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To add to the other Greece Breaking News story (Greece Defaults, Still Wants Bailout)....
The Ars Writes:
Thom Feeney, a London shoe shop worker who started a campaign to raise €1.6 billion (that's US $1.78 billion). Feeney's IndieGoGo campaign, started just two days ago, has already raised an astonishing €478,575 (or $533,010) from more than 30,000 people.
"All this dithering over Greece is getting boring," Feeney wrote on his IndieGoGo page. "Why don't we the people just sort it instead?" He added that to come up with the €1.6 billion, every member of Europe would only have to give €3 each (well, technically you'd only need to collect from members of the European Union; that's not even counting any potentially generous Swiss or Norwegian people.)
The campaign has six days left to raise money. If €1.6 billion isn't raised, all the donors will get back their money.
This afternoon, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared that Greece was officially in arrears, but it has not yet declared that Greece is in default. Technically, the IMF could offer Greece an extension of its debt repayment obligation. On July 5, the country will hold a national referendum on whether to sign a deal demanding even stricter austerity from the nation.
But, if Europeans all chip in, maybe we can just put this silly bailout business behind us.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:26PM
European here: haven't we been crowd funding the Greek economy for at least a decade now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:48PM
No, the European banks have. And everyone profited, especially the banks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:53PM
Not saying that you are wrong but do you have a citation for that?
My understanding was that for instance each Dutch person has paid the equivalent of 1100 Euros for bailing out Greece through taxes in the Netherlands.
http://m.trouw.nl/tr/m/nl/4496/Buitenland/article/detail/4058830/2015/06/06/Klaar-met-die-Griekse-spelletjes-tijd-voor-een-Grexit.dhtml [trouw.nl]
(Score: 3, Informative) by umafuckitt on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:43PM
No. We've been forcing it to not default by making it take out loans in order to pay back other loans. The "bailouts" aren't really bailouts. What Greece needs is either an orderly default or a supervised grace period to help it get its shit together. Today the IMF finally admitted this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @07:53PM
The root cause of course being that Greece never should have been accepted as a EU member, but them being accepted based on falsified data ("accounting irregularities").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Financial_Audit,_2004 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 02 2015, @09:20PM
You are confusing "EU member" with "Euro member". Greece was already an EU member when the Euro was introduced. And there are still EU members without the Euro.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @09:37PM
All the people who keep saying that we're not really helping Greece but the banks, or that paying their debt with new EU backed loans at low interest rates and with extremely delayed due dates isn't a bailout, need to turn on their TVs and open their fucking eyes: What you see in Greece now is what that "helping the banks" and "not bailing the Greeks out" has prevented until that Greek idiot and his motorcycle gang of one decided to walk away from the negotiations and brought the whole thing crashing down on Greece in a matter of hours after we stopped our "odious" behavior. This would have happened much earlier, and much worse, and it would have brought down Spain, Portugal and Italy too. And it didn't need to happen now either, but Greece voted for a demagogue who promised the impossible and blames the rest of the EU when it doesn't come true. Demagogue is a Greek word, btw., they should've seen it coming.