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Crowdfunding Greece's Repayment

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday July 02 2015, @11:23AM   
from the let-the-people-repay dept.

DECbot writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:It's perhaps not about Greek debt after all? Re:It's perhaps not about Greek debt after all? (Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:41PM

  by TheRaven (270) on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:41PM (#204305) Journal

  The underlying problem is that you can't have a single currency shared across very different economies without some form of capital redistribution. The USA does this by taxing all of the states and moving money into the ones with weaker economies (amusingly, mostly the ones that complain about big government and welfare handouts, but I digress). This was proposed when the Euro was introduced, but was vetoed by the Germans. They then had several years of a significant economic benefit from having their currency undervalued (the Euro was weaker than the Mark because its value was based on the strength of the economy of the entire Eurozone), promoting exports. Now they want to keep the benefits of it and not accept the costs. Meanwhile, the Greek economy suffered from being unable to export much because their currency was overvalued relative to their economy.

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• Re:It's perhaps not about Greek debt after all? (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:08PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:08PM (#204318)

  Europe also taxes everyone and distributes money to poorer countries. Greece has been a major beneficiary of that system. The loans that the current crisis is about are something else: sovereign debt. The thing that Germany (and others) vetoed and instituted a no-bailout clause against is that a country can go into debt on their own and then have that debt paid by the other Euro countries. Germany would have been able to keep the D-Mark's valuation in check on its own. The Bundesbank would have done the same things that the European Central Bank does to regulate the money supply. But then it would have been the sole beneficiary of the monetary expansion, not all of Europe. It is disingenuous to blame Germany for the Euro. Other countries have gone to great lengths to join the Euro, not because they so dearly wanted to be Germany's bitches, but because they saw the mutual benefits also for their own businesses. Germany was strong going into the Euro and will be strong if push comes to shove and Germany returns to its own currency. That does not mean it is a bad idea for other countries to want to be in a monetary union with Germany. Greece has a hard time accepting that it is one of the regions where people don't earn as much money and can't drive as nice cars. What's the average income difference between let's say New York and Alabama? Does that mean Alabama should leave the USD zone? Does that mean Alabama can just borrow as much as it wants to without interference from the federal government and then expect to be bailed out by the other 49 states?

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