I am not what you\’d call a financial expert. About as far from it as you can find.
But my understanding is that Greece is thisclose to being so hopelessly in debt that it forces them out off the euro…and that if they go it could cause a chain of events which might result in other countries going bye-bye….maybe even the euro itself.
Here are the first paragraphs of an article from Radoslov Tomek and Patrick Donahue of bloomberg.com, which gives us an idea of how this crisis is progressing (maybe regressing would be a better word):
European officials are preparing for the worst as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras\’s brinkmanship pushes Greece\’s finances to the limit.
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Tsipras to accept the framework for financial aid as the German public turns against supporting Greece and euro-area officials demanded a proposal for stabilizing the country\’s debt by the end of Friday. The International Monetary Fund team left Brussels earlier this week, despairing of Tsipras\’s tactics.
Bank stocks plunged as Greece ruled out pension cuts and demanded a debt restructuring. Later, Tsipras’s government said it was ready to submit another counter-proposal and send a delegation to Brussels on Saturday to bridge differences on its primary surplus target.
“People are really fed up with this,” UniCredit SpA Chief Global Economist Erik Nielsen said in a television interview. “They\’ve never seen anything so completely ridiculous, frankly speaking, from a debtor country.”
After four months going round in circles, diplomatic niceties evaporated in Brussels on Thursday as EU President Donald Tusk rebuked Tsipras for dragging his feet on a debt agreement. Greece has less than a week to accept the conditions for aid, with the euro area due to withdraw its financial safety net at the end of the month.
Please read the entire article for a fuller explanation of what all this means.
Again, I acknowledge that my understanding of this situation is very limited. But I do know when a country is about to have the plug pulled. And Greece is just about there.
Stay tuned….
