Greece • Hacker News Board

Re: Greece

#181

Post by peterfirefly » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:19 PM UTC

the_why_of_y wrote: post #178

jboydyhacker wrote: post #72

How do you call this an analysis? This is pretty blatant political polemic. It isn't an "analysis" but a rant. The Greeks lied about their financial condition in an effort to support a pension system that lets people retire far earlier than the rest of Europe. Bring the pension system and other spending in line in exchange for some haircuts on the debt- that's the fair answer. Not this crud about how the other Europe…

> The Greeks lied about their financial condition in an effort to support a pension system that lets people retire far earlier than the rest of Europe. This is incorrect: the average age of retirement in Greece is not lower than every other country in the EU; in fact for men it is exactly the same as in Germany. http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/finance... If you want to make the case that an EU co…

The retirement age a country can afford depends to a large extent on the productivity of the workers in that country.

(And of course it is too low in Belgium and France. Everybody knows that. Doesn't change the fact that it is /way/ too low in Greece.)

Re: Greece

#182

Post by gizi » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:19 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #68

ams6110 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany also never repaid the money that the Greek Central Bank was forced to lend to the occupying Nazi regime in WWII.

Germany is not the same thing as Nazi Germany.

I agree. Bringing back those ghosts from the past, is just bad taste. We all have learned our lessons from that, and it is time to move on now. That is why I don't like it when they throw around the "nazi" argument, every time Germany is is being mentioned the debate. Why not mention Goethe instead?

Re: Greece

#183

Post by derriz » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

twobits wrote: post #27

The basic idea: BMW wants to sell more cars to greeks. Greeks don't have enough money so they can't buy. Deutsche Bank (DB) gives "free money" in loans. (And of course DB knows that greece isn't exactly "strong" economically.) We are talking about a greek population that never ever had a loan before, while the prime minister talks about the "powerful (economically) greece". They also thought that the world "stock mar…

One problem with this conveniently simplistic good and evil narrative is the timescale - chosen i presume to be able to blame the Germans. Greece hasn't balanced its books since 1974. Greek levels of government debt has risen faster than the EU average for 30 years.

Secondly unless 20% of the Greek adult population are driving brand new BMWs, your thesis does not explain what Greece spent the borrowed money.

Yes there was a transfer of private debt to governments but this took place after applying one of the steepest haircuts to holders of government dept in recent times. The only way the other governments could help Greece without having the money swallowed by interest payments was to take over the debt and slash the interest rate on it. You seem to be suggesting the other governments should have stood back and allow Greece to implode with a messy default just so private bondholders take a hit. The fact is they did take a huge hit.

We are now seeing the results of two different approaches: one involved painful cuts (austerity) and reform but supported by your economic partners and one (screw all the creditors) resulting in banks running out of cash, economic freeze, looming shortages of medicines and fuel, imminent IOUs instead of money for government workers, etc. Neither pleasant options admittedly but the latter is a catastrophe for the ordinary Greek.

Re: Greece

#184

Post by kylebrown » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #79

snitko wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's neither. The debtors in this case are the people of Greece, yet the ones who got them indebted are politicians, who misled the population into believing that the expenses the government had were sustainable. Even more important is that the politicians were not voted in by 100% of people, which simply means that many people who lost their money didn't agree with the policy that led to them losing t…

half the population ... oblige the other half I'd love to see an experiment where democracy was modified. People should get multiple votes, proportional not to their income or their wealth, but to the amount of taxes they paid the previous year. There would need to be some sort of limit. E.g. nobody gets less than 1 vote nor more than 10. But something like that would create what some call "skin in the game". Those p…

This is just begs the question of what the tax policy should be. If mainly income is taxed, then the rich get (proportionally) more votes. If mainly consumption is taxed, then everyone else (those who spend their income rather than save/invest it) gets more votes.

Re: Greece

#185

Post by derriz » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #179

derriz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand NVP and debt. You seem to be suggesting Greek debt be discounted at something close to the risk free rate? These discount rates are correct. The value of a promise of future cash payments from the Greek government is worth far less than one from the US or German governments for example. If you actually believe that Greek debt should be discounted much less, I'll happily swap any amount of…

If you can expect to be bailed outif the debtor defaults, then yes, you should use the risk free rate for discounting.

Nope - haircuts are calculated relative to current asset values.

For example, when discussing the haircut on a 100m greek bond that's currently trading for 60m, giving the holder 60m for it does not constitute a 40% haircut.

Re: Greece

#186

Post by kylebrown » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

revanx_ wrote: post #154

spystath wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being greek in the same age group I dare to say that what you support is a blatant and dangerously ignorant lie. There are tons of people that have law or engineering degrees and would be grateful for a supermarket cashier job or flipping burgers. There is a serious problem with greek young people, they are basically a burnt generation, doomed to either chronic unemployment, ridiculously low-paying jobs ( I'm getting…

The problem of young people with academic degrees that can't find a job is not a problem isolated to Greece, this is happening everywhere. As far as your comments, all I can say is that I shaped my opinion based on statistics and what other greeks told me. You can't deny the fact that in the last decade, greeks have become accustomed to a certain life style that can no longer be maintained.

> You can't deny the fact that in the last decade, greeks have become accustomed to a certain life style that can no longer be maintained.

The point of the article is that the 'moral hazard' of lending and borrowing cuts both ways. What about the lifestyle of European bankers & elites? The lifestyle of elites was funded by their reckless lending, buying up "idiot paper" left and right (not just Greece). They believe themselves entitled to collect high-interest rents regardless of the risk which is priced into the interest rate!

To stretch an analogy, it'd be like Venture Capitalists blaming the startups for failing to earn returns on their investments.Rather than take responsibility for making risky investments, they demonize startup founders and employees, and threaten to break their legs until they pay back the firm.

Its "loan-shark theatre" between governments and central banks, with politicians stoking nationalist sentiment and stereotypes (as politicians do) in the service of elites (i.e. the creditors). Maybe you should read the article, instead of asserting "undeniable facts" (p.s. the greek economy has been in a worsening great depression for the last decade; and your handful of gamer acquaintances are a non-representative sample).

Re: Greece

#187

Post by kylebrown » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #132

crdoconnor wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The balance can involve slamming the individuals in jail who enabled Greece to misrepresent its finances before it joined. Unfortunately, actually prosecuting fraud seems to be a minority view, whereas punishing entire countries (primarily those on a low income, too) for the sins of a few is the norm in Europe.

Some of these individuals were greek and are under greek jurisdiction. None were prosecuted. It would give the moral position of the greek government a huge boost if they started doing that, just like Iceland did in its default.

Quoting from a comment on the linked article:

> I’d only add that the corrupt elites were not only overspending, but they were involved in vendor finance scams. Hundreds of millions in bribes on some single deals. The credit came through to sign the contracts, and the bribes were rolled into the contracts. On one deal alone, Siemens, you had the Greek defense minister take hundreds of millions to approve a tens of billions deal. He is in jail, so are members of his family, but then there are 64 others being prosecuted as well for this one deal. Think about it, hundreds of millions spread to 64 people (who probably doled out more themselves).

Re: Greece

#188

Post by gonvaled » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #98

I really don't know that much of the details of this particular situation, I've grown tired of hearing about this sort of thing. I RTFA and it was interesting, but then it's always interesting, isn't it. I was surprised that a CTRL+F "Icelend" in this thread turned up nothing. While I'm sure there were many differences in their situation, I bet there were a lot more similarities. My crude analysis of this situation i…

+1 for the Iceland reference

-1 for the men / women reference: like there are no good men / bad women. Ha!

=0

Re: Greece

#189

Post by gonvaled » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #98

I really don't know that much of the details of this particular situation, I've grown tired of hearing about this sort of thing. I RTFA and it was interesting, but then it's always interesting, isn't it. I was surprised that a CTRL+F "Icelend" in this thread turned up nothing. While I'm sure there were many differences in their situation, I bet there were a lot more similarities. My crude analysis of this situation i…

+1 for the Iceland reference

-1 for the men / women reference: like there are no good men / bad women. Ha!

=0

Re: Greece

#190

Post by dylanjermiah » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #9

"Greece is a remarkable country full of wonderful people, but along dimensions of development and governance, the place is plainly pretty fucked up" Rehash of what we already know + strong words != Great analysis

One sentence != Entire article