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Recommended: Greek debt crisis
Greece is a country located in Southeast Europe with a population of 10.8 million people. The country is located at the crossroads of Europe, Western Asia, and Africa. Greece's main industries are shipping and tourism and its economy is the largest in the Balkans. In late 2009, the Eurozone began experiencing some economic difficulties. Many European countries suffered the aftermath of the United States’ financial crisis that lasted from 2007 through 2009. Although Greece is the member of the Eurozone that has been in the middle of this ongoing debt crisis since November 2009, Greece has been fighting to stay afloat long before all of this erupted. The effect of the Euro debt crisis made it clear that Greece's excessive budget deficit and mainly its public debt were unsustainable. The crisis caused the interest rates to rise substantially as well as the unemployment rate from the beginning of Euro debt crisis and continuing forward. The gross domestic product declined and the inflation rose as well.
Greece was a starting point of the Euro debt crisis in late 2009 and it rapidly began to spread to other countries with weak financial and macroeconomic conditions. We found this very fascinating and because of that we decided to research further into a country that caused and placed such stress on the European Union. We will address the Euro debt crisis as well as shift the focus on Greece’s role in the crisis. We will discuss the causes, its effects, macroeconomic variables affected, policies adopted in order to solve the crisis, and the effectiveness of the chosen policies.
In the mid 2007, following the bursting of the housing bubble, the United States entered a severe recession. The subprime mortgage crisis and the financial cri...
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...o see how countries in those situations would receive worldwide aid.
Works Cited
"Central Intelligence Agency." The World Factbook. 24 Nov. 2013 .
Kouretas, Georgios P. The Greek Debt Crisis: Origins and Implications. Rep. 2012. Department of Business Administration Athens University of Economics and Business. 16 Nov. 2013 .
Nelson, Rebecca M. Greece’s Debt Crisis: Overview, Policy Responses, and Implications. Rep. 18 Aug. 2011. Congressional Research Service. 16 Nov. 2013 .
Papadimitriou, Dimirios. The debt crisis in Greece. Publication. Aug. 2011. CBS. 16 Nov. 2013 .
Just as the great depression, a booming economy had been experienced before the global financial crisis. The economy was growing at a faster rtae bwteen 2001 and 2007 than in any other period in the last 30 years (wade 2008 p23). An vast amount of subprime mortgages were the backbone to the financial collapse, among several other underlying issues. As with the great depression, there would be a number of factors that caused such a devastating economic
The sub-prime mortgage market crisis started in the United States in the fall of 2006 and took hold as a global financial crisis by July 2007. Due to innovations in securitization, the risks from these sub-prime mortgages had to be shared more broadly with investors which essentially led to the ripple effects in the world-wide economy. The mortgages are generally repackaged into a variety of complex investment securities which are bought by institutions to diversify their portfolios. In the case of the U...
Although the crisis came to head in 2008, there were people who had realized that trouble was coming for years. The largest warning sign was the amount of credit in the market place. Many of the big companies and banks had very little capital, and the lack of capital was brought on by the housing bubble. Companies were lending too much money to people who could not pay them back. And even before people started to default on their mortgages, people could see that this was a problem. During a meeting with the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in January 2007 the staff of the Federal Reserve admitted “that they were aware of [the] problem in the housing issue three years earlier” (Dodd). And they were not the only ones. As far back as 2001 there were people who saw the danger that sub-prime mortgages were and who were trying to have bills passed to stop the bad lending that was going on, but no one wanted to list...
"Europe must prevent Greece from becoming an out-and-out catastrophe and make sure that the same fiscal 'remedy' is not applied to other weak economies" -- Franziska Brantner
As Babe Ruth, a famous baseball player once said, “It is hard to beat a person who never gives up.” When facing a challenge that requires an immense amount of perseverance or let alone, any obstacle in life, the person that sticks to it eventually comes out with an answer or solution. With morale very close to this, the Greeks were determined to outwork the Nazis in World War II in order to reclaim their country. Modern Greek authors such as Ileana Karafilly and other anonymous poets like those translated by Wislawa Szymbroska portray characters in their works that exemplify the concept of having the drive to pursue what you want by hard work and a strong willed attitude of putting personal needs ahead of others. Being trapped in Greece’s Nazi invaded society that was stuck in an “every-man for them self” perspective, no one could trust one another. Once the people realized that they would have to fight for what they wanted, the citizens and characters were able to achieve anything they set their minds to as long as they were willing to work for it. This fight to regain their home country began on April 6, 1941 when Germany invaded Greece and the conflict began. With the country no longer in control of Greeks, but rather in foreign control, pandemonium spread within the country(Livanos 15-16). While Nazis were in control people lived in resistance, wanting to fight the Nazis in order to regain their freedom(Livanos 1-3). Finally on October of 1944 Greece was liberated, however with Greece left in bad shape, its economy failed and has remained weak still to this present day (Shiller 15-18).
It can be argued that the economic hardships of the great recession began when interest rates were lowered by the Federal Reserve. This caused a bubble in the housing market. Housing prices plummeted, home prices plummeted, then thousands of borrowers could no longer afford to pay on their loans (Koba, 2011). The bubble forced banks to give out homes loans with unreasonably high risk rates. The response of the banks caused a decline in the amount of houses purchased and “a crisis involving mortgage loans and the financial securities built on them” (McConnell, 2012 p.479). The effect on the economy was catastrophic and caused a “pandemic” of foreclosures that effected tens of thousands home owners across the U.S. (Scaliger, 2013). The debt burden eventually became unsustainable and the U.S. crisis deepened as the long-term effect on bank loans would affect not only the housing market, but also the job market.
After world war II, Germany got help with its debt from its former enemies. Who helped Germany then? Greece” (Associated Press). Germany was given support because it is one of the powerhouses in Germany economically, but Greece’s debt is not being forgiven because Greece is a tiny country that not many think about. It seems that the European Union gives more power to the bigger, more well-known,
Greece is a country well known by its great interests and diverse cultures. It is located between the East and the West in the continent of Europe, which is known as a great location in the continent. “It covers about 130, 647 square kilometers of land and 1,310 square kilometers of water, making it the 97th largest nation in the world with a total area of 131,957 square kilometers. Greece became an independent state in 1829, after gaining its sovereignty from Turkey. The population of Greece is 10,767,827 (2012) and the nation has a density of 82 people per square kilometer. The currency of Greece is the Euro (EUR). As well, the people of Greece are referred to as Greek. Greece shares land borders with four countries; Macedonia, Albania,
In 1929, there was a huge event that happened in America, which called the great recession. As we know, the great recession causes a lot of negative effects not only on the American economy, but also on the world. Nowadays, although most of the economists do hardly predict recessions in the US, the past record still provides America with a little comfort. A new research indicates that the next giant recession would come soon. According to the online article the America’s vulnerable economy by printed edition, several effects have involved in accounting for this coming recession. Those effects are in terms of housing bubbles, debt bubbles and lower customer purchasing power.
The recent global financial crisis that affected not only America but also Europe and other parts of the world resulted in massive unemployment. This is due to the high costs of operation that many corporations faced forcing them to cut on labor costs. There is need for European government interventions to avert this social crisis and prevent the occurrence of such a crisis in future. Unemployment has hit the service sector harder than other sectors with the following being the most affected: automotive, construction, tourism, finance and real estate. The global financial crisis has also increased consumer prices thus pushing inflation. According to McCathie, “the increase in July consumer prices to 1.7 per cent pushed inflation in the currency bloc up towards the European Central Bank’s target of keeping inflation at below, but close to 2 per cent. Eurozone consumer prices had stood at 1.4 per cent in June” (McCathie, 2010).
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
Michelis, L. (2011). The Greek Debt Crisis: Suggested Solutions and Reforms. The Rimini Centre Economic Analysis (RECEA), Italy.
The Greek economy has seen a large collapse following the recent worldwide recession. The European Union has expressed concerns for the impact that Greece’s economic collapse will negatively affect other member nations. Greece and the European Union are working to reduce the Greek deficit and to contain the economic crisis to Greece.
Eurozone crisis has had huge impacts not only on the economy of the UE but also on the other countries who have economic and financial relations with the members of the union. The reason why we have decided to examine the Eurozone crisis in detail is to have a better understanding of the mechanisms behind this extremely important and complex problem and also to make accurate inferences about the solution alternatives. In our pape...
The country of Greece, also known as the Hellenic Republic, is called Hellas or Ellada by natives. This Mediterranean country in southeast Europe is approximately 50, 942 sq. miles and contains about 9,000 miles of coastline which includes the islands of the country. While the total number of islands is not concrete due to discrepancies over the qualifications to count each body of land surrounded by water as an island, the number of inhabited islands is 227. Greece has many interesting geographical features, such as its overall mountainous landscape which makes up 80% of the country, with its highest point, and possibly most famous geographical feature being Mount Olympus which reaches 9,570 ft. (2917 meters). The country of Greece ranges in absolute location with its northern-most occurring at N 41° 44' 33’’ and its southern-most point at N 34° 32' 33” on the island of Cyprus. The Cyprus also hold the most eastward point of the country at E 34° 38' 3” while its most western point is at E 20° 20' 30”. Greece is bordered by the countries of Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. Likew...