Monday, January 12, 2015

Greece’s Leftist Syriza Party (Which Wants to Default on Debt) Holds the Lead in Polls

Greece’s leftist opposition Syriza party continues to hold a narrow lead in a series of public-opinion polls published over the weekend, two weeks ahead of the country’s national elections.

According to WSJ, in nine separate opinion polls that were published in the Greek media during the past two days, Syriza is poised to win the coming vote, edging out the ruling New Democracy party by a margin of between 2.7 and 5.5 percentage points, with most of the polls showing an average lead of about 3.2 percentage points—slightly above the margin of error. A 10th poll, published in a pro-Syriza newspaper and after adjusting for undecided voters, gave the party an eight-percentage-point lead.

Syriza leaders want to force the banksters to take a hit on government debt, correctly arguing that the debt is unsustainable. They are calling for a haircut (i.e. bankruptcy) to considerably reduce the debt.

BUT, they also want an end to "austerity," which, from their perspective, means greater government spending.. This would mean an even greater government debt disaster down the road. A Syria victory may also lead to a Greek departure from using the euro and a return to the drachma as the Greek currency. a step in and of itself that would not be a negative, except for the fact that a Syriza government would likely print drachmas until the country runs out of ink. How do you say "hyperinflation" in Greek?

5 comments:

  1. That hot potato is going to be interesting because nobody is going to want to shoulder their fair share of the Greek debt.

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  2. who would these new drachmas? Franley if you had to take them, you would be rushing to change them into anything. so possibly they could be DOA.

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  3. It is the basic socialist desire to go as far and as high as other people's hard work and money will take you.

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  4. Actually, the Greek debt is on the balance sheet of the other Euro gov. A small portion(8%) is on the ECB.

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