看來要在New Left Project找到好的文章有點難度，就僅僅以NLP本站的文章來說，大多都是訪問（而且很多是很無聊的訪問）；比較有趣的是它連結到其他網站的文章。
好喇，這一篇文章是關於希臘現在的財務狀況，那麼希臘的財務是怎麼樣呢？就以08金融海嘯以來，似乎希臘是食得最應的國家，銀行倒閉、裁員、削減公共開支接踵而來…後來還受到IMF及歐盟的魔掌召喚，借了好一大筆錢（上年借了 €110bn的package）。現在就糟糕了，人人都預計希臘會冇錢還。
現況似乎沒有想像中絕望（雖然作者不停話inevitable），因為現今希臘又再問IMF+EU借一筆新的bailout fund，文中提及好像是60bn，而且當中30bn是來自希臘出售公營項目的錢。但是拖到2014年以後，希臘就大撚獲鳥。
更加有趣的是，現在每個星期日都會有超過十萬希臘人跑到Syntagma Square in Athens，然後開一個類似申訴大會的東西。而且按某些民調，發現原來有超過25%希臘人這陣子都跑到街頭示威去。真是群情洶湧啊。
北非革命再加上這一陣子西班牙及希臘的抗爭浪潮，歐洲的社會運動似乎有點新希望了。
最後是我徹底地搞不懂那些債務市場、金融市場的運作，有沒有誰能解釋一番。
Greece: heading for default
Greece is heading for default on its government or sovereign debt, as
it is called. There are two reasons why it is becoming unavoidable. The
first is economic. The size of the Greece’s public sector debt is now
reaching 160% of GDP (annual output). That is so large that it cannot
be stabilised unless the annual government deficit of spending
(excluding interest payments) over tax revenues is turned into a
significant surplus (called a ‘primary surplus’). The swing from
deficit to surplus that the Greek government needs is now over 10% pts
of GDP by 2014. There is no possibility that this can be achieved.
Greece is heading for default on its government or sovereign debt, as
it is called. There are two reasons why it is becoming unavoidable. The
first is economic. The size of the Greece’s public sector debt is now
reaching 160% of GDP (annual output). That is so large that it cannot
be stabilised unless the annual government deficit of spending
(excluding interest payments) over tax revenues is turned into a
significant surplus (called a ‘primary surplus’). The swing from
deficit to surplus that the Greek government needs is now over 10% pts
of GDP by 2014. There is no possibility that this can be achieved.
The government has announced yet another fiscal austerity package drawn
up by the IMF and the EU designed to create a primary surplus. Public
sector jobs will be cut by 15%. If you exclude the armed forces, Greece
has the same number of public sector workers per head of population as
Ireland. Under the package, Greece’s public sector jobs will be 10%
smaller than Ireland’s. At the same time, the working week for public
sector workers will be raised from 37.5 hours to 40 hours. And on top
of the already implemented 20% cut in wages, there will be further pay
reductions. Taxes will be raised by yet another 2-4% on average incomes
and the tax threshold will be lowered to just an annual €6000. So the
poorest Greeks will pay even more tax. The property tax threshold will
also be lowered to include very modest properties starting at €200,000.
But none of these measures will do the trick in getting Greek sovereign
debt under control because the Greek capitalist economy is now in a
deep recession. The latest data for GDP growth in Q1’11 revealed a fall
of 5.5% over the same quarter in 2010. And the forecasts for 2011 and
2012 are for further falls in real national output of 2-4% a year. The
unemployment rate is now over 16% and over 40% for young people. Greek
capitalism is on its knees before the dreaded Troika (the IMF, the EU
and the ECB). With nominal GDP falling over the next two years and debt
levels in euros rising, it is a mathematical impossibility for Greece’s
government debt to be stabilised.
That means the Greek government cannot find the funds to repay the
bonds that become due by borrowing from Europe’s banks and other
financial institutions. These institutions are already unloading their
holdings of Greek debt and are demanding over 25% annual interest to
buy more in secondary markets. Such a rate of interest would just blow
up the budget deficit despite attempts to cut it through fiscal
austerity packages. That is why the Greek government is being forced to
get another bailout package from the EU and the IMF. Back in 2010, it
received a package worth €110bn supposedly to tide it over until early
next year before it started borrowing again from bond markets. It has
become clear that it cannot ‘return to the market’ next year so it
needs more ‘official’ money. The EU-IMF is preparing a new package in
return for yet more cuts in living standards for the average Greek
household. This package will probably involve another €60bn in new
money but also €30bn to be raised by selling off Greek national assets
like the post office, airports, airlines and lots of real estate (not
including the Parthenon yet!). And there is a tentative plan to raise
another €30bn by persuading Europe’s banks to ‘roll over’ their
holdings of Greek debt ‘voluntarily’.
This package will be agreed by Europe’s leaders at meetings on 20-24
June and is designed to tide Greece over until 2014 when things will be
better (hopefully). But nobody really believes that it will manage
that. Even by 2014, Greece is unlikely to have got control of its debt
levels. More likely, it will start to fail to meet the targets on the
budget deficit set by the EU-IMF over the next year (as it has done up
to now). That will pose the issue for the official lenders. Will they
ignore the failure to meet targets and continue to hand out the money
or will they recognise the inevitable and declare that Greece cannot
pay and must default?
The second reason that default will happen is that the Greek people are
increasingly unwilling to suffer a loss of over 30% in their living
standards just to meet government debt payments to European banks,
especially as those banks were the cause of very financial collapse
globally that triggered the Great Recession and got Greece into this
crisis in the first place! Over the last year public opinion polls
showed that the majority of Greeks were prepared to make sacrifices if
it meant that Greece could stay in the Eurozone. Joining the euro was
seen by most Greeks as the making of the Greek economy and they wanted
to be there. Of course, most of the gains from Greece’s membership went
to Greek business which lived off EU subsidies and a strong euro, while
paying little or no taxes to the Greek exchequer. Corruption and tax
evasion were the order of the day for the rich, the corporations and
professional classes (the big scandal in Greece has been the revelation
that Greek doctors, dentists and lawyers, pop stars and politicians etc
paid little or no tax).
But now the leading nations of the Eurozone are driving Greek
capitalism into the ground and enthusiasm for sustaining fiscal
measures is fading. The latest polls show that over 80% of Greeks do
not want to continue with fiscal austerity. Every Sunday, over 100,000
people have been occupying Syntagma Square in Athens. The Indignants
are copying the style of the Middle East protests and the movement in
Spain against the cuts and the unity of the politicians in imposing
austerity. A recent survey found that 25% of of Greek people had been
involved in some form of protest in the last month, or 2.2m people,
double the previous levels of participation.
The ruling PASOK socialist party in government now trails the
conservative New Democracy opposition in the polls for the first time
since the crisis began. More revealing is that both major parties are
losing ground to an array of splinter left parties. Both the leaders of
the major parties have all-time low ratings. If there was an election
tomorrow, no party would have an outright majority. The balance of
power would be held by small left parties. Opposition to meeting the
demands of the IMF-EU is growing in PASOK itself and not just from the
trade unions. A split and an early election is possible in the next six
months. If that happens, Greece will no longer keep to its fiscal
targets and may even opt for default itself.
What would default mean? The ECB and the banks would consider it a
disaster. They are the institutions that hold the majority of Greek
debt. The value of that debt would plummet by at least 50%, bankrupting
Greek banks and causing serious losses to other European banks and the
ECB itself. If markets worried that such a default could lead to
defaults in other distressed EMU states like Ireland and Portugal, then
there could be a new systemic financial crisis in Europe, this time
based on sovereign debt, not private credit. That is the fear of the
ECB and why it opposes those in Germany who are calling for a
‘restructuring’ of Greek debt so that German taxpayers don’t have to
keep paying for most of the Greek bailout packages.
For the Greek people it would be the lesser of two evils. If the Greek
government negotiated with bondholders to cut its debt by 50% or more,
that would remove a huge burden from the back of the Greek people and
enable their sacrifices to be spent on trying to revive the economy
through investment and employment rather than paying the interest and
principal to to the likes of Deutsche Bank or Societe General. Greek
banks would be nationalised, recapitalised and operated as a public
service for loans to Greek small businesses and households, not just as
buyers of government debt or conduits for rich Greeks to spirit away
their wealth from Greece.
If the Greek government opted for default, they may face expulsion from
the euro and certainly they would be frozen out of bond markets for a
decade. Some reckon that it would be a good thing if Greece left the
Eurozone. I don’t see that it benefits the Greek economy. Sure, leaving
the euro and starting a new drachma currency would allow Greece to
devalue heavily and so make its exports much cheaper. But that would
also create a massive rise in inflation, destroying the incomes and
savings of Greek households and small businesses, who would still owe
money in euros. Greece would be reduced to a third world economy. Of
course, if they are expelled, Greece would have to take its chances.
But there is no need to go looking for it. Indeed, a Greek government
should appeal to other EMU states to do something similar and dispense
with meeting the demand of the banks on public debt and instead bring
them into public ownership with a plan for economic revival across
Europe.
Default is inevitable. But it could still be ‘orderly’. Namely, the
upcoming bailout funds may enable Greece to stay out of bond markets
until 2014 when economic growth in Europe could have revived
sufficiently and Europe’s banks could be strong enough to take a
‘haircut’ on their Greek bond holdings. That is the hope of the ECB-IMF
and the EU leaders. But the odds of such an orderly default are falling
and the odds of a disorderly one are rising.
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