ELI5: The Greece Situation and Impact

[ranlo]

Hey all... I'm hoping someone can help break this down to me. The only people I know of to ask have basically said the situation makes no sense. Maybe you can help understand the events.

Essentially, what I'm understanding in regards to the U.S. (at least) and Greece is:

1) We don't really import from them or export to them on a "emergency" basis (i.e., like if China cut off exporting to the U.S., being that they are a huge part of our economy)
2) They're not hugely invested in our economy/currency

As a result, why are they having such a huge impact on our stocks and such? There doesn't seem to be any importance to the U.S. in regards to the situation (not saying it's not a big deal, but in regards to its effect on the U.S., it seems negligible, yet the stock markets are all seeing impacts).

Furthermore, people have said it won't impact BTC because Greeks can't remove their funds from banks, meaning they can't buy into BTC.

Can someone help shed some light on what I (and we, I guess) are missing? Why are things so hectic?

Edit: No "you're stupid and don't understand." I know I'm ignorant in regards to this, which is the point of asking for someone to help get what's happening. I've never dealt with anything like this (or probably wasn't old enough to understand), so this is a completely new area to me, .

[Lethn]

The simple explanation is this, it's because of the bond market primarily, the U.S lends and borrows to other countries who lend and borrow to other countries who lend and borrow to Greece, because these countries hardly produce anything anymore they exist solely on debt, which is why there is a domino affect because there is one or two countries quite literally propping everything up and that means such a fragile economy can't exist. The reason people aren't explaining things clearly to you is they:

. Are in absolute denial about the state of their respective country and will laugh in your face for suggesting otherwise ( Incredibly arrogant people who don't actually know how the economy works or think it's the correct way to run it )

. Know what's going on but are shit scared of people finding out the truth for themselves so they'll lie to your face ( Politicians do this a lot, this is why you'll never hear them talk about defaults openly and so on )

. Have jobs that rely on this system carrying on ( See mainstream economists like Paul Krugman and wall street bankers, even various news journalists rely on their favourite politicians staying in power to get work )

If you're having trouble finding proper explanations of how the bond market and central banks actually work, then I highly recommend this video, gives a very good breakdown of exactly how the banking system works and why all these bond markets are crashing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

[ranlo]

The simple explanation is this, it's because of the bond market primarily, the U.S lends and borrows to other countries who lend and borrow to other countries who lend and borrow to Greece, because these countries hardly produce anything anymore they exist solely on debt, which is why there is a domino affect because there is one or two countries quite literally propping everything up and that means such a fragile economy can't exist. The reason people aren't explaining things clearly to you is they:

. Are in absolute denial about the state of their respective country and will laugh in your face for suggesting otherwise ( Incredibly arrogant people who don't actually know how the economy works or think it's the correct way to run it )

. Know what's going on but are shit scared of people finding out the truth for themselves so they'll lie to your face ( Politicians do this a lot, this is why you'll never hear them talk about defaults openly and so on )

. Have jobs that rely on this system carrying on ( See mainstream economists like Paul Krugman and wall street bankers, even various news journalists rely on their favourite politicians staying in power to get work )

If you're having trouble finding proper explanations of how the bond market and central banks actually work, then I highly recommend this video, gives a very good breakdown of exactly how the banking system works and why all these bond markets are crashing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

Thanks for that! So essentially, it's really an indirect effect due to the debt-based society we live in (basically, if Greece defaults, then the country they owe money to defaults, which travels up the line)?

It's definitely an interesting thing to see happen. I'm also curious, if you happen to know, what happens when they move to a different currency. Does the government buy all their currency at the current "value" and trade it for the new one? What if people don't want to give theirs up, does it become worthless?

[Lethn]

It all depends on the country and their specific policies, depending on how stubborn they are, they made simply end up like Zimbabwe or Spain where you have entire cities becoming deserted because the government refuses to change and people refuse to trade worthless paper.

[pureelite]

Hey all... I'm hoping someone can help break this down to me. The only people I know of to ask have basically said the situation makes no sense. Maybe you can help understand the events.

Essentially, what I'm understanding in regards to the U.S. (at least) and Greece is:

1) We don't really import from them or export to them on a "emergency" basis (i.e., like if China cut off exporting to the U.S., being that they are a huge part of our economy)
2) They're not hugely invested in our economy/currency

As a result, why are they having such a huge impact on our stocks and such? There doesn't seem to be any importance to the U.S. in regards to the situation (not saying it's not a big deal, but in regards to its effect on the U.S., it seems negligible, yet the stock markets are all seeing impacts).

Furthermore, people have said it won't impact BTC because Greeks can't remove their funds from banks, meaning they can't buy into BTC.

Can someone help shed some light on what I (and we, I guess) are missing? Why are things so hectic?

Edit: No "you're stupid and don't understand." I know I'm ignorant in regards to this, which is the point of asking for someone to help get what's happening. I've never dealt with anything like this (or probably wasn't old enough to understand), so this is a completely new area to me, .

Situation in Greece a ver very dangerous. I was in Greece on the sea and situation is less from momemnt to moment. I think Russia and uSA have a very big influence because of.

[tsoPANos]

Interesting BBC article mentioning Yanis Varoufakis.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19785935