How Greek bailouts work!!!

[Losos]

Apologies if you've seen this before, but it is quite educational (Well I think so :wink: )

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.
The publican slips the money along to the local lady of the night drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.
The lady of the night then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.
The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter (so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.)
At that moment the rich German tourist comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything.
No one earned anything.
However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that is how bailout packages work ;-)

 

[StevieB]

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

Unfortunately, the hotelier owes the butcher over 1000 Euros. He therefore needs further handouts from the wealthy German tourist. The German tourist will only provide these if the hotelier signs over the deeds to the hotel as security. The Greek hotelier must now decide whether to sign over everything he owns to get out of debt (although the price of his hotel is falling and may not even be worth 1000 Euros now), or whether to tell the German tourist to go to Italy or Spain for his holiday, and open his hotel to Greeks only who can use a local currency to keep monies in their own locality. Before he decides however, he will have an afternoon siesta, fiddle his tax return, draw down his bonus payments from the Greek Government for being an 'essential service industry' and then take time off becuase its sunny outside. And thats how Greek Bailouts really work!