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Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

greece.greekreporter.com

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Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#51

Post by thefounder »

lucianoq wrote: post #40

To the people who think Greece deserved that: lender is responsible for checking how much the borrower can take. My bank reasonably doesn't give me a billion. Default likelihood exists because there is an interest that prices it. When default happens, shame on the borrower and shame on the lender for having been a bad checker or just shame on no one if that default was one of the "expected" and covered by all the deb…

The lender is responsible to get its money back and pay its shareholders and that's it. Now the government is responsible to protect its people.

It looks like the Greek gov(which represents the Greek people) was not very responsible when it took the loans and arguably neither when it nearly got bankrupted.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#52

Post by tasubotadas »

lucianoq wrote: post #29
tasubotadas wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened? It's a success story. I get that people do not like the fact that they can't retire now at 55yo or that they had to privatize a few big national companies, but I think it's a perfect example where the doctor knows better than the patient what's best for them.

Retirement age in Greece is today and was in 2011 higher than in Germany. Using some anecdotes and guess for aggregate data is bad induction. "privatize" means that today all the Greek airports are owned by German companies. Is it legit to suppose there was a slight conflict of interest between the "doctor" and the "patient"? I mean, would you trust your doctor if he gains on your death?

Really?

"Like many EU countries, the general retirement age in Greece is 65, although the actual average is about 61. However, the deeply fragmented system also provides for early retirement – as early as 55 for men and 50 for women – in many professions classified as unhealthy."

55 and 50!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-to-ca...

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#53

Post by leto_ii »

tasubotadas wrote: post #37
mempko wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's a shitty move? What the euogroup did to greece and other countries.

I grew up in a country that joined the EU and boomed afterwards. We had the same crisis and probably even worse austerity measures than Greece after the 2008 crisis and some politicians are still in a tough spot until this day. In all aspects, Greece was in much better shape before the 2008 crisis than Lithuania. Now Lithuania has a higher GDP per capita than Greece. How did that happen? But never once, anyone in pub…

> Greece was in much better shape before the 2008 crisis than Lithuania. Now Lithuania has a higher GDP per capita than Greece

Shouldn't this actually make you wonder whether the Greek austerity was a good idea?

> It really makes a difference, when people own up to their future.

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.)?

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#55

Post by _jal »

tasubotadas wrote: post #4

That's a really shitty move. >a USB of the conversations he had secretly recorded while attending a Eurogroup discussion in Brussels People in private converse completely differently (more freely) than in public. Judging people on what they said there by a public standard (it's impossible that this will not happen) is extremely unfair. Especially since Varoufakis knew that he will be recorded, he has probably chosen…

1) There are almost certainly other recordings of the same meeting. People who regularly attend meetings like this should be well versed in the reality of what goes on.

2) If pols do not fear things like this, they absolutely will abuse the public trust. It always happens. You cannot have meaningful representative government without meaningful information on their actions.

3) In general, support for smokey-back-room politics tends to be related to support for the outcomes of those decisions. It suddenly becomes a collusive outrage when the "wrong" ox is gored.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#56

Post by olivierduval »

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…

And even if it was the case... Maybe the logical reasoning is something like: EU need some worldclass banks to be independant, so we can't let a single country trash everything for all other EU countries.

I can understand that Greek people would be angry to be "sacrified"... and that's why that kind of meeting is secret! Because to govern is not only to be elected but sometimes to have to take bad choices, when only other choices are worst

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#57

Post by yellowstuff »

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…

I understand your point and the importance of the issues you're raising, but ultimately I still think it's important for leaders to be able to have confidential discussions. While transparency is important, I think that if people know that their meetings will be public then the real decisions will be made in private, and the meetings will just be an opportunity for political messaging. You don't get the same outcome plus transparency, you probably get a worse outcome and fake transparency.

EG, imagine a hypothetical scenario where Greece gets into debt trouble again, but now the other finance ministers don't trust that their meetings will be kept private. The German and French finance ministers meet privately, and decide to screw over Greece and come up with a cover story about how they can't do anything else. A better outcome would be if they had private meetings with Greece and at least had the opportunity to reach a compromise. The best possible outcome might be having the same meeting with full transparency so that the public is fully informed, but that's not what would happen.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#58

Post by lucianoq »

tasubotadas wrote: post #4

That's a really shitty move. >a USB of the conversations he had secretly recorded while attending a Eurogroup discussion in Brussels People in private converse completely differently (more freely) than in public. Judging people on what they said there by a public standard (it's impossible that this will not happen) is extremely unfair. Especially since Varoufakis knew that he will be recorded, he has probably chosen…

> 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 present yourself as a candidate. There are plenty of roles in companies that are private enough to speak privately.

Eurogroup, Ecofin, European Commission, European Central Bank, ESM are secrets just to subtract power from citizens, so to reduce democracy.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#59

Post by Aeolos »

iSnow wrote: post #39
arethuza wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Varoufakis also mentions in his books that German reparation payments to Greece after WW2 were conveniently cancelled by the Western allies when they needed (West) Germany onside to face the Soviets. https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/10/greece-to-renew-call-for...

Pretty much any and all reparations were cancelled for Western Germany and today's Germany by continuation. It was a mix of "we need Germany now" and the less than stellar experiences with reparations after WW I.

Outside the reparations question, Germany forced Greece to provide loans during the '40s occupation.

Those loans are not reparations, were never cancelled and, due to continuity of government, are still owed by Germany to Greece.

Debts must be paid after all.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#60

Post by MagnumOpus »

hardlianotion wrote: post #23
cm2187 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a dog who doesn't understand why the vet tortures him!

That's just an insult.

No, that's Hanlon's Razor. Either the population was ignorant of living beyond their means and adopting bad economic policies -- or they are deadbeats who willfully took out credit they had no intention of repaying.
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