June 30, 2015 at 19:55

Greek crisis in terms of IT community



    Many people who follow world news know that Greece’s next payment on IMF loans is about to expire, and in case of non-receipt of money, a technical default will be announced. By the way, the message that a referendum will take place in Greece came as a surprise to literally everyone - negotiators from the Greek government who arrived in Brussels learned about it on June 28 from Twitter .

    Apparently, the money will not really come, and different analysts have different opinions about what will happen next. Optimistic forecasts say that Greece will somehow manage to agree with bankers, and at a referendum to be held at the end of the week, citizens will express a desire to remain in the EU. Others argue that Greece will have to leave the EU. Still others predict the imminent collapse of the entire European Union, which will inevitably begin after the exit of Greece.

    But while political scientists are arguing, IT experts offer their own solutions to the problem. For example, a resident of London Tom Feeney created a campaign to save Greece on the famous crowdfunding resource IndieGoGofrom default. The campaign’s goal was to raise € 1.6 billion. He picked up a calculator, and calculated that if each of the 500 million EU residents fell off for only € 3, then the resulting one and a half billion would be enough for another loan tranche.

    Among the rewards offered to the campaigners is a postcard with the image of the Greek Prime Minister, various traditional Mediterranean dishes and drinks (olives, feta cheese, ouzo vodka). For € 5000 you can relax together in Athens. At the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Fini even suggested to someone who would donate one and a half necessary billions at once a small Greek island.

    He himself did not own this island, but reasoned that the Greek government would not refuse to actually sell this island for the opportunity to avoid default. But after this campaign gained fame, official representatives of the Greek government contacted him and demanded that this "prize" be removed from the campaign. On the second day of its existence, the campaign raised more than € 200 thousand.

    Bitcoin fans are also eagerly awaiting developments. One of the founders of the payment processing system Bitpay said that in the case of "Grexit" (Greece exit, Greece exit from the eurozone), bitcoin will jump several times - from the mark of $ 250 to $ 600, or even to $ 1200. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts rely on the conclusion that the first bitcoin boom happened in 2013, at that difficult moment when a banking collapse occurred in Cyprus, which entailed unpleasant consequences.



    Since bitcoin is decentralized and is not controlled by anyone, and transfers around the world are made quite quickly and with scant commissions, some interest may wake up against the background of what is happening. About two weeks ago, their value, which had so far held at the level of $ 210-230, smoothly went up and now already exceeds $ 260. It is unlikely that the Greek government will rush to buy bitcoins for all the remaining money, but individual citizens may try to save their savings. The first Bitcoin ATM appeared in Athens in early 2015 .

    Another unconventional way suggested by the German observer BloombergLeonid Bershidsky. He analyzes a joke that appeared back in 2012, when at a presentation someone asked Tim Cook if the company was going to buy Greece for itself as a country for summer vacations. At that time, the company owned funds in the amount of about $ 100 billion.

    Bershidsky claims that now Apple has twice as much money, while Greece is doing worse. At the same time, the money of Apple and other American companies is essentially located abroad, since when transferring them to the United States they will have to pay 35% tax. The observer is sure that there is simply nowhere to invest such a gigantic amount, and if the company does not begin to build cars, or rather spaceships, then money will continue to accumulate.

    According to browser estimates, the five largest US companies, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Cisco, have a total of just over $ 400 billion. Bershidsky believes that if they agree to pay off the country's debts using approximately half of their funds (or only 13% more than taxes in the event of a refund to the United States), Europe will offer them in return tax-free activities on the territory EU, then as a result both parties will benefit from such a deal.
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