How the world sees Greece
 FRANCE 24 | Main Greek banks express interest in postal bank sale FRANCE 24 The Greek state has a 34-percent direct stake in the postal bank and controls another 10 percent through its majority ownership of the Greek postal service, which is also up for sale. Financial media have reported that the government is considering ... |
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Greece school district given A-plus rating for transparency Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Greece's website earned high marks for its extensive archive of budget information; meeting schedules, minutes and agendas; easily found contact information for district and elected officials; posting of employee and purchasing contracts; and available ... |
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Can A Chinese Shipping Conglomerate Save Greece's Biggest Port? Worldcrunch Three years after taking over the break-bulk terminal of Greece's largest port, Piraeus, the company's activities have grown by 70%, even as local freight -- directly linked to the national crisis -- dropped by 20%. The terminal was modernized, new ... |
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 Yahoo!7 News | Four Greek banks make offers for Postbank - source Reuters UK ATHENS (Reuters) - Four Greek banks have made offers for state-controlled Hellenic Postbank, a senior banker close to the process said, in the latest step in the battered sector's consolidation. Postbank (GPSr.AT), 44 percent government-owned and ... Greek market ends higher |
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Chef Maria Bell opens a Greek deli The Courier-Journal Chef Maria Bell, formerly of Greek Paradise Cafe and It's All Greek to Me, opened a Greek deli featuring “Mediterranean cuisine to go” this week at 102 Fairfax Ave. in St. Matthews. Bell sold Greek prepared foods at farmers markets last summer. “It ... |
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 KGMI | Germany's Merkel to Meet Greek PM Next Week Wall Street Journal German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras for talks in Berlin next Tuesday, government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Friday. Mr. Samaras is attending an economic conference in Berlin that day and it is ... Greek prime minister to meet German Chancellor Merkel in Berlin next week Greek PM to meet German Chancellor next week |
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Exchanging goods and services without cash is becoming a way of life in parts of Greece. But does it work on a smaller scale?
Bartering is back. Well, of course the direct exchange of goods and services championed by Aristotle never went away, but in these straitened times, old practices are being reinvigorated using modern tools.
As the main form of exchange, it's a bit of a palaver. Imagine going to the market looking for a sack of grain, you have to exchange your two chickens for a small pig, swap that for a nice shrubbery and take it to a local grain farmer who just happens to be doing up his garden. Currency was always going to look more appealing.
But barter still has its place alongside the mainstream, particularly in the midst of an economic crisis. A shortage of cash or an unstable currency can drive alternative local economies – barter schemes are becoming a way of life in parts of Greece and time banks, in which people exchange units of their own time instead of money, have exploded in popularity with the unemployed in parts of Spain.
According to the International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA), governments such as China, France and Ireland are considering launching state-sponsored barter schemes. Bartercard, a bartering organisation for small and medium enterprises, has more than 35,000 members and many companies have exchange mechanisms in place. The IRTA says that 30% of business worldwide is done on a barter basis – Mercedes Benz once bartered buses for bananas in a deal worth $65m, and Pepsico had a long-running Russian deal in which it swapped cola for Stolichnaya vodka.
But does it work on a smaller scale? Say I need to find someone to fix my washing machine. LETs schemes, which focus on the exchange of labour, always seemed like a useful sideline to the formal monetary system – but after 30 years of service they are in decline. There's a limit to what a city-dweller working in the "knowledge economy" (in which you use your head, not your hands) can offer their local plumber, and these community schemes work on the basis of credits that people often find difficult to use. As a subeditor, I could proof-read your novel, perhaps, or check the punctuation on your advertising hoarding. It's not in quite the same league as an electrician's ability to prevent your untimely death by toaster.
And what about using all those baby clothes in the loft? Several websites facilitate exchanges - Craigslist, U-Exchange and Gumtree have thriving barter markets. One new site, One Fair Market, focuses solely on direct trade. Swap oranges for shoes, it suggests, perhaps rather optimistically. The site is still in its infancy, but it's a good example of the way the internet is offering international reach to local exchanges, reinvigorating the concept in the process.
Most modern barter systems involve some form of currency, or credit, substituted for money, avoiding the main problem with direct exchange – finding someone with grain who wants chickens. But what U-Exchange calls "reciprocal barter" (direct exchange), can offer better value for local schemes as you are directly swapping goods of far higher worth to each individual – once the goods are pooled, their value declines relatively. Kyle Macdonald famously turned a paperclip into a house by trading up, but as one barter fanatic points out, trading up in pure monetary terms isn't really the point – it's to acquire something that has more value to you personally than whatever you're selling.
This means, advocates suggest, that you always do better than if you'd just sold it for cash. And then there's the personal touch, the idea that you're cutting out big business to exchange directly with your fellow man in an ancient ritual that helps you feel closer to your community. Or you could just get a buzz out of palming off all your old junk.
So would a plumber end up with a houseful of old tennis rackets and slightly worn high chairs? Pedro Veiga, who runs One Fair Market, thinks there's too much on offer for that to be a problem. "When a plumber sets up his offer he will select the exact categories that he's interested in doing business (so if he has too many rackets or chairs, he'll probably select "food and drink" or "gadgets"). And he can change his interests over time."
Some might advocate getting rid of money altogether but I think the cash genie might prove a little too vast – I'll settle for offering all my old baby gear to someone … Any new parent plumbers out there?
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Greece to sell one-month and 6-month T-bills Capital.gr (press release) Greece will auction 750 million euros of one-month treasury bills and 1.25 billion of six-month paper on Jan. 8, the country΄s debt agency PDMA said on Friday. The T-bills will be sold into a rollover. The settlement date will be Jan. 11. Only primary ... |
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 Business Insider | Greece Probes Officials In Swiss Tax Scandal Business Insider The Greek prosecution service has questioned two finance ministry officials close to former socialist finance minister George Papaconstantinou, who is caught up in a tax scandal shaking Greek politics, judicial sources said on Friday. The two officials ... Lagarde List sparks inter-party feuding Lagarde List Shows Runaway Tax Evasion Scandal Deepens Over Greece's 'Lagarde List' |
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Clock ticking for resolution of Greece's Postbank Reuters "Banks that have received support by the HFSF must submit their interest to the fund for approval before binding bids are routed to the Bank of Greece," an official at bank support fund HFSF said, declining to be named. Among potential suitors ... Greek market jumps |
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 Greek Reporter | Greece's Samaras to Visit Germany Next Week ABC News The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin next week. Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel will welcome Samaras to the chancellery on Tuesday. He said Friday that the ... Greek PM to visit Merkel next week: Berlin Germany's Merkel to Meet Greek PM Next Week |
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 The West Australian | Greece's 2012 primary budget gap seen at 1.2 pct of GDP- source Reuters ATHENS Jan 4 (Reuters) - Greece may end 2012 with a better-than-targeted primary budget gap of 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) a finance ministry official said on Friday. Greece's primary budget balance, which excludes debt servicing costs, ... Greece may beat 2012 primary budget target - paper |
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Greece's Samaras to visit Germany next week MiamiHerald.com (registration) BERLIN -- The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin next week. Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel will welcome Samaras to the chancellery on Tuesday. He said Friday that ... |
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Greek prime minister to meet German Chancellor Merkel in Berlin next week Washington Post BERLIN — The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin next week. Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel will welcome Samaras to the chancellery on Tuesday. Loading. |
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 FRANCE 24 | Greece probes officials in Swiss tax scandal: source FRANCE 24 Greece probes officials in Swiss tax scandal: source. International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde at a hotel in Tokyo, Japan on July 6, 2012. The Greek prosecution service questions two finance ministry officials close to former socialist ... Lagarde List sparks inter-party feuding Lagarde List Shows Runaway Tax Evasion Scandal Deepens Over Greece's 'Lagarde List' |
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Will messy politics drive bad economics in 2013? Will effective politicians boost growth? Or will the world just muddle through?
Watching America's leaders scramble in the closing days of 2012 to avoid a "fiscal cliff" that would plunge the economy into recession was yet another illustration of an inconvenient truth: messy politics remains a major driver of economic developments.
In some cases during 2012, politics was a force for good: consider prime minister Mario Monti's ability to pull Italy back from the brink of financial turmoil. But, in other cases, like Greece, political dysfunction aggravated economic problems.
Close and defining linkages between politics and economics are likely to persist in 2013. Having said this, we should also expect much greater segmentation in terms of impact – and that the consequences will affect both individual countries and the global system as a whole.
In some countries – for example, Italy, Japan, and the United States – politics will remain the primary driver of economic-policy approaches. But elsewhere – China, Egypt, Germany, and Greece come to mind – the reverse will be true, with economics becoming a key determinant of political outcomes.
This duality in causation speaks to a world that will become more heterogeneous in 2013 – and in at least two ways: it will lack unifying political themes, and it will be subject to multi-speed growth and financial dynamics that imply a range of possible scenarios for multilateral policy interactions.
With an election looming in Italy, the country's technocratic interim administration will return the reins of power to a democratically elected government. The question, both for Italy and Europe as a whole, is whether the new government will maintain the current economic policy stance or shift to one that is less acceptable to the country's external partners (particularly Germany and the European Central Bank).
Monti may or may not be involved in the new government. The further removed from it he is, the greater the temptation will be to alter the policy approach in response to popular pressures. This would involve less emphasis on fiscal and structural reforms, raising concerns in Berlin, Brussels and Frankfurt.
Japan's incoming government has already signalled an economic-policy pivot, relying on what it directly controls (fiscal policy), together with pressure on the Bank of Japan to relax the monetary-policy stance, in an effort to generate faster growth and higher inflation. In the process, officials are weakening the yen. They will also try to lower Japan's dependence on exports and rethink sending production facilities to lower-wage countries.
The economic impact of politics in the US, while important, will be less dynamic: absent a more co-operative Congress, politics will mute policy responses rather than fuel greater activism. Continued congressional polarisation would maintain policy uncertainty, confound debt and deficit negotiations, and impede economic growth. From stymieing medium-term fiscal reforms to delaying needed overhauls of the labour and housing markets, congressional dysfunction would keep US economic performance below its capacity; over time, it would also eat away at potential output.
In other countries, the causal direction will run primarily from economics to politics. In Egypt and Greece, for example, rising poverty, high unemployment and financial turmoil could place governments under pressure. Popular frustration may not wait for the ballot box. Instead, hard times could fuel civil unrest, threatening their governments' legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness – and with no obvious alternatives that could ensure rapid economic recovery and rising living standards.
In China, the credibility of the incoming leadership will depend in large part on whether the economy can consolidate its soft landing. Specifically, any prolonged period of sub-7% growth could encourage opposition and dissent – not only in the countryside, but also in urban centres.
Then there is Germany, which holds the key to the integrity and unity of the eurozone. So far, chancellor Angela Merkel has been largely successful in insulating the German economy from the turmoil elsewhere in Europe. Unemployment has remained remarkably low and confidence relatively high. And, while growth has moderated recently, Germany remains one of Europe's best-performing economies – and not just its paymaster.
While some would have favoured greater policy activism, Merkel's Germany has provided a steady anchor for a eurozone struggling to end bouts of financial instability and put an end to questions about its survival as a well-functioning monetary union (one that aspires to becoming much more). A change in German leadership would, therefore, raise questions about Europe's policy underpinning.
How politics and economics interact nationally and globally is one of the important questions for 2013 and beyond. There are three scenarios: good economics and effective politics provide the basis for a growing and more co-operative global economy; bad economics interact with dysfunctional politics to ruin the day; or the world muddles through, increasingly unstable, as a tug of war between economics and politics plays out, with no clear result or direction.
Part of the answer depends on what happens in three countries in particular – China, Germany and the US. Their economic and political stability is essential to the well-being of a world economy that has yet to recover fully from the 2008 global financial crisis.
Current indications, albeit incomplete, suggest that the three will continue to anchor the global economy in 2013. That is the good news. The bad news is that their anchor may remain both tentative and insufficient to restore the level of growth and financial stability to which billions of people aspire.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.
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The Greece of Asia: Japan's growing sovereign debt time bomb ForexLive (blog) The Greece of Asia: Japan's growing sovereign debt time bomb. By Gerry Davies || January 4, 2013 at 09:19 GMT. || 0 comments || Add comment · Der Speigel. Share and Enjoy: RSS · Facebook · Twitter · LinkedIn · email. Category: All Tags: ... |
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The West Australian | Greece may beat 2012 primary budget target - paper The West Australian ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece may end 2012 with a better-than-targeted primary budget gap, boding well for last year's budget execution, Kathimerini newspaper reported on Friday, citing a senior finance ministry official. The paper said Greece's primary ... |
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