This is from the “The Brisbane Courier” April 18 1932
Suspension by Greece
GENEVA, April 15
M. Venizelos, the Prime Minister of Greece, told the League of Nations today that Greece would be unable to balance her budget without suspending her debt payments abroad. He hoped the necessity for such suspension would be only temporary.
LONDON, April 16
The Greek Legation announces that in accordance with M Venizelos’s explanation the bond holders are to be requested to consent to the suspension of payments on account of loans and sinking fund for five years and to the non-transfer of the payment coupons of these loans, which are due on May 1 until the Powers have granted Greece assistance in accordance with the recommendations of the League of Nations’ Finance Committee
Two weeks later Greece defaulted and gave up the gold standard…
dave
/ April 29, 2013Gold!
James in London
/ April 30, 2013Is the Venizelos any relation to the ex-Finance Minister and now leader of the socialist party in Greece, Evangelos Venizelos? Wiki says not. The earlier one led them off the Gold Standard, will the current one be bold and rescue his country by leading them out of the Eurozone?
Lars Christensen
/ April 30, 2013James, they are not related. However, the present PASOK leader Venizelos’ family the name to honor the guy who led his country into defalut. He was – I think – some what of a revolutionary and national hero – and still is I guess.
Btw have a look at this one: http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/13/remember-the-last-time-greece-was-kicked-out-of-a-monetary-union/
James in London
/ May 1, 2013Fascinating. Perhaps they should go back to Ancient Greece and just be a series of city states? Nationalism doesn’t seem to work for them. Or even back to Early Modern times and rejoin Turkey?
Turkey has had some turbulence but seems very settled now. It is a much bigger country than Greece nowadays, of course. It has a seemingly very successful monetary policy. It is very accepting of inflation. Like Brazil it even had one of those periods of 50-60%, high, but stable, inflationary periods. They are interesting episodes as you can see that, while they aren’t easy, they aren’t disastrous either. The market gets used to them and copes remarkably well. The high inflation then becomes a bit pointless and determined action seems able to cut it right back without much economic cost.
In fact, banking systems seem to come out of those periods with highly efficient IT systems, built to cope with the very high velocity of circulation. And, of course, bad debts have generally been grown away from, so banking capital is fairly robust too.
Anti-inflationists worry about Zimbabwe and Argentina and Weimar Germany, but modern Cyprus should be equally scary.
Chris Mahoney
/ May 2, 2013…and 115 years ago:
The year after Greece lost another war against the Ottomans, Germany joined five other European powers in imposing the International Financial Commission on Greece in 1898. The commission controlled customs duties at ports including Piraeus and Corfu; state monopolies for products such as kerosene, matches and playing cards; and duties on stamps and tobacco consumption, all to ensure that Greece continued repaying its loans.