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HI Daniel,



I fully agree with you that *austerity is not the enemy* and this is particularly true in the case of Greece, but as you've mentioned, is also true in the case of Portugal.



Greece needs to "rebuild its export sector from the ground up" in order to improve the balance of trade, which will put the Greek economy on the road to recovery.



While Yanis Varoufakis is doing excellent work to keep the Greek economy treading water (meeting its loan payment deadlines) it is now time to begin to look around for the closest land, and after carefully considering the most direct safe route, to begin swimming towards that point on the shore (increasing exports to improve the balance of trade)



Of course the Greek Ministry of Finance must continue to meet its obligations to creditors (as it has been doing) and continue to run slight surpluses (as it has been doing) and to find ways to get everyone paying their fair share of taxes.



Since oil refineries were mentioned in the essay, I'll state the obvious; Tire and rubber goods manufacturers should set up manufacturing facilities in Greece -- in order to take advantage of low Greek wages, lower taxes, and lower transportation costs.



Rubber goods of all kinds could be manufactured within a stones' throw of Greek oil refineries and then shipped around the world. Michelin, Continental, Bridgestone/Firestone, Goodyear and others could locate their next manufacturing plants in Greece to take advantage of lower costs and easy shipping.



Greece has possibly the best location on the planet for a future economy that would rely on shipping goods around the world.



If Greece is making the tires there, it wouldn't be long after that Greece would be making the cars that go with those tires.



It's simple math. If it is cheaper to manufacture tires in Greece, then it will be cheaper to manufacture cars there too. And shipping them 'round the world from Greece is a snap.



Imagine if all economy cars were built in Greece. Leave the luxury car manufacturing to Germany, the U.S., Korea and Japan.



And that's just tires and cars.



Please Yanis, set up some special manufacturing zones near Greek oil refineries and scour the world to see who might want to manufacture and ship from there.



If you ensure that property rights, intellectual property rights, local security for workers and the manufacturing plant, and world class shipping (port) facilities exist there -- then there is no reason that Greece isn't just as competitive as anywhere else in the world, within the confines of those products.

____



Also, Greece could benefit by selling off assets, land, rights, and grant leases to solar and wind farm operators in the Thessaloniki region.



Five million solar panels and 100 thousand wind turbines could cleanly power southern Europe -- and that brings in cold, hard cash for the Greek economy.



All that needs to be done, is to assure investors that they will have full property rights (or if they lease the land for 99 years, that they can expect to rightfully receive what they paid for) and that their tax rate will be locked in for 25 years (for example)



If other countries can do this (and they do) then Greece can do it. So, do it!



Thank you for posting your fine writings on ProSyn, Daniel.



Cheers, JBS