Bailout Race - Piigs Next In The Row? What has the future in store for us?

[adriantc 0]

I've been inactive for some time on Xisto and as I made my way back (hopefully in force ) I noticed the Politics part of the forum... and to my surprise no one is rushing to open topics and write ideas. If you ask me this should be one of the highlights of this forum, but I guess that just me.So why open a topic? If someone where to check all my posts from the very one they would have noticed that from the very first I've been quite grim where it comes to the future. In some way I even predicted this crisis... not the causes, but part of the end result (at least to this day). Since this crisis began governments keep bailing out different banks and corporations in order to keep jobs and the economies from collapsing. There seems to be some rebound in the US economy, but I always feared that the first crises was only the beginning and economies are growing just because governments keep throwing money in them.Now it seems more cracks start to appear... in Europe this time. Recently a few countries from the Euro zone are having big problems with their economies because (mainly) they bailed more then their budget could permit. They are called PIIGS (from Portugal, Italy, Irland, Greece and Spain). The real problem is that since all of them are in the Euro zone (have the Euro as their currency) their collapse would bring down the whole Euro zone. Not to mention that there are a lot of people trying to take advantage of this weakness and while doing that they are making the problem bigger. From the PIIGS countries the biggest problems are with Greece (at the moment). The importance of those countries is underlined by the fact that the next step is bailing out a whole country... Greece. And it may not be the last.But as governments bail corporations and then the governments themselves need bailout that begs the question... Who is going to bail the last one. Is this a snowball effect in motion? I want to get your opinion on this subject... What do you think it happen?

[princeofvegas 0]

I love discussing politics. I am as surprised as you are that there are not more people rushing to post in this section. Could it be that we are taken over by 13 year old kids looking for free hosting? Not that I have anything against them because this forum covers all walks of life. LOL. I cannot believe that more countries are not learning the lesson that the United states has taught them about bail outs. We gave billions and billions of dollars to help try to re stimulate our failing banking and mortgage system, but that money never made it to the intended parties. Instead it went to line the pockets of the people that were running the banks so that they could continue to lead their extravagant lifestyles with private jets and expensive dinners.The money that is now going to bail out smaller governments, where do you think that is ending up? Probably in the pockets of the politicians to help pay for the lifestyle that they have grown acustomed to. It will not be going to decrease the national debt. I think that the world just needs a complete overhaul of the international banking system before our international economy collapses and we are forced to rebuild the banking systems from the ground up anyways. What if the nations were to just do what we did in grade school. Call all the debts even and move on from there with a fresh slate. That would just be too simple.. lol.

[adriantc 0]

From that point of view, if everything goes to hell at least there will be no more expensive dinners and fancy jets for anyone... I guess you can find a positive side even for an economic doomsday scenario. Their billions over billions will equal 0... just worthless pieces of paper or digits on a computer. One "great" thing about today's currency is that it's backed up by exactly nothing. One day you can be a billionaire and the next starve to death.

The real problem with world economies is that they are too well connected... It's enough for something to go terribly wrong in some remote corner of the world and hell will break loose. Just like a domino falling it will trigger another and then another until all of them have fallen. It may start with a smaller country (like Greece) and propagate to bigger one and so on. No matter how mighty they are (US, Germany or China) they can't live on their own. Not only they are dependent on one another for imports and exports, but they borrow from one another so if one falls and can't pay their dept it will be September 2008 all over again... this time on a governmental scale; and, of course, with no one to bail them out the result will be catastrophic.

All those bails may have been good on the short term, but there is no way this could be a permanent solution... Governments can't keep throwing money in the economy just to keep it alive. It's like keeping a patient alive with the help of machines. You know the body has problems, but you refuse to acknowledge that and treat it properly, and you just satisfy to patch things up and hope for the best. One day the house will come crushing down on our heads.
I may sound like Nero here watching Rome burn to the ground, but I guess it's gonna be a hell of a day when something like that happens. I guess then we will all have to reconsider what we've based out life upon.

PS: I have recently seen a very provocative documentary called "Collapse" (click HERE for the IMDB link). If any of you have a free hour and a half I don't think you will regret watching it. It gave me goosebumps! Feel free to discuss what you think...