No, this isn't in the wrong forum.
This is the round of headlines Obama gets to look at every day as he tries desperately to avoid all discussion of the US deficit, the senate's refusal to pass a budget and the economy.
Moreover, the faction of US politics that applauds Greek resistance to getting their budget under control is the same faction that insists Obama keep spending while only discussing 50 year old haircuts.
Greece will probably default and it will do so in 6 to 8 weeks. That's July, 4 months before the election, meaning the worst of it will be unspooling just as our Absentee-Landlord-in-Chief, with his OWS minions (you know this will animate them to even greater antics), is trying to convince us he is fit to handle our own crisis.
Planning for a Greek exit, now seen as likely by many, has stepped up a gear. Vodafone, a major presence in the Greek telecoms market, said it now sends all cash earned in Greece to the UK "every evening."
Andrew Witty, chief executive of Glaxo SmithKline, said no cash was left in Greece or "most European countries." Several other British multinationals have made similar statements.
Jonathan Tepper, an economist with Variant Perception, said a debt default and Greek euro exit would happen at only moments' notice after weeks of denials by all concerned.
"To avoid immediate runs on banks, it would be done in a 'surprise' announcement over a weekend when markets and banks are closed," he said. "If necessary, Monday and Tuesday would be declared bank holidays as well."
During this period, diplomats in Athens have been told, cash machines would be turned off and all banks closed. Inside, staff would be "redenominating" euro notes into the new drachma, probably by rubber-stamping them. Capital controls would be imposed to stop Greeks transferring money out of the country electronically and border checks would be reinstated to prevent them taking out unstamped euros in suitcases.
Mr Tepper is one of a growing number of economists who believe that the so-called "Grexit" might actually be better than years and years of EU-mandated misery.
"In the past century, 69 countries have exited currency areas with little downward volatility," he says. "The experience of emerging-market countries, such as Argentina, Russia and the 'Asian tigers,' shows that the pain of devaluation would be brief, and rapid growth and recovery would follow."
Greece, however, is not Russia, Argentina or the Far East, with massive mineral wealth and untapped human capital. And everyone concedes that exit would, in the short and medium term, cause Greeks even more terrible pain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9262068/Greece-will-run-out-of-money-soon-warns-deputy-prime-minister.htmlThe Greek communists may well save America.
