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Comment by meric | Hacker News Reader

It's a serious idea, presented in a sarcastic way.

Defaulting on all Euro debts, exiting Europe, bankrupting the banks, issuing a new currency is a viable solution. Yes it's a horrible hang over to live through but it means removing the horrendous debt burden for the next 50 years. See how Greece is having trouble with every IMF payment in the past few months? If the EU has its way Greece will continue paying chunks of cash like those for decades to come. Better to burn everything down and start over. They might even pick up some Russian and Chinese financial support along the way.

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"Defaulting on all Euro debts, exiting Europe, bankrupting the banks, issuing a new currency is a viable solution. Yes it's a horrible hang over to live through but it means removing the horrendous debt burden for the next 50 years."

If they do not tend the root of the problems, they might as well do this every 50 years. Things like 14th month payments (while it was a thing) or tax evasions that could reach industrial levels on their own will make things hard, even without the IMF or EU interfering.

Well I was thinking mostly of what options does Greece has if it is not allowed to print money to get out of debt. The Brazilian virtual currency, named the opposite of virtual, was an interesting idea. Another alternative could be for them to have an aggressive sales tax domestically while giving tax relief for exports, basically making them competitive internationally while their money doesn't go as far locally, but I think EU rules forbid this sort of subsidy.

Another idea would be to multiply pension plans with whatever the drachma to euro ratio ends up being - that way only the world bank suffers and the pensioners can keep their standard of living. They would likely have to do something similar for employees and business owners, but that would still be manageable.

Ultimately everyone is going to take a haircut. Creditors and pensioners.

I highly doubt that's all that would be required. If you assume a level of cronyism/corruption akin to say .ch, .de or .se then it might work. But if Greece otherwise stays the way it is then this would merely be a stay of execution.

It's certainly no panacea. Greece has been living beyond it's means and a certain reduction in living standards is going to have to happen. What a bout of inflation allows is resetting everyone's salaries, pensions, etc to a lower level without inducing extra unemployment which requires an even larger correction.

There is always the danger that Greece will say "to Hell with it," print money to fund their expenditures, and get hyperinflation. But that's a level of mismanagement even worse than Greece has shown in the past.

If you pegged it to the Euro, it'd be pointless.

It should have a floating exchange rate to the Euro. Not pegged, but floating.

If "floating exchange rate to the Euro" = "floating exchange rate full stop"

"floating to", "floating with", "floating against" is a minefield.

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