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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:If you get a bunch of commission for selling loans to an obvious crackhead then I'd say there's a pretty strong expectation of responsibility on your part, and breaking kneecaps and enslaving the crackhead's family isn't so much "discouraging non-payment of loans" as it is a little thing called "loan sharking". Funny to call the government of a sovereign nation a crackhead. You would expect that elected officials of a democratic government are slightly more competent, wouldn't you? Also you forgot the part where the "crackhead" actively and competently falsified financial data in oder to be able to get the money in the first place. But considering that what you are saying is true and the Greek government is as competent in finances as a crackhead, this would be a very strong reason to not give out any money in the first place. And if you do to impose financial responsibility.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:02
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Friendly Tumour posted:Well, the most important thing is that at least the losers are the states who bought up the debts after 2009, and not the poor German and French banks who loaned to Greece in the first place. God forbid if the EU were to send to financial institutions a message that they have to pay the price for poo poo investments. That would have been a total disaster. Now we can be sure they know that if push comes to shove, the state will bail them out and then tell the lazy Greeks to gently caress off when they ask for a few weeks to pay theirs back... Buying up the debt made sense in 2009 when half the Eurozone was on the edge and Greece defaulting would put the whole thing underwater. But now the EU has recovered enough that Greece leaving wouldn't doom Spain or Italy, and the Greeks have so resolutely avoided getting their poo poo together that there's no point in throwing good money after bad.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:03
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WAMPA_STOMPA posted:fun and cool fact: greece has been in default or in a similar crisis for about half the years it has been independent from the ottomans, lol Greece has a primary budget surplus, they've cut something like a third of their social spending over the last 5 years Turns out that's a great way to tank your economy though, which makes for some great creative destruction for wealthy business people Anyways currency unions without fiscal transfers will inevitably lead to a situation like this, it'd be like if Alabama and California were in the same union but there is no federal government to spend money there
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Jun 28, 2015 14:04
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enraged_camel posted:Sorry but I haven't seen any kind of structural, fundamental reforms that will ensure they will not continue down the same path once they're out of this mess. They achieved large internal devaluation and a large primary surplus. What 'structural, fundamental' reforms did you have in mind beyond the demonstrated willingness to undergo extreme pain in the pursuit of your stated objective? A permanent commitment to pursue bad fiscal policy in recessions? Abolition of the Greek government in favour of a German governor?
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Jun 28, 2015 14:04
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Peel posted:Abolition of the Greek government in favour of a German governor? I think that is what they want
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Jun 28, 2015 14:05
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Privatization of every Greek national asset for pennies on the dollar
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Jun 28, 2015 14:06
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enraged_camel posted:Foreign capital was so easily available that every Greek thought life was all rainbows and unicorns. Sever or heavily tax all transatlantic/transpacific capital flows. Europeans have had it too easy for years - they need to spend more on their own national defense.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:07
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Sell off greek population in exchange for debt cancelled. I Think that has been done before!!
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Jun 28, 2015 14:07
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Oh hey I found an article maybe we can read that instead of talking about forcing Greek citizens into poverty and starvation to pay for the mismanagement of their government and EU/German greed rscott posted:Anyways currency unions without fiscal transfers will inevitably lead to a situation like this, it'd be like if Alabama and California were in the same union but there is no federal government to spend money there Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 14:09
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If you're talking about holding Greece responsible for its debt, why then the demand for austerity which has always been a crock of poo poo intended to weaken a nation's sovereignty and crack open that juicy privatisation gold rush? I'd say it's less a Fourth Reich and more a return to the good old days of Rome and Asia Minor, or Britain and India, squeezing every last drop of cash out of it while its people starve.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:12
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Oh hey I found an article maybe we can read that instead of talking about forcing Greek citizens into poverty and starvation to pay for the mismanagement of their government and EU/German greed If only there was some system of governance by which a populace could be responsible for the composition of its government. A 'rule of the people' if you will.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:13
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Jonad posted:If only there was some system of governance by which a populace could be responsible for the composition of its government. A 'rule of the people' if you will. Good news! I've been looking into all the crimes against humanity committed by the government of whatever country you live in, and your name came up as a democratic participant! Please report for sentencing e: Also, if the Greek government was so wildly successful at masking any indication of financial strife or mismanagement from the rest of Europe, how could its citizenry be expected to know more than the professional EU financial assessors with expanded powers of investigation and screening? Was there a Greece-wide conspiracy to defraud the EU the likes of which the world has never seen before and will never see again? Those wily Greeks Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 14:14
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Wipfmetz posted:I know it's a popular opinion, but it's pretty much contributing to the "gently caress that."-attitude which Greece is currently facing. No, we do not jerk it to impoverished greeks, no, we do not want to burn the country to the ground for poo poo & giggles. It's just really hard to gain popular support for continued financial and economical support if you've been one of the last few powers willing and able to lend money, only to be blamed as the New Reich of Europe anyway. Right, and this sanctimonious attitude that German bungling of the Eurozone and the destruction it has caused is something the suffering should be grateful for isn't doing Germany any favours either. Germany has the power of the purse strings right now within the context of the Eurozone system which it was central in setting up, is central in running, and has benefited a great deal from.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:17
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Good news! I've been looking into all the crimes against humanity committed by the government of whatever country you live in, and your name came up as a democratic participant! Please report for sentencing The greek people elected ridiculously corrupt and incompetent governments into office for decades, over and over again, and the current situation is the direct result of those decisions.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:19
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Jonad posted:The greek people elected ridiculously corrupt and incompetent governments into office for decades, over and over again, and the current situation is the direct result of those decisions. The current situation is also the direct result of EU mismanagement. There are two bodies with prime responsiblity for the particularly bad situation in Greece: Greek governments (particularly prior to 2010), and the EU (particularly since 2010). The Greek half of this equation has been savagely punished - thrown out of government, their parties consigned to opposition if not destroyed entirely. What of the EU?
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Jun 28, 2015 14:24
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People seem to be under the impression that Germany is somehow benefitting from the situation in Greece, which is totally wrong. Germany as well as all other EU countries are losing money.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:25
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Jonad posted:The greek people elected ridiculously corrupt and incompetent governments into office for decades, over and over again, and the current situation is the direct result of those decisions. Again, you're applying a singular agency to a collection of millions of Greeks over decades that is greater than the agency you're applying to a small group of educated highly-qualified professionals whose entire job is to assess markets for these types of risks. And if the Greek citizenry is so capable of recognising and explicitly endorsing (as one) "ridiculously corrupt and incompetent governments", why then did the EU still invest so heavily in Greece? Or is there some magical font of knowledge to the greeks and obfuscation for non-greeks that allowed this terrible tragedy to befall an innocent Europe? Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 14:25
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Peel posted:The current situation is also the direct result of EU mismanagement. Yes, things will not be right until all of Europe is suffering terribly.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:25
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it's validly argued, I think, that sovereign and democratic institutions should not have the ability to issue debt that binds future governments to repayment, any more than they can issue legislation that binds future governments to commitments nonetheless that's wild political theorization that doesn't really help Greece in the here and now
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Jun 28, 2015 14:26
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demonicon posted:People seem to be under the impression that Germany is somehow benefitting from the situation in Greece, which is totally wrong. Germany as well as all other EU countries are losing money. No, you're either mistakenly or deliberately misusing tenses there. Benefitting is current tense. People are using the past tense. There are plenty of examples of human groups greedily over-exploiting a resource for short-term gains that would inevitably result in long-term pain. The key is in not being the guy steering the ship when the storm turns.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:26
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ronya posted:it's validly argued, I think, that sovereign and democratic institutions should not have the ability to issue debt that binds future governments to repayment, any more than they can issue legislation that binds future governments to commitments I'm not sure if you're being serious but this is absurd. How would agreements work if they could only be bound to the shortest possible time of assured existence and power of both parties? But you do need to account for the fact that certain anomalies occur in government and readjustments will be made afterwards. E.g. if a dictator takes power and sells the entire population into slavery before getting deposed, you can't expect people to honour that sale after the fact. There are scales.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:29
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:No, you're either mistakenly or deliberately misusing tenses there. Benefitting is current tense. People are using the past tense. Okay the Greek economy is so small that it doesn't matter for a country like Germany or France enough to make a noticeable difference no matter how it turns out. No one has benefitted or is benefitting from the financial crisis in Greece. No one is losing (much) money in the other EU countries if the Greek economy tanks even further. There is no conspiracy of any sort to somehow exploit Greece.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:31
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Peel posted:Right, and this sanctimonious attitude that German bungling of the Eurozone and the destruction it has caused is something the suffering should be grateful for isn't doing Germany any favours either. Sulla-Marius 88 posted:And if the Greek citizenry is so capable of recognising and explicitly endorsing (as one) "ridiculously corrupt and incompetent governments", why then did the EU still invest so heavily in Greece? Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 14:32
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ronya posted:any more than they can issue legislation that binds future governments to commitments Most governments can do that though?
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Jun 28, 2015 14:32
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demonicon posted:People seem to be under the impression that Germany is somehow benefitting from the situation in Greece, which is totally wrong. Germany as well as all other EU countries are losing money. I actually agree, that's why this is so absurd - Germany could be getting some of its money back already if they would only let Greece start making some, and the EU in general would be doing much better if not for the whole austerian project. What Germany does do though is benefit from the Euro in general, and this current situation is a natural result of the Euro as currently constituted. And German politicians are benefiting from this in relative terms, since sanctimony plays better than responsibility domestically.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:33
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demonicon posted:Okay the Greek economy is so small that it doesn't matter for a country like Germany or France enough to make a noticeable difference no matter how it turns out. No one has benefitted or is benefitting from the financial crisis in Greece. No one is losing (much) money in the other EU countries if the Greek economy tanks even further. There is no conspiracy of any sort to somehow exploit Greece. Not according to Nobel-prize winning economists. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102367704 The intent was not to tank Greece, but the creation of the Euro and the manner in which it was created was definitely to the benefit of Germany and to the detriment of countries like Greece. Mismanagement along the way was both Greece's and Germany's, because they were making far too much money off the situation to consider reining in the rampant unassessed investment.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:37
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The question about the responsibility for debt is a pretty good one tbh, like consider a dictator who borrows money to pay for palaces and is then overthrown - who, if anyone, pays back those loans? We tend to treat debt as inherently moral but in that case I'd have no moral problem with telling the people who made the loans to take a hike. The only problems are practical, and unfortunately significant. However, I don't think it's germane to Greece, as Ronya said. They had a properly constituted democratic government that made those decisions.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:39
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/germany-profiting-from-euro-crisis-through-low-interest-rates-a-917296.htmlquote:Germany is profiting from the debt crisis by saving billions of euros in interest on its government debt, which has enjoyed a steep drop in yields due to strong demand from investors seeking a safe haven. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/business/global/23charts.html quote:THE euro has been very, very good for Germany. Other members of the zone have not fared as well.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:41
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:The intent was not to tank Greece, but the creation of the Euro and the manner in which it was created was definitely to the benefit of Germany and to the detriment of countries like Greece.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:44
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Peel posted:I actually agree, that's why this is so absurd - Germany could be getting some of its money back already if they would only let Greece start making some, and the EU in general would be doing much better if not for the whole austerian project. I agree that the way the creditors handled the situation as well as the reforms that were demanded could have been a lot better. But I don't think that there was ever some magical plan possible that could have saved Greece without their economy shrinking. The Greek economy as well as government and social services were kept on an artificially high level and fueled by the free money that Greek was getting for decades. After that ran out the following correction was inevitable. As for Germany benefitting from the Euro, this is obviously true. What isn't true is that Germany was central in forming the eurozone. Germany didn't even have a saying in that but was basically forced into it because Germany adopting the euro was demanded by France in order for their agreement to the reunification of germany. Of course now Germany is benefitting from the euro being a lot weaker than the dm would be. I don't buy that the mere existence of the euro made the financial crisis in Greece inevitable though.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:46
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Wipfmetz posted:While we do benefit from the euro nowadays, it wasn't created to enforce some german hegemony. Mitterand connected his support of the reunion with Germany's support of a new european currency. Oh I wasn't trying to call it another attempt at Empire. Just pointing out that the nature in which the Euro came about definitely benefited some countries and disadvantaged some others, and there's a very strong tendency to not question things that are going well - so Germany making a whole bunch of cash off economic disparity in the EU is not something likely to invite questions of sustainability or encourage reviews of the system as a whole. It's not like Greece and Spain and Portugal and Italy and Ireland were sitting there taking blank cheques from countries doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:47
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Oh I wasn't trying to call it another attempt at Empire. Just pointing out that the nature in which the Euro came about definitely benefited some countries and disadvantaged some others, and there's a very strong tendency to not question things that are going well - so Germany making a whole bunch of cash off economic disparity in the EU is not something likely to invite questions of sustainability or encourage reviews of the system as a whole. It's not like Greece and Spain and Portugal and Italy and Ireland were sitting there taking blank cheques from countries doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:49
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Responsibility for the debt is one question which is murky and difficult to answer. Nobody's hands are clean in this. Another question that people have kind of stopped talking about is what the best way to proceed from here is. Does the EU swallow the debt (or rather, hold off on debt repayments) and try to encourage fiscal/economic reform in Greece so that they are in a position to start paying it back? Does it just squeeze and hope that enough blood drips out of that stone to justify the loss of an entire country? What value is there in making an 'example' of Greece in order to discourage other debtors from agitating for looser repayment plans? What value does austerity have in this discussion? (I can answer that one though: sweet gently caress all)
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Jun 28, 2015 14:52
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Not according to Nobel-prize winning economists. Did you even read your own article? The Nobel prize winning economist is saying that Germany is benefitting from the euro more than other countries, that is something Noone here disagrees with. Whether Greece uses the euro or the drachma doesn't make any sort of difference here because it's economy is too small. Germany would be benefitting just as much from the euro is Greece wasn't a member.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:54
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demonicon posted:Did you even read your own article? The Nobel prize winning economist is saying that Germany is benefitting from the euro more than other countries, that is something Noone here disagrees with. Are you reading the posts? Germany is benefiting from an economic arrangement that greatly disadvantages certain countries, including Greece. Germany wasn't going out of its way to destroy Greece but they were more than happy to benefit from the system that helped put Greece in the hole. I feel like you're trying to strawman my argument down to "Germany set out to deliberately bankrupt Greece because it hates Greece" and anything I say that disabuses you of that notion gets ignored.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:56
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demonicon posted:I don't buy that the mere existence of the euro made the financial crisis in Greece inevitable though. Mere existence no, in that it could have been organised differently, but the way it worked as a neo gold standard meant the Mediterranean crisis was more or less inevitable, because there wasn't a guarantee of the integrity of the national debts. Greece is just a particularly extreme version since they were actually profligate even before the financial crisis hit.
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Jun 28, 2015 14:59
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:Are you reading the posts? Germany is benefiting from an economic arrangement that greatly disadvantages certain countries, including Greece. Germany wasn't going out of its way to destroy Greece but they were more than happy to benefit from the system that helped put Greece in the hole. It just looks to me that you are trying to establish some flawed cause and effect argument here. Basically you are saying that Germany is benefitting from the euro, therefore it must be responsible for how the eurozone is set up and therefore Germany is not only to blame if other countries don't benefit as much from the euro but also under the obligation to fix the economy of the members of the eurozone who aren't doing as good. I disagree with all of that.
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Jun 28, 2015 15:04
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I'm not sure if you're being serious but this is absurd. How would agreements work if they could only be bound to the shortest possible time of assured existence and power of both parties? But you do need to account for the fact that certain anomalies occur in government and readjustments will be made afterwards. E.g. if a dictator takes power and sells the entire population into slavery before getting deposed, you can't expect people to honour that sale after the fact. There are scales. They won't! They would have to be structured in the acknowledgement that a new government will have to choose to recognize the legitimacy of the previous government. Which is, in practice, the case. This would shift the burden of legitimizing commitments from international agreements to the local elites that most benefit from mutual international agreements, though. OwlFancier posted:Most governments can do that though? In theory. This is an area of international law that bumps up against realpolitik quite fast.
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Jun 28, 2015 15:06
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Greece is the word.
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Jun 28, 2015 15:08
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demonicon posted:It just looks to me that you are trying to establish some flawed cause and effect argument here. Basically you are saying that Germany is benefitting from the euro, therefore it must be responsible for how the eurozone is set up and therefore Germany is not only to blame if other countries don't benefit as much from the euro but also under the obligation to fix the economy of the members of the eurozone who aren't doing as good. I disagree with all of that. Like seriously
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Jun 28, 2015 15:09
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