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Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

syriza.net.gr

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Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#171

Post by bjelkeman-again »

johnchristopher wrote: post #160
macns wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he already said he doesn't want more money. The latest, 7 billion euro loan was declined by Greece. It's all over the news

Now that's interesting because the French newspapers didn't mention it at all. I wish we had a European press.

It seems really hard to sell that. The Guardian Weekly is a good attempt, and it has articles from Le Monde and Washington Post in it regularly as well. Combined with Le Monde Diplomatique (In English), which you could get as hard copy bundled, it gave a much better European view.

Unfortunately they don't sell an electronic copy, which I would certainly subscribe to.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#172

Post by atmosx »

bibabo wrote: post #165
atmosx wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some counter-notes: 1. That's b*shit. It's Germany all way. The Fins and Dutch are easy to bend. 2. Germany has defaulted 3 times in the last 100 years. The Marshall plan was issued in 1948, otherwise now Germany would be worse than you date to imagine + wars damages to Greece were never paid. 3. Why don't you come live in Greece and find out. Try to deal with the state, then run a business WITHOUT tax-evading in thi…

1. The Baltic states, Poland, everyone except the southern countries (and I assume Spain with a thriving economy in 2014/2015 will join the club when unemployment drops) is on the same page. But as an excellent demagogue Tsipras knows he needs a simple enemy (Germany) to rally the mob. 2. Yes Germany defaulted, but did not make it it's modus operandi. Excellent that you've brought up the Marshall plan: The Marshall p…

Germany defaulted 3 times in 100 years, you can find the dates on Google (if you can't let me know, I'll help you). Greece has defaulted 3 times (actually 4 counting 2010).

I'd say it's a modus operandi. One even might assume that making world wars is a modus operandi given the fact that it happened twice the last century.

> 3. Tax cheaters always find moral explainations for their behaviour.

So does anyone else[1] [2] [3] (there are least another 4 well known cases).

[1] https://anestis.quora.com/Links-to-credible-sources-about-Gr...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military...

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#173

Post by bibabo »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47
vijayboyapati wrote: post #20

This one sentence sums up what I think is the fundamental problem: "An insolvency problem was thus dealt with as if it were a case of illiquidity." That is, the problem isn't some ephemeral panic where people are temporarily unwilling to lend. The problem is there are massive capital losses that have yet to be acknowledged. The problem is that Euro politicians believe that by continuing to bankroll Greece they will s…

Well, no. The fundamental problem is that Germany has been treating the rest of the EU as an expedient export market while refusing to allow equivalent imports, and at the same time aggressively insisting that countries in the EU should somehow magically not need debt... to continue buying from Germany. There's also the minor point that this is yet another excuse to indulge the usual neoliberal hatred of social spend…

"[...] literally murderous [...]"

Exactly. This needs to stop immediatly. Suicide rates in Germany are 4X (!) as high as in Greece. Germany is living on an extreme austerity program since more than 10 years - the Agenda 2010 implemented by the socialists in 2003. Cuts to unemployed people, cuts to families, cuts to everyone, stagnation of income for over a decade except for the top 1%. Where do they think this should end?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... )

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#174

Post by bobcostas55 »

JamesBarney wrote: post #118
bagosm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually not true, you are referring to a very bad "cooking" that Samaras presented to Merkel at the fall of '14 which was proved to be too stupid to talk about ever again...

Actually that is true. He was referring to Greece having a budget surplus, not a plan. They missed their target surplus but still had a budget surplus for 2014 of near 2 billion euros. http://www.wsj.com/articles/greece-misses-target-on-budget-s...

The current finance minister says they cooked the books: yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/04/24/greek-statistics-are-back-primary-deficit-presented-as-surplus-with-eurostats-seal-of-approval/

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#175

Post by bobcostas55 »

youngtaff wrote: post #28

The thing that seems to be often missed about the 'Greek bailout'is it wasn't about bailing out Greece, it was more about bailing out the German bankers who'd lent Greece more money than they should have. The Greek people were shafted by the EU, IMF etc. because they didn't want to see the German bankers take the pain. We see a similar problem with the current round of Quantitive Easing that the ECB are undertaking -…

>it was more about bailing out the German bankers who'd lent Greece more money than they should have.

Considering the fact that private holders of Greek debt lost ~80% of their money in the default, I think this is a ridiculous thing to say.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#176

Post by bibabo »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47
vijayboyapati wrote: post #20

This one sentence sums up what I think is the fundamental problem: "An insolvency problem was thus dealt with as if it were a case of illiquidity." That is, the problem isn't some ephemeral panic where people are temporarily unwilling to lend. The problem is there are massive capital losses that have yet to be acknowledged. The problem is that Euro politicians believe that by continuing to bankroll Greece they will s…

Well, no. The fundamental problem is that Germany has been treating the rest of the EU as an expedient export market while refusing to allow equivalent imports, and at the same time aggressively insisting that countries in the EU should somehow magically not need debt... to continue buying from Germany. There's also the minor point that this is yet another excuse to indulge the usual neoliberal hatred of social spend…

Germany is importing work (which is not measured in the usual import/export KPIs) on massive scale with money going back to the originating countries. This has been going on with Italy and Turkey over decades (60-80), with Poland in the 90s and currently with Spain and Eastern European countries.

Real import/export KPIs would take this into account. Then I would assume Germany is a net importer not exporter.

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#177

Post by [deleted] »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #102
mrweasel wrote: post #15

It's perhaps prudent to distinguish between the German people and the German politicians. It's my feeling that the average German would have suggested NOT to extend large loans to Greece. It is the EU (and German, French, Italian and so on) politicians that believed that in the grand scheme of the Euro, it would be the best cause of action. The sad part is that the loans to Greece perhaps wasn't so much about Greece,…

I'm not so sure of that. Greece might be a special case. Its a tourist economy with heavy social services and a retirement age of 58 with overly generous pensions; about 80% of one's salary. Its fraudulent on practically all levels of government. Its recent cozying to Putin is just more spit in the eye of the EU partners who tried working with Greece's debt issues. While Italy and Spain aren't the shining stars of fi…

[deleted]

Re: Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece

#178

Post by mafribe »

nhaehnle wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while refusing to allow equivalent imports That very much is in citation needed territory, please give at least one example of how Germany is refusing intra-European imports in any category. Free trade is one of the cornerstones of the EU, Germany imposing a tariff or blockading goods produced elsewhere in Europe would make some pretty fat headlines.

TheOtherHobbes used a bit of an ellipsis here. There is no outright refusal of imports by law, but there is a refusal to allow the kind of economic conditions (such as wage increases in line with productivity increases) that would lead to a balance of imports and exports. As for citations, a recent comparison of the relevant metric, the relative unit labor cost: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/i-do-not-th…

Germany deviates from the European norm by having products on offer that are globally competitive. What a crime. Let's make Europe more stable by turning every country into Greece!
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