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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

#181

Post by peterfirefly »

lithander wrote: post #158
teamhappy wrote: post #59

Most of you, dear Handesblatt readers, will have formed a preconception of what this article is about before you actually read it. [...] Prejudice was never a good guide, [...] How does he not hear himself? Also, "Handelsblatt" is missing a letter. Anyway ... I reject the premise of his letter. He seems to think the purpose of the money was to help the greek people, and offers a more productive way of doing so. That'…

You're cynical. The tone of the open letter is nothing compared to the tone of your comment. If you truely believe that we Europeans aren't living in a democracy anymore and that politics shouldn't be about the peoples wellbeing in the first place then stop worrying about PEGIDA or Dschungelcamp and do something about that. You stance of "this is how the world works and I'm lucky to be on the winning team" is both sh…

I am not worried about PEGIDA. I am worried about the mischaracterisations of PEGIDA. I am also /very/ worried about Antifa.

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

#183

Post by peterfirefly »

atmosx wrote: post #137
bostich wrote: post #54

I am German and have had a very negative opinion of Tsipras. He makes some very good points in this letter and his view seems to be consistent. I can understand his position and my opinion of him has improved a bit after reading the letter. Nevertheless I see no solution, only 3 possible bad outcomes: 1. Europe loans more money to Greece and we can be pretty certain that they can't pay it back. 2. Europe gifts money…

As a German, how do you feel about 3 April 1948[1]? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

A state couldn't benefit from the Marshal plan without reforms, including collecting proper, truthful national statistics (through the forerunner institution to the OECD). The US didn't just hand out money willy-nilly. In the case of (West) Germany, they had lots of troops stationed in Germany who could accidentally break something if the country didn't happily reform practically everything.

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

#184

Post by peterfirefly »

hipsterrific wrote: post #69
bostich wrote: post #54

I am German and have had a very negative opinion of Tsipras. He makes some very good points in this letter and his view seems to be consistent. I can understand his position and my opinion of him has improved a bit after reading the letter. Nevertheless I see no solution, only 3 possible bad outcomes: 1. Europe loans more money to Greece and we can be pretty certain that they can't pay it back. 2. Europe gifts money…

The austerity measures was the only rational thing that Greece did and even then they complained. There's really no out for Greece on this one: their economy seems to be dependent on tourism, they have little to no manufacturing, probably little exports, and imports many of their goods. Greece's economy was never stable to begin with and I do think that they ought to exit the Euro not for Greece's sake but for the Eu…

No, the "austerity" was very half-hearted and almost exclusively hurt the little people, i.e. those who relied on state pensions, health care, or unemployment benefits.

Still, I hope Greece suffers hard and suffers long.

Portugal, Italy, Spain, and France need all the encouragement they can get...

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

#185

Post by mathattack »

nhaehnle wrote: post #132
mathattack wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory that's the central bank's job. 2 issues, though... 1 - It can be hard to tell the difference between solvency and liquidity. What's a derivative of an MBS really worth? Or a CDO that's made off of other CDOs that are trading at an undetermined liquidity discount? Or a unique plot of real estate? 2 - The bailout decisions are often political, as well as based on imperfect reads of fundamentals. Yes, the FDIC…

1 & 2 basically elaborates on what I said ;) And no, FDIC protection intentionally protects deposits at bad banks. This is not an accident. Trying to put the burden of evaluating what a bad bank is onto regular people is not going to end well, so you guarantee deposits at all banks, full stop. Besides: Deposit insurance for deposits at good banks is pretty pointless, don't you think? It would never be used by definit…

I think we agree on 99%.

My point is just that a good bank can still have a run in the absence of the FDIC guarantee.

Let's say a bank has $100 million in deposits. They keep $10 million in liquid assets, and lend out $90 million in un-securitized loans to local businesses. There's a false market rumor of something bad happening at the bank, and all of a sudden $20 million in depositors want their money back. The bank isn't able to resell the loans quick enough on the secondary market to make up for the shortfall. This could happen.

The FDIC guarantee protects the bank because there's no longer a need to have the run - everyone will get paid.

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

#186

Post by pvaldes »

throwaway800 wrote: post #139
pvaldes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only 3 possible bad outcomes 4. All south European people stop buying german products until the end of the actual bullying. This is a no-no win for all. The fact that the german people are not the same as the german government can not be ignored. Germans are suffering also this trap, carefully placed by a few. People at the South were increasedly thinging that a percentage of the debt is simply faked by banksters a…

4b. Northern Europeans stop visiting and spending money in Athens, Rome, Algarve, Canary Islands, and buying Mediterranean produce until the end of Northern-sponsored dolce vita. This cuts both ways, and the ultimate end is economic war and possibly real war.

Exact, a total no-win situation for both parts.

Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland (...and oh-la-la... your turn, France?) are in fact more or less in a post-war scenery. Why? Because much of the money either did never changed of hands or either ended in the wrong hands with the bleesings of all surveillance organs and agencies.

So whe have a curious crime here, millions of money vanishing and, big surprise, nobody wanted to see this and nobody wants to investigate now where the money goes.

Much better find a fool to pay for our disaster.

So they sell us some bright recipes poisoned from the start. All benefits that they predict crashed loudly and became chains and viper pits, but, hey!, those smart guys that were taking money from you germans, to "give the money" to you Greeks, are richer than ever... How could this happen?. And everybody feels cheated and angry now.

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

#187

Post by peterfirefly »

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…

On the other hand, most of the German war reparations after WWI should probably be repaid. The exception is whatever Germany paid to Belgium, which should be augmented with reparations from France and Great Britain.

(And I assume you meant Balkan instead of Baltic.)

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

#188

Post by gaius »

3pt14159 wrote: post #75
quonn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> populist clowns Calling a dissenting party clowns is not helpful. It's also wrong, since they argue their points well and their economics are backed by such people as Paul Krugman. Now you might disagree with him, but would you call him a clown, too?

Paul Krugman is overrated, and you're drastically simplifying to say he's backing their economics. I'm mostly calling them clowns for the disservice they do their own cause by calling debt repayment economic waterboarding.

It must be driving Krugman up the wall that his panacea of just printing more money, isn't applicable here.

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

#189

Post by gaius »

StavrosK wrote: post #167
dandare wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While being miserable they are better of than let's say Slovaks who paid 660 mil Euro to bail out Greece. Think about it, they are not really living in poverty, they just lost the luxury standard they were used to.

If by "luxury standard" you mean "being able to afford rent and have youth unemployment be less than 50%", then I agree.

Oh come on, have you been to Athens? Everyone drives a Porsche and wears a Rolex, but all the buildings are unfinished, because if they were they'd be taxed. Greece is a poor country weirdly full of rich people.

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

#190

Post by stavros »

gaius wrote: post #189
StavrosK wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "luxury standard" you mean "being able to afford rent and have youth unemployment be less than 50%", then I agree.

Oh come on, have you been to Athens? Everyone drives a Porsche and wears a Rolex, but all the buildings are unfinished, because if they were they'd be taxed. Greece is a poor country weirdly full of rich people.

Everyone? Really? Because half of my friends are unemployed, and every single one has a university degree. And who starts building and then doesn't finish it because they don't want it to be taxed?
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