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To the surprise of no one the whole Greek-"help" scheme was a great deal for Germany and Austria. 1.34 billion and 240 million respectively for the state directly.
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Jul 12, 2017 16:50
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I am quite frankly shocked. I thought forum poster Gaussiancupola had told us all in detail of the generosity of the German state and Mr Schäuble in particular, and the huge sacrifices Germany has made in helping the profligate Greek people overcome their massive state debts (by loaning to them at very competetive rates) Surely this is all libelous fake news and will be debunked in detail shortly.
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Jul 12, 2017 17:06
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Decius posted:To the surprise of no one the whole Greek-"help" scheme was a great deal for Germany and Austria. 1.34 billion and 240 million respectively for the state directly. Pluskut Tukker posted:Well sure, but you could have thrown this accusation too at the 17th-century Dutchmen spending their life savings on tulip bulbs or the 18th-century Englishmen and Frenchmen getting caught up in the South Sea Company bubble or the schemes of John Law . Or, more recently, most of the population of Albania falling for pyramid schemes in the 1990s, or the dot.com bubble of that time. And, of course, the 2000s housing bubble, or any of the other crises documented for instance by Reinhart & Rogoff for the last 800 years. People are persistently stupid with money, no matter their level of education. That's essentially an unfixable problem, so it's of very limited use to blame them. By now, it should also be clear that it's an entirely foreseeable problem. Give enough people access to cheap credit, and the consequences will inevitably be disastrous. Sure, I know it's a part of human nature, but it doesn't just hold for financial things. People make mistakes / have limited information all the time. In my opinion, just because it's part of human nature doesn't absolve people of the responsibility for their choices. Examples of this would include my favorite example of overeating, which has very real real consequences as well. Just because junk food is cheap and easily available doesn't mean that any individual has to eat it, even though we can predict that a lot of people will eat it. As for the consequences to the financial industry: I think the people engaged in outright fraud etc. should have been punished harder, but when people call for "bankers" to suffer they seem to think that this means every single investment banker or trader that had absolutely nothing to do with mortgages should suffer (more than they did for example through job losses).
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Jul 12, 2017 19:03
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Do you think junk food and the negative societal consequences of the overeating thereof ought to lead to some kind of governmental action to protect people from themselves and protect society from those entirely foreseeable negative consequences?
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Jul 12, 2017 19:14
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Time for you to learn the difference between cash flows and profit. Germany owns e70bn of Greek government bonds with interest rates far below what Greece would pay on the market. If you compare what Germany could do with that money vs what it's doing now, it's making a huge economic loss, even if the bonds are repaid in full. Which has zero bearing on the argument that the whole thing was a pretty good deal for Germany. Just because you could theroretically make even more money somewhere else, doesn't make the money you just made any less real. With your whole posts here one could think you are the main stockholder of Deutsche Bank in the first place, considering how feverently you defend the capitalist mistakes since 2005 with faux naive questions. Decius fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jul 13, 2017 |
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Jul 13, 2017 04:43
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Time for you to learn the difference between cash flows and profit. Germany owns e70bn of Greek government bonds with interest rates far below what Greece would pay on the market. The rates are indeed very competetive and reasonable and Greece getting a *great* deal. Huge profits for Greece. MAGA
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Jul 13, 2017 05:10
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lollontee posted:The rates are indeed very competetive and reasonable and Greece getting a *great* deal. Huge profits for Greece. MAGA Shouldn't that be MGGA?
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Jul 13, 2017 08:13
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Maybe we should wait until all the loans that Germany (through intermediaries like the ESM) extended to Greece are repaid before calculating the profit Germany made on them. Additionally it should be noted that the biggest share of those profits (the SMP profits) would have been returned to Greece if they hadn't quit the 2nd bailout agreement in a hissyfit. I guess on that account Varoufakis made 1billion Euro for the German taxpayer.
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Jul 13, 2017 08:29
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Germany will heroically deman the full repayment of all outstanding bonds before accepting any interest payments as being in fact, money. How lucky is Greece that it is blessed with such a creditor to be indebted to. The Greek people must be ever grateful to know that the interest they pay from their faxes in Euros, through the SWIFT bank trsnfer system from their accounts to the ECB and on to Germany, is in fact non-profit. They are non-profit euros, a new miraculous kind of Euro that is differentiated from regular old Euros by its recipient Germany, thus absolving the German people and government from any moral obligations.
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Jul 13, 2017 08:54
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Time for you to learn the difference between cash flows and profit. Germany owns e70bn of Greek government bonds with interest rates far below what Greece would pay on the market. If you compare what Germany could do with that money vs what it's doing now, it's making a huge economic loss, even if the bonds are repaid in full. time for you to learn that you have to actually pay for a riskless investment, and Germany and Austria got actally money out of theirs! they couldn't even come close to be doing the same thing with that money on the open market!
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Jul 13, 2017 10:20
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Inescapable Duck posted:Shouldn't that be MGGA? Make Aegean nation great again!
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Jul 13, 2017 11:14
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The last time Greece was actually good was when they were ancient
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Jul 13, 2017 19:23
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:The last time Greece was actually good was when they were ancient But when you think about it, don't they get more ancient as time passes?
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Jul 13, 2017 22:32
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Ahahaha holy poo poo, I got a good story for you As you know, the European Medicines Agency is going to move out of the UK due to Brexit. As such, countries send their proposals of cities for establishing it. Portugal was automatically gonna send Lisbon, because we're just assholes like that, everything goes to Lisbon, nothing to anywhere else. People from Porto rightfully protested, and the government decided to withdraw the Lisbon application completely and submit only Porto. This was always, as far as anyone knew, a fait diver, since no one ever thought the EMA was going to come to Portugal. Turns out an internal survey of the EMA employees showed that the majority chose Lisbon a a destination. Heh. Tough luck, dudes!
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Jul 14, 2017 10:14
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orange sky posted:Turns out an internal survey of the EMA employees showed that the majority chose Lisbon a a destination. Heh. Tough luck, dudes! lol if you believe the opinion of the EMA employees has any relevance in this situation and it's not going to be a deal in the Council that decides where the EMA goes.
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Jul 14, 2017 10:36
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GaussianCopula posted:lol if you believe the opinion of the EMA employees has any relevance in this situation and it's not going to be a deal in the Council that decides where the EMA goes. I mean yeah, I know it doesn't, but it's funny nonetheless
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Jul 14, 2017 10:43
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:The last time Greece was actually good was when they were ancient The Byzantine Empire was great even in the medieval period.
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Jul 14, 2017 12:47
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Torrannor posted:The Byzantine Empire was great even in the medieval period. The only reason people have a rosy eyed view of Byzantium is that they can't bring themselves to admit that the caliphate was superior in every way. Hell, by the time of the Crusades, Sicily was probably a better place to be.
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Jul 14, 2017 12:54
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Torrannor posted:The Byzantine Empire was great even in the medieval period. Sorry but no - Greece basically stopped being relevant after they got conquered by Macedonia.
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Jul 14, 2017 12:55
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Torrannor posted:The Byzantine Empire was great even in the medieval period.
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Jul 14, 2017 12:57
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GaussianCopula posted:Maybe we should wait until all the loans that Germany (through intermediaries like the ESM) extended to Greece are repaid before calculating the profit Germany made on them. Additionally it should be noted that the biggest share of those profits (the SMP profits) would have been returned to Greece if they hadn't quit the 2nd bailout agreement in a hissyfit.
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Jul 14, 2017 13:00
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SA_Avenger posted:Didn't Germany also forced greek government to privatise a lot which benefited the Germany private world immensely? They valiantly took upon themselves the risk of bringing the glories of more capitalism to Greece and should therefore be allowed to reap their rewards.
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Jul 14, 2017 13:02
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SA_Avenger posted:Didn't Germany also forced greek government to privatise a lot which benefited the Germany private world immensely? If you consider leasing 14 regional airports, that require a shitload of investment, after an open bidding process, something that benefits the German private world (which is not private because Fraport is mostly state-owned) immensely, then yes. But I would disagree.
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Jul 14, 2017 13:06
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orange sky posted:
I assume EMA employees get paid the same regardless of where they get located? If so Lisbon being their preference doesn't really surprise me. Portugal is a lot cheaper than a lot of Europe, the weather is nice, and there is a good amount of culture and things to do. If I could take my US salary and live in Lisbon I'd do it in a heartbeat.
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Jul 14, 2017 14:02
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A Buttery Pastry posted:When it was great it wasn't Greek, but Latin speaking Roman. Then, almost immediately after making Greek the official language of the empire, they got their asses kicked and started on their long decline into nothingness. Look at all these wrong words in a row.
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Jul 14, 2017 14:51
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9-Volt Assault posted:Look at all these wrong words in a row. Byzantium had to ask the pope to do the crusades because between normans and turks they were getting their teeth kicked in.
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Jul 14, 2017 15:05
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Agnosticnixie posted:Byzantium had to ask the pope to do the crusades because between normans and turks they were getting their teeth kicked in. That was five hundred years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire; there was a lot of the Eastern Empire going up and down and up again in the meantime.
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Jul 14, 2017 15:25
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lost in postation posted:That was five hundred years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire; there was a lot of the Eastern Empire going up and down and up again in the meantime. None of which was particularly glorious but them again I'm an iconoclast contrarian who thinks Rome was an evil empire.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:04
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GEMorris posted:I assume EMA employees get paid the same regardless of where they get located? If so Lisbon being their preference doesn't really surprise me. Portugal is a lot cheaper than a lot of Europe, the weather is nice, and there is a good amount of culture and things to do. There's a salary adjustment but I suppose it's not brutal. I think the lack of terrorist attacks also pushes a lot of people to Lisbon, even tourists (we had a YoY increase of 7% in tourism in May, and it only looks like it's increasing even more). It's hip right now, we gotta make the best of it 
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Jul 14, 2017 16:12
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How well can you live there on English only, with no Portuguese language skills at all?
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Jul 14, 2017 16:20
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BabyFur Denny posted:How well can you live there on English only, with no Portuguese language skills at all? No actual Portuguese people live in Lisbon, so you don't need to speak the local dialect.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:28
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Agnosticnixie posted:None of which was particularly glorious but them again I'm an iconoclast contrarian who thinks Rome was an evil empire. Sure, but calling the history of a political structure that existed for more than a thousand years a "long decline" seems a bit myopic for people living in comparably super young states.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:36
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lost in postation posted:Sure, but calling the history of a political structure that existed for more than a thousand years a "long decline" seems a bit myopic for people living in comparably super young states.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:46
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Lisbon's getting a lot of location independent tech workers moving there these days for similar reasons. Good weather, safe, nice city, very cheap by Western European standards. Its going to be very hip within 3-5 years I'd say.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:47
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lost in postation posted:Sure, but calling the history of a political structure that existed for more than a thousand years a "long decline" seems a bit myopic for people living in comparably super young states. And like half of that history was either decline or a collection of petty states claiming to be the real deal.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:50
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Blut posted:Lisbon's getting a lot of location independent tech workers moving there these days for similar reasons. Good weather, safe, nice city, very cheap by Western European standards. Its going to be very hip within 3-5 years I'd say. Lisbon is amazing, but when "a lot of tech workers" arrive, "hip" is already over.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:56
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orange sky posted:There's a salary adjustment but I suppose it's not brutal. I think the lack of terrorist attacks also pushes a lot of people to Lisbon, even tourists (we had a YoY increase of 7% in tourism in May, and it only looks like it's increasing even more). It's hip right now, we gotta make the best of it Terrorist attacks, seriously? Do people consider this when moving now? Your chance of being killed by lightning is probably roughly in the same range as terrorist attacks
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Jul 14, 2017 17:25
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Terrorist attacks, seriously? Do people consider this when moving now? Its not just the likelihood of actually dying in a terror attack. Its the other damage a city suffers from them: people are more on edge, armed police are everywhere, police are more likely to shoot first, ask questions later, lengthy security theatre on public transport... etc. London is only going to get more and more unpleasant to live in if terror attacks keep happening, even if the likelihood of dying in one remains low.
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Jul 14, 2017 17:33
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Agnosticnixie posted:None of which was particularly glorious but them again I'm an iconoclast contrarian who thinks Rome was an evil empire. "evil empire" is a pleonasm.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:16
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I thought I read somewhere Portugal ran out of money
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Jul 14, 2017 19:52
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