vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"i hate to say it, and i will probably be downvoted to oblivion, but i don't think you can do anything.  i'm not an expert, so i might be wrong, but if greece (or any euro country, for that matters) decides to exit the euro, the currency will be dead within the week. that, from what i've read in various newspapers, will be an incredibly bad news for the european economy. which *will* collapse in a very short period of time. then the collapse would propagate (more or less slowly, more or less significantly) to other economies, especially china and US, possibly middle east, too.  at that point, you (well, we) have a major economic cataclysm. would it really matter if you had a tiny bit more money than your neighbour, if production stops, goods don't move that much anymore, and your country is generally in such a deep shit that the potato famine will look like a day in eurodisney?  i agree with what other people are saying: they will not allow the euro to fall. ""they"" sounds like hidden conspiracies, but even if european leaders have taught us that we can expect the worse from them (2 world wars in the last centuries are just the quicker reminder of their stupidity), there's the americans, the chineses, and so on.  i think the worst thing you, or anyone else in europe, can do is panicking and moving their money around. if the exchange rate with the euro is not fixed (and nothing is) you still have a chance to lose a significant amount of money in the short-medium run, in a worst case scenario.  chill. relax. if you're really desperate and think that things *will* go bad, try turning a hobby into another job, especially if you can do it online and can bring you a steady income eventually.  **TL; DR: if the world economy collapse, you will still lose money. live happy. chill.**"
Their biggest problem is that their main industry is shipping. Anything they could do to their currency wouldn't help the shipping industry at all. They can't even raise taxes, they aren't the only convenience flag in the world and ships are obviously very easy to move out.  The only industry they have that could get any benefit from a devaluation would be tourism, but that would be mostly negated by moving out of the euro.
&gt; The European economy was not utterly doomed before the Euro, therefore the fall of the Euro does not doom their economy.  I'm not sure how that's related at all.  Just because at some random point in time, the European economy was doing OK, doesn't mean that it will definitely be ok again in the future after a jarring multi-national currency shift.  There are tons of other factors in play.  First of all, who's going to accept drachma again?  What is it worth?  What about pesata and lira?  These currencies haven't been used in over a decade.  Who is going to value them?  Who is going to accept them?  What happens when the Greeks default?  When their pension checks start bouncing?  This is what Germany is fearing.  Who is going to buy their products when there is a major currency crisis going on?
IMHO: The best scenario where Greece does not leave the euro: In this scenario there is probably no risk, because either the ECB will print more money, or other countries will help Greece in some way. The average scenario where Greece leaves the euro: All Bank accounts will be frozen and slowly turned into NEW DRACHMA, and your poor money after the conversion will be worth 50K euro at best (but probably much less). There is also the worst scenario: The bank defaults too, and you will lose everything. Italy has a fund to protect deposits up to 100K euro (I don't know if you have something similar in Greece). However, a similar fund in Greece would be guaranteed by Greek banks and the Greek government, so you might not get much back regardless.
"Most of those countries had debt that was well beyond prudent levels (~70% of GDP) before the crisis, levels such that any crisis would put them over the safe limit and into trouble. The only exception was Spain whose debt levels were still marginally dangerous. Greece was off the charts, which is why they left off the graph for Greece. Second problem. On top of the high or marginal levels of government debt, the governments implicitly or explicitly guaranteed the banks, without limiting in any effective way their levels of leverage and risk (inb4 Basel II - a lot of paper that made no difference). Protip: if someone guarantees your debt, they should be able to oversee your level of risk, but the governments didn't. As a result these banks, and their CEOs in particular, have a bet that goes ""heads I win, tails I win (and you the taxpayer lose)"". If the loans are paid off the CEOs rake in millions. If the loans go bad the government bails them out and the CEOs and other top executives - you guessed it - rake in millions. Of course when faced with these incentives the banks will lend too much. This is not free market capitalism, it is crony capitalism. **Bailouts of private companies are not part of unfettered free market capitalism.** The third problem is that the same governments cannot print money like the US can because the Euro is not owned by the individual governments. The answer to excessive levels of government debt is for governments not to borrow too much and not to take on excessive unfunded liabilities such as pensions. This probably needs to be enforced by a constitutional amendment, so it can't be easily overruled. The answer to governments getting dragged into bailing out insolvent banks and then going under themselves, is to allow the banks to go under and to guarantee only small deposits. Let shareholders, bond holders and large (&gt;$500k) lenders to the banks to lose their money. Second, hold bank executives and shareholders liable for the bank's debts. Eg executive salaries and other remuneration need to be clawed back up to a 5 year window.
In many countries in Europe the prices shot through the roof, so it is not all positive. Also the switching country gives out lot of monetary control that is not welcomed by many.  I think that UK is not going to change to euro for a long long time.
&gt; Europe is a temporary problem.  Lol..  The better question for this thread is how is the European economy not utterly doomed?  I see no way at all of the Euro surviving.  Greece has already technically defaulted by saying it's not going to pay back all of it's debt.  They will officially default when Germany stops bailing them out.  Spain is in the exact same situation, just about a year behind.  They haven't technically defaulted yet, but they will.  They're receiving bailout after bailout and the Greece situation only makes their interest rates worse.  Italy is just barely behind Spain, the Greek default followed by the Spanish defualt will send Italian interest rates through the roof dooming them to the same fate.  This will eventually effect the US, but our borrowing rates are held artificially low due to the Fed just printing up more fake money and letting the US borrow as much as it wants.  If you don't see this scheme crumbling and collapsing, I'm just curious what you actually think *will* happen?
"Debt can be denominated either in a currency the country controls or a currency the country doesn't control. If the debt is denominated in a currency the country controls then they have the option of ""printing their way out of it"". That option doesn't come for free, it will devalue their currency on the global market and hurt savers in their country but it is an option. If the debt is denominated in a currency the country does not control then they don't have that option. As I understand it the US debt is in the first category. It's denominated in US dollars so the US government could if they so wished print their way out of it. On the other hand greece's debt is denominated in euros putting them at the mercy of european bankers."
I vehemently disagree with this. Greek crisis is completely different form Spanish, Irish or Portuguese crisis. Greece has a balance of payments + fiscal crisis, due to a government which has not been balancing its budgets for decades (ever?). Greece cannot spend its way out of this crisis because this isn't a demand led crisis.
&gt;The European economy was not utterly doomed before the Euro, therefore the fall of the Euro does not doom their economy.  UTTERLY DOOMED and DOOMED are two entirely different things.  The former is a quasi-permanent state of affairs (decades upon decades) the latter a temporary one (albeit possibly several years).
"I'm assuming the central bank of Italy will initiate quantitative easing (print money) to pay for this. This should devalue the euro.  This may be ""rescuing"" these banks but it's fucking over everyone who is saving/trading with the euro."
Not anytime soon, I suspect, but not necessarily for financial reasons. I found this interesting, including the link to the five tests, but I think that this topic is only partially judged through financial eyes, there's a lot of political issues around this with national identity/immigration issues already in the spot light as well as political aspirations. If there will be a call in the near future to join the Euro, how would that reflect on the financial industry in the UK from a PR perspective? and on the political leadership and how it managed the financial crisis?  I believe that it is in the interest of all the people in the high positions to show the country getting back on track rather than making ground shaking moves. But what do I know....:-)
They will probably peg the Drachma to the Euro for a little while, then let it float once the atmosphere isn't as crazy as it is now.  With the new conservative government, they will probably stay with the Euro. However, there is a lot of talk about everyone giving up the Euro. Some say that the Euro has artificially compressed risk in the Eurozone. Time will tell.
Fair point, but I'd submit to you that the European system has demonstrated its flaws. You claim it is better than the U.S. system, which in terms of ease, quality or value, is probably the case.   But, the unsustainable costs in the Eurozone are driven by healthcare and entitlement programs, similar to the U.S. and other developed nations. What happens when Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are forced to default or leave the Euro? Do you think the healthcare quality, ease and value will remain as it has been?
"&gt; Just because at some random point in time, the European economy was doing OK, doesn't mean that it will definitely be ok  I'm not claiming it will be ""definitely be ok"".    definitely ok != utterly doomed.  &gt; What happens when the Greeks default?  If they were paying in drachma, they wouldn't default.  They'd print more drachma and inflation would occur.   That's how currency imbalances adjust.  Germany wants it both ways.  They want a stable Europe-wide currency but they don't want a Europe-wide economy, they want their economy isolated from the problems in the rest of Europe.  Germany should leave the Euro."
hey look I can spout random countries too. Spain!  Back it up, or shut up. The UK did NOT sell debt and simultaneously purchase its own debt in the past (until modern times).   And who said the reason soviet union collapsed was because of its banking policies? Putting words in peoples mouths aren't we.  I think you should move along before you get hurt. This is a grown up conversation little one.
Oh, you mean converting your money to that of a country whose public debt is [103% of GDP, instead of the 108% of your own?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt)  That seems hardly an advancement, even more so considering that the public debt of the Eurozone as a whole is 82.5% of GDP.  Greece is just 2% of the European economy, its default would not mean the collapse of the Euro.
"What EU wanted to force Cyprus to do is to break the insurance contract the government has with the bank depositors. The parliament rightfully refused, and it didn't pass. In the EU, and Cyprus as part of it, all bank deposits are insured up to 100,000EUR by the government. This is similar to the US FDIC insurance. Thus, requiring the ""small"" (up to 100K) depositors to participate in the bank reorganization means that the government breaks its word to people, and effectively defaults. That is exactly what the Cyprus government wanted to avoid, the default, so I can't understand why the idea even came up. Depositors of more than 100k are not guaranteed against bank failures, and indeed - in Cyprus these depositors will get ""haircuts"". But before them, first come shareholders and bondholders who would be completely wiped out. Thus, first and foremost, those who failed (the bank owners) will be the first to pay the price. However, governments can default. This happened in many places, for example in Russia in the 90's, in Argentina in 2000's (and in fact numerous times during the last century), the US in the 1930's, and many other examples - you can see a list in Wikipedia. When government defaults on its debts, it will not pay some or all of them, and its currency may also be devaluated. For example, in Russia in 1998 the currency lost 70% of its value against the USD within months, and much of the cash at hands of the public became worthless overnight. In the US in 1933 the President issued an executive order forbidding private citizens keeping gold and silver bullions and coins, which resulted in dollar devaluation by about 30% and investors in precious metals losing large amounts of money. The executive order requiring surrender of the Treasury gold certificates is in fact the government's failure to pay on these obligations. While the US or Russia control their own currency, European countries don't and cannot devaluate the currency as they wish in order to ease their debts. Thus in Euro-zone the devaluation solutions taken by Russia and the US are not possible.
Huh? What does a flight to safety (cheaper US borrowing rates) have to do with the crisis not spreading if something goes wrong in Italy? It won't be the same over here - it will hit the banking system and companies tied to Europe rather than the sovereign market, but if something happens in Italy we'll feel it.
You are trying to predict the future currency fluctuations that can't be predicted.  If you know for sure you are moving, convert it directly into Euros in near future rather than take a complicated route.
The Swiss franc has appreciated quite a bit recently against the Euro as the European Central Bank (ECB) continues to print money to buy government bonds issues by Greek, Portugal, Spain and now Italy.  Some euro holders have flocked to the Swiss franc in an effort to preserve the savings from the massive Euro money printing.  This has increased the value of the Swiss franc.  In response, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has tried to intervene multiple times in the currency market to keep the value of the Swiss franc low.  It does this by printing Swiss francs and using the newly printed francs to buy Euros.  The SNB interventions have failed to suppress the Swiss franc and its value has continued to rise.  The SNB has finally said they will print whatever it takes to maintain a desired peg to the Euro.  This had the desired effect of driving down the value of the franc. Which effect will this have long term for the euro zone? It is now clear that all major central bankers are in a currency devaluation war in which they are all trying to outprint each other.  The SNB was the last central bank to join the printing party.  I think this will lead to major inflation in all currencies as we have not seen the end of money printing.  Will this worsen the European financial crisis or is this not an important factor? I'm not sure this will have much affect on the ongoing European crisis since most of the European government debt is in euros. Should this announcement trigger any actions from common European people concerning their wealth? If a European is concerned with preserving their wealth I would think they would begin to start diverting some of their savings into a harder currency.  Europeans have experienced rapidly depreciating currencies more than people on any other continent.  I would think they would be the most experienced at preserving wealth from central bank shenanigans.
Seems that Europe is pretty sick and on it's death bed (both economically and morally; which for some reason these tend to be treated as separate entities these days)...   I've heard that a specter is haunting it's inner chambers, has been for some time, the specter of global capitalism (dead labour sucking the life out of living labour)
Some of the factors that will act on house prices are: There will likely be a recession in that country, which will lower incomes and probably lower housing prices. It will likely be harder to get credit in that country so that too will increase demand and depress demand for housing (cf the USA in 2010.) If Greece leaves the Euro, that will possibly depress future economic growth, through decreased trade and investment, and possibly decreased transfer payments. Eventually the budget will need to come back into balanced which also is likely to push down house prices. In some European countries (most famously Spain) there's been a lot of speculative building which is likely to hang over the market. Both countries have governance and mandate problems, and who knows how long or how much turmoil it will take to sort that out. Some of these factors may already be priced in, and perhaps prices are already near what will turn out to be the low. In the Euro zone you have the nearly unprecedented situation of the countries being very strongly tied into another currency, so the typical exchange-rate movements that played out in Argentina cannot act here.  A lot will depend on whether the countries are bailed out, or leave the Euro (and if so how), etc.  Typically inflation has been a knock-on effect of the exchange rate moves so it's hard to see if that will happen in Greece. Looking back from 2031, buying in southern Europe in 2011 may turn out to be a good investment.  But I don't think you could reasonably call it a safe defensive investment.
I'm going to go the contrarian route and suggest you stay completely out of the stock market for the foreseeable future. We're entering a period of time this country and world has never seen before. Our country is broke / insolvent. We are printing money to buy our own debt. This is beyond stupid. It will destroy us, just like it did Germany in the 1920's. Many states are on the verge of bankruptcy. The only thing stopping them is a constitutional issue. California, Illinois, Michigan, New York etc. are all broke. They are billions in debt and massive underfunding of pensions.  More than a half-dozen European countries are on the verge of financial implosion. The Euro is just as bad off as our dollar. There are extremely powerful forces at work bent on destroying this country and the US dollar, to usher in a One World Government and financial system.  IMO, buy as much gold and silver has you can. Not necessarily as an investment vehicle. I would do it as a survival vehicle. And, I don't mean gold/silver stocks. I mean you buy gold/silver and you take physical possession.
Just agreeing with you. Most of our debt is owed to ourselves, and through monetary policy we are much more fortunate than other countries to have these controls. I feel bad for the euro zone where it seems Merkel's politics &gt; European economy... but then again if i was a German I wouldnt want to open my wallet to save a Greek either.
ok so greece and ireland- funding of the banks has added quite a bit of deficit over the past couple of years. this has been problematic, as countries become unwilling to ask for help to save the bank because of the poor public image that it carries - no politician wants to increase the deficit in favor of bank (expect americans ? LOL) additionally, it has a negative impact on economy (discussed below)  this year, ECB has agreed to allow direct recapitalization of banks.  This means that the Spanish Govt will not be responsible for bank funding when the bailout is established - thus reducing the impact on spain's economy. there will not be an increase in deficit when spanish banks are recapitalized  in the past, with ireland and greece, it was difficult because - countries had to implement austerity measure and accept funding to recapitalize bank. weakened balance sheet of troubled countries drove up the cost of money, making it more difficult to recapitalize the banks, which worked in a cycle. direct recapitalization has been implemented to limit this effect
There are some out there making the argument that negative yields on the German Schatz (2-year note) are the result of speculators betting on a break-up of the euro area and its common currency. Specifically that assets held in euros, i.e. German bonds, would be re-denominated into a new Deutschmark that would appreciate in value against other European currencies.
However, this economic news could also cause US investors to feel that the global economy won't recover as soon as hoped, which could affect the S&P500. If the euro appreciated against the dollar, for whatever reason, this could increase profits for US businesses that earn part of their profits in Europe. If a US company earns 1 million EUR and the exchange rate is 1.3 USD/EUR, the company earns 1.3 million USD. If the euro appreciates against the dollar to 1.4 USD/EUR in the next quarter and the company still earns 1 million EUR, they now earn 1.4 million USD. Even without additional sales, the US company earned a higher USD profit, which is reflected on their financial statements and could increase their share price (thus affecting the S&P500). Combining examples 1 and 2, if a US company earns some of its profits in Europe and a recession hits in the EU, two things could happen simultaneously. A) The company's sales decline as European consumers scale back their spending, and B) the euro depreciates against the dollar as European investors sell euros and invest in safer securities denominated in other currencies (USD or not). The company suffers a loss in profits both from decreased sales and the depreciation of the EUR. There are many more factors that could lead to correlation between the euro and the S&P500, or more generally, the European and American economies. The balance of trade, investor and consumer confidence, exposure of banks in one region to sovereign debt in another, the spread of asset/mortgage-backed securities from US financial firms to European banks, companies, municipalities, etc. all play a role. One example of this last point comes from this article, which includes an interesting line: Among the victims of America’s subprime crisis are eight municipalities in Norway, which lost a total of $125 million through subprime mortgage-related investments. Long story short, these municipalities had mortgage-backed securities in their investment portfolios that were derived from, far down the line, subprime mortgages on US homes.
Yes, this phenomenon is well documented.  A collapse of an economy's exchange rate is coincidented with a collapse in its equities market.    The recent calamities in Turkey, etc during 2014 had similar results. Inflation is highly correlated to valuations, and a collapse of an exchange rate is highly inflationary, so a collapse of an exchange rate is highly correlated to a collapse in valuations.