Greece defaulted[1] on a loan from the IMF tuesday. That same day, they spent the last of the most recent tranche of bailout funds from the EU; they've been out of cash all week. It's not just the government that's broke. Banks are completely illiquid. All week, we've witnessed scenes of empty ATM's and pensioners queuing outside shuttered banks. The situation is desperate.

What a "no" vote would do, effectively, is end the negotiations for another bailout, which at the moment are "on hold." The Greek government would be forced to deal with the cash flow situation on their own; by printing their own currency rather than importing Euros. Banks and ATMs would be filled with drachmas, a currency created out of thin air, and thus unlikely to be trusted by the majority of Greeks; foreign investors will certainly have nothing to do with it. This causes numerous problems. Hyperinflation is a real concern. Perhaps the biggest worry of Greek planners though is imports. Greece has a big trade imbalance and relies on imports for crucial goods such as food, fuel, and medicine. If foreign exporters aren't willing to accept drachmas, and Greece is unable to obtain Euros through the credit markets, Greeks will be in a very tough spot.

The good news for Greece is that the crisis which would ensue from pulling out of the Euro should eventually come to an end, as opposed to the austerity regime which appears designed to extract wealth from Greeks for the foreseeable future. Default and withdrawal from the Euro would cause severe pain over the next year or two, but once the drachma becomes accepted, a lot of the immediate problems should ease. Moreover, a central government empowered to spend, rather than beholded to paying European creditors, would have the capital to kickstart the economy through various Keynesian programs (think FDR's New Deal). Greece has a massive unemployed population, and a number of economic needs which could be fulfilled by domestic industry. It's only the current debt extraction arrangement which keeps people unemployed and wealth flowing out of a country. A Greece unbeholden to foreign creditors would be able to put its people to work.

As far as the international effects of a Greek pullout, most pundits agree that the economic effects should be minimal. Most of Greece's debt is held by EU nations; very little of it is tied up in banks (and most of those banks are Greek banks who would be crashing on Greek depositors). Though UK and US banks have stepped up their investment in the Greek banking system since 2012 (the last time "grexit" was imminent, when "contagion" was a feared buzzword) the threat of an immediate European financial crisis appears to be very low. The main concern is the political ramifications. Greece's decision to jettison the Euro will serve as a precedent to other European countries which experience hardship. The integrity of the European Union is at stake.

[1] Technically they're just "in arrears" since the IMF doesn't consider a state to have officially defaulted until a month after missing a payment, but that's besides the point.

Oh my goodness, I can't wait for New Horizons to get there. I want hi-res Pluto photos; topographic maps! This awesome, though.

Thank you so much! This is incredible, I wasn't sure how I was going to cover January rent. Thank you again!

This is scary. I don't see how $19 billion more of investment will make a difference, if pledging to invest China's centi-billion pension funds didn't calm the markets. The ship is sinking; that's abundantly clear. What isn't so certain is what the after-shocks will be like. I'm really concerned that we're witnessing the start of the next global recession. Particularly when western governments and central banks are woefully unprepared to combat another crash.

Wikipedia would call you a "social democrat" as opposed to a democratic socialist. Though if you're in the US, I'd say we're all far enough to the left of the capitalist "center" that we ought to cooperate regardless.

I am a socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I'm still new to Hubski, but I guess to create a socialist community, we would all just use and follow the tag #socialism?

Hi! I'm another migrant from reddit. So excited to have found hubski; this website seems structured to promote the quality discussion I love on reddit, without the bullshit.

About me, I'm an undergraduate student at an American university, majoring in political science (though I'm thinking about switching to history). I'm active politically; by ideology I'm a socialist. I like to write, and hope to establish myself as a freelance writer in the near future.

Tell me about yourself!

The only way for racism to be "solved" (quotations because of course racism as a whole will never fade away) is for the system that we live in to adapt. The only people capable of doing this is the government itself.

Agreed that racism is systemic, but I'm going to have to disagree with the quoted part. The state is absolutely not the only body capable of solving racism. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the current state edifice absolutely cannot solve racism. That is a problem which must be solved by us, by society, by The People. The way I see it, when I see Jim Crow drug laws, racist policing, and discriminatory policies across the spectrum of public life, what I see is a state which stands in the way of a solution. Which upholds racism. I don't see a way to "solve racism" (or any other comparably deep social ill) without replacing the state.

Deepflows, I identify with a lot of what you are saying. I too struggle with depression. I too am angered by the way the logic of financial capitalism has invaded almost every facet of our lives. I don't have any answers; I'm struggling too.

I am, however, a good bit younger than you. I'm going to university myself, not because I have a passion for study, but because that's what I have to do to get a job that pays a living wage outside of the service sector. I've looked for paths; I took last year off to work, travel, do my own kind of studying. I dabbled with the hitchhiker/couchsurfer siubculture, which appears liberating from outside, but the rhythms of which I found deeply alienating. I've settled back into the safe path; two more years and I'll have a bachelor's degree in Political Science, or maybe History, or some other social science. Then...?

I don't know what next. The past of least resistance would seem to lead me to Washington D.C. to work in the non-profit sector. Maybe take on more debt to get a masters degree and try to make my way in the federal bureaucracy. My very Green sister-in-law visited last week; I joked maybe I'll end up as a lobbyist for Monsanto. I was only half joking. I don't see how to make a life for myself that is comfortable yet pure, in the sense we're talking about. And if I don't do it, if I don't become a lobbyist for Monsanto or work as a campaign consultant for a repulsive politician or write propaganda for the capitalist press, somebody will. By stepping aside, maybe I maintain some personal moral high ground. But what is that good for?

Vote "no" on Sunday.

Reintroduce the drachma and ride out the immediate pain. Yes, there will be hardship in the near-term, but in a few years, Greece has significant economic expansion to look forward to. Just look at Argentina in the middle of last decade, after defaulting in '03. And better yet, such a course means the reclaiming of sovereignty from the banks and bureaucrats of the thoroughly undemocratic EU.

EDIT: This is a topic which really interests me, and which I've been following closely for a few years now. Let's start using the #greece tag to talk about it more.

Golden Dawn, a literal neo-nazi party, consistently polls third (around 10-12%) and has a pretty strong street presence, though all of its MPs are in jail. ANEL is a "patriotic right" party which is in government as SYRIZA's junior coalition partner. And then there are also persistent rumors of generals/retired generals forming a new right-wing party, though that never seems to materialize. So the far-right certainly could come to power, though if it tried to invade any of its neighbors, it'd almost certainly get slapped down.

I feel exactly the same way. Not a maths person, studying in the humanities but without any real passion. Led along by the promise of stability, but with nagging doubts (do I really want to do that for 20 years, will I regret not taking a risk). I wish there was an easy answer.

Thanks! Question; whenever I try to follow any tags or people, I'm redirected to a blank page with this text:

"Unknown or expired link."

Any idea what's going on?

I just realized someone on here muted me, and I'm not sure what I did wrong :(

Now that Europe is trying oh-so-hard to counterbalance the USA, Germany is insisting that they can't waste money on those spendthrift Greeks because they know that if Greece goes to shit it will be American troops that will march on Athens.

You're going to have to explain this. I can't imagine a scenario where the US occupies Greece.

Me too. A contact of mine in Greece, for what it's worth, is convinced that Golden Dawn holding any power is impossible, that the military dislikes them and that there would be a coup if they took power. He's a Major in the Greek army, though I believe with the way the Greek army is structure, that just means he's been in the reserve officer corp for a while and has fucked up; I don't know how much influence he has. But I'm hopeful.

/r/SyrianCivilWar has been my source to follow that conflict (and its spillover) for years now. I honestly don't know if I can ever really leave reddit so long as I maintain an interest in following that conflict. Though it may be better for my own health to not be so invested in a foreign war. Following a bloody war on the internet, flipping through images of dead soldiers and decapitated prisoners is both horrifying and desensitizing. I'll try to stop visiting there.

On a lighter note, /r/Soccer has by far the best soccer community I'll come across. I don't really know of another place to follow /r/SwanseaCity (though, of course, once the season starts, I'll be able to watch the Jacks on NBCSports).

Let's just use #language, as that seems to be the most followed relevant tag, and then the specific language you're learning. I'm working on Spanish, myself.

Thanks for the shout out, thenewgreen; this community is awesome! You've just given me a list of people to follow.

I'm a big supporter of gay marriage, but the fact that we are relying on the Supreme Court, "a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine" as Justice Scalia put it, to legalize gay marriage, despite clear public support for doing so, indicates to me that American democracy has ground to a halt. The "true" reading of the constitution leads me, and I think most other honest leftists, to the conclusion that the majority ruling in Obergefell v Hodges is based not on judicial questions, but rather legislative impulses.

It's time for a new constitution. A constitution which protects the rights of all people, which allows democracy to function without the impediments of filibuster, gerrymandering, and money in politics. If we continue to put our faith in an unelected judiciary, we may one day suffer the consequences.

The major obstacle is, as the New York Times calls it, the barrage of ads that Greek television stations and newspapers are subjecting voters to. Remember, Tsipras is proposing levying license fees on these news stations, all of which are owned by the barons of Greek capitalism, to go towards making up budget shortfalls. This referendum is in one sense a referendum on Tsipras's government, so the Greek capitalists have a vested interest in ensuring a yes vote (beyond it obviously being the best move for Greek banks and shipping magnates in terms of their bottom lines).

I had the same problem, but it's fixed for me.

Haha, true. Want to be my coder?

$680, on the downside after another run-up in price.

Here we go again!

The Guardian has an article about the sub-prime market in US corporate debt which complements the news of slowing global growth wonderfully:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/12/subprime-timebomb-back-companies-lighting-the-fuse

Oh hey, I'm not so bad at this. Congrats Ulisse!

My guess for next year would be $2,500, for what it's worth.

Economists predicted the likelihood of a global recession in 2007 at two in a billion - it was a "six sigma" event. This despite the fact that economics is essentially a history of recessions and depressions. It's not that everyone is stupid - it's that they come to worship the model more than what they're modeling. I would argue that this weakness can also afflict physicists.

I suspect that economists may be more susceptible to this pitfall then physicists. The theoretical underpinnings of economics, as you point out in your discussion of theoretically assumptions and practical results, are purely ideological. Economists whose work reflects a world view which is fundamentally optimistic about capitalism are more likely to insist that major recessions--events which cast doubt on capitalisms benevolent nature--are unlikely (if not impossible, the way many economists talked about a financial crisis in 2007).

$3,220, at the bottom of the trough after the current bubble pops.

PM sent. Thanks!