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Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

nytimes.com

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Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#401

Post by littletimmy »

Lazare wrote: post #399
littletimmy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think you are being too charitable to banks here. Just answer this: where did the bailout money go? Who has it now? Describe to me the flow of money and you'll see that it went to service debt that was held in large part by private institutions. Even if I agree with your argument, I guess what we should say is that the haircut wasn't enough. The lenders should have lost all their money because they debtors are…

The debt is held by public institutions, and what money Greece receives from those institutions is going overwhelmingly back to those institutions. > The lenders should have lost all their money "The lenders" are mostly the Troika, and always has been. You seem to be working on a mental model where most Greek debt in foreign hands is owned by private banks (or was owned by private banks, or was originally lent by pri…

You are simply wrong.

You have not done what I asked, which is to mark the flow of money to establish your point, nor have you cited a single source apart from Wikipedia. Let me do it for you. Here's an article from WP that claims most bailout money went to pay off bondholders who were in large part european banks and pension funds. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/most-greek-ba...

Do you have an agenda here? You seem to be repeating the same thing over and over without providing any sources.

To your second point, sure. Why are taxpayers in Germany crying about it now? Let them lubricate their eyes instead with the inevitability of fiscal transfer.

In any case, I am not interested in debating this issue. My concern in the original post was the moral discourse surrounding debt, that treats the rhetoric of the moneylender to be the dominant rhetoric.

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#402

Post by Natsu »

learnstats2 wrote: post #377
Natsu wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually predatory lenders have more recourse over you: they'll take your car from the car title loan, etc. What do they gain from this situation, exactly? It seems to me like everybody loses here... and I'm not entirely certain they won't find some bailout and have it happen again. Right now, I feel sorry for the people in Greece, it seems like they work long hours for nothing and their government is completely under…

>they'll take your car from the car title loan, etc. they'll take your pensions from the pension pot, etc. This deal is about giving predatory lenders political power over nation-states.

The point of this vote is that they can't take anything unless Greece agrees to it. They will have to control spending in order to get the economy back on track, just as you have to take in more money than you spend to get out of debt, but the whole thing is so broken, I don't know if anyone can fix it and I feel bad for the people who have to suffer from the effects of poor governing.

And with this rejected, who will give Greece money now? I mean, who's going to lend money to someone when you know they're going to tell you that you were a sucker if you thought they'd pay you back?

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#403

Post by jessedhillon »

wyager wrote: post #398
jessedhillon wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for just "some reason": for the reason that resource economies create environmental impacts which linger and are not restricted to geographic region. Were you honestly not able to make that inference by yourself?

It sounds like you're just coming up with (half-assed) justifications for the moral superiority of information economies. Every globally integrated economy has geographically disparate effects; that doesn't tell us anything about who should have legal power over whom. The logical conclusion of your argument is that a non-exporting, environmentally neutral area should, again for reasons that you have not made clear, h…

I really don't know how to make it more clear to you: do you think that the air and water in Texas stay in Texas. What part of the argument is unclear to you?

> The logical conclusion of your argument is that a non-exporting, environmentally neutral area should, again for reasons that you have not made clear, have increased legal precedence over other areas.

Come on, man, now who's being half-assed?

I am completely unclear how this is the conclusion you jump to. If you earnestly want to argue with someone, process their argument by pretending it was your position, and consider what would the most advantageous interpretation of the argument be. If you want to set up straw men for me to knock down, then that's just wasting both of our time.

A more obvious conclusion would have been: being that natural resources -- air quality, water purity, natural beauty, etc -- are non-renewable resources, which once polluted cannot easily be recovered, and are not owned: they exist, then, to be enjoyed and consumed by all citizens equally. Therefore, no particular state -- even the state in which they are found -- has exclusive right to them.

Put in other words:

* California can decide, largely on its own, to export sites onto the internet, because the internet is (mostly) not a consumable resource

* but it cannot unilaterally decide to export oil onto its beaches, because the beaches are non-renewable and belong to more than just Californians

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#404

Post by Lazare »

littletimmy wrote: post #401
Lazare wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The debt is held by public institutions, and what money Greece receives from those institutions is going overwhelmingly back to those institutions. > The lenders should have lost all their money "The lenders" are mostly the Troika, and always has been. You seem to be working on a mental model where most Greek debt in foreign hands is owned by private banks (or was owned by private banks, or was originally lent by pri…

You are simply wrong. You have not done what I asked, which is to mark the flow of money to establish your point, nor have you cited a single source apart from Wikipedia. Let me do it for you. Here's an article from WP that claims most bailout money went to pay off bondholders who were in large part european banks and pension funds. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/most-greek-ba... Do you have an agenda…

I've provided several sources, which you haven't bothered to try and dispute. Your WaPo link disagrees with nothing I've said.

You asked why people are talking about taxpayers having to bail Greece out, and why we don't try and punish the banks. The answer is because the debt is overwhelmingly owned by taxpayers, not banks[1]. (Which, in turn, is in large part because in 2012 we punished the banks still holding Greek debt pretty severely.)

If you persist in thinking that foreign banks hold the bulk of Greek debt, or that no haircut ever happened, then EU politics will continue to be a mystery to you.

[1]: http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/28/investing/greek-debt-who-has...

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#405

Post by littletimmy »

Lazare wrote: post #404
littletimmy wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are simply wrong. You have not done what I asked, which is to mark the flow of money to establish your point, nor have you cited a single source apart from Wikipedia. Let me do it for you. Here's an article from WP that claims most bailout money went to pay off bondholders who were in large part european banks and pension funds. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/most-greek-ba... Do you have an agenda…

I've provided several sources, which you haven't bothered to try and dispute. Your WaPo link disagrees with nothing I've said. You asked why people are talking about taxpayers having to bail Greece out, and why we don't try and punish the banks. The answer is because the debt is overwhelmingly owned by taxpayers, not banks[1]. (Which, in turn, is in large part because in 2012 we punished the banks still holding Greek…

Now you're just claiming I said stuff I never said. Conveniently, you stopped quoting me now.

There is nothing more to discuss. By all means continue posting if you are a last-word freak.

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#406

Post by learnstats2 »

Natsu wrote: post #402
learnstats2 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they'll take your car from the car title loan, etc. they'll take your pensions from the pension pot, etc. This deal is about giving predatory lenders political power over nation-states.

The point of this vote is that they can't take anything unless Greece agrees to it. They will have to control spending in order to get the economy back on track, just as you have to take in more money than you spend to get out of debt, but the whole thing is so broken, I don't know if anyone can fix it and I feel bad for the people who have to suffer from the effects of poor governing. And with this rejected, who wil…

> I mean, who's going to lend money to someone when you know they're going to tell you that you were a sucker if you thought they'd pay you back?

It is perfectly normal for countries to default. That is an expected part of lending.

Here's the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#407

Post by olifante »

galfarragem wrote: post #268
paskster wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very pro Euro. But I don't like the fact that a single country in Europe feels that 18 other countries have to pay their debt. These bailouts in the past were signed from the greece government in the best interest of its people. A lot of people make it seem that we (non-greece european) somewhat forced theses agreements onto greece. In fact these bailouts where were unpopular in Germany, because it cost us a lot…

I'm Portuguese but I completely agree with you. Greeks have chosen their path. Farewell Greece.

I'm Portuguese and I completely disapprove this message. We are deluding ourselves if we think that our situation is qualitatively much different from the Greek one. Were it not for Greece, Portugal would be the scapegoat for the Euro crisis.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see that no one from the financial sector went to jail for recklessly causing the biggest worldwide financial crisis since 1929, yet everybody is happily demonizing the Greeks, who in spite of having a made several errors were in no way responsible for the global crisis.

This shows how much journalism has been captured by financial interests, working hard to deflect attention from the true perpetrators.

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#408

Post by Natsu »

learnstats2 wrote: post #406
Natsu wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of this vote is that they can't take anything unless Greece agrees to it. They will have to control spending in order to get the economy back on track, just as you have to take in more money than you spend to get out of debt, but the whole thing is so broken, I don't know if anyone can fix it and I feel bad for the people who have to suffer from the effects of poor governing. And with this rejected, who wil…

> I mean, who's going to lend money to someone when you know they're going to tell you that you were a sucker if you thought they'd pay you back? It is perfectly normal for countries to default. That is an expected part of lending. Here's the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises

I'm not sure 'normal' is the word I'd use there, unless one counts the collapse of Russia, the Napoleonic wars or WW1 as 'normal'.

If you read the section under IMF on the Latin American debt crisis, you'll see quite a few parallels with the Greek situation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#409

Post by Lazare »

littletimmy wrote: post #405
Lazare wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've provided several sources, which you haven't bothered to try and dispute. Your WaPo link disagrees with nothing I've said. You asked why people are talking about taxpayers having to bail Greece out, and why we don't try and punish the banks. The answer is because the debt is overwhelmingly owned by taxpayers, not banks[1]. (Which, in turn, is in large part because in 2012 we punished the banks still holding Greek…

Now you're just claiming I said stuff I never said. Conveniently, you stopped quoting me now. There is nothing more to discuss. By all means continue posting if you are a last-word freak.

> > You asked why people are talking about taxpayers having to bail Greece out, and why we don't try and punish the banks.

>Now you're just claiming I said stuff I never said.

Oh really?

> More often than not, you'll hear stuff like: [...] "Why should taxpayers bail Greece out?"... All the while, there is absolute ZERO condemnation for banking entities making risky loans. There is not even a tacit nod towards acknowledging that if banks make loans that fail, it is their loss to eat.

Please.

Re: Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

#410

Post by littletimmy »

Lazare wrote: post #409
littletimmy wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're just claiming I said stuff I never said. Conveniently, you stopped quoting me now. There is nothing more to discuss. By all means continue posting if you are a last-word freak.

> > You asked why people are talking about taxpayers having to bail Greece out, and why we don't try and punish the banks. >Now you're just claiming I said stuff I never said. Oh really? > More often than not, you'll hear stuff like: [...] "Why should taxpayers bail Greece out?"... All the while, there is absolute ZERO condemnation for banking entities making risky loans. There is not even a tacit nod towards acknowl…

Sure. The Washington Post link establishes that. That you refuse to read it is your problem. Google it.
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