Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Sofia Voultepsi - A Government Spokesperson Gone Berserk

In the event that Alexis Tsipras as Prime Minister proceeded with “heroics in Europe”, Sofia Voultepsi, a government spokesperson is quoted as saying, “it won’t be long before the ATMs shut down in Greece, as they did in Cyprus".

I have written before that the best way to eventually start a bank run is to warn of it. I have also written before that, in the sensitive world of high finance, it is often impossible to retract statements after they have been made. And that the wrong statements can become very, very expensive.

Ms. Voultepsi's statement may have been prompted by her being upset about the fact that “SYRIZA curses all day, it is a sewer and a foul stench", as she said. What she may have overlooked in the hectic of events is that close to one-third of Greeks, according to polls, currently favor SYRIZA and it is not a clever political strategy to communicate to one-third of voters that they are a sewer and a foul stench. 

If I were a supporter of ND, I would begin to wonder whether a party which makes such statements really deserves my support.

5 comments:

  1. Imho and with due respect - by writing this article the author too has spread the dangerous words?
    H. Trickler

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  2. Voultepsi is an example of how really low on quality ND's roaster has dropped. She is a journalist in profession, who can't keep her mouth shut and in ND in these days, they are in panic mode, because:

    1) Seems that the goverment won't find 180 votes to avoid snap elections. Kouvelis (DIMAR) is flirting with SYRIZA and as of yesterday, so is ANEL.
    2) A former ND MP returned to the party, bringing the total of goverment MPs to 155, a meager consolation.
    3) George Papandreou is trying to destabilize PASOK and his supporters gathered 4000 signatures, asking to "detach" from ND.
    4) Samaras' plan to exit the troika seems to sink, as the Europeans and IMF are reluctant, resulting to spike of greek bonds. Everything points to a troika under new name and shroud.
    5) In new poll, the trend is confirmed. SYRIZA was given 6.5% ahead of New Democracy. And New Democracy has still unpleasant measures to take in January. With such evolution, ND will lose 50% of its MPs after the elections.
    6) As a nail in the coffin, in these days, Deiselbloem and an ECB member both said that the greek debt is viable as it is, which was a bad blow to the entire Samaras' rhetoric of the past year of "we have an agreement, we follow a program, they reduce our debt". Other articles say, that the Europeans now are reluctant to even consider the issue, under fear that SYRIZA will come to power in a few months and will have to renegotiate everything. So why make a deal for debt with Samaras, when Tsipras waits around the corner and has warned that he won't recognize any deal made by a "falling goverment that has no popular legitimcacy anymore".

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  3. And today Oct. 15, Swiss newspaper report that stocks of Greek banks have dropped by 20%...

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  4. Well, you have to admire her timing. She is now at center stage having her 5 minutes of fame. Since everybody throw oil on the fire let me give my contribution, me thinks it's about time with some capital control before we go into full election mode. Not that it will help much in Greece, all and sundry will have been warned beforehand. Wait until the markets hear about the alleged attempt to buy votes for the presidential election.
    Lennard

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  5. @ ANONYMOUS.
    Yes. In my vocabulary alleged means claimed, declared or unproven. I have not qualified if it is true or not.
    Lennard

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