Map of Europe (Financial)

The NYT quotes economist Carl Weinberg: "Lending more money to already overborrowed governments does not solve their problems. Had we any Greek bonds in our portfolio, we would not feel rescued this morning."

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Anonymous

ha ha ha … are you all americans? No surprise you cannot recognize any map other than America … I was once asked whether Argentina was close to Iran or not …
loonquawl

damn. i had wondered about all those islands, but never bothered to compare them. or in Karlos’ words: I didn’t see what you did there…
paulatz

Its funny like for US economics so-called (or self-proclamed) experts collecting and lending Â½ billion to save a country is not ok. Yet borrowing 1Â½ billion from China, and lending it to the corporations that caused the crisis in the first place is ok.
Anonymous

Nice map. One can see Greece, Italeece, Speece, Portugeece, Greeceland and Greece Britain around France, Benelux and Germany.
dcamsam

If Carl Weinberg, chief economist of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., says so, it must be true.

I Googled him, and he seems to specialize in providing quotes to reporters who need an economist to say that debt is bad.
Anonymous

Who do we credit for the We Are All Greece map? I do not see it in the linked NYT article.

And to add some tinder for the flamewar, I did not see the gimmick until it was pointed out, and I am from the USA. You can take that for what it’s worth and compare what it’s worth to the values of certain European bonds and currencies =)
zio_donnie

Unfortunately Greece has not an immediately recognizable geography like Italy (the boot). I can understand why this map can be confusing for non-Europeans but i am proud as a Greek that our government has found this new, albeit expensive, way to promote our beaches to the world.
- Anonymous
  
  You Sir, made me laugh. Touche!
Alex_M

Of course it doesn’t solve their problems. I don’t think anyone said it would. What it DOES do, is give them some room to maneuver and try to keep it all from falling apart, stopping a run on their banks etc.

Greece is still in for a long painful stagnation period. They still have to clean up their act. It’s about stopping them from totally cratering in a way that makes that stagnation even longer and even more painful.

European politicians need to take a good part of the blame here. Greece’s problems are exacerbated by their Euro membership. (otherwise they could mitigate the worst by devaluation) Thing is, Greece did NOT fulfill the stability requirements to be in the Euro in the first place (and it turned out it was even worse than thought). The politicians simply decided to look the other way and let them in, for political, not economic gain.
- dreamfish
  
  Except that devaluation is only a short term fix that would have to be followed by the same tough structural changes. The problem is that a lot of Governments have simply devalued and assumed that solves the problems – hence they never addressed the fundamental economic problems in their country. The Euro forces such countries to deal with the underlying fiscal responsibilities and not resort to ‘tricks’.
zapan

This map is all Greecy ! Sorry I had to.
krische

So when does the UK break off from Eurasia into Oceania?
Orky

It’s Greek to me…
Anonymous

Maybe the author of the image could give credit to the author of the original idea:
http://blogs.publico.es/manel/2016/la-leccion-de-informatica/
loonquawl

Could you explain what is shown on the map? Greece is still quite visible, but not bloated, so this is not about Debt, i guess. Is it possible the graphic was done with the outer rim fixed (Asian, African landmass seem too big for it depicting anything financial, and the British isles are weirdly stretched)? The linked article has graphics, but i found nothing like this one – where does it come from?
- naam
  
  It’s just Greece being cloned onto Italy, Spain, the UK and Ireland.
Adze

I’m from neither Europe nor North America and I didn’t see it until it was pointed out.
Karlos

I see what you did there…