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Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

syriza.net.gr

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Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#151

Post by peterfirefly »

nhaehnle wrote: post #103
john_b wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "forced depression" Nothing about Greece's current situation was forced on them. Sure, lots of politicking went on and the current situation was definitely engineered to benefit others, but Greece was effectively bankrupt and in default prior to the bailout. You just can't tolerate the level of corruption [1], tax avoidance, and union greed that Greece tolerated for so long. A normal sovereign default would have be…

> Nothing about Greece's current situation was forced on them. What would you call the fact that the Troika has forced the Greek government to implement brutal and deadly austerity measures? I mean, sure, technically Greece could have avoided this. If they had left the Eurozone in 2009 or 2010, they would now be in a much stronger position (after a brutal but short period of even more chaos). But that wouldn't have m…

Fire some of the public servants. In fact, change the constitution to make that possible without passing laws for each and every case. That's the absolute minimum required for it be called "brutal", "deadly", and "austerity".

What is the cost of the Greek railways per passenger kilometer again compared to paying for similar cab rides?

What does the Greek constitution say about firing public servants? How early can they retire, still, after the "austerity"?

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#152

Post by atmosx »

throwaway800 wrote: post #139
pvaldes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only 3 possible bad outcomes 4. All south European people stop buying german products until the end of the actual bullying. This is a no-no win for all. The fact that the german people are not the same as the german government can not be ignored. Germans are suffering also this trap, carefully placed by a few. People at the South were increasedly thinging that a percentage of the debt is simply faked by banksters a…

4b. Northern Europeans stop visiting and spending money in Athens, Rome, Algarve, Canary Islands, and buying Mediterranean produce until the end of Northern-sponsored dolce vita. This cuts both ways, and the ultimate end is economic war and possibly real war.

The Irish and the British are Northern Europeans? Because I'm not getting the feeling the majority in either of these countries would like to join the Germans (in any kind of game...).

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#153

Post by peterfirefly »

quonn wrote: post #57
3pt14159 wrote: post #8

Sure. I agree that (morally) the EU shouldn't have bailed out Greece. Greece cooked its books and Greek debt holders at the time of the bail out were suffering the consequences of lending to a fiscally irresponsible state. That being said, the world was uncertain as to how much economic damage had yet to be done, and by shoring up Greece it assuaged investor confidence across the western world. Personally I think tha…

> populist clowns Calling a dissenting party clowns is not helpful. It's also wrong, since they argue their points well and their economics are backed by such people as Paul Krugman. Now you might disagree with him, but would you call him a clown, too?

It's perfectly correct in this case.

And calling something "austerity" when the public sector is so big that it clearly is anything but is /certainly/ not helpful.

PS: Yes, Krugman is a clown, too.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#154

Post by macns »

Eleutheria wrote: post #140
panarky wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do news reports keep saying that Greece got bailed out? Let's say you lend $100,000 to my startup. I have to pay you $10,000 a year until the loan is paid off. I hire a thief as a CEO who gives the $100,000 to his friends and family, and my startup has nothing to show for it. Now my startup is bankrupt. I'm working as a waiter in a restaurant to pay the rent. I can't make my annual payments to you, much less pay…

Then you hire a new CEO who writes emotional letters to the creditors so he can steal more money from new credits. While you keep working your ass off washing dishes and prostituting your children.

But he already said he doesn't want more money.

The latest, 7 billion euro loan was declined by Greece. It's all over the news

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#155

Post by x0x0 »

jahewson wrote: post #78
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no. The fundamental problem is that Germany has been treating the rest of the EU as an expedient export market while refusing to allow equivalent imports, and at the same time aggressively insisting that countries in the EU should somehow magically not need debt... to continue buying from Germany. There's also the minor point that this is yet another excuse to indulge the usual neoliberal hatred of social spend…

Your statement about Germnay refusing to allow imports is manifestly false. The EU is a free trade area and its member states are not permitted to engage in such activities. The EU has its own courts to enforce such rules. It's certainly true that Germany is a net exporter: this is because of their ability and competitiveness in engineering and technology, combined with the fact that Germans are not big consumers and…

Europe doesn't have neoliberals? How else do you explain post 1990 economic policy?

TheOtherHobbes isn't discussing rules or laws, but merely the current and recent economic structure. Germany net exports. Therefore, without floating currencies, only one thing may occur: someone must borrow money. You write about this -- "a country with a long history of ignoring debt" -- as if it were a moral claim, rather than an accounting identity.

Where Greece not in a currency union, they could have gradually restructured, as drachmas depreciated against foreign currency, or they were forced to borrow in a foreign currency. Their problem is that the EU is set up, by design, to actively fuck less productive southern states. States, whether states in a union or independent states, either need their own currency in order to accommodate differing productivity levels, or high productivity net exporters must accept permanent subsidization (as northern / coastal states do for the American south) of less productive states.

The simple fact of the matter is that the ECB has long acted in a way that favors Germany while the German government has carefully avoided explaining to Germany the consequences of running an export economy inside a currency union. Now that they have had 20+ years of economic success as the outcome of the union, they wish to duck the consequences.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#156

Post by atmosx »

randomname2 wrote: post #5

Tsipras' spoken english is very limited, it is unlikely he wrote this himself.

Hm, we had a PM (Papandreou) who spoke very good English indeed. He didn't know how to speak Greek properly though and to tel you the truth, it bothered me a lot.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#157

Post by atmosx »

jedp wrote: post #45
wnevets wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im sure they also speak English quite well.

Indeed they do (and far better than most English-speakers speak any foreign language). My point was that this has been professionally translated from Greek into many languages, beginning with German on January 13 (paywall, sadly). So there is no point in criticising the English of the original Greek author or authors.

Hm, not the feeling I got. Scandinavian countries (and Cypriots but that's a special case) are way more fluent in English with a way better accent (better == clearer) than Germans I've met. And I've met a lot of both actually.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#158

Post by lithander »

teamhappy wrote: post #59

Most of you, dear Handesblatt readers, will have formed a preconception of what this article is about before you actually read it. [...] Prejudice was never a good guide, [...] How does he not hear himself? Also, "Handelsblatt" is missing a letter. Anyway ... I reject the premise of his letter. He seems to think the purpose of the money was to help the greek people, and offers a more productive way of doing so. That'…

You're cynical. The tone of the open letter is nothing compared to the tone of your comment. If you truely believe that we Europeans aren't living in a democracy anymore and that politics shouldn't be about the peoples wellbeing in the first place then stop worrying about PEGIDA or Dschungelcamp and do something about that. You stance of "this is how the world works and I'm lucky to be on the winning team" is both short sighted and highly egoistic. I would be ashamed if many of our "fellow germans" would agree with your point of view.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#159

Post by peterfirefly »

smacktoward wrote: post #113
teamhappy wrote: post #59

Most of you, dear Handesblatt readers, will have formed a preconception of what this article is about before you actually read it. [...] Prejudice was never a good guide, [...] How does he not hear himself? Also, "Handelsblatt" is missing a letter. Anyway ... I reject the premise of his letter. He seems to think the purpose of the money was to help the greek people, and offers a more productive way of doing so. That'…

> Germany is one of the riches countries on this planet. We will do almost anything to keep it that way. If the only practical effect of European union will be to enrich Germany at the expense of its neighbors, European union will fail, and rightly so. > I appreciate that he needs to sell his own agency to his people, but if he actually believes he can control the fate of his country even so slightly, I'm afraid he's…

If you really mean "the last two times" and not "the last time", you should probably read some history books that were not meant for school children.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#160

Post by johnchristopher »

macns wrote: post #154
Eleutheria wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you hire a new CEO who writes emotional letters to the creditors so he can steal more money from new credits. While you keep working your ass off washing dishes and prostituting your children.

But he already said he doesn't want more money. The latest, 7 billion euro loan was declined by Greece. It's all over the news

Now that's interesting because the French newspapers didn't mention it at all.

I wish we had a European press.

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