161–170 of 209 posts
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Germany is not the same thing as Nazi Germany.
Germany is the direct descendant of Nazi Germany, just like Russia is the direct descendant of USSR.
Is the same oversimplification as to say that Greek people is the same thing as Goldman Sachs plus a few corrupts in Greece.
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So we just ignore the fact that the Greek government misrepresented their economic state, failed to implement the necessary changes and then puts up a completely bogus referendum?
failed to implement the necessary changes Greek here. This is an understatement. While I’ve mentioned in other posts that our economy is faulty, arguing that we didn’t do anything to fix it is awfully wrong. We did a lot. We managed to move from a 14% deficit to a 1% surplus in just four years. Four. Fucking. Years. No other country in the developed world has done such a feat in such a short time. The effect of that…
Far better one that turned up in my G+ feed a few days back: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/anil.kashyap/research/papers... "A Primer on the Greek Crisis: the things you need to know from the start until now", Anil Kashyap, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, June 29th, 2015 1) How did Greece get into such trouble?... To accompany that: "Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its Tru…
G+ feed? Are you a google employee?
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If the creditor is a bank, they're also creating money when they loan it out. Who is being robbed again? In theory, it's either the shareholders, boldholders, or the broader citizenry that carry the risk in the banking system. So far Europe's governments have hung the risk on its citizens because either the banking system is too fragile to handle large defaults, or they want to preserve their bond holder and sharehol…
There is one difference. When you have a government, it indebts people, who do not necessarily agree or understand the terms and the consequences. You cannot reasonably argue that because 50% voted for that government, 100% should face the consequences.
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Not an expert, but the popular culture some EU countries is that the greek and spanish work less than people from NW Europe. Personally I think this is highly subjective though.
Not working less hours, but much less "productive" in an economic sense. See US Patent statistics: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_utl.htm Even in the boom years of 1999-2008, Greece had like 20 patents / year, while Austria or Finland have 600-900, despite having a smaller population.
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failed to implement the necessary changes Greek here. This is an understatement. While I’ve mentioned in other posts that our economy is faulty, arguing that we didn’t do anything to fix it is awfully wrong. We did a lot. We managed to move from a 14% deficit to a 1% surplus in just four years. Four. Fucking. Years. No other country in the developed world has done such a feat in such a short time. The effect of that…
I actually sympathize with the Tsipras guy. He took on an impossible job and in my opinion he is actually making the best of it. You see, Greece has to default. We all know that. All that is needed now, is a sufficient number of face-saving gestures that will allow everybody to come out of this heads up high. Angela Merkel is grumbling and fumbling in the back, but she can be talked in to accepting a new deal, on the…
Please tell me you were making a joke.
Trying to collect WW2 "debt" from Germany? Using "insulted dignity" as an argument in financial negotiations? Deliberately setting up the referendum after the deadline and then "pleading" for extension? Really? He is pulling all the stops, granted, but they are nothing short of sleazy and obnoxious. If EU are to cave in, it would basically mean that EU is susceptible to blatant manipulation. So they won't.
The only way out of this mess is for the referendum to resolve with Yes, for Tsipras to step down and his replacement to agree to whatever the last EU proposal was. Tsipras tried the unorthodox approach and it didn't work, not much left he can do now but to leave.
"They had knowingly and purposefully brought weak states into the Eurozone, because they genuinely, even nobly, wished to build a large, strong, United Europe." For folks who know Europe/Europeans well, is this true?
Absolutely. The pro-European movement that's been going on for many many decades has as an ultimate goal to unite the peoples of Europe so we can live in peace. United in diversity, as the EU motto claims. A great % of Europeans you met before 2008 would agree with this. There's now —sadly— little left going around of the "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" that our shared anthem sings (all men become brothers under the ge…
Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream Controversy section
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I actually sympathize with the Tsipras guy. He took on an impossible job and in my opinion he is actually making the best of it. You see, Greece has to default. We all know that. All that is needed now, is a sufficient number of face-saving gestures that will allow everybody to come out of this heads up high. Angela Merkel is grumbling and fumbling in the back, but she can be talked in to accepting a new deal, on the…
> he is actually making the best of it Please tell me you were making a joke. Trying to collect WW2 "debt" from Germany? Using "insulted dignity" as an argument in financial negotiations? Deliberately setting up the referendum after the deadline and then "pleading" for extension? Really? He is pulling all the stops, granted, but they are nothing short of sleazy and obnoxious. If EU are to cave in, it would basically…
The second debt relates to an official loan that Hitler took in gold from our central bank. It is documented and is considered a state loan. We have every fucking right to claim it. It is somewhere between 8 and 12 billion Euros by today standards.
By the way, back in 1954 the Greek government agreed to write off a big part of the German debt owed to us [1]. Those are state loans completely independent to war reparations. So while we did it for them they deny it to us. And we did it while our economy was in a far worse state than German economy is today.
The problem we have with Germans is that they’re ungrateful pricks.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Agreement_on_German_Ext...
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The EU was never to be a transfer union, this setup was required to get the large economic countries to accept the weaker countries being admitted. National pride would mean political suicide for any leaders who suggest sending money out in the form of welfare. While I am quite willing to lambast the banks in the states for the mess they got into I am not so willing to do so with regards to their lending to Greece. S…
>The EU was never to be a transfer union, this setup was required to get the large economic countries to accept the weaker countries being admitted. Not compensating economically weaker countries in a currency union is completely unjust and immoral. Weaker countries give up the ability to control exchange rates. And they have to deal with trading in stronger currency than they would if they were going it alone. This…
There are no "previous Greek politicians": Greece is a sovereign state that elects its own leadership. That sovereignity comes with responsibility, too. So, in the end, people should think more when voting, not blame others...
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Greeks have one of the higher average retirement ages in Europe: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/expl... 61.7 for Greece, 60.9 is the EU average.
Not quite. Check out the quotes from the Greek labor minister in the following article. The situation is much worse than it seems. http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...