AS GREECE GOES, SO GOES THE EURO?
The Osgood File. Sponsored in part by Sage - turning numbers into knowledge your business can use. Make your business smarter and your life easier with services from Sage. This is Charles Osgood.
Sunday's parliamentary elections in Greece are in effect an up-or-down referendum on the terms of the bailout...
SOT - Jill Schlesinger, editor-at-large of CBS MoneyWatch.Com
"As part of that bailout, there were conditions. The conditions were: 'Hey, you guys have got to stop spending as much money - and, we need you to make significant cuts...'" (:09)
Says Jill Schlesinger, editor-at-large of CBS MoneyWatch.Com...
SOT - Jill Schlesinger, editor-at-large of CBS MoneyWatch.Com
"Those cuts - that's called 'austerity' - have really damaged the Greek public's faith in government, and they're fighting up against it. This election is literally a referendum on whether they're going to live by those terms or not. And if they don't live by those terms, we potentially could see Greece blowing up the bailout deal - eventually, potentially, defaulting on its debts - and being forced out of the eurozone." (:24)
More after this...
((( BREAK )))
Jill Schlesinger, if Greece is forced out of the eurozone - who wins, if anybody - and who loses?
SOT - Jill Schlesinger
"The Greeks would lose, the Europeans would lose - and by extension, we here in the U.S., we would lose." (:05)
It won't happen all at once - but over time, how bad could it get?
SOT - Jill Schlesinger
"There's no doubt that Europe would go into a recession. There's no doubt there would be a financial crisis freeze-up. This would all affect us. It would mean it would be harder to get loans for us, hard to get our banks in order after going through such a terrible period. We would probably get dragged down into a recession. And chances are - I hate to say it - the stock market would probably tumble pretty severely." (:19)
But, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Maybe Europe will think of some way out of all this.
SOT - Jill Schlesinger
"We could see European leaders come to the table and say: 'We cannot afford to have this become a messy exit from the eurozone - everyone has too much to lose...'" (:10)
They don't want that - they're smart people.
SOT - Jill Schlesinger
"Of course - if you're very, very cynical - you would say: At the times in the world history when we relied on Europe to come together and avoid the worst-case scenario, they don't always come through." (:10)
True - but maybe this time.
The Osgood File. Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network. |
|
|
