Poor Greece

[AndyDT]

I hope greece doesn't undergo revolution or further recession. It seems almost certain they'll leave the Euro and that will trigger repercussions. I just read this report on how they sufferred under the Germans:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056400/Greece-debt-crisis-Greeks-believe-Germans-owe-60bn.html

Prayers are with you Greece that you'll get just treatment.

[rumborak]

Holy crap, a new low in the newspapers you read, Andy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a British tabloid supports a country that has mismanaged itself to bankruptcy, if it means they can dredge up Adolf Hitler in their article for it and take a swing at Germany.
You should really hold yourself to higher standards, Andy.

Reality is, the stunt that Papandreou is pulling off right now is plain dangerous. He passed the necessary austerity measures, and the Troika agreed to pump the money into Greece, and now he reverts back and wants to put it up for a public referendum. The markets tank again, and given public sentiment in Greece most likely it will mean that Greece is out of the Euro, with dire consequences for everyone.
Instead of portraying this complexity, The Daily Mail regurgitates 80-year old history, because that's what its readership is mentally stuck in.

rumborak

[AcidLameLTE]

Ugh. The Daily Mail is the worst.

This video pretty much sums up the Daily Mail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

[Progmetty]

What a bull shit dipped in bull shit article.

[AndyDT]

https://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2093990,00.html

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/21/germany-greece-greek-debt-crisis

The main point is I don't think Greece have been well treated by Germany or their government.

[XJDenton]

No they haven't, but on the other hand when your government lies about its finances and the amount of debt its ringing up for the last decade and helped throw a whole economic bloc into turmoil its hard to be sympathetic.

[rumborak]

Andy, is your point really that it is somehow Germany's post-WWII responsibility to open up its wallet and dish out money to a country that has lived way beyond its means, essentially rewarding this behavior? Not even you are capable of such asinine viewpoints.

rumborak

[AndyDT]

Can you stop insulting? There's about 3 current thread where you're basically slagging me off.

My point is that I hope Greece doesn't have to suffer more. As for Germany, I would hope they as far as possible leave Greece be.

[rumborak]

Germany would like nothing more than leave Greece be, you can believe that.
In case you haven't noticed, a lot of the German willingness to pay this money is from a certain sense of European solidarity. If Greece doesn't want the money, nobody is forcing them to take it. Problem is, they know they fucked up, and frankly they don't have a lot of moral high ground to stand on.

Regarding the "insults", yes I've been ragging on you. But let's be honest here, do you sometimes look at the threads you start on this forum? "Bizarre" is an understatement.

rumborak

[PraXis]

The EU was doomed from the start. You can't put countries like Greece and Romania on the same currency scale as Germany. The Germans are tired of bailing out the lazy Greeks and their ridiculous tax evasion and public sector expenditures.

[rumborak]

The Eurozone. The EU is something different.

rumborak

[Riceball]

The EU was doomed from the start.

I.....

I.....

I agree....






I feel dirty.

[Super Dude]

I don't know, I may not know much about EU dynamics but I think it could've worked, had the integration bit been loosened a little.

[Riceball]

I've probably said this before, but part of the problem is that they all use the same monetary policy without the same economic circumstances and no fiscal transfers. Its like a federalist system but on a country-by-country scale. Now, Germany is one of the more productive economies in the world, and so in order to keep up with Germany these other countries either inflate or they borrow to fund activity (no prizes for guessing what they decided to do). This is because capital and migratory flows should flow to their most productive point use - which is Germany - in order for the economies to adjust appropriately. Because this didn't happen, these other countries had no choice but to borrow and borrow and borrow, rather than inflate.

Ideally, Greece would just be Germany's and to a lesser extent France's primary tourism destination and thats about it; they can't do anything that the Germans do well as well as the Germans do it, and so they shouldn't try realistically.

[rumborak]

The European Union is in no danger. It's the Eurozone that's in danger. Those are two separate things (e.g. UK is in the EU, but not in the Eurozone).

I do agree however that the thing is somewhat fundamentally flawed. It could have worked, but frankly it depended on responsible governance of the countries involved, and that's simply not something you can just plain depend on. Greece is chaos and corruption and everybody's who's ever been there knows that. I always scratched my head that Greece somehow made the entry conditions to the Eurozone, and I think people looked conveniently the other way because they didn't want to shun out such an emblematic country as Greece.

rumborak

[livehard]

Chaos and corruption isnt how I would describe Greece...

Euro will fail because you have 10 different fiscal policies and only 1 monetary policy.  I think it will show to be a great experiment.  However the real tragedy here is in the ISDA and how they could agree that taking such a large haircut on Greek debt doesn't register as a CDS trigger event.  Its another bailout of sorts, for those that insured a country who cannot accept the consequences of its spending...

Greece is about a government that is trying to use the flawed institution of the EU to not pay the consequences of their actions.  This is going to hurt someone, whether its Greece, or the countries that bail them out.  There's no free lunch that is going to show up here.

[AndyDT]

I watched a BBC Newsnight report last night and the correspondent said the problem was being caused by Germany hanging on to conservative institutions. He said they had to "let Greece off the hook" and that the Americans were the only ones with the moral authority to tell Germany to do this by saying "look we let you off the hook in 1948, now it's time for you to do the same."

So this is an indepedent commentator speaking.

Do you get the message Rumborak? You talk about "80 years" - do you not see? Germany I'd say can never repay what it did in the second world war whether it's 80 or 800 years any more than Britain can ever really repay (like Spain, Brazil etc) for it's part in the slave trade. Nobody has a right to humiliate Germany or Germans - the only options (for Germany, Britain, any other extant nation that has sinned) are forgiveness and/or eternal generosity. And if you don't believe in the former then that seems to leave only one choice.

So in my view Germany or Germans can't go around meting out punishment or what they deem as deserved consequences. You, they, I, we don't have that right.

Seek forgiveness, atone or both. But at least one.

[Super Dude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnNhzgcWTk

[rumborak]

I watched a BBC Newsnight report last night and the correspondent said the problem was being caused by Germany hanging on to conservative institutions. He said they had to "let Greece off the hook" and that the Americans were the only ones with the moral authority to tell Germany to do this by saying "look we let you off the hook in 1948, now it's time for you to do the same."

Have you been following this at all? Germany, i.e. Merkel is spear-heading the move to forfeit 50% of Greece's debt. What else than "letting Greece off the hook" would you call that?

Do you get the message Rumborak? You talk about "80 years" - do you not see? Germany I'd say can never repay what it did in the second world war whether it's 80 or 800 years any more than Britain can ever really repay for the slave trade. Nobody has a right to humiliate Germany or Germans - the only options (for Germany, Britain, any other extant nation that has sinned) are forgiveness and/or eternal generosity. And if you don't believe in the former then that seems to leave only one choice.

So in my view Germany or Germans can't go around meting out punishment or what they deem as deserved consequences. You, they, I, we don't have that right.

We're not "meting out punishment". What would be punishment would be to just let Greece drop into a hole of nothingness and poverty. Germany is shelling out a LOT of money to Greece in the name of Europe and camaraderie.
The problem is also, you can't just let Greece completely off the hook, since that would be one hell of a dangerous precedent, with the much bigger guns (Italy for example) looking intently at what's happening with Greece. I, and I don't think a lot of other Europeans either, are particularly interested in musing about guilts from the past like you do. We live in the present.

rumborak

[eric42434224]

Wow.  Andy, you are woefully uninformed on this topic.  Greece needs a lot of economic help, and it is being offered to them.  Please try to keep ancient history and war grudges out of this current economic situation.
From your posts on anything Europe, it is pretty obvious you have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to Germany.

[livehard]

Germany didn't kill anyone, they didnt build concentratioin camps, people did. The german government is a non human institution, it is meaningless, it can't do anything moral or immoral.  What you have to talk about is the people that did these atrocities 80 years ago. The current german population owes nothing to anyone for the sins of their grandfathers.

[rumborak]

Wow.  Andy, you are woefully uninformed on this topic.

I think if you read the Daily Mail as your only source (and so far Andy has almost exclusively quoted DM in his threads), that's an inevitable result. You will know more about Hitler's hairdo than about what continental leaders are doing.

rumborak

[erik16]

Greeks have long live beyond their capabilities and in some ways it's a poetic justice that they now suffer (sorry if I offend any Greeks here).

Although it's a shame that the public sector is the least likely to be harmed because they are the root of all evil really.

German and French banks are in trouble as well because they have invested in Greece and they can't get the money back.

EDIT: You are right though Andy that the Greeks will soon be poor 

[rumborak]

BTW, at least in Germany the tide is slowly turning, because the public no longer believes that it's possible to save Greece. In fact, only today a major stock market analyst said openly that Greece should default and exit the Eurozone so they can devalue their currency and start getting out of their misery.

Interesting times. We'll see what comes out of this.

rumborak

[livehard]

I think a greek default would be an extremely healthy thing as then the cost of debt would skyrocket and create a definitive mechanism for forcing them to be more fiscally conservative.  I dont trust any politicans that say "we'll be better in the future about spending", they'll always do whats in their political best interest.  In default their ability to choose to be so socialist is temporarily severly hindered...

[eric42434224]

I think a greek default would be an extremely healthy thing as then the cost of debt would skyrocket and create a definitive mechanism for forcing them to be more fiscally conservative.  I dont trust any politicans that say "we'll be better in the future about spending", they'll always do whats in their political best interest.  In default their ability to choose to be so socialist is temporarily severly hindered...

The cost of future credit/debt for Greece is already way high because of this mess.  Full default wont make them more responsible, but it will cause great harm to other contries and economies.