Greece: Why the Worst Might Actually Happen

[XDMAR]

In the days before Lehman Brothers collapsed, I spent hours on the phone with various officials of the U.S. government. All of them had the same message: there won't be a bailout of Lehman.
The market did not believe it. Almost every executive on Wall Street that I spoke to believed that the government would step in to prevent a bankruptcy at Lehman. That just seemed to be the smart, rational thing to do.
And now we're seeing the same thing with Greece.
Everyone understands that a Greek default would be horrific. And so everyone assumes that some gang of government operatives will step in to prevent it from happening.
Don't count on it.

News Headlines

 

[woolleyworm]

Often it is best to let one fall flat on their face to learn the consequences of their ways; I was all for GM falling flat on it's greedy ass and then gov't stepped in to bail it out and hold its hand.......... big mistake, but we won't pay for that in the short term, our kids will be paying for many years to come. (and learning chinese while they're at it)

 

[Mexican_Hippie]

They should have let them all fail. Not sure why they singled out Lehman, bunch of BS.

LET THE MARKET WORK.

 

[zembonez]

LET THE MARKET WORK.

Amen!

 

[Rum Runner]

Put on your tinfoil hats, but its not quite the same thing in my pessimistic view.

Lets see, before Lehman's collapse:

Campaign Contributions for 5 Leading Firms
Bear Stearns $6,355,737
Goldman Sachs $25,445,983
Lehman Brothers $6,704,574
Merrill Lynch $9,977,724
Morgan Stanley $14,367,857


Lobbying Expenditures for 5 Leading Firms
Bear Stearns $9,550,000
Goldman Sachs $21,637,530
Lehman Brothers $8,660,000
Merrill Lynch $59,076,760
Morgan Stanley $20,835,000

Then compare how many former Goldman Sachs employees were part of the Obama Government or had close ties to it vs Lehman Brothers.

Lehman was allowed to collapse because they didnt invest enough in their future by investing and infiltrating the government.


Greece will get bailed out.

 

[TrailDust]

No one wants to believe an economic crisis is coming. Americans in particular just want to think happy happy thoughts. And when the next Great Depression hits later this decade I will laugh and not feel one iota guilty sitting on a safe fortune.

 

[XDMAR]

No one wants to believe an economic crisis is coming. Americans in particular just want to think happy happy thoughts. And when the next Great Depression hits later this decade I will laugh and not feel one iota guilty sitting on a safe fortune.

You might want to watch your opsec.

 

[TexasAirCooler]

I have a friend in Greece, some of the pictures he has sent me the unrest have pretty graphic. Nothing like the news has displayed, of course.

 

[Texasjack]

Countries have gone through economic collapse before. Why is it that everyone seems to feel they have to "save" Greece? It's their own socialist government that caused the problem. "Save" them and it will just happen again next year.

You should be a lot more worried about the USA going through economic failure. The Chinese are holding a lot of US bonds and are most unhappy about the idiots in Washington.

Some people - US and Greece included - only learn from failure.

 

[TrailDust]

You might want to watch your opsec.

Sitting on it is figurative and literal, and, yes, security is well in hand....

You should be a lot more worried about the USA going through economic failure.

This is precisely what Americans as a whole do not want to talk about, what they want to believe could "never happen here." That mindset is willingly blind and wantonly stupid. The wealthiest people to emerge from the Great Depression were the people who heeded the warnings, prepared for the fall, and kept their heads while everyone around them panicked. There are lessons to be learned from that, but who gives a shit about history anymore, right? What does studying that do for us today, right? *Sigh*