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Matt Ferraro
Mr. Fronk
Honors World Regional Geography
March 16, 2016
Europe Breaking News Analysis
Section One:
Greeces four biggest banks have been doing extremely well recently after receiving a
third bailout of about 14.4 billion euros ($15.9 billion). This has raised their capital ratios up to
18 percent, 5 percent above the European average which is at 13 percent. The Bank of Greece is
predicting that growth could return as early as summer and it appears that Greece may finally
return to normal.
Despite all of the good news, Greek banks are still continuing to lose money. The
countrys second largest lender, Piraeus Bank, has reported that the have had a net loss of about
1.9 billion euros in 2015. 40 percent of Greek loans and 55 percent of Greek mortgages are not
being paid down which way above the European average of 5 percent (Print Edition, n.p.).
Currently, Greece and other countries in the euro zone are in a dispute about the terms of the
bailout which is causing some distress that another crisis may be on the horizon. Banks shares
are also down 36 percent from the beginning of the year. For the most part the Greek banks have
nothing to do with the crisis and it is just a dispute between the Greek government and the
governments creditors, but the banks have procrastinated their NPLs (Print Edition, n.p.). The
banks are also counting on a growth return in order to save delinquent borrowers. This is

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hindering the flow of capital that may have the ability to save the countrys economy. The bank
also has the ability to close branches which would in turn cut some of their costs. Their fate
though is largely out of their hands. The biggest fear currently is that the IMF will withhold the
next bailout and the Greek government will be unable to pay their bills.
Even if the crisis would somehow be avoided, the Greek banks are in no shape to make a
lot of new loan. Greece has so little money that citizens in Athens can withdraw no more than
420 euros a year and as long as they continue to receive messages like that, the banks in Greece
can no longer be expected to prosper.

Section Two:
To summarize, this article discussed the financial situation that Greece is in and it is not
good. The article began talking about the good associated with Greeces economy which is that
growth could be expected as early as summer which is something we did not discuss in class.
The bailouts were also discussed. In class we learned that there were two bailouts totaling more
than 240 billion euros ($264 billion), but in the article a third bailout was discussed which totaled
14.4 billion euros ($15.9 billion). This bailout is what sparked the good news that the economy
was on the rise. Unfortunately though, all is not good. Greece is still arguing with euro zone
about the conditions of the bailouts, which we discussed in class. The conditions we learned in
class were harsh austerity terms requiring deep budget cuts and steep tax increases and Greece
must overhaul their economy by streamlining their government which would end tax evasion and
make Greece a much easier place to do business with.

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Section Three:
The Greek financial crisis is definitely a very controversial topic. I just do not understand
have a country can get that far in debt and still not really do anything about it. On top of that I
want to know what Greece did with all the money they received from the bailouts. More than
240 billion euros ($264 billion) is a lot of money and it definitely should have put a huge dent in
the problem if not taken care of all their debt. Although I do not know the entire story, it appears
to me as if Greece is not doing nearly enough to fix their problems. If I was in charge of Greece,
I would start out by trying to create more jobs. Even if they were low paying they would still
help contribute to the economy and in turn would help bring money into the country. Next, I
would start raising taxes little by little now that a large majority of the population of the country
would have a job which would make it easier to pay the higher taxes. Lastly, I would start paying
off debts and when I felt that the debts were low enough, I would lower the taxes. Although I
probably mentioned something that they may have tried, I still feel that with the knowledge and
lack of experience with situations like this that I have, this is the best solution.

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Work Cited
1. "On the Front Line." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 12 Mar. 2016. Web. 16 Mar.
2016.