coming.
The most likely outcome of a fresh election is that SYRIZA, a coalition of hard-left parties, will increase their seats in the Greek parliament. SYRIZA's position is that they want to stay in the Eurozone, but completely re-negotiate the terms of the bailout, a policy shared by the majority of Greeks, but totally at odds with the Germans, who are, let's face it, the masters of Europe.
It's hard to say right now how things will turn out; short-term, there's going to be a lot of pain for the average Greek. Many Greeks have said, "We'll just go back to tourism!". Yeah......like anyone will want to go on a tourist jaunt somewhere like a European Somalia. There will be likely be massive civil unrest and disorder, and one cannot completely preclude in the event of mass chaos either a military coup or an outright civil war in the worst-case scenarios (indeed. the Nomura Group, a well-respected Japanese think-tank, rates this as a 60%+ probability), all of which would be utterly disastrous for Greece (though not the EU necessarily; they'll simply kick Greece out of the EU, pull their Schengen Zone rights, repatriate those Greek citizens currently running around the EU and essentially seal the borders). Shipping is in the toilet owing to the global economic crisis, and if a civil war or military coup were to happen, hell, even massive prolonged civil unrest, I really don't see Greece as a popular tourist destination under those circumstances. And let's be realistic..........shipping and tourism are Greece's primary industries. And agriculture, though to a lesser extent. One potential bright side is that it is believed there may be substantial oil and natural gas deposits in the Aegean, which has thus far been not explored nor exploited.
Either way, the Greeks are screwed, certainly in the short to medium term. People's mortgages are still denominated in Euro after all. And a New Drachma would very likely face an immediate 50-60% devaluation, thereby making imported goods correspondingly more expensive, not to mention energy prices. Plus, any new government will very likely have to quickly impose massive capital controls to prevent capital flight, and maybe a bank holiday of a few days. While it is tempting to think of the Greeks unilaterally canceling all their debts, under those circumstances, who on Earth is going to lend them money to get their economy restarted? No one, at least no one who's sane. Even the World Bank and the IMF may well tell the Greeks to go pound sand, and at the very least, IMF/World Bank lending conditions would be just as stringent if not harsher than the current terms Greece is chafing under.
Like a Nigerian friend of mine once told me, "A hungry man has no fear of the law". A poetic way of saying we all gotta duck when the s**t hits the fan.
Grim times ahead for Greece; I would advise anyone with the capability of getting the hell out of there to do so ASAP. And not to Europe; the rest of the EU simply isn't going to tolerate a tsunami of "economic refugees", which is what they'd consider the Greeks, and if the Greeks lose their status as an EU member state, their Schengen Zone rights go bye-bye along with it. I'd advise head for the USA.
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