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The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.” -Rudiger Dornbusch If I was Greek, I
by riggins 14y ago
The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”
-Rudiger Dornbusch
If I was Greek, I wouldn't have money on deposit at a Greek bank. It surprises me that at a minimum the Greece financial system hasn't ice-nined already. We're witnessing history.
- avn2109 14y agoCan you shed any light on the practicalities of moving one's money beyond local government's reach? This is something I've wondered about for a long time.
- riggins 14y agoI don't have any special insight. I'm just articulating my surprise that all the turmoil hasn't triggered a bank run sufficient to cause a crisis. When you can lose 7% of your savings overnight, even money in the mattress starts to look more attractive than a bank.
- rwmj 14y agoSince Greece is still in the Euro, you simply turn all that money into Euros and keep it under your bed (or preferably in a safe). The upside is that the government can pretty much do nothing about this as long as you don't tell anyone about it. The downsides are many and various: 1. You lose whatever the inflation rate is per year (eg. 3%-5% of your savings annually). 2. Keeping cash or equivalents around is a security problem. 3. If everyone does it, there are bank runs which collapse all banks. It's downside #3 which everyone is worried about here, since people in Greece, Spain, Latvia (according to the article), etc, are looking at Cyprus, and are going to be concerned that the same haircut might happen in their own country.
- kybernetyk 14y agoTo counter the inflation effects you could just buy Gold instead of Euros. Gold offers also a higher value/volume ratio than paper money. ;)
- easyascherrypie 14y agoNot too hard. Just go to a country that is known to not depend on your country (say, if you're from the States, choose China). Go there, open a bank account, mission accomplished.
- icelancer 14y agoI probably would have picked a different country in that regard. That being said, it's not all that simple to open up shop in a Chinese banking office. Though I guess if you have the kind of money you would want to do this with, it becomes easy enough.
- jbooth 14y agoAnyone who has that kind of money already has it offshore in the Cayman Islands. Why pay Chinese taxes on it?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoWe still have to report our worldwide accounts every year to the treasury department, and not doing do is considered very bad.