Dr. Stephen Kinsella:

As to whether it is political vindictiveness, there is a bit of that. Jean-Claude Juncker has stated people need to leave their egos at the door and stuff like that; I am not certain they have. As to who loses, it is interesting. The Deputy talked about a period of turbulence, which I believe is understating massively what would happen. If one reads the sociological studies that have been done about Argentina in 2001, one basically has the destruction of a middle class and the destruction of an entrepreneurial class. That effectively is what happened. Interestingly, the economy rebounded since but that probably was on a commodity boom. While it obviously depends on what is the deal being offered, one would take a lot of austerity before one would leave a currency union like this. That said, it seems as though, at least from the referendum results, people actually might welcome that. I am not sure but then it depends on who one is. If a person's pension is paid by a bank and that bank was giving the pension to the person in euro but now is giving it in scrip, in drachmas or whatever, that would change many people's lives and would hamper the growth of a generation.

The Deputy mentioned the primary balance, payments and some other areas but that is all gone, as many businesses have not being paying. I make the point that what was fundamentally strong about the economy in January is not there any more. That said, an extremely large write-down might help them because, exactly as Dr. Gurdgiev has noted, it would take them from a very low base. As to whether Greece will leave the euro, I think it will, as I do not believe there is enough time to organise a reasonable deal. As for who loses, the average Greek citizen will lose massively from that. While I do not think we will be that badly affected, who knows? Nobody knows what will happen. Everybody thought Lehman Brothers was going to be fine.