Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings • Hacker News Board

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#141

Post by kriberg » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #68

tasubotadas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do you think it makes sense to hold millions accountable directly for the corrupt dealings of a few members of a country's elite (and of a few foreign bankers, politicians etc.)? That's how democracy works. If you are not happy with your current government, elect the one you are happy with. Over time, I've found that the elected government really does represent the general population.

In representative democracies people don't really have much control over the day to day operations of the government. They are also often deliberately kept in the dark about the decisions being made. Even if they had the necessary information available, it would be almost impossible to keep up with everything since people have other more important things to do to e.g. work. > Over time, I've found that the elected go…

Should the population of other countries be held accountable for Greeks disinterest in their own democracy?

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#142

Post by oh_sigh » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

CarelessExpert wrote: post #19

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. A lot of citizens of a few countries had their lives almost destroyed by the decisions of these politicians, so is only fair they know what was discussed, who defended them, etc. Let us not forget the pressure the ECB (and other european institutions) put on some countries that have come to light after the fact. (Like only allowing…

> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of comp…

If the discussion isn't public, the decision may be inscrutable. Did leader 1 and leader 2 agree on X because they decided it worked out best for their constituents, or did they both agree to scratch each other's back with some discretionary funds relating to X?

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#143

Post by jayko » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

alexge233 wrote: post #95

Varoufakis only cares about himself, always promoting himself and is just seeking attention. What a joke of a person! He wanted to replace Euros with a crypto-currency as IoU at some point rather than going back to Drachma. The man is an academic, not a very good at that either and a clown of a Politician. His "negotiations" cost the Greek tax payer about 100Bn Euros, and enabled DB to shift their debt to the German…

I dislike Varoufakis as much as the next guy but that's pure fake news. What he wanted to do is introduce a welfare system that was backed by crypto-currency issued by the Greek government in order to make welfare more transparent and efficient.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#144

Post by atmosx » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

occamrazor wrote: post #116

breakyerself wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn't and that's exactly why states are allowed to declare bankruptcy and why Puerto Rico should be allowed to declare bankruptcy. States in the EU probably should be able to also.

Greece could default, but it was not clear what would have happened to their central bank, and if a default would have pushed Greece out of the Eurozone. Due to these uncertainties, and undoubtedly also to pressure from the rest of the EU, Greece decided instead to renegotiate their debt with the Trojka.

Not really. Greece was never allowed to default properly. The referendum George Papandreou alluded to at the time, is a prime example of what I'm saying: Greece defaulting might drive Italian bond prices through the roof at that point the monetary union would be destroyed overnight.

Now that the debt has been turned from public to private, it might be easier to handle as a situation, but I doubt the EU is able to handle such a crisis gracefully.

Greece is stuck to a never-ending extend and pretend program which will effectively kill the Greek economy in the 21st century.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#145

Post by toohotatopic » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #62

lucianoq wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in private converse completely differently (more freely) than in public. They are deciding about life and death of people of a country (or many). They're not discussing about what's your favourite food and which sex position you like the most. Those conversation MUST be open and public, so people can judge the work of their delegates and decide to vote them again or not. If you don't want to be heard, don't…

On the other hand, organizations that are able to keep their internal deliberations private have a strong advantage over ones who must ‘think’ openly. Imagine negotiating with an employer, except your inner monologue is always spoken aloud. One unintended (?) consequence of extreme transparency for governments, is that it makes government ineffective and easily subverted or outmaneuvered by opaque organizations, like…

>On the other hand, organizations that are able to keep their internal deliberations private have a strong advantage over ones who must ‘think’ openly.

Not necessarily. If there is secrecy within the organization, any leader of a subbranch can abuse his power along the line of the movie Dr. Strangelove.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#146

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

xfs wrote: post #129

xkemp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been impossible for Greece's GDP to drop by that amount (in absolute terms) before it joined the EU. Because it quadrupled after joining. Here, check out this graph, which rather obviously shows the benefit of joining the EU in 1981: https://www.google.com/search?q=greece+gdp&oq=greece+gdp&aqs...

It quadrupled after joining because it borrowed money from Germany and other countries to buy German cars and other goods, not unlike the early stage of Bretton Woods. It had the lowest debt level before joining, like a fat cat to be squeezed by EU bankers, which was also why it was fast-tracked in joining the EU when it clearly didn't meet many clauses of the Copenhagen Criteria. But when push came to shove in 2008,…

[deleted]

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#147

Post by nutjob2 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #127

twistedpairs wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy That's not true. Greed which benefited Greeks at the time destroyed the Greek economy.

Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece (for its own good, of course), were, theoretically, about improving the competitive of Greece and solve the problem of the public debt. Nothing of that have happened. The public debt problem has not being solved and the Greek economy is a disaster. So who is responsible for those mistakes? They failed in their predictions and…

The problem was that the Greeks had got themselves deeply, calamitously into debt. That the "solution" was awful or ineffective really is not relevant, since it's entirely a consequence of the former. At any time the Greeks could have said no to the proposed solution, but they didn't because they feared an even worse fate.

The responsibility for Greece's situation must stay with Greece, unless they forgo the freedom to make their own decisions (about lending money). Nothing else works or makes sense logically. Freedom and taking responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#148

Post by atmosx » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

kriberg wrote: post #141

leto_ii wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In representative democracies people don't really have much control over the day to day operations of the government. They are also often deliberately kept in the dark about the decisions being made. Even if they had the necessary information available, it would be almost impossible to keep up with everything since people have other more important things to do to e.g. work. > Over time, I've found that the elected go…

Should the population of other countries be held accountable for Greeks disinterest in their own democracy?

It's not like other countries are not affected, all over Europe alt-right is thriving because of austerity. The EU is disintegrating. Greece is the weakest link. So, what you call "Greeks disinterest in their own democracy" I call "canary".

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#149

Post by nutjob2 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #33

CarelessExpert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of comp…

When these discussions impact so many people (various countries affected) I don't believe they should be kept secret. Lets (just for example, I am not saying it happened), during that meeting, the German/French Finance minister said: 'I don't care about the Greek people, we can't let German/French banks fall, so do what you must if you ever want the ECB to lend you money'. Wouldn't the greek people deserve to know an…

If you choose to make discussion public, at least in a timely fashion, then you will lower the effectiveness of these discussions and the quality of the decisions.

Quite often, especially with difficult issues, people have to take risks or make painful compromises or at least suggest them, even if the final result is nothing like them. Sometime people bluff, lie and distort in order to improve their position. There is give and take.

If everything is made public then you will essentially get discussions that are no better than discussions amongst the public, which everyone would agree is suboptimal.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#150

Post by derefr » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

Middleclass wrote: post #70

CarelessExpert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of comp…

Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it can be ensured that all data considered will be bundled with the decision. But how can such a thing ever be ensured? We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. It seem…

The difference is that citizens aren’t trained statesmen, diplomats, or political scientists.

That’s the whole premise of representative democracy: that direct democracy (through e.g. having referendums on everything) doesn’t work, because people don’t have time to be good at whatever personally makes them a living and also politics; and so we pay some people to do politics for a living, so that they will have the time and invested practice to make nuanced decisions.

Anything that subjects political representatives to constraints under which they have to vote according to exactly the public’s will, forfeits the benefits of representative democracy and replaces them with an implicit direct democracy.