I wouldn’t know that Greece debt and default can be an example that other countries should follow. Apparently it is. In the mind of US Presidential candidate Donald Trump. He came out with his “Big Plan for the Economy: Let’s make like Greece and default on the national debt.” or something like that.
Warning: This is not a joke! Today, May 9th is not April Fools Day!
Excerpts from an opinion article on Market Watch : “Donald Trump’s plan for the economy: Let’s copy Greece “
“The Donald has finally come out with his Big Plan for the Economy: Let’s make like Greece and default on the national debt. Put this on a cheap hat: Let’s Make Greece Great Again.
Speaking on CNBC on Thursday, Trump floated his plan to deal with the national debt: Ask creditors to take a haircut, or a reduction in the face value of their debt, which is a default, in exchange for … what exactly? Well, exactly nothing. But thinking has never been a prerequisite for speaking in Trumpland.
Reaction is as disbelieving as it was in 2011, when first-term Tea Party Florida congressman Ted Yoho called on the financial experience he amassed as a large-animal veterinarian to opine that it would be smart to default on the national debt to show bond markets we’re serious about getting our fiscal affairs in order.”
Of course, Donald Trump did not reveal exactly a Greek default plan as a tool to bring economy to growth.
“In the event that the U.S. economy crashed, Donald Trump has floated a recovery plan based on his own experience with corporate bankruptcy: Pay America’s creditors less than full value on the U.S. Treasurys they hold.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee suggested in a phone interview Thursday with CNBC that he would stimulate growth through borrowing. If trouble arose, he added, he could get investors to accept reduced payments for their Treasury holdings.
Trump later clarified that comment to say he would offer to buy the bonds back at a discount from investors in hopes of refinancing them at lower rates.
“I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal,” Trump told CNBC.
I have no idea whether Donald Trump is a better negotiator than George Papandreou, the Prime Minister who brought the IMF into the country and his successors. Businessman Trump can surely deal with investors better than any politician Greek or other nationality. It’s only that state debts are not corporate debts and have grave consequences for the masses of citizens.
On the other hand, why should a Market Watch author come up with a “Copy Greece” solution? Oh, that’s the easy, funny way, with every reader to have a direct association to the issue.
Here in Greece and inspired by thousands of Hollywood films, we tend to call anything exaggerated with a happy end like total catastrophe where the good guys win and turn the world into a safe, happy place as “Amerikania” = superficial approach American style.
Amerikania is also used to describe something exaggerated that displays bad taste… . Like a giant hamburger…
.. Like a giant WOW-Hamburger…
PS and if Trump has difficulties to understand I can explain it to him – we just need to agree on a one-time consultation fee. It’s hard to get fixed income when a country has defaulted on its debt, even 7 years after the bankruptcy…
Note that Trump says Greece defaulted on its debt. Which we haven’t. But we certainly should. Vote Trump :))
He said before it would take the US around 8 years to pay off 9 trillion dollar debt to make the rest of the debt sustainable. By paying off that debt he meant that the rest of the world will pay for that cause America has always have the world pay for their debt, their way of living and for their wars the moment that country got off the gold standard.
“Trump later clarified that comment to say he would offer to buy the bonds back at a discount from investors in hopes of refinancing them at lower rates.” Well, keep hoping now you have given away your plans.
And he also said later: “one never has to default if one is printing the money”. The latter works as long as dollar remains the world’s preferred currency. Countries won’t dump US treasuries cause it means that they will lose all that money invested in the US. But piss off countries just long enough and they just might do that. Threatening to go default ala Greece (which it didn’t default btw) must just be that trigger.
Countries might just slowly diversify away from the dollar and US treasuries. China (with its own clusterfuck of problems) has already sold many of them and has put the money into physical gold holdings.
I read a post by Xenos about Trump and I don’t agree with Xenos that Trump is bad because Trump cares about us little guys, but I have to respect Xenos view because he seems quite astute on most of the issues, Mr Xenos would you take a position in Mr Trumps cabinet if he offered as I heard he also likes to have a few dissenting advisors for balance? The key to a good politician is not to surround oneself with YES men
Thank you for the polite disagreement with me. I really respect that. Well, I am no expert on US politics, but my understanding of the issue of the US presidency is that neither of the two likely candidates for the two parties (GOP and Democrats) is interested in the “little guys”. This is my problem with Trump. He pretends to be something like that, but in reality is a multibillionaire who inherited his money and didn’t even make his own fortune. The ONLY candidate who cares about the ordinary person is Saunders (with whom I once had some indirect personal contact and was impressed).
AS for your question, I am not sure of the answer. I have never been offered a job as a dissenter: everywhere (including universities), people want only YES men. Probably I would, as I am an argumentative SOB 🙂