Concerns about Greece

CptBlood

CptBlood

Member
Joined
21 Sep 2011
Messages
39
Location
On board
www.vieuxmalin.com
Greetings to all,

we are a couple of vessels, considering to sail to Greece next spring.
European finance and economical issues have lead many countries to take unpopular measures, think about the recent and crazy acts by the italian government.

We are currently based in Sardinia and our concern now is not to sail to a Country just to find a worse situation.

Anybody knows about the current conditions in Greece (state of the art) ?

Ahoy!
Captain Blood
 
For weekly updates on what's going on in Greece see www.athensnews.gr/

The gulf between international lenders and Greece arises because Greece is unable to push it's vested interests into giving up their privileges. Each push ends up with that group staging disrupting demonstrations in cities (Athens, Thessalonika and Patras) and variably disruptive strikes. The demonstrations only affect cities, and they're trivial compared to England's summer riots.

Strikes is different.

The groups whose actions most affect visitors to the country are taxi, lorry and bus drivers. Their long term interest is to prevent new licences being issued. Present limits make their existing licences valuable. Limited supply means good profits. But the cost to the country of this expensive infrastructure is high, so it's proposed to allow far more competetion. So they demonstrate - by staging strikes. But that's against their short term interests. Being self employed, they forego income. So strikes are only occasional. Once or twice a month, there may be an area wide day of immobility. These strikes are very unpopular with country folk.

Awkward are the occasional public employee strikes - air traffic controllers have halted airport traffic on a couple of occasions, while ferries have also been affected occasionally. Power is switched off from time to time (so, what's new?). But none of this approaches Britain's 3 day week (if you're old enough to remember that), and in the countryside and on the islands, life goes on with a smile.

Most important from the yotties point of view, there are hundreds of free anchorages, hundreds of cheap quaysides to moor up to, and farmers still bring their stuff to market, tavernas still cook with this produce.

The saddest thing is that the mainstay of the economy is tourism, which absorbs large numbers of the un-employed over the summer. But travel disruptions put (particularly air travellers) off. So the country's main income source is being threatened by the privileged groups.

Ah well. I'll be out there again this summer.
 
Very informative Jim. I personally wonder how a possibly disorganised exit from the euro could affect prices and possible emergency taxes in any new currency. It's unlikely there'd be much warning of this, to reduce further the capital flight that's already happening.
Still the Greeks need their tourists and should be unlikely to deter them unnecessarily.
Boatyards might well still charge in euros!
 
tri39 said:
Very informative Jim. I personally wonder how a possibly disorganised exit from the euro could affect prices and possible emergency taxes in any new currency. It's unlikely there'd be much warning of this, to reduce further the capital flight that's already happening.
Still the Greeks need their tourists and should be unlikely to deter them unnecessarily.
Boatyards might well still charge in euros!
Click to expand...

I am still not convinced about Greece going out of eurozone.
The amount of debit they have to other european countries (like Germany, for istance) is so high that and exit from the common currency would lead to a net loss for all creditors, and that's not convenient for either parts. Not to mention that, politically speaking, Europe needs to show a strong "damage recovery" (or call it "fail safe") capability. I personally believe that the things have not been sorted out as yet only because Germany is playing hard to get as much advantage as possible, a very risky business indeed.
We shall see...
 
tri39 said:
Very informative Jim. I personally wonder how a possibly disorganised exit from the euro could affect prices and possible emergency taxes in any new currency. It's unlikely there'd be much warning of this, to reduce further the capital flight that's already happening.
Still the Greeks need their tourists and should be unlikely to deter them unnecessarily.
Boatyards might well still charge in euros!
Click to expand...

Certainly in the Ionian, they have a very independent economy from Athens. If Greece came out of the Euro then I am sure that the Euro would still be the main currency in this area. Perhaps all the suppliers - ie inward transactions may be settled in Drachma, but us tourists would be charged in Euros still.

I heard that quite a number of small tavernas in Nidri will not be reopening in the summer.
 
Yards may well set prices in € but charge in Drachma at the current rate of exchange. This will, of course, make things more expensive and therefore tend to make us mobile folks think twice before committing to long term spending in the area. However, I don't think that Greece will be coming out of the €, as the Athens based elite have too much to loose by doing so.
 
duncan99210 said:
Yards may well set prices in € but charge in Drachma at the current rate of exchange. This will, of course, make things more expensive and therefore tend to make us mobile folks think twice before committing to long term spending in the area. However, I don't think that Greece will be coming out of the €, as the Athens based elite have too much to loose by doing so.
Click to expand...

Exactely, and not only the greek elite...
 
CptBlood said:
Greetings to all,

we are a couple of vessels, considering to sail to Greece next spring.
European finance and economical issues have lead many countries to take unpopular measures, think about the recent and crazy acts by the italian government.

We are currently based in Sardinia and our concern now is not to sail to a Country just to find a worse situation.

Anybody knows about the current conditions in Greece (state of the art) ?

Ahoy!
Captain Blood
Click to expand...

Don't forget to take plenty of the new Greek currency. :D
 
Oh, I thought FETA will be the new currency....I was about to buy a couple of goats...

feta-ricetteok.jpg
 
I think Greece will leave the Euro, the only other option is for Germany to leave. I posted what's below in the Lounge but I thought it was relevant to the conversation here.

I guess most people know that there is a UKP250,000 prize for a paper that solves the Greek crisis. A Times journalist has entered and proposed a Currency board which means the Drachma is fixed to both the Euro and Dollar. This would stop all the Euros being taken out of Greek banks if the Drachma is launched devalued against the Euro.

The way it works is the Greek bank would be declaring an official and fixed exchange rates for the new Drachma and the Euro and Dollar. The market rate for each currency would often diverge from the offiicial rate. If the market rate were Euro 1 for $1.50 but the implied official rate were 1 to 1 no one would sell Euros to the Bank of Greece. At the official rate the Euro would be undervalued. It would thus be rational to buy euros from the Bank and then sell them in the market. The Bank's stock of Euros would be rapidly exhausted. Because the bank now had no Euros the Drachma would now be on the Dollar standard. The Bank would still be committed to buying and selling Drachmas at an official rate in return for a reserve currency but it would now be the Dollar.

If the Dollar then appreciated against the Euro, so that the Euro was less than the official rate at Euro1.10 for 1$ arbitrarors would do the following. First they would exchange Drachmas for the Banks stock of Dollars at the official rate, then they would sell the Dollars in the market for Euros, and finally they would sell the Euros back to the Bank. They would then have gained a riskless profit by taking advantage of the difference between the official rate and the market rate of Dollars versus Euros.

The advantage of this is twofold. First the peg to anchor would provide credibilty in the market place. Second, the Drachma would automatically be pegged to whichever is the relatively depreciated currency. This would allow a modest amount of competive gain for Greece without sacrificing monetary credibility or creating an inflationary problem.

It will be interesting to see if this idea wins the competition.
 
Planning for strikes!

We are also planning to sail in E Peloponese/Saronic area this summer but are concerned about impact of strikes - welcome any advice on picking up visitors who fly into/out of Athens airport. We'd prefer to avoid going to Athens/Piraeus - any recommendations for marinas closer to airport which visitors can reach easily by taxi (or bus if taxis on strike)? Or where we can hire a car and pick visitors up from airport? Or ports they can reach by bus or taxi and from which they can get a ferry to islands in the Saronic or Argolic Gulfs? Welcome any practical suggestions. Thanks.
 
It's not too difficult to reach Piraeus from the airport. From there the Flying Dolphin service is good, giving a wide range of destinations, we have used it for Poros and for Ermioni. Aegina is nearer and served by many ferries and hydrofoils. Or you (they) could try going east from the airport to Olympic or Lavrion, although both of these can be full even out of the main holiday season.
 
vyv_cox said:
Or you (they) could try going east from the airport to Olympic or Lavrion, although both of these can be full even out of the main holiday season.
Click to expand...

An alternative if you have a decent dinghy is to anchor off the dinghy harbour just south of Porto Rafti. There's decent shelter and it's only 15-20 minutes in a cab from the airport.

http://g.co/maps/hprcz
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top