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

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#231

Post by rumanator » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:40 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #205

rumanator wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, if it's all above board, they shouldn't be worried about transparency then That's either extremely naive or disingenuous. It's quite frequent in negotiations that you have to concede parts that might be spinned as collosal political losses even if they are completely inoquous or even in line with the greater good or your political mid to long-term interests. The sovereign debt crisis is an excellent example,…

Who decides what is "greater good" though? Some unelected bureaucrat in the Brussels? A globalist cabal? Frau Merkel? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Why do you have so much trust in these "negotiations" that you don't even want to see what transpired in them?

> Who decides what is "greater good" though?

The people you voted and elected for that exact role of course. That's what being a democratic republic is all about.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#232

Post by rumanator » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #221

rumanator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. Reality and the facts contrast heavily with this rhetoric. The eurogroup/IMF/european commission only stepped into the picture way after Greece bankrupted itself and digged a deep economic and social hole. Complaining about the organizations that mitigated Greece's pending collapse is like complaining about the cast and crutches you had to use after…

The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging. Much like the 'quantitive easing' ideas, they all had a theoretical basis that were vastly proven wrong. These countries only recovered when stimulous measures were applied. Lagard herself admited that austerity was a mistake but never apologised for the suffe…

> The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging.

Your personal assertion is flat out wrong. Although hindsight shows that the outcome was not optimal, the overall outcome of all bailout processes were highly successful. Although all states that requested bailouts were bankrupt by 2011, it took only a few years to get them back to eco omic growth and reducing their sovereign debt. Look for example at Portugal, who was arguably in the same situation as Greece but for about half a dozen years now it got back to economic growth,residual unemployment, a deficit close to zero, and lowering its sovereign debt. This turn of events coincides exactly with the last year of it's bailout process.

Who in their right mind speaks of failures when all states who underwent bailout processes and actually tried to follow the program ended up recovering from bankruptcies in record time?

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#233

Post by sykick » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

rumanator wrote: post #230

sykick wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Greek lenders were so forced but not German and French lenders. German and French banks were knowledgeable about the deplorable state of Greek accounting and the stupidity/corruption of the Greek government. They had responsibilities. It's a two party interaction and both the lender and borrower need to be held responsible. Enough with this tale of how German and French banks are victims for repeatedly giving lo…

> Yes, Greek lenders were so forced but not German and French lenders. Somehow you misread what I said. "Greek lenders" means those who lent money to the Greek state. Those were European private banks, including French and German. Those banks were forced to bear the loss of half of Greece's sovereign debt in Greece's famous 2011 debt hair cut. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-banks/europes-bank... > Enough w…

I think you have misread what I’ve written. I keep mentioning that lending is a two party relationship and that both parties are responsible and should both suffer. I’ve agreed that the Greek government was corrupt and had shady accounting practices. But the lenders knew this and still lent money. The so called bailouts of Greece were nothing more than a means of propping up the German and French banking sector [1]. The only people that genuinely suffered were the Greek people. The bankers didn’t suffer. The taxpayers in Germany and France suffered a small amount since some of their taxes went to pay to prop up their banking sectors. However, given the nature of the single currency market and how it greatly benefits Germany this should be considered a minor cost of business and doing this occasionally is worthwhile for Germany.

Why do you ignore the fact that lenders knew the sorry state of standards in Greece and still lent massive amounts of money to Greece? Why did they continue to lend money? Isn’t the most likely reason being that the people involved in making the loans do so for short term gain knowing they won’t go to jail and they personally won’t go bankrupt? You keep neglecting to hold the lender accountable. I’ve repeatedly mentioned that borrower should suffer and is responsible. All I’ve done is mention that the lender should be held responsible too. Isn’t it obvious that the lender should be held responsible? And by lender I mean the people making the decisions not just the corporate entity.

I think clearly we won’t agree. As I mentioned before in these discussions too often people neglect to realize that lending is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities. My sole aim has been to point out that the lender ought to have suffered too.

[1] https://shadowproof.com/2012/05/30/greek-bailout-is-a-bank-b...

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#234

Post by lucianoq » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #184

lucianoq wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Benefits? Which benefits? Eurozone is the lowest-growing area of the world. It destroyed more GDP than the II World War comparing with trends before Euro and with other countries at the same time. > Should state elections in Mississippi drive US Fed policy? EU is not a Federal Country, not a State and most of all not a Nation. It's just a common table where each country fights for their interests and the biggest stat…

> It destroyed more GDP than the II World War comparing with trends before Euro and with other countries at the same time. What??

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rBugkBzP4j4/U_cZG1HB04I/AAAAAAAAB...

This is a comparison of Italian GDP between 1929 crisis, IIWW and 2007 crisis.

Definitely they didn't go down like IIWW but they didn't bounce either, so in the long term far more growth has been destroyed.