drachma anyway. Initially they will probably try to negotiate and stay in the euro. They have a stronger hand now after the referendum. In the meantime maybe they will print IOU to keep the economy and the banks going.

Greece is still having sizable forex reserves. Their gold reserves are estimated at around 112.5 tonnes, which is worth some €3.88 billion at current bullion prices. Also, they have billions of USD worth of foreign treasury bonds in their reserves. That said, their forex reserves have declined considerably over the years.

They can control the exchange rate by buying/selling Drachma in the forex market.


We are talking about the possibility of Greece getting kicked out of the Eurozone.

also in the event of a kick from the eurozone, i doubt they will have enough time to re-print all their useless dracma, it isn't a thing that can be done overnight

From the banks point of view, it's not to create more fiat money. {Euro or Drachma}

They instituted these withdrawal limits to protect their own liquidity and the interest of the investors. If everyone suddenly withdraw all their money, a bank will go bankrupt.

They are just stalling the inevitable outcome. People lost trust in the banking system and they will withdraw their savings, if they are granted the opportunity to do it. Time will tell, what financial institution they will trust as a alternative.  ::)

Bitcoin will act as a temporary alternative, but it might be a bit risky for the average person, with very little knowledge. {This is where trusted and regulated exchanges can make a difference} Did I say that?  ???

The GCB all they can do is to stall the collapse.

But mostly i think banks need to increase reserve rates, the bank insureres need to increase their fees, the investment insurance also need to increase its fee.

I think the banking system as we know it is done for. Good, i wont miss it, time to decentralize finance.

Come to papa Bitcoin  ;D

print 10 and 20 € notes  :D ! (that is true...)

I would rather perceive bitcoin as a young lad among the old currencies running along from a hundred years. It seems more advanced, better and idk, younger? Its fast. Its cool. But it lacks experience, so for bitcoin to be a 'papa' of all such currencies, it needs to achieve more qualities than just be a decentralized currency. let the currency grow a few years, its just in its teenage now, give the kid a break ;)

Haha, yes, bitcoins is a young kid playing and finding its way through all the economies. Its preparing itself for the economic throne at the moment, experiencing things and learning, standing patiently at the side sometimes watching economies collapse. When its time need be, it will be the right kind of savior for the right kind of country ;)

I don't understand why everybody expects bitcoin to be savior all the time, man. it is not suposed to be anyone's savior, no country will be rescued by a currency like bitcoin, because I dont think a population will ever be ready to deal with another currency right when their economy is stripped down. I might affect the build of economy even more. Maybe I am just being negative, but I think bitcoin needs much more than what it is to be a global currency some day than what people believe it might be.

It's more complicated that most people think. Before the €, central banks of the member states were the only ones with the ability to create and/or print money. Since we have the €, national central banks have transferred this right to the European Central Bank. Legally speaking, the Greek central bank doesn't have any right to create or print Euros, drachmas or any other currency. It just cannot do anything. Only governments can act.

It seems that the Greek government has already planned its Plan B and Plan C in case of a Grexit. Who knows, the Greek Central Bank might have already started printing Drachma banknotes many weeks ago. In case they don’t have enough Drachma banknotes, they can suspend the pension payments for two or three days.

because bitcoin has the potential to quadruplicate its market cap in no time, so it is seen as a big store of value, the biggest for now, if you consider its marketcap that does not do it justice

it is better for greece to embrace bitcoin instead of reprinting their garbage dracma all over again, which would be equal at this point to launching a scam coin in the altsection

What I meant is that bitcoin will be the de facto reserve currency of the world, no censorship, no capital controls.

Sure the population is not ready, i dont expect greece to jump on the train tomorrow.

But eventually, it will spread there, people cannot tolerate the government & banking mischiefs much longer, so they want an alternative.

And who is searching, will find it. Just hope google wont ban the bitcoin keyword lol :D

I don't think so google will ban that key word, it brings them a lot of revenue anyway :P Yes, you're correct regarding how Greece won't just readily jump on the train today because its population is not ready for this massive change, and yes amph I also agree with you about how bitcoin's cap isn't serving the right justice, but considering bitcoin as a replacement rather than an alternative is highly ambitious.

The banks are going to close their doors for good. People will start informal trade with goods like cigarets and baked goods, like they did in WWI and WWII. The government cannot even pay their loans, how will they get money to pay for the printing of the Drachma?
I also think they will get kicked out of the EU, if the other countries get fed up with their antics. Debt collectors will pick out the juicy parts and the people who voted NO will be blamed for all of this. ^Shame on them^ 

You mean the barter system will take place? What will the people do with the money they are receiving from banks then? if that amount was taken away, then sure a scenario with barter system could be assumed to happen, but when there is already a lot of money still circulating in the market and their financial institutions, there is no chance that the barter system will return. Not now.

Why would they even want to use their only valuable assets to control the exchange rate of worthless fiat paper? That makes no sense at all.

The point is that currency devaluation is part of the solution for Greece. Only with a currency that's weaker than the Euro they will be able to compete in international trade.

Drachma was replaced in 2001 so they cant control that, mostly their inflation and reports which are shit, Greece will end the year with a -5% recession if they are lucky.

Its alternative now, and a replacement tomorrow.

Since bitcoin doesnt have any "legitimacy from banksters" (which it will probably never have nor need), people dont trust it.

Its funny that greeks dont trust banks, yet, they still look for the banksters to tell them what money to use.  ::) ::)


Anyways, i hope people will get smart and do the right choice.

They need start acting and think of a well plan to bring them back

Today's Greek parliament vote proved that money really controls everything, thus who create money will control the world. But in this sense, giving up the money creation right to someone else must be the most stupid move a country can make

I totally agree, allowing the fate of over ten million people sit in the hands of a few Mario Dargis, and jeoren dissembloums is beyond me. It's like really putting handcuffs on every Greek citizen. The Brits were the most clever not giving up their U.K Pound for this nonsensical currency and European Union malarkey.

isn't this a bit akin to early adopters and their dirty manipulation, or rich guys that can buy plenty of coins at once and control the market, so bitcoin also in the end, is not immune from this

They can't really do anything they're broke on money

Money must be spent to show its effect of control. With bitcoin you can only spend it once, then you give up that power of control to those who earned the coin. To get back those coins, you must work just like anyone else. But with endless money printing by central banks, that power of control stays forever

this is true, but usually those good manipulators/traders, aim at regaining the control over their previous money, and to have even more than before with a good trading strategy

and since some of them could be good traders, they can regain those coins easily enough and without losing "the power", pretty much like a government, also i doubt that they sell everything at once, those individuals suffer from the omnipotence syndrome, they like to dominate

it would not be naive to think that many early adopters are still there ruling the top 100 of bitcoin, and i believe that rich become richer can not be applied only for pos coin, pow is affected as well

The crazy this with banks and fiat they could spend the same bill over 3000 times with out needing to create a new bill, well what happen in Greece that they had to limit the withdraw of money per day because they didnt had enough money for everyone from all the free money they create.

Not anymore. They got more money coming in now, and they had to sacrifice some public land and add a lot of restrictions and regulations are supposed to be implemented in terms of the new bailout. They get more money now from the eurozone but this will happen very soon again, and I don't think its going to end nice for Greece, living like a parasite. I wonder how long will Eurozone have them around.

People can become richer when their income is larger than expense, that has nothing to do with money. But become richer by printing money out of thin air is totally another thing, it is robbery

Greece is not the parasite here, other powers that be aka Northern European countries and the U.S have had their hand and control over Greece since 1821, only the Greeks were unaware of it..Even after the Greek Civil war there was so much brainwashing from the western powers to get the Greeks to do heavy imports and less exports that this screwed up the country along with some Greedy Rich Greek cronies and some even more corrupt and Greedy Government Officials.. The EU shut down Greece's light manufacturing industry along with cotton and silk farms and were lending money to the Greeks with high interest to import and buy German goods and cars.. The whole fractional reserve banking economic system is mainly at fault here and the millions of unsuspecting Greeks that were brainwashed and fell for this sh*t unfortunately now are in deep sh*t..

Do you blame Muslims for hating this Western so called civilization? I frankly don't blame them because for Muslims Interest on loans is forbidden..I like to read and understand things from all angles..A few greedy loan sharks in 14th century Venice created this lethal system of degenerative economics that has impoverished now 90 percent of the world's populations. People around the world have had enough and they are waking up to it.. We need to stop blaming each other though and start looking for viable and sustainable, resource based economic systems to save our planet and the people in it, of all creeds, colors and religions.. I am Greek and feel sad to be living in a time where no one should be going hungry ANYWHERE.. We should have become far more civilized by now..but I feel we have regressed the last few hundred years..   :'(

my point was that early adopters become richer without doing anything, very similar to the governments, and they can mantain their position endless until they decide to leave the "game"

This money is literally nothing. The 50 million they are getting along the rest of so called "benefits" are useless when your austerity program is way worse than any help they could provide. Greece is headed towards negative grow for a long time and I see no realistic solution.

Actually the greek central bank, the best thing they can do is to: dissolve themselves.

Yes folks, central banks led us into this mess, we dont need them to mess up the situation anymore.

I think that the Greek central bank should relax and let your problems, because there are no more knotting about it, about how they should still early to think about those who have got into debt

Something worse is coming. The banks allows only 60€ per day or 420€ at once per week to withdraw from ATM.
For most of them it is not enough.

What did you thought that the rhetoric of the ECB is just solved it?

Folks the entire global banking system will collapse, greece is just the least of our problems.

Massive riots will be on the street, people will die and starve, it`s like the apocalypse is coming.


7 billion folks, but half of them live on welfare, WTF did you thought will happen if you take the welfare away from those?

Guys what do you think should greece must be kicked out from eu or should stay there for a long time

it should be kicked out already, there is no need to drag this farce again for another 3 years with another big waste of 80B loan from central bank that will not cover ever their 350B of debts, that are still rising

as i don't believe that the greece Gov will be able to reduce the debt of 270(350-80) in only 3 years

No the Greece Central Bank have no right to create euro. If this would be possible it will be easy to solve the problems of Greece. At least apparently. The euros can be created only by European Central bank. The Greece Central Bank are controlled by one Governor that normally can be Greek. He do the job of the Governor of one central bank but under the rights given by the European Central Bank. Greek Central Bank couldn't print euro because the central banks of every country in the EU have no rights to do this action.

The country became the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis after Wall Street imploded in 2008. Now, it is struggling to pay its debt, and its people and creditors are growing restive.

How could they? The IMF and maybe everyone else by now admits the debt is unsustainable. That is the same as saying that whatever the greeks do they won't ever be able to pay back the full amount of the debt. What the greek government should have done these last few months was prepare to leave the euro and reintroduce the drachma by themselves.

Varoufakis said the Germans wanted to kick Greece out to make an example for any other country that thought they could write off their debts.  The Greek economy is doomed now and maybe that will be the ultimate outcome of the new economic measures.  Politically though it seems dangerous for Europe to lose Greece on multiple levels.

Will it be a new face of anarchy?  Debt is not payable but can't be forgiven so the entire economy goes gray.  No money for any govt services (fire police roads etc) so all these services are privatized.

All the money they get is for nothing, it's going to get evaporated instantly to pay the debt.. it's nonsense. Both parties know the debt will never be paid. What do they have on mind to solve this situation? I have no idea at this point, only conjectures, which includes "politely" pushing Greece out of the Euro.

A write-off debt, or an extended repayment schedule with very low interest rates have the same effect.
So they could give Greece this benefit, without calling it a write-off of debt.

There are a lot of misunderstandings here.   One can think of banking what one wants, but the Greek problem is NOT a banking crisis.  It is a state that went broke, that's all.

The Greek state has been spending much more than it got tax revenues for the last 15 years, and moreover, with the help of Goldman Sachs experts, has been hiding its deficit in complicated bookkeeping constructions.

These corpses became visible in 2009, when, for the first time since the end of dictatorship in Greece in the seventies, there has been a power change in the Greek government.
The new government, probably still in "electoral combat mode", made public the financial lying of the Greek state in 2009, when it turned out that they had a double digit deficit that was presented as something like 3%, and that the state debt was much higher than indicated.

This short moment of honesty had a totally different effect than anticipated, I suppose: financial markets lost confidence in the Greek state.  It is a bit of an irony that those coming to power and replacing the crooks had as effect that they now made the Greek state losing confidence.

With its huge debt and deficit, Greece was in a very bad shape when financial markets lost confidence (when their interest rates skyrocked).

This is when the "troika" took over.   They decided to lend Greece STATE money and IMF money to be able to honor its financial obligations with respect to their former financial partners.
This was done for 2 reasons of course:
one was to help out Greece who was in a bad shape not being able to borrow on the private market
but the other was of course that most former financial partners of Greece were French and German banks, who were themselves just recovering from the banking crisis of 2008, and to avoid that all that had been done to save them, would be wasted if they had to take the losses on their former Greek loans.

The idea was simply to give Greece some time to get back confidence on the financial markets (as was the case with Ireland and Portugal for instance).   That the "panicking" would be over, and that Greece would be able to borrow again, like everybody else, on the financial markets, paying back the troika for the emergency credits during a panicking time.  The requirements, of course, were that the Greek state would have a plan to be financially sound again.  Deficits should be eliminated, and a surplus should be generated to show that the Greek state had the resources to pay back loans.  This is what was called "austerity measures".

That's where things went wrong.   The Greek economy was a bubble living on credit.  There was no genuine economic power.  It was all fake, on state expenses.  Taking away the credit on which they had been living, and the whole thing collapsed.

The deficits got reduced, but in the mean time, Greece's REAL economy showed up, which was 25% lower than the bubble on credit.  The Greek governments never really managed to get a genuine correct balance.  In a depression environment, it is not easy to reform.
This made the ground for populist movements like Syriza, promising good life again based on, well, no idea.  That's what populism is for.

So we simply saw a state suffering the real consequences of neo-Keynesianism: blowing a bubble fake economy based upon deficit spending.  Many western states do that, but the Greek state simply did it more and faster.

This has nothing to do with fractional banking, "money out of thin air", or abusive credit.  This simply is the long term consequence of deficit spending, but at Greek rates, we got the movie in accelerated mode.

One cannot, at the same time, fulminate against "money out of thin air"  and "fractional banking" on one hand, and "austerity" on the other hand.

What does austerity actually mean ?  It means that a state spends no more than it earns as income.  In any sound money doctrine (such as bitcoin is based up), there's no way to escape "austerity" in the long run.  If you give in on austerity this year, you will have to be "twice as severe" next year.  Non-austerity is deficit spending.  With sound money, that cannot go on for ever.

An economy that has grown (supposedly) on non-austerity, that is, on deficit spending, is nothing else but a fake bubble.  There is no real production backing it.  One is living a good life on borrowed money, that's all.
As a state, you can do this by taking on a lot of civil servants and distributing a lot of allowances of all kinds.  That's essentially what the Greek state did.

In fact, given the deficit spending nature of the Greek state, the Euro is too much of a sound money to be good for them.  This is why they should leave the Euro zone.

They had a plan B?

http://www.ekathimerini.com/199945/article/ekathimerini/news/varoufakis-claims-had-approval-to-plan-parallel-banking-system

This is another strange thing: It seems Greek government have no control over what their own bank is doing, they can not stop their own bank from carrying out capital control, thus banks using capital control to threaten Greek parliament to give in to more austerity measure

So it seems these governments and parliaments in western countries are just a show, they don't have any real meaningful power, they can not decide on their own fate, it is banks who have the real control over the country

Investment decision making is the most difficult work in the world, thus the reward is become richer, but definitely not just sitting there doing nothing. At any moment, you can become an early adopter of any new things, but your chance of hitting a home run is very low. And to maintain your position is not an easy task

It is a common phenomenon in financial world, scarce and valuable resource will all lead to this result: Many people are sitting on their early investments that grows and grows in value over generations: Land, gold, forest, large enterprise, even Google and Apple stocks ...

However, you can almost never foresee the future. Many people just ignored bitcoin when they saw it crashed from $30 to $3 during 2011 bubble, and there will also be many people ignore it when it crashed from $1200 to $200 during 2013 bubble

It's not a banking problem alone and the GCB an not issue a bandaid for the Greek Crisis. The mentality in Greek Politics and also in the Lap People has to change so that we all learn the biggest lesson of all, to live within our means and not be bombarded by the rampant consumerism and American PIPEDREAM mentality because it just isn't sustainable. It may have been o.k for a few Million US peeps and a few European Elites but it has impoverished nations and we got the complete crap what we have today of destabilised countries, 1 rampant refugee crisis and billions of broke people who were promised the world if they overstretched and borrowed to buy a ton of imported goods and cars they simply couldn't afford. Also adopting the Euro and buying Ninja Derivatives from WALL ST before the blow up was a disaster waiting to happen. The GCB cannot fix that, only a wake up call and real solutionists can solve the problems in Greece and Worldwide for that matter. We need a solid team of problem solvers, not just politicians to help change the Status Quo in Greece.

Good summary. Wondering how long it will take the public to understand that there are more basket cases in the EU, although less extreme and with more political clout.

So to basically summarize greeks situations.

A few people made money pocketed personally Im pretty sure from the state, then have a few experts to cook the books for last 15 years.

Then ask for money and make it seem like its a banking euro situation for greece.

If GCB could print euro then their problem will disappear, just like FED printed 5x USD and most of the problem in US after financial crisis are solved (at least for 10 years)

Money printing works because most of the people do not understand how money works. When FED print 5x more money and buy lots of things, companies around the country will just see lots of incoming orders from large state organizations and they can immediately produce more, hire more, and make more money. Their sight is just limited on the available money to earn, they are seldom interested in the things happening beyond that scope

From an individual point of view, fiat money has relative stable value, this is their belief, so this belief gives central banks power to stimulate the economy, more money means more purchasing power, and a large amount of purchasing power will create boom. Since the production will always increase when more money arrives, there is almost no inflation as long as the money are not created at a speed of one fold a month

Yep socialism caused damage can be offset by money printing, because the food stamp and welfare caused by it, can easily be taken away by rationing and money printing.

What they got for 10 years will be taken away in the next 10 years, with interest!

They have lot of social welfare program for people so their tax money is not sufficient for all those spending. So they need to rethink about their social spending

You want to rethink social spending in a country with 25+% unemployment again. You need to rethink that line of thought. It can lead to a disaster.

Most countries in europe have 25% unemployment, it all because money printing and subsidizing crappy businesses, while keeping legit ones out with regulation.

Such an oligarchy.

What metrics are you using for those 25%? Average unemployment in the Euro area is 11%. From Germany's 4% to Greece with more than 25%. Don't know exactly how they calculate that. But even considering people who gave up looking for work, 25% unemployment in most countries doesn't make sense.

If people don't understand how money works in today's monetary system, more money printing will always be a solution for any problem

At least majority of the people I talked to, especially those with an economy degree, they have no idea how money creation works. They are full of misconceptions that they learned from those books

In Greece's case, if their central bank lose the ability to create euro, then it is no longer a central bank, but a commercial bank

People constantly say that commercial banks can create money when they issue a loan, then why in this case, Greece central bank can not create money by issuing trillions of loans to Greek government? Because commercial bank can not create money, they must first have money, then issue a loan, those books are all misleading. But you can imagine, even those people have economy degrees are all having a misunderstanding of what is really going on, how could they see the truth? Money printing will still work for decades

Not to brag here but did anybody noticed Helleniccoin's massive increase?

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/helleniccoin/

About 10000% increase this week, looks like some greek guys are really getting into crypto (perhaps their central bank buying it? JK. :D )

no, I actually think he is right, I read in a newspaper a couple weeks about unemployment regarding Europe and people are really in a jiffy over there, with 1/4th people with no jobs, I think the working and maturity of the government speaks a lot about it, printing out of debt is a shortcut to inflation.

You dont understend how Eurozone isworking,EBC and national central banks
Lets take Germany like example
Bundesbank president were warning Merkel and EBC,that what thayaredoing is driving Europe,including Germany to catastrophe,all thatausterity,raising debts EBC QE,all that can create huge problems

And what nothing,Bundesbank ,germany central ban voice is nothing,nobodycare,In Eurozone national central banks importance is limited to almost zero.EBC is only onecentral bank for all Eurozone countries

That is even hard to believe  ,becouse eurozone countries are independent countries

Euro has been created like a political project,practically money are in Germany hands

Its hard to believe,since the board members of the Bundesbank are also board members of ECB, so its funny how they dont have influence there.

Also Every central bank from EU (including non eurozone members) send a representative to ECB aswell.

I agree. Well said!

I guess this EMU thing is a large plan by central banks, and since long ago those banks are already merged. Maybe the ECB owner is the same as GCB owner, so they treat all countries in Euro zone the same, don't want to spoil Greece government. However, just like each child have different personality, each country have its own spending habit

It seems their merger did not reach Nordic countries therefore Denmark Sweden Norway did not join EMU, still printing their own money, but get larger volatility on foreign currency market as their currency scale is too small (Swedish currency had been attacked by Soros during 90s and followed by long recession, but they still prefer their own currency) Maybe the nordic country are facing the same problem as Greece, but as long as they can print their own money (Swedish central bank has dropped to negative interest long ago), they still can hang on

These people are addicted to easy money or free money from government. They do not want to do any tough jobs and expect government to provide all white color easy jobs and more money so if you follow these strategy no country can survive for long. One should think toward working hard to earn money and not for easy money. This is the lesson for all those countries who provide more social welfare program than creating new jobs for people to work.

Yes greece should star thinking about real economy growth not just borrowing money from Europe. For that people should start working hard.

The traditional job and money relation ship has totally changed when money can be created out of nothing 44 years ago with the removal of gold standard

In a traditional system, in order to get money, you must work, either by producing something useful for others or mining gold, they are equal work, so if you work hard, you will always get more money

But after the removal of gold standard, money is created out of nothing, then it is all about how to get more money from central bank (they can create unlimited money). So even if you work hard, when you don't get money from central bank, your life will be miserable. For others who can get money from central bank, even they don't work at all, they can live like a king. That's the reason Greeks do not work while constantly seeking money from ECB, they know how this system works, they know that ECB can always create money and lend to them

Besides, we are in an over-production era, more work will just create more waste since most of the demand is fulfilled, it is making more sense to create money first, because everyone want to get money through work, then without money you won't create work

Where can I see that 25% figure? Everywhere I look I can only see the 11% on average. I understand that probably doesn't count people who gave up looking for work. But it won't jump from 11% to 25%. See here for example: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/unemployment-rate or here http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Unemployment_rates,_seasonally_adjusted,_June_2015.png Of course that is the average so it means that there are countries that are in trouble with very high unemployment. Like Greece and Spain for example. But many others have very low unemployment.

Actually unemployment is more like 40-45 %

The official data books are cooked.

Plus they count in partial jobs, which are not jobs, public sector jobs, which is a burden on the economy and doesnt produce any wealth.

Not to mention that they only count you unemployed if you have applied for welfare, but after your welfare ends, you wont be counted unemployed anymore, yet you still dont have a job.

Most 20-30 year olds dont have a job, they live with their parents, yet they are not eligible for welfare since they got a "household income", but they are not counted as unemployed. I know this from experience because most of my neighbors are in this situation.

Yet they have big student debs, while they dont have a job, or they are finishing their 3rd worthless university.

It's a fucking deception going on right under your nose.

Eventually unemployment will reach 90% when all the jobs are replaced by robots, we are just in a transition phase, now some of the jobs are replaced by automation and computer already, and the speed is accelerating. With super high productivity by robots in future, no one really need to work, but then the question is how would people get their income, it seems they can only get it in a way similar to what Greece is doing right now: Borrow more and more from central bank

Yep I already talked about this in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg12158933#msg12158933

There are not many forks where the future can fork, and all outcomes are predictable once they get set in. The current money printing scheme wont last for long, but what comes next wont necessarly be better.

With robots the human labour problem would be solved, however new problems could arise, mostly how the elite would use eugenics to get rid of unproductive people.

Since March, as a way to pump money into the eurozone economy, the central bank has been buying bonds issued by eurozone countries, along with other debt, at a rate of 60 billion euros, or $67 billion, a month.

Greek government bonds are ineligible as long as the country is not adhering to conditions set by its main creditors: the other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

If Greece got back into a creditor-approved aid program, the European Central Bank could begin buying its bonds in large quantities.

That would be a boon for Greek banks, which could unload their large holdings of Greek government bonds. They could then use the cash to extend loans and help restart the Greek economy. The government might also benefit from lower market interest rates.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, hinted at such benefits for Greece at a news conference last month in Frankfurt.

If there were a “strong agreement,” he said, “everything else would then follow.”

“And I’m pretty sure it would follow easily,” he added.

full article you can watch on here guys http://www.nytimes.com/live/greek-debt-crisis-live-updates/how-the-european-central-bank-could-really-help-greece/

Well, your three questions can be answered with:

1. No
2. Not important, since they cannot print euros
3. Cannot print euros

This is why a Grexit is almost inevitable whether is tomorrow or in 20 years. And even if a Grexit ocurred and Greece central bank began printing currency, they will print drachmas but the debt is in euros.

Greece Central bank is reliable on the Eurozone for printing more euros, they do not control the finance but are affiliated with the Euro bank which provides their funding and sanctions loans and their baliouts! The Greece Central bank is controlled by the government, which is right now indirectly controlled by the Eurozone :P Greece central bank does not have the authority to print euro, they only have authority to print Greece currency which well, even Greeks don't use :P

Why should Greece listen to someone that is non-greek, I guess they were cheated, by giving up the money creation right, they actually sold the whole nation to money printers

Just read this article, that's the reality behind all that: Printing money and buy assets, a typical central bank robbery scheme
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/germans-begin-the-looting-of-greece-2015-08-21

"Per provisions of the “agreement” imposed on Greece, the Athens government awarded the German company that runs the Frankfurt Airport, Fraport, a concession to operate 14 regional airports, mostly on the islands like Mykonos and Santorini favored by tourists, for up to 50 years in the first privatization of government-owned assets demanded by the creditors. "

"Fraport, which ironically is majority-owned by state and local governments in Germany, has cherry-picked among Greece’s network of regional airports to take over only those that make a profit. It is happy to leave the 30 other loss-making airports in the hands of a bankrupt state.

Greek Infrastructure Minister Christos Spirtzis told German television that this deal to take away the profitable airports and leave the ailing government with only those requiring subsidies “is more fitting for a colony than for an EU member state.”

"But the plundering that has now begun unmasks the whole euro charade for what it really is — a war of conquest by money rather than by arms."

"The war is over; let the occupation begin."

I guess this EMU thing is a large plan by central banks,
and since long ago those banks are already merged.
Maybe the ECB owner is the same as GCB owner, so they
treat all countries in Euro zone the same, don't want to
spoil Greece government. However, just like each child
have different personality, each country have its own
spending habit.

Finland is with Euro,nordic country,thay are now facing very deep crisis

Much better for any country is to manage his own monetary policy

I heard that from a few years back Finnish people are no longer learning swedish in their school, traditionally they all learn swedish in school and talks good swedish. Maybe they would start to learn German some years later

You're saying there are maybe 70 million people unemployed in the euro area. That's a lot more than the official 17 million. I don't think that's realistic. But you're right in saying that they may be counting things that shouldn't be like part time jobs when people are underemployed. But public sector jobs aren't necessarily a burden on the economy. They can be but depends on how they are being used. For example many times they look like it because they are used as a stimulus to private companies and so don't show a profit. But that's not because they are always inefficient or a waste.


I suppose that depends on the country. Where are you from? And are you sure you aren't counted as unemployed if your welfare ends? Didn't know about that. Is that a common policy throughout the euro area?

This method works because government can always pay these hole diggers' salary with newly created fiat money. And because everyone accept fiat money as payment medium, these hole diggers could in turn spend their fiat money and they will become every business' big customer

So, as long as people want to make money, these hole diggers can help to distribute the printed money. The amazing thing is that people will always work more and produce more goods and services when they see more money, so inflation is never a concern when more money is entering economy in a controlled way

The whole system works because people believe the fiat money that hole diggers give them has real value, and this belief is almost unshakable

I agree completely with this, currency is just a name for fake money and since you receive fake money then you do fake work.

This reminds me of the phrase… “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us”(or something like that).

It's something like this, man I saw this scene and I laughted that I almost fell on the floor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdAmYT3x480

This scene pretty much sums up the whole economy in 1 minute :D


http://www.chiapasparalelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/John-Maynard-Keynes-Quotes-2.jpg

When John Law first issued his fiat money, he applied real bills doctrine, later known as the "doctrine of the old Bank Directors of 1810: that so long as a bank issues its notes only in the discount of good bills, at not more than sixty days' date, it cannot go wrong in issuing as many as the public will receive from it."

Obviously today's fiat money system is a highly upgraded version of that practice, first they don't have real bill as backing any more, second those fiat money are not limited to validity of 60 days, but forever. It seems the general public are much more stupid than 200 years ago, thus larger scale of scam can be carried out without being noticed

Yes todays monetary system is a total ponzi scheme. 96% of the currency supply is created by bond swapping with the central bank and banks acting as middleman, then loaning their fake money out at a 0% reserve ratio. Forget QE, when the bank gives out a loan it creates more money than a QE can ever do.

All loans have interest on them , so the total debt of the country will always be bigger than the maximum money supply. Thus by the laws of mathematics you cannot ever pay back the debt , because when a new piece of currency comes into existence, the cumulative interest on it will be bigger than the currency itself.

So even if you take all the money to pay back the debt, it wont be enough. So by definition its a ponzi scheme.

This, while fiat currency is bad enough, in  my opinion the greatest problem is fractional reserve banking which basically allows banks to print 10 times more money than the central bank does (and central banks are not even part of the government, they are private banks, anyway).

Correct, but it’s very obvious that not a single one of those in power want to change to system since they benefit handsomely from it. And even the average Joe doesn’t want to change the system out of convenience.

The only solutions are Gold and Silver, or a Cryptocurrency. However in order for the Gold and Silver solution to work we’ll need to go back in time and start to use Gold and Silver coins again (cannot use receipts as we have done in the past, because governments could stop redeeming the receipts for gold end we’ll back at square one), which is unlikely.

So a Cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) will be our best option since it cannot be printed into oblivion and offers all the benefits of modern technology.

That bocus money cycle, continue to rob us every year is the IRS.

The form of tax itself, is just crippling for most house holds and then people wonder why they dont have enough to spend. While the rich only pay like 5-15%.

While you are correct, these persons don’t seem to be able to change their ways. I have been reading that some of the solutions that economist has been pondering are: multiple reserve currencies and IMF SDR.

IMF SDR is especially frightening for me, because it’s basically the equivalent of a world currency.

the question is when or not if, it blows up in our face.

what will we do then? lol. I mean its not a laughing matter, but I laugh because I wouldnt be able to handle the truth if I saw my dollars worth nothing.

They can't do much. The whole situation with Greece will implode  in the future. The EU will keep lending money until the rest of the EU gets fed up and starts Riot in order to block further loans to Greece. Only the people can stop this whole mess, but since people get a paycheck, house, car etc they won't care at all once one of this is in risk to disappear the people will wake up and say enough is enough with the greek loans.

So what do you conclude that how it all ends for them? Does Euro eventually cut off with Greece and take over their land? Does Greece sell it off eventually and then further proceed to be more irrelevant? Does somebody else fund Greece in the future to keep them alive, up and running? Does Greece somehow magically discover a great source in their country and boost tourism and expand economy and be half as much as the great country they were once believed to be? :P

So let me get this straight: you think collecting counterfeit tokens pushed by secretive foreign scamcoin operators is the ultimate definition of a great country? 

I dont know. The EU can afford to lose anymore money, but cutting off the supply should help them.

Theres the whole situation where if EU will no longer consider greece as the euro. And who knows they might try to sell their debt to other countries like u.s. or buy some of it.

greece will continue being greece.

its a history for a reason though, and mistakes are always going to be the same but just in a different form.

if I were a greek citizen i would of folded up my business and move forcefully to somewhere else.

just liks this op has lost 700k. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292.0

We basically need a true capitalism in a sense.

Cause those bails out and failed banks that did get one is a form of socialism. So the true meaning goes, socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor (making people think its all equal).

The SDR's are not a big deal, they are just a basket of currencies or a derivative of them (that can be printed too as a unique asset).

It's basically a derivative of a basket of toilet papers, which is worth the same.

C`mon it's all fiat toilet paper money, why it would be anything different?


It wont be that quick, so you will have enough time to change your dollars.

I would be more afraid of bank bail-in, so if you hold your dollars in a bank, then they can just rob you.

Nowadays its not you who robs the bank, but the bank is that robs you.

What is pure capitalism to you? 0% taxes on anything and no public services?
What happens with the people that legitimately need welfare and what happens with the people that fail to make a living and resort to crime to get basic needs covered?