Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#31

Post by radicalbyte »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11
honest_joe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks

> How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.

They retired at 61, whilst in Northern Europe we've just had to raise the age to 67. They - like the Italians - don't like paying their taxes.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/02/greeces_g...

We should bail them out, but they should also retire at 67, the (existing) final salary pensions should be cut back and they should start paying their taxes.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#32

Post by johnchristopher »

imaginenore wrote: post #3

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

It saddens me to see someone here picturing the greece situation with such a simplistic and idiotic analogy.

It frigthens me to think such a line of reasonning could pop up on security or war matters.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#33

Post by aikah »

jeroen94704 wrote: post #21
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation. Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts. Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones…

While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this. This entire mess started with Greece not having its finances in order, and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup. After it became clear how dire the situation was, the Eurogroup stepped…

> While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

Nobody is denying that fact. But it seems you are forgetting that Greece made a lot of tough decisions for its people when asked by its creditors to "reform" yet it is just not sustainable, it's like asking the greeks to commit suicide.

> and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup

And who do you think helped cook the books? Goldman Sachs

If a country gets out of the Euro, it will set a precedent and other countries might do that in the future. The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural and economical differences between euro countries. UK was smart enough not to get into that mess. It seems that the only country really profiting from this is Germany. While they are obviously not responsible for that mess , there is a lot of resentment against Germany in southern European countries and France. For these countries the Euro is just the Deutsche Mark 2.0.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#34

Post by [deleted] »

drited wrote: post #12
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

tl;dr ECB has leaked to BBC they will cut off emergency lending that covers the panic withdrawals. This will kill the deal and force a grexit, even before 5 July referendum. However French PM does not think they have enough independence to do that. So we have a democratic nation potentially forced to leave Euro, after democratically deciding it no longer wants the austerity imposed, being forced to leave by non democ…

What's the alternative for the ECB? Give €129 bn to Greek banks to replace the deposits that are bound to flee this week only to see it lost when they default after saying no in the referendum? The Greek banks would have been bust long ago if it wasn't for the ECB's emergency lending; they've been provided with €60 bn in liquidity over the last 6 months to replace the deposit flight. Not sure how you can characterise…

[deleted]

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#35

Post by quonn »

honest_joe wrote: post #9
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation. Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts. Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones…

So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks

I don't have the statistics [0][1], but I would be very, very surprised, if the amount of money Slovakia is putting into the EU and Euro zone comes even close to the transfers they receive. Slovakia does not fund anything at all, they just receive a little bit less.

[0] Actually, here is some data for the EU (German): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Nettozah...

[1] And here is more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#N...

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#36

Post by Frozenlock »

michaelt wrote: post #20
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

tl;dr ECB has leaked to BBC they will cut off emergency lending that covers the panic withdrawals. This will kill the deal and force a grexit, even before 5 July referendum. However French PM does not think they have enough independence to do that. So we have a democratic nation potentially forced to leave Euro, after democratically deciding it no longer wants the austerity imposed, being forced to leave by non democ…

while the democracies that appoint the ECB think it is going too far. Often in politics you want someone to feel threatened, but you don't want to look like an asshole by threatening them yourself. I'm sure France and Germany can put up the money to cover profligate Greek public spending if they want to. But if they've decided Greece needs to be cut off, I'm sure they'd much rather have an anonymous non-german non-fr…

It works at all scales:

"I'd love to give you a raise, but corporate is making big cuts everywhere... I'll do what I can for you, but I can't make promises."

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#38

Post by davidw »

johnchristopher wrote: post #32
imaginenore wrote: post #3

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

It saddens me to see someone here picturing the greece situation with such a simplistic and idiotic analogy. It frigthens me to think such a line of reasonning could pop up on security or war matters.

That kind of thing is why politics are off topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#39

Post by jkot »

jmedwards wrote: post #27
jkot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Most people I know have long hours and work their arses of. Taxi driver usually works 12 hours / 6 days a week for 20 euro a day net profit. Security guy takes about 500 euro a month for similar hours. It is about pensioners and state employees.

I think it is unfair and lazy to characterise a people that way. There is, however, deep structural or cultural issues that causes Greece to have such a massive tax gap: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13155.pdf . People may well be working hard, but a significant enough number of people are not contributing enough to the state, yet are demanding (by voting) ever more from it, and leaders seemed to hav…

What is unfair about it? Greek public sector has the same size as France. Pension system is even more generous than Italy. Retirement at 50 with full salary is not uncommon.

No, instead of cutting that, they should squeeze even more money on taxes. Even EC is criticizing Greek government for collecting too much money on income tax and VAT.

Just for illustration VAT tax on heating oil is 60%, most houses I know just do not order it. Last winter had a few weeks bellow freezing.

Re: Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending

#40

Post by chongli »

jeroen94704 wrote: post #21
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation. Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts. Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones…

While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this. This entire mess started with Greece not having its finances in order, and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup. After it became clear how dire the situation was, the Eurogroup stepped…

it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

To what extent is any one person responsible for the actions of their government?

Post reply on HN