1、The Greek re-election this Sunday is being billed as a referendum on Euro membership. Should Greece exit the euro zone, just how severe would the impact would be? The whole world is keeping a close eye on the country at this make-or-break moment, including observers on the other side of the Atlantic
2、.He Fei has more.Though the euro zone crisis has not been included as a major topic of the G20 Leaders Summit, which will open on June 18 in Mexico. Dialogues between government leaders and corporate chiefs attending the summit cannot avoid the issue.Alejandro Ramirez is chair of the organizing comm
3、ittee of the B20 Summit, an international forum aimed at soliciting corporate leaders opinions and offering recommendations to G20 leaders.Actually Greece is having its election on the same day as B20 is happening in Los Cabos. The only comment I could make regarding that is that I hope the Greek el
4、ect a party that will not pull Greece out of the euro zone.Ramirez says, if Greece finally crashes out of the euro zone, it will have some crazy effectsI think it would be disastrous. Specifically, it leads to some confidence crisis. That would lead people from pulling their money out of Spanish, It
5、alian and Portuguese banks, then it could have contagious effects, which is much larger and wider than what is here in Greece.Compared to Ramirez, Stephen J. Guilfoyle sounds more optimistic. Guilfoyle is a U.S. economist working at the New York Stock Exchange.I am not that pessimistic. I think leav
6、ing the European monetary union would be actually a positive for the Greece in a long run because there is no easy way out for Greece, and they get hurt no matter what. But if they were able to inflate their money and pay the bills in cheap money that might be the way they have to go, although they
7、would be hurt immediately and they would be able to borrow very easily in the open market for a while. But they probably already cant.Due to the common economy and monetary systems, there will be some exposures in the European Union. However, Guilfoyle believes that the impact on the US economy woul
8、d be smaller.The impact with Greece, I dont think it would be severe here in US at all. I think any exposure that exists with Greece has privately handled months ago. I think the US is out of it. Guilfoyle says people dont need to worry that much about Greece since it is a small country in GDP terms
9、. Spain is the country that people should pay more attention to.Spain is one of the bigger economies in the Europe. And they have 25 percent unemployment, and among the young people I think it is over 50 percent. So Spain has much bigger situation. And that is where the focus has to be. If you have to save a country, you should focus on Spain. Both Ramirez and Guilfoyle agree that no matter what decision the Greeks will make on Sunday, the following years will be painful - and they have to tighten their belts for years to come.For CRI, I am He Fei.
