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Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

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Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#231

Post by ubernostrum »

tsotha wrote: post #191
HSO wrote: post #59

At the risk of being a moralizing bore, may I remind everybody that "Germany", "Greece" etc. are not people, and that people are not countries? I am surprised by the national coloring, however faint, of some comments here and there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9834721 . "I am a German" or "Greek here" should have no relevance to the ideas put forth. "Your money" and "your banks" are not really "my money" and…

A little nationalism is healthy for a country, though I grant too much is a problem.

Nationalism is healthy when it centers on positives about the country. Being proud of good things made or achieved by people from your country is fine, for example, especially as a call to action for achieving further good.

It is unhealthy when it centers on negatives about other countries. Being proud that you're so much better than those lazy freeloaders across the border is not so great, for example.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#232

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

TheCondor wrote: post #125
sgnelson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll put it this way. World War I: Germany loses, is forced to pay not just debt, but reparations. Huge economic and political instability as a result leads to a new leadership which leads directly to World War II. World War II: Germany loses, is split up, due to the Marshall plan (in part do to a fear of Communism, so not solely due to compassion), West Germany given millions of dollars to rebuild, a rather thriving…

West Germany did repay some of the defaulted WWI debt to help rebuild their reputation after they lost WWII. Also, there is another gigantic difference here, Germany lost a bloody war and we told them how it was going to be, we restructured their economy, wholesale, and they were in no position to disagree. About half the debt was forgiven because they did what we made them do. If Greece wants to put their sovereignt…

Lets not forget that Germany also lost a third of its territory, so its not as if they got away that easily.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#234

Post by carapat_virulat »

toyg wrote: post #216
luso_brazilian wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll try to shed some light on why this subject tends to inflame some of the europeans nationalistic sentiment with a concrete example: 1. Meet Portugal (my country). Some may know us derisively as the P in PIGS because of our financial problems (much similar to the Greek one in nature and extent). In 2010 and 2011 as one of the 14 member states of the EU that were part of the Greek loan facility Portugal contrib…

The problem with "your money" (as well as Belgium's etc etc etc) is that it didn't "go to Greece": it went to private lenders , aka French and German banks which were holding Greek debt. The honest people of Portugal were swindled out of their money, in the tradition of socializing private losses (while privatizing profits wherever possible). So I would suggest you redirect your complaints towards the real responsibl…

Yes, basically that money was used to bail out irresponsible lenders. Now, Greece were irresponsible borrowers, but the bailouts basically solved none of their problems, they were just delayed a few years, and here we are again.

Now for the economical elites this is a much better situation, they get to present the whole situation as lazy Greeks causing problems, present the rest of Europe as the good guys, and pretend that the money we lent them should have saved them somehow.

It's important not to forget all the sides that caused the problems on 2008, just because we already solved the problems of one of the sides it doesn't absolve them from the responsibility.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#235

Post by toyg »

mattmcknight wrote: post #180
rtpg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And austerity has been shown to be a remarkable failure for any form of economic recovery not just the first, but pretty much every time any country has tried it Why would you try it on Greece then?

How would you define austerity for the Greece? To have public spending at 58% of GDP?

If your economy collapses, partially because of global recession and partially due to corruption enabled by cheap foreign money looking for a quick buck, your GDP ratios all look worse all of a sudden.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#236

Post by cm2187 »

haberman wrote: post #181
cm2187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most western countries can't even afford paying the interest of their debt. So as it is, it is kinda necessarily growing. But the ponzi scheme aspect is rather the fact that countries can only pay back debt with new borrowing. If investors stop rolling their debt, even the US would collapse within a few months.

> Most western countries can't even afford paying the interest of their debt. If that were true, the countries would be in default. And yet they are not.

France for instance has a primary deficit: https://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/quickview.do?SERIES_KEY=325.GFS.A.... I.e. the state budget is in deficit even before the interest on the debt. So it borrows just to repay the interest plus that primary deficit.

These countries are not in default but they are definitely broke and reliant on debt to an insane level.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#237

Post by claudius »

toyg wrote: post #216
luso_brazilian wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll try to shed some light on why this subject tends to inflame some of the europeans nationalistic sentiment with a concrete example: 1. Meet Portugal (my country). Some may know us derisively as the P in PIGS because of our financial problems (much similar to the Greek one in nature and extent). In 2010 and 2011 as one of the 14 member states of the EU that were part of the Greek loan facility Portugal contrib…

The problem with "your money" (as well as Belgium's etc etc etc) is that it didn't "go to Greece": it went to private lenders , aka French and German banks which were holding Greek debt. The honest people of Portugal were swindled out of their money, in the tradition of socializing private losses (while privatizing profits wherever possible). So I would suggest you redirect your complaints towards the real responsibl…

> The problem with "your money" (as well as Belgium's etc etc etc) is that it didn't "go to Greece": it went to private lenders, aka French and German banks which were holding Greek debt. The honest people of Portugal were swindled out of their money, in the tradition of socializing private losses (while privatizing profits wherever possible).

Can I borrow 100€ from you to pay back this other guy from whom I borrowed 100€ which I then spent on alcohol? Yes please? Okay, thanks, now unfortunately you didn’t actually give me any money and it’s not my fault if I can’t pay you back because actually your money went to this other guy. It had nothing to do with me or those empty bottles you see back there, it really went directly to this evil person OVER THERE AND YOU SHOULD ONLY TAKE IT UP WITH HIM!

In other words, the money of course did go to Greece, it’s just that Greece was so far in debt by this point that they couldn’t decide for themselves on how to spend it because they first had to pay back other people. On the other hand, there is still plenty of private property in Greece so the country itself is far from bankrupt. It’s just the people deciding they would rather default on their loans and continue living than to tax the rich and wealthy.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#238

Post by golergka »

Atropos wrote: post #222
oh_sigh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is implicit in Pikettys argument. e.g. from the article: > But despite this, the younger generation of Greeks carries no more responsibility for the mistakes of its elders than the younger generation of Germans did in the 1950s and 1960s.

Oh but the current generation of Germans has a moral responsibility to help the current generation of Greeks because Germany got debt forgiveness 60 years ago ???

> moral responsibility to help

No. No one is saying that. People are saying that Germans should help Greece because it's a rational thing to do. No one, except complete idiots, is saying that they have moral obligation to do it. Here's the quote from OP:

> Nonsense! This had nothing to do with moral clarity; it was a rational political and economic decision

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#239

Post by ubernostrum »

shin_lao wrote: post #214
deciplex wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The German regime that racked up the WWII debts was destroyed and its leaders suicided or executed. Yes, but most of the people who enabled that regime to do its work, were still around. It's not as though the entire population of Germany was swapped out for a different one, after the war. The average German was not a murdering genocidal maniac, but he did fall under the sway of idiotic fascism, and while it would…

There is a difference between having tax loopholes and being a state that doesn't collect taxes properly and where tax avoidance and black work is everywhere. Greece is the latter. Having been in Greece several times, it is very unsettling to being issued fake bills all the time for everything . A famous example is the swimming pool tax avoidance: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-tax-avoidance-101-cov... Some m…

Without knowing anything about the details of it, I am immediately suspicious of the truth of the swimming-pool allegation simply because of how universally it is mentioned in discussions of Greece's economic situation. Anything which gets used that ubiquitously, in my experience, ends up debunked on Snopes or Politifact sooner or later.

Re: Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

#240

Post by x0x0 »

claudius wrote: post #237
toyg wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "your money" (as well as Belgium's etc etc etc) is that it didn't "go to Greece": it went to private lenders , aka French and German banks which were holding Greek debt. The honest people of Portugal were swindled out of their money, in the tradition of socializing private losses (while privatizing profits wherever possible). So I would suggest you redirect your complaints towards the real responsibl…

> The problem with "your money" (as well as Belgium's etc etc etc) is that it didn't "go to Greece": it went to private lenders, aka French and German banks which were holding Greek debt. The honest people of Portugal were swindled out of their money, in the tradition of socializing private losses (while privatizing profits wherever possible). Can I borrow 100€ from you to pay back this other guy from whom I borrowed…

so to recap, it's totally true that the first bailout didn't aid Greece but rather bailed out dodgy German, et al, bank loans to Greece by transferring them to the Greek public sector?

I'm not sure why you fervently believe the banks deserve this. No-one held a gun to their head and forced them to make a loan to Greece, and it's not as if the, ah, looseness of Greek gdp calculations was exactly a secret.

Perhaps consider being pissed at the bankers that swindled all the aforementioned taxpayers into buying out their bad loans. A cynic might think this is how European government disguised the rather unpopular act of writing their banks a huge-ass check.

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