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Pluskut Tukker posted:Reform is really hard, particularly if there is resistance on part of domestic interest groups and oligarchs and a thoroughly rotten political system, and reform in Greece was always going to take ages. I suppose the crux of my issue here is that while I agree that the corruption needs be stamped out, I don't see how selling off state assets to people (including Shitwolf himself) is a) helping cut the corruption b) doing anything about the people literally starving. It's the priority of €€€ over people that disgusts me most.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:23
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It's a really beautiful solution though. Banks got bailed and Schauble & co managed to convince the public it was all the fault of lazy greeks. And hell, they even got some of their money back by squeezing the greeks a bit. I'm also sure none of the Troikas behaviour played into the rise of euroscepticism. That kind of responsible and wise politics should be enough to convince anyone that these are the guys we want in charge.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:27
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My fellows, this Greek situation is urgent *swoops in to buy up state assets, does nothing about the people suffering* Whoa millions of displaced Arabs? Ehhhh we'll get to that later. Field them for a while if you could, Greece. *goes back to shady backroom area to continue tugjob orgy*
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Jun 22, 2016 12:34
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Tesseraction posted:So for five years your precious blowjob-recipients had a hand-picked dude from their own ECB in charge of the government and five years later had nothing to show for it, and this somehow proves that Greece is poo poo at managing the economy? Seems like the Troika is poo poo at managing economies. actually wasn't there recently another payment from the EU to Greece? that then went into some banksters pockets? seems like it works like a charm...
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Jun 22, 2016 12:35
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That's basically how the whole scheme worked. The Troika gives Greece some money, so they can pay back the European (mostly german) banks loans and in return get to keep a little for themselves to keep the lights on. European banks get their bailout and European leaders don't have to tell their voters that they're bailing out the banks. And everybody's happy. Well, except for the voters, but their anger is now directed at the lazy greeks. loving marvellous I have to admit.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:41
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Tesseraction posted:I suppose the crux of my issue here is that while I agree that the corruption needs be stamped out, I don't see how selling off state assets to people (including Shitwolf himself) is a) helping cut the corruption b) doing anything about the people literally starving. The problem with state-owned companies (and a big government, period) is that, in a system that is as bad as the Greek one, their function is not necessarily to optimally serve the public, but instead to create well-paid sinecures for politically connected people (here's one example). Since the Greek taxpayer ultimately ends up on the hook paying for these jobs, having a large state sector is a kind of redistribution from the taxpayer to the clients of political patrons. Everybody knows this, so everybody dodges paying their taxes, and so the costs end up getting added to the debt instead. So privatizing companies makes them less vulnerable to corruption. On the other hand, like we saw in post-Communist Eastern Europe, privatization of firms in a corrupt system may just lead to them being sold for less than full value and making other politically connected people very wealthy (which is one reason why the Troika actually tried to keep the privatization of state-run firms out of the hands of the Greek government). Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 12:45
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Greece needs to undergo some courageous reforms to bring it into the modernity of the 21st century. For a start, they need to abolish pensions, abolish wages, abolish public services, and tax everyone under the poverty line for 1500% of their belonging, every month. Also, they need to deregulate massively to allow the private sector to thrive -- we're talking the complete abolition of any law designed to protect customers, workers, the environment, or pretty much anything else really. In fact, Greece needs to abolish everything except the police and military force, which will be merged together and renamed as poor people oppression troops. Once all these reforms are done, Greece should become a flourishing and dynamic country, prosperous and fair. But the lazy corrupt plebes over there disagree, because they're dumb. They really need to understand that true modernity is a return to the 17th century, back when commoners were serfs and the ruling caste of
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Jun 22, 2016 12:50
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Pluskut Tukker posted:Corruption is endemic to the Greek political system and has been so since at least the 1980s (or at least it got markedly worse then). This is massively unfair, as what came before it was right-wing authoritarian democracy after the war (complete with political imprisonments and assassinations), a 7-year military dictatorship, and then a right-wing "liberal" government composed of the same assholes that ran the pre-junta right-wing political apparatus. What happened in the 80s is that the left got rehabilitated and its social/political intelligentsia could start reaping the benefits of capitalist democracy, coupled with perhaps some overly generous spending policies. It turns out, you cannot sustain both a fair system of wealth redistribution and a massively corrupt political apparatus, and what happened in the 80s was that the former was introduced without doing away with the latter.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:57
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Pluskut Tukker posted:So privatizing companies makes them less vulnerable to corruption. The problem with this way of thinking is that privatising just means an unelected group of nepotists own the companies instead of an electable government of nepotists. This isn't to say everything must be run by the state (*hides works of Stalin*) but that neither privatisation nor nationalisation does a drat thing about corruption unless you can prevent monopolisation and when the services exist already but merely change owners from state to private or private to state then the monopoly continues. It's the fundamental flaw of free market assumptions that competition can improve the quality of services because the barrier for entry into a particular market is basically always insurmountable for anyone who isn't already a corrupt rich rear end in a top hat. The best you can do is provide a localised 'artisanal' variation and even those aren't guaranteed to thrive unless it's in an affluent area that can afford to pay more for a customised service.
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Jun 22, 2016 12:57
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YF-23 posted:This is massively unfair, as what came before it was right-wing authoritarian democracy after the war (complete with political imprisonments and assassinations), a 7-year military dictatorship, and then a right-wing "liberal" government composed of the same assholes that ran the pre-junta right-wing political apparatus. The idea that the system was fair at any one point is very funny. They just added more spending to reward their clients and now, when the Greek spending has to shrink, all Greek governments are trying their best to spare their clients, cost it what it may.
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Jun 22, 2016 13:06
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YF-23 posted:This is massively unfair, as what came before it was right-wing authoritarian democracy after the war (complete with political imprisonments and assassinations), a 7-year military dictatorship, and then a right-wing "liberal" government composed of the same assholes that ran the pre-junta right-wing political apparatus. Yeah, I shouldn't have implied that the corruption problem was just a left-wing thing caused by Andreas Papandreou, sorry. But my point really was that with the massive expansion of the size of government since that time, the potential for corruption just became that much bigger. The debt-to-GDP ratio in Greece went from under 30% in the 1970s to over 90% in the 90s to 130+% (who knows really) in 2009 even as GDP was rising. And the irony of course is that those overly generous spending policies you mention were made possible in part by Greece's becoming a member of the EEC and as such becoming a recipient of EEC structural- and cohesion funds, as well as money from the CAP and subsidized investments, so that Greece from 1981 on received between 2.5-5% of its GDP in transfers from the EEC/EU. So with that and the access to cheap credit that the euro allowed the corruption turned from a huge problem into an outright disaster. Tesseraction posted:The problem with this way of thinking is that privatising just means an unelected group of nepotists own the companies instead of an electable government of nepotists. This isn't to say everything must be run by the state (*hides works of Stalin*) but that neither privatisation nor nationalisation does a drat thing about corruption unless you can prevent monopolisation and when the services exist already but merely change owners from state to private or private to state then the monopoly continues. I'd really say that the choice of nationalization or privatization depends on the company and the country. I think water should pretty much always and everywhere be a publicly-owned utility (except in Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea maybe), but phone companies may very well be privatized if they're properly regulated afterwards'. And sometimes corrupt countries may even benefit from having some foreign-owned company acquire their publicly-owned companies, provided those multinationals are subject to something like the foreign corrupt practices act in their home country. But this is all very hypothetical and it depends.
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Jun 22, 2016 13:21
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Pluskut Tukker posted:I'd really say that the choice of nationalization or privatization depends on the company and the country. I think water should pretty much always and everywhere be a publicly-owned utility (except in Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea maybe), but phone companies may very well be privatized if they're properly regulated afterwards'. And sometimes corrupt countries may even benefit from having some foreign-owned company acquire their publicly-owned companies, provided those multinationals are subject to something like the foreign corrupt practices act in their home country. But this is all very hypothetical and it depends. Yeah, it's all a matter of suitability for the task. In this case I think they're trying to solve the wrong problem, leading to the issues Greece now faces. Maybe foreign ownership can help, but frankly the people buying this poo poo up seem pretty corrupt themselves.
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Jun 22, 2016 13:25
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Friendly Humour posted:It's a really beautiful solution though. Banks got bailed and Schauble & co managed to convince the public it was all the fault of lazy greeks. And hell, they even got some of their money back by squeezing the greeks a bit. I'm also sure none of the Troikas behaviour played into the rise of euroscepticism. That kind of responsible and wise politics should be enough to convince anyone that these are the guys we want in charge. IIRC a few pages ago some US poster asked what other arguments than simply being "anti-foreigner" could someone possibly have against the EU and I've been too busy to post on forums, but it's stuff like this. The only thing I'd correct is most EU-skeptics stopped blaming "lazy greeks" a long time ago - if they indeed ever did, and are quite familiar with the play Troika made. Didn't Germans hate Greeks years ago for a while because of the "lazy greek" -gambit but I wager people have recognized the real enemy at this point... If someone can't figure out why a person would not just love the EU just read this thread. The faults come up all time. It's full of shady poo poo and is a gigantic, undemocratic bureacracy that tries to rule over a bunch of nation states. And really, the "straight cucumber directives" are not just a joke, EU really does pass laws which are stupid, expensive and since EU is so heterogeneous, a law that makes sense here might actually be harmful or not make any sense there. Also you guys harping on GC because you think he wants to starve poor Greek people to death or something, what is your "cure" for Greece then? Just pumping untold billions of European taxpayers money year after year to Greece until the end of time? Something else, what? Ligur fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 13:39
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GaussianCopula posted:The idea that the system was fair at any one point is very funny. They just added more spending to reward their clients and now, when the Greek spending has to shrink, all Greek governments are trying their best to spare their clients, cost it what it may. Oh definitely, PASOK didn't become one of the two pillars of clientelism for nothing. But that spending didn't go only to their clients, PASOK did a lot of really popular spending that generally benefited the poor and the middle class. It wasn't completely fair, sure, political proteges and so on benefited vastly more than the general populace, but I would include that under corruption anyway.
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Jun 22, 2016 13:43
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Tesseraction posted:I suppose this is part of the problem - if the plans were rejected by a puppet government that then dissolved, how lovely were the suggestions? Were any of them actually any good? And if they were, why are they still failing to show results even with what GC describes as a 'gun' to their head? The suggestions could have lead to a Greek golden age and they would still have been rejected because they would be political suicide for whatever government/party that signed them. The whole euro crisis is basically based on this problem, nobody wants to do any of the "extreme" options because that would lose them voters at home due to some negative impact on the voterbase, even though either option (use much more of rich countries money as stimulus or kick out the poors from a non fitting currency) would likely have better long term benefits for the economy of all participants.
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Jun 22, 2016 14:12
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Ligur posted:Also you guys harping on GC because you think he wants to starve poor Greek people to death or something, what is your "cure" for Greece then? Just pumping untold billions of European taxpayers money year after year to Greece until the end of time? Something else, what? Slaughter the rich so that the Greek people have something to eat. That's my solution, anyway.
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Jun 22, 2016 15:30
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Ligur posted:Also you guys harping on GC because you think he wants to starve poor Greek people to death or something, what is your "cure" for Greece then? Just pumping untold billions of European taxpayers money year after year to Greece until the end of time? Something else, what?
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Jun 22, 2016 16:53
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Greece tried to run one of the most generous social systems in the world on a third world level economy. Unsurprisingly,you can't do this. Tesseraction posted:So now that he has this gun to his head, why isn't this miraculous recovery occurring? Why isn't it occurring anywhere in Europe that's accepted the Troika's 'recommendations'? It doesn't work this way, unfortunately. When you mismanage the economy for literal decades the recovery is neither quick nor easy. Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding in how economies work. Or in Greece case, didn't work. It's like expecting bankruptcy to make you rich again. You cannot make a country rich by decree. The point of what was forced on Greece wasn't to turn the country around in a day, that's stupid. It was to prevent them from becoming the next Venezuela. Greece looks bad now but the alternatives were so so so much worse. I don't think people defending Greece actually have ever looked at the numbers, given the comments made. They really did just drive their country into the ground through a series of remarkably dumb choices over a long period of time. Choices have consequences, unfortunately.
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Jun 22, 2016 17:00
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The EU bears some responsibility in enabling that profligacy though, exacerbating self-destructive traits to the point that what would ordinarily have resulted in a painful correction eventually turned into a near cataclysmic one.
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Jun 22, 2016 17:15
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The treaty on the EURO clearly stated that that there would be no bailouts to EURO countries going on the spending binge, so for all purposes the risk of debtor countries devaluating their currency should have been replaced with a risk that an EURO country could now go bankrupt. This should have kept the interest rates in the periphery of the EURO area significantly above the levels of the center and prevented bubbles from forming. The main problem is that the markets recognized that the no bailout pledge was not sustainable once too big to fail banks started lending billions to the periphery, driving the interest gap between Germany and Greece close to 0 before the crisis. As the center is unwilling to continue bailouts of the periphery, and at least parts of the periphery are unwilling to reform to live within the EURO rules (max 3% debt, 60% max debt or on the way there), maybe the best solution would be a program to go back to national currencies again, starting with an exchange rate mechanism that defended certain bands of fluctuation between the new national currencies, gradually widening those bands before allowing completely free exchange rates. It definitely would force a floodwave of capital into the center, but even before the EURO people in the periphery kept their main savings in DM.
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Jun 22, 2016 17:54
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The EU bears some responsibility in enabling that profligacy though, exacerbating self-destructive traits to the point that what would ordinarily have resulted in a painful correction eventually turned into a near cataclysmic one. It's even worse. Greece had to falsify important economic data to meet the Eurozone joining criteria and this has always been an open secret among the EU leadership. We enabled them. We made all of this possible.
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Jun 22, 2016 17:59
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tsa posted:Greece tried to run one of the most generous social systems in the world on a third world level economy. Unsurprisingly,you can't do this. Absolutely, not even the Greeks themselves have questioned that their crisis is entirely their fault. What has been questioned are the motives of the troika in pursuing their policies. What did the austerity prevent is debatable, and I would rather hear your reasons as to why there were no alternatives. If after all the whole point of the bailtout packages wasn't to save the Greek economy but to bail out the European banks who were on the verge of bankruptcy if Greece defaulted, as I have argued (and looked at those vaunted numbers yours), then the whole line that this was the only possible way isn't a very convincing one.
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Jun 22, 2016 18:10
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waitwhatno posted:The EU leadership enabled them. The EU leadership made all of this possible. Ftfy. This is the reason the EU leadeship cannot be trusted. They have shown over and over again they are willing to bend or ignore rules whenever it serves their interest best. Even to the point of driving millions of people into poverty and almost bankrupting a nation. And they wonder why the EU has such a bad reputation. If the UK is smart they gtfo. I wish my country would do the same, but our utterly corrupt PM ignores a referendum, does not abide the law and gets away with it.
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Jun 22, 2016 18:13
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Ligur posted:IIRC a few pages ago some US poster asked what other arguments than simply being "anti-foreigner" could someone possibly have against the EU and I've been too busy to post on forums, but it's stuff like this. My argument was more about the Brexit, specifically, not why someone could hate the EU. Lordy, there's a lot of reasons to hate the EU and I'm not denying that. Thing is, instead the Brexit campaign focused on pillow regulations and racism instead of, y'know, all the actual shady poo poo. It makes it less "UK recognizing the EU's corruption and working to extract itself" and more "IMMIGRANTS TOOK ARE JOBS" reactionary bullshit. It's clear they have no actual plan.
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Jun 22, 2016 18:15
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Yinlock posted:Thing is, instead the Brexit campaign focused on pillow regulations and racism instead of, y'know, all the actual shady poo poo. It makes it less "UK recognizing the EU's corruption and working to extract itself" and more "IMMIGRANTS TOOK ARE JOBS" reactionary bullshit. It's clear they have no actual plan. You are complaining that the brexit campaigners are using the same tactics as the EU usually uses (blatant lies)?
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Jun 22, 2016 18:37
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Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right, And Other Childhood Sayings
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Jun 22, 2016 18:41
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Yinlock posted:Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right, And Other Childhood Sayings Fight fire with fire. If you can't beat them, join them. By any means necessary.
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Jun 22, 2016 18:54
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LochNessMonster posted:Fight fire with fire. If your way to destroy the EU's evils is to become an equal evil yourself I think you're defeating your own point.
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Jun 22, 2016 19:30
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Then there is the thing that EU bureaucrats, officials and MEPs often earn like kings, or CEOs in big business. Or at least medium. Often much more than any ministers in any given EU country. 4€/k+ monthly expenses accounts with no receipts required is just a small start to all the free meals involved - and that is just a minor tip they get after everything else. But they are not really accountable to anyone, well MEPs are, sort of, but the 55k bureaucrats are not. (Or is it just 48k?, who knows because the organisation is so "transparent"). LOL SAVE PEACE, THINK OF THE POOR... edit: IIRC a mid-level administrator takes home something like 110k/year/€ after taxes (they have "special taxes") and that was some years ago. No wonder EU staff likes EU... Ligur fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 20:11
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YF-23 posted:If your way to destroy the EU's evils is to become an equal evil yourself I think you're defeating your own point. Telling lies to get out of the greater evil sounds like small price to pay.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:35
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LochNessMonster posted:Telling lies to get out of the greater evil sounds like small price to pay. Establishing rule by fraud and deceit is a h*ck of a Rubicon.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:42
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LochNessMonster posted:Ftfy. It's possible the concept of leaving the EU is, in a vacuum, a perfectly valid choice. But it is not good for the UK at this exact moment. The educated forces (the ones not just screaming because of instinctual racism) behind leave are in this for direct power (Boris will end up PM if leave wins) and deregulation. They will dismantle what is left of worker rights and very likely enter into a terrible deal with the US that removes food standards and further privitises the NHS. Brexit under a benign Labour government, or even a passive minority Conservative one, would be bearable. Under the current situation, a rampant unstable Tory government seeking a lurch to the right and the removal of social safeguards ensured by the EU, it is terrible for everyone other than the rich who won't be affected either way.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:48
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Regarde Aduck posted:It's possible the concept of leaving the EU is, in a vacuum, a perfectly valid choice. But it is not good for the UK at this exact moment. The educated forces (the ones not just screaming because of instinctual racism) behind leave are in this for direct power (Boris will end up PM if leave wins) and deregulation. They will dismantle what is left of worker rights and very likely enter into a terrible deal with the US that removes food standards and further privitises the NHS. Brexit under a benign Labour government, or even a passive minority Conservative one, would be bearable. Under the current situation, a rampant unstable Tory government seeking a lurch to the right and the removal of social safeguards ensured by the EU, it is terrible for everyone other than the rich who won't be affected either way. we must kill the proletariat to save it.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:55
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Regarde Aduck posted:Under the current situation, a rampant unstable Tory government seeking a lurch to the right and the removal of social safeguards ensured by the EU, it is terrible for everyone other than the rich who won't be affected either way. What social safeguards exactly was that? Happy greets, citizens of Greece, Romania and Bulgaria
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Jun 22, 2016 20:56
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Ligur posted:Heh. The argument that not appreciating EU is the same as being a xenophobe or a hitler. That is a well sold one for sure, but doesn't make much sense. laffo at suggesting japan is a well run or successful country the most important part of the EU, and the one UK racists have an issue with, is free movement of people
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Jun 22, 2016 21:02
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for a week or a month but will right themselves. Switzerland and Norway are doing just fine. You can have trade agreements without being in the EU. EFTA works. Germans sell cars to UK, no matter if the UK is in the EU or not. They don't want to gently caress up that business just "out of principle". Look, ya'll who think UK will become an isolated island without EU have been duped. In the world outside of that wierd bubble, commerce still works.
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icantfindaname posted:laffo at suggesting japan is a well run or successful country Japan is fairly successful by that metric though.
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Jun 22, 2016 21:04
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I'm going to move to Britain and live of the dole, get free dental cleanings and spit on the pictures of the Queen, oi, me mate! And there is nothing you can do about it because you are in the EU. Hahaha!
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Jun 22, 2016 21:09
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Brainiac Five posted:Japan is fairly successful by that metric though. japan's problems are caused almost entirely by lack of free immigration
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Jun 22, 2016 21:11
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icantfindaname posted:japan's problems are caused almost entirely by lack of free immigration you say a perpetual underclass and labor shortage are problems... but i support brexit/am a finn and see them as solutions
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Jun 22, 2016 21:13
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Ligur posted:What social safeguards exactly was that? Just for the sake of curiosity, what's the EU supposed to have done to remove social safeguards in Romania and Bulgaria?
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Jun 22, 2016 21:14
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