TEc - Greece's economy; Running on empty - Why a longer timeline is called for

Disheartening charts pointing to a deeply depressed economy and society whose rock bottom has so far not seemed deep enough.
Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the the curves clearly point to gains made over 2014 until political change swept across the land. What to make of it all then?

Easy enough, most Greeks simply grew tired and fed up after five years of decline that they were now ready to bet on a new horse with an altogether different approach to the race.
Too late for the incumbents New Democracy to state their case that finally the country was beginning to upswing. Democracy exacted its cost, one might say. There does exist a lengthy time lag between what macroeconomic variables tell and what real people, the constituents, feel. Especially in a context that built up over many years since 2009/10.

The solid question remains as to how much improved is the Greek State now in the broadest sense, or if it can be made to improve further quickly enough by the new government.
I am in no doubt that Greek society (and economy) does have strengths that have been grossly overshadowed by a punishing policy of pressure and contraction.
The country must painstakingly rebuild the economy on a much sounder footing of individual and collective responsibility across the board.
Not a job that may be accomplished overnight by any government.
Perhaps negative perceptions abroad are overblown, misconceptions rife in the midst of the larger EuroZone conundrum whose structural fix is far from receiving the attention it ultimately requires.

Should Greece pull financially through 2015 while enforcing basic rules of good government and governance and bringing hope to average people, then only its rightful place in the EuroZone and the EU will be permanently assured.
Ideology in the form of traditional left/right bias should not come in the way of doing what it takes to set Greece right.
If anything, the new government hit the ground running.
A promising start, a breathing space conquered to tackle internal weaknesses and trigger wider debate in the EuroZone about its future(?).

All charts need be looked at against a long-enough timeline.
Over 2015 much will emerge to show whether the short-term losses now incurred are offset by improved overall prospects for Greece in the medium-to-long-term.
The new government in Athens faces tremendous odds and has a very tall order to fulfil.

FT - Athens faces uphill struggle despite eurozone deal - Steep incline indeed

However disheartening these charts may be they all point to a deeply depressed economy and society whose rock bottom has so far not seemed deep enough.

Nonetheless it is fair to say that the right endings of the curves clearly point to gains made over 2014 until political change swept across the land. How to explain it then?

Easy enough, most Greeks simply grew tired and felt humiliated after five years of decline that they were now ready to bet on a new horse with an altogether different approach to the race. Too late for the incumbents New Democracy to state their case that finally the country was beginning to upswing. Democracy exacted its cost, one might say. There does exist a lengthy time lag between what macroeconomic variables tell and what real people, the constituents, feel. Especially in a context  that built up over many years since 2009/10.

More and informative charts are amiss but the solid question remains as to how much improved is the Greek State now in the broadest sense, or can it be made to improve further quickly enough by the new government.

I am in no doubt that GreeK society (and economy) does have its strengths that have been overshadowed by an overwhelming policy of pressure and contraction.

The country must painstakingly rebuild the economy on a much sounder footing of individual and collective responsibility across the board. Perhaps negative perceptions abroad are overblown, misconceptions rife in the midst of  the larger EuroZone conundrum whose structural fix is still far from receiving the attention it ultimately requires.

If financially Greece can pull through 2015 while enforcing basic rules of good government and governance and bringing hope to the people, then only its rightful place in the EuroZone and the EU will be permanently assured.

Ideology in the form of traditional left/right bias should not come in the way of doing what it takes to set Greece right.

If anything, the new government hit the ground running. 

A promising start, a breathing space conquered to tackle internal weaknesses and trigger wider debate in the EuroZone about its future(?).

GRÉCIA...

A Grécia é notícia na CEE/UE praticamente desde 1981, ano da sua adesão, e em regra pelas razões erradas.

Custa a acreditar que tanto desvario variado possa originar numa única sociedade/nação/país/Estado. Francamente, teria ainda assim de aprofundar alguns dados objectivos para concluir de forma definitiva sobre a viabilidade da sua presença na Zona Euro.

O povo grego, o grego comum não há-de ser tão original que se destaque pela negativa dos demais povos europeus. Lá como em Portugal, como em muita outra sociedade, são as redes mais ou menos anónimas de interesses legítimos e ilegítimos que justamente produzem efeitos desastrosos. Estes grupos são necessariamente pequenos e que depois revelam-se determinantes no output do país e na imagem que outros têm desse país...

Feita a avaliação do funcionamento da Grécia com base no seu histórico desde 1981, entra o enquadramento e a política da UE onde muito de relevante se poderia dizer.

Quais os verdadeiros objectivos da União Europeia hoje enquanto bloco de 28 Estados-nação soberanos e diversos e com diferentes estádios de desenvolvimento?

Para o actual PR, no tempo da sua governação, o objectivo nacional comparativo era ultrapassar a Grécia - e para consumo interno tal objectivo terá sido conseguido momentaneamente.

Fast forward para a caixa de Pandora aberta com a crise das dívidas soberanas.....

Foi o excesso de endividamento e a construção incompleta da união monetária que abriu aquela caixa accionada pela crise financeira dos EUA. A resposta das instituições europeias foi a que se conhece, com assistência financeira e técnica do FMI, gerida com o predomínio absoluto de uma linha de pensamento único avançado e consolidado pela Alemanha. O ascendente germânico foi conquistando terreno e adeptos que de forma por vezes primária diabolizou o Sul gastador...

Transformando percepções relativas e subjectivas em generalizações infundadas.

Isso podem fazer o Zé da Grécia e o Zé da Itália no Sul, o Zé da Alemanha e o Zé da Holanda no Norte, de forma inocente e inconsequente.

Não podem fazer dirigentes políticos com discurso público.

Em Portugal, o actual vice-presidente do BCE, durante os anos iniciais da moeda única defendeu que a questão dos excessos macro-económicos (variáveis determinantes fortemente desequilibradas) seriam um problema menor no novo contexto. Seria interessante saber o que pensa hoje após as traumatizantes experiências vividas no Sul da Europa.

Há aqui muita coisa que fica no ar mas esta história tem definição cronológica recente e responsáveis directos, individuais, colectivos e institucionais.

A moeda única foi o resultado de uma negociação franco-alemã, a concessão alemã exigida pela França para anuir à reunificação entre a DDR/RDA e a BRD/RFA - desde que, o EURO fosse moeda forte a replicar o DM e a inflação residual. A Alemanha, de novo agigantada, manteria sempre um peso no BCE e na definição da política monetária proporcional ao tamanho da sua economia e demografia reforçada em 17-19M em 1990. 

Mas a união monetária era para evoluir no sentido de uma crescente integração económica e política entre as nações da UE.

A Grécia quer, através do novo governo, interromper o ciclo da bebedeira que muitos ganhos trouxe a muitos no Norte e a alguns no Sul, abrindo um novo caminho para o país. Dou-lhes o benefício da dúvida que fizeram por merecer.

Varoufakis é um tipo brilhante e o seu cachecol ou camisa de fora e sem gravata são pormenores que apenas provocam esta onda mediática porque vivemos um tempo árido de ideias compensado pelo vazio das aparências.

É o que menos interessa, este tipo cultiva a informalidade desde sempre não vendo necessidade de a alterar por ser agora o MF do seu país.

FT - The stand-off that may sink the Euro - Syriza's wake-up call

Philip Stephens holds a very moderate and sensible view of Eurozone's unaddressed woes seen in light of the political process. There's hard evidence all over, gained from traction following 4/5 years of dealing with a financial/economic/social/cultural European crisis that has effectively derailed the EU. Words may be easy to flow to describe what has happened, why, who, where and how best to resolve but at the end of every single day since the outset of a predictably messy affair there remained stubborn unwillingness to do what it takes. 

That said, there have been some real developments few and far between. The latest and single most important one being the ECB's QE program which has already folded elsewhere. QE produced clear outcomes particularly in the US and the UK but will it work in a 19-member monetary bloc with such a diverse set of economies and societies?
Indeed, every structural option available is known to the few who can choose from them except that they won't use them for whatever reason.
Beyond the events of the day from Berlin to Athens, the future of the EU and the Eurozone as its boldest experiment is still uncertain. 

A political and economic bloc that is unresponsive to large sections of citizens in many countries for opposing arguments is surely threatened from within.

National governments should always get their act together.

The supranational EU institutions in the making too with stronger countries adopting much broader latitude in their approach to ongoing problems.

Obviously both should go first!

FT - The Euro - gains for Germany, brought unimaginable pains to Greece

The closing line is wholly unwarranted. If anything Germany is the one Eurozone country that has benefited the most from the advent of the single currency. 

In actual fact German companies and the products they make were quick to tap into every single one of the EU's 27 markets from a position of strength. The ever larger single market created more consumers to sell their goods to. Within the now 19-member Eurozone the Euro further improved gains for the region's leading economy.

On balance, no matter the liabilities that Germany has taken on - largely overblown in the German public's perception - the country added up to internal strengths and national wealth. 

The European Union was supposed to be a bloc of sovereign States pooling some of their former internal power for the greater advantage of all. It would never be easy to get such a diverse set of countries and societies to work together gainfully. Yet that remains the single most important challenge that needs fulfilling. Indeed the only one that objectively justifies the existence of a European Union in the first place. 

From Germany to Greece, people must grasp in their daily lives that the EU works for them despite every shortcoming and failure of each national government. Unfortunately this has not been the case to the extent that far too many citizens across Europe feel deeply disillusioned with the current workings of a dysfunctional economic union unable or unwilling to bring meaningful hope to Main Street across every capital.

Greece has to reform its society as much as Germany needs to review its hardened stance on the common monetary area, stress put on 'common'. There is now some traction and experience to go by of the path pursued thus far and outcomes produced. If anything they show there has got to be a new approach of some sort...

TEc - The day after - ECB steps out of the closet to boldly put cash on the table

The ECB has acted to ultimately kickstart the Eurozone's floundering economy picking its own timing to do so.
It is not at all clear how the new approach will improve the plight of the real economy. Checking deflationary pressure while seeking to take inflation up to the upper bound of 2% has got to translate into a better economic context for companies at large.

Unlike the Eurozone QE was timely applied both in the US and the UK.It may now be acknowledged that it played no small part boosting growth there. In Japan outcomes have been mixed but the country faces a different set of challenges calling for Japan-specific answers to them.

The Eurozone faces a very difficult uphill struggle to resume meaningful growth to a widely-varied set of diverging economies and societies. The aftershocks of the financial crisis proved to be - rather unsurprisingly - deeply asymmetrical leaving Germany to benefit from them early on while other countries took the pain one after the other especially in Southern Europe.

Perhaps a new time is now dawning in the EU - funny coincidence(?) the announcement was made only days before Greece's landmark general election - whereby the European Central Bank takes center stage deciding monetary policy and the tools to pursue it.
National politics in each member-State may also acquire a higher profile, with Greece leading the way.

FT - Juncker denies he was the architect of Luxembourg tax regime - Get it fixed, now!

Time to act on this pressing issue is long overdue.
It is not necessarily about personality or political leadership who might get away with it.
Rather, it is embedded in the overriding logic of the economic and financial system we have come to live in.
Politics in the original and only meaning is sorely called for.

There cannot be a levelled playing field for companies to compete in when the largest have turned their financial departments into profit centres.
Generating turnover in one country whilst paying negligible tax in another.
A triple whammy depriving States where business is conducted of much-needed due-tax. Leading to other taxpayers - individual and collective - making up for the shortfall, even if a link may not be readily established. Or a head-on impact on budget balances which is much simpler to detect.

Whatever the degree of autonomy enjoyed by Luxembourg's tax authority, it could not have escaped the FM and PM that such practices were on. And had been for many years. To Luxembourg's gain.
It would be far more honest to admit to it all from a position that no known wrong-doing was involved according to the awfully diverging tax regimes prevalent in member-States of the same European Union. Something that should have been checked and legislated upon long before the current uproar.

I would expect this issue to be fixed quickly, tardy as it is.