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Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

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

#281

Post by Shivetya »

oh_sigh wrote: post #196
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…

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.

Its pretty much an ignorant statement. Which younger generation is he referring too? Those born after Greece joined the EU, those who happen to be 18-21, what?

I am pretty sure we can segment society in any means necessary to excuse one group or another from responsibility. I can just as well blame the same younger generation for bringing in a firebrand Marxist and voting to support saying NO when its going to wreck their economy even further; likely closing the banks for electronic transfers for business may have done too much damage.

As for the article, I could care less what Germany did or didn't do back then. Times were different then, we were all recovering from a incredible war and no one wanted to see conditions repeated that may lead to a third. Reparations and the restrictions on Germany after the first world war led to someone like Hitler gaining power so why repeat the situation?

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

#282

Post by saiya-jin »

ubernostrum wrote: post #231
tsotha wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I tend to disagree. With nationalism/patriotism, you cannot avoid highlighting positivies of the past and skipping darker parts, which then gives twisted "we're the best country in the world" impression. US is a fine example, but I believe all countries are in, one way or the other.

One should view critically the past and present of its own nation, focus on all aspects, and learn from mistakes. But nationalism/patriotism and objective critical thinking tend to go against each other in real world out there. So no, I prefer to not like patriotism, of any kind. Anyway, I feel more of a citizen of this world, rather than some area that belonged somewhere else 100 years ago, elsewhere 1000 yeats ago, and will for sure in another 1000 years in future. Once a person moves a bit around the world, perspective on this topic is changed for good (classic House quote - "Patriotism is nothing but loyalty to real estate")

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

#283

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Djeman wrote: post #272
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As well as ignoring the banks culpability here, you're doing the same thing the original starter of this thread wanted to point out. Greece is a country, not a person. Did all Greeks benefit equally from that money? Or is large amounts of it sitting in accounts of corrupt politicians and the corporations (not necessarily Greek ones) that the money got spent on. I've seen accusations that the high military spending go…

Wait a minute. Isn't Greece a democracy with government responsible to citizens? Greece gov has been spending for decades on military and no one argued with that while credit cards worked.

That's a good question, is it? Are any other modern countries?

One of the things people have been laughing at the Greeks for is that they don't even have a Cadastre listing who owns what land. Apparently this is proof the Greeks are all lazy, tax-avoiding thieves. In Scotland they're trying to achieve the same thing as they only know who owns about a quarter of the country.

Unfortunately the very rich aristocrats who own this land have been trying to prevent it since apparently knowing who owns land is some dark secret they're worried about getting out. They've been writing articles, such as the one by the UK prime minister's father-in-law Lord Astor, comparing this compiling of a list of ownership to the behaviour of Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

So, are we living in democracies with government responsible to citizens? I'd say to a great degree we don't, and like many soldiers who fought in European wars last century I think it becomes clear that you have more in common with the ordinary people of other European nations than you do with the ones guiding you into wars, or continuations of the same via diplomacy or economic shock doctrines.

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

#284

Post by mike_hearn »

JamesBarney wrote: post #218
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you, but could you flesh that critique out some more? My understanding of Greek's fundamentals start here: http://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/02/23/greece-orthodoxy-peronis... (this was linked from the Interfluidity thing everyone was talking about before) and continues through here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr15165.pdf (which I read when someone claimed Greece had a 2014 primary surplus, whi…

Hope the following helps, I think we all are trying to learn as much as possible about this as it unfolds. I thought the article about Peronis Democracy was interesting but I need some help seeing the connection to the current crisis. Judging from your comments it seems like you believe the Greek government is spending more than it's taking in(primary budget deficit). Which is not true at least for 2014 according to…

Greece stopped having a primary surplus the moment Syriza came to power, as one of the first things they did was reverse tax rises and rehire fired civil servants.

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

#285

Post by mike_hearn »

tomp wrote: post #110
tedunangst wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as part of their debt relief, Germany got a new government. Is that what Greece wants?

Greece has a new government. One that has no connection with either the thieves that caused the problem in the first place nor the incompetent idiots that didn't solve it in the last 5 years.

Wha?! Their new government has doubled down on the bad policies that led Greece to this state. It absolutely DOES have a strong connection to the people who caused the problem - they were put in power because the Greeks turned their back on the previous government that was at least trying to go along with the required reforms.

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

#286

Post by mike_hearn »

JamesBarney wrote: post #194
sdenton4 wrote: post #173

This all reminds me of what we've learned about forest management. You see, for a long time we thought that all forest fires were bad, and set out to extinguish fires whenever even a small one broke out in a forest. After a few decades of almost no fire, a huge amount of burnable debris collected in the forests, and now, when fires break out, they're gigantic and far, far more damaging than normal forest fires. Likew…

Hey sdenton, I agree with a lot of what you say about how Greece needs it's own currency to inflate, but sometimes I don't know if someone has a non-mainstream opinion or just needs a little help with consensus economics. So if you are like me a student of economics this post will hopefully help clear some things up. If not then I guess we disagree and the next person to read this post will have a better understandin…

> When the government issues bonds it auctions them off and takes money from people(out of circulation) in return, reducing the supply of money.

Where did you get that idea? Governments usually borrow money so they can spend it. That money isn't deleted or burned, it heads right back out of the government into the economy.

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

#287

Post by mike_hearn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #84

So I've been vaguely following the Greece and Puerto Rico situations (the Greece situation is causing me to put some trading strategies on hold), but there is something I don't understand about it. How come so many left wing advocates (Piketty, Krugman, etc) are coming out advocating for Greek bailouts?

Because Greece has a radical left wing government.

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

#288

Post by claudius »

x0x0 wrote: post #244
claudius wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but in which way did Greece not get some 300 billion euros? Whether they first borrowed that money from private banks and then the rest of the eurozone paid back the banks for Greece or whether they received the money directly from the other eurozone countries, the end result is still that banks now have roughly as much as before (modulo minor interests etc.), Greece has some 300 billion more and the rest of t…

You're determined to ignore where the money went. German, Dutch, et al banks -- specifically banks that had unacknowledged bad loans to Greece -- have several hundred billion more than before. Public sector balance sheets have that much less.

The money from the bailout programme went into the banks, sure. But that only happened because those banks had given out loans to Greece before. I agree that banks made some income from interest rates and also because they bought Greek bonds at lower-than-face value. However, somehow these bonds were still issued by Greece and bought by someone.

Where did the money from all these bonds go? To Greece.

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

#289

Post by shrikant »

csallen wrote: post #172
interesting_att wrote: post #53

Everyone here seems to be criticizing Piketty for weird reasons. He is not saying post-war Germany's debt is the exact same thing as the current Greek crisis. Pointing out parallels isn't same thing as saying two situations are equivalent. His point is that this isn't a "moral" decision between two peoples. It's an economic decision between nations.

Thank you. When a specific comparison is made between two things, people are too quick to emotionally point out the obvious and irrelevant fact that some differences exist, too.

..especially when he's specifically expanded on that point in the same article. In a situation that certainly warrants more nuance than can be conveyed in a Tweet-sized headline, the supposedly "enlightened" HN crowd should really RTFA.

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

#290

Post by tomp »

mike_hearn wrote: post #285
tomp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece has a new government. One that has no connection with either the thieves that caused the problem in the first place nor the incompetent idiots that didn't solve it in the last 5 years.

Wha?! Their new government has doubled down on the bad policies that led Greece to this state. It absolutely DOES have a strong connection to the people who caused the problem - they were put in power because the Greeks turned their back on the previous government that was at least trying to go along with the required reforms.

Well, I guess that depends on your perspective of the reforms... IMO, the required reforms, and austerity in grneral, were all wrong (as in, unrealistic and economically unsound).
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