Ist not a farce, its a tragedy for the Greek populace. How they put it up, and what they wrote on the Ballot makes no sense if you really want to come to a solution.
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Greece to hold referendum on austerity measures 5 July
- Thread starter Coriolanus
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Ist not a farce, its a tragedy for the Greek populace. How they put it up, and what they wrote on the Ballot makes no sense if you really want to come to a solution.
Coriolanus
Banned
No surprise there. Breakdown of where the money went is in the OP.
And which party would that be?
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
There should be no negotiations here. Trying to figure out how much you can fuck Greece versus how much of the fucking they will accept is not how a union should work. Greece being in trouble should mean Germany and France and the rest are in trouble too. Unless this mindset is instilled in Europe...all of this is pointless.
Nikodemos
Member
I'd say that a single currency offers enormous benefits, but the way this particular single currency has been implemented was extremely poor, to put politely.
ClosingADoor
Member
You'll never get that mindset in Europe. We are still German, French, Spanish, Greek, etc before European and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
The Eurogroup, of which the Germans are the most influential and biggest economy and contributor to any money going to Greece.
Of course opinion differs on if it is actually help, but the fact is they are negotiating to get loans from them because no one else is willing to give them money.
really? the Troika is in charge for more than 400 million people in europe and you think that they are playing a game because they dislike one small political party that just became important 6 months ago? You really think that they would spend billions of euros if they could just go with a "naaaaaw .. we don't like you. We won't talk to you. nanananaa"
thats some really schizophrenic stuff right there
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
Then quit trying to act like Greece is at any fault at all here.
Theonik
Member
But it is the spirit of this project to change this. This whole mess is the first test. If Europe cannot pass this test it has no right to call itself a union.
Fenderputty
Banned
Yeah when various economic schools of thought all agree on the issue it becomes a little harder to ignore. You can't point to one side and say but look this person disagrees!
Which is why the Euro is a fucking stupid idea.
ClosingADoor
Member
The mindset is that Greece does not want to change, and you can't expect the others in an union to keep handing you money forever. Certainly not when those other members populations also feel the economic downturn in their own way.
That is all looking back now. For the decade after it was introduced everything was going pretty well and tons of people were happy with it.
But I agree that it would have made more sense to keep some countries out of the Euro. A group of for example Germany, Holland, Austria, Belgium, France would have been a better fit. Without the southern countries that need devaluation of their currency to stay competitive like they have done a ton of times before the Euro.
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
Yes, you can expect just that. Letting them starve, because "mah money" is not a valid reply when in a Union. If you want political changes, wait until the situation is stabilized and then work with the Greeks to fix the problems they have.
Coriolanus
Banned
The eurogroup has proved ad nauseam that they don't give a flying fuck if the greek economy improves, provided that they keep accepting bailout money and the measures that come along with it.
No surprise there, since 95% of the money they send greece goes straight back to the creditors, while still leaving Greece on the hook.
Germany is also the one that most profits from the euro being kept low, fwiw, which is helped by propping along an economical leper.
Which is a large part of why they were more than perfectly happy to continue negotiating and giving more money to the previous Greek administrations, which were all too willing to bend the knee.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
No-one in Europe, other than the few extremest Europhile, Pro-Federalist nutjobs have that mindset.
The EU is an economic trade bloc of nations that sometimes, and only sometimes, has the same political interests, all other expectations of the EU are fantasy.
There is not, nor will there ever be complete political union of the EU, and the Euro has, IMO, proven that nor should they be in a fiscal or monetary union.
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
It is Greeks fault. Leave the Euro, stop mucking the rest of Europe about. Commit to something. The government is standing in no man's land right. I doubt I'll hear any good argument debating Greece's recent actions in the negotiations as helpful to itself.
Referendum should be to leave the Euro or stay in. Europe can't do this time and time again and no btw it can't remove deadlines as they can't sign off some sort of Greek credit card with the rest of Europe funding it.
ClosingADoor
Member
The problem is the other Eurozone countries don't trust Greece by now to fix their problems no matter how much time they get.
Then Greece should just pull the plug, default and go their own way. You can't keep on asking money from the others and expect them to just keep that credit line open forever. Yes, Germany has profited from it, but let's not pretend the average German is so rich. They have made sacrifices to keep their economy competitive also over the past decade.
It's not just other European countries that think that.
My politics teacher told us of her dream of the United States of Europe. For that to become reality Germany and France would've to form a new united nation first.
She was weird but I liked her
Nikodemos
Member
I'll ignore the last part.
The Troika obviously doesn't care about the personages of Tsipras, Varoufakis etc. or about SYRIZA as a whole, or, indeed about Greece. What they do care about, however, is the rising tide of anti-austerity contagion. Podemos in Spain is waiting in the wings. Portugal has a similar movement (whose name currently escapes me). Italy has the... MC5, was it? There's a slowly growing rumble of "you know what? fuck this shit" that's growing louder from the Southern countries, and this is their greatest concern.
You must understand that the Troika are not, stricto sensu, professionals (like Stiglitz, Krugman, or, indeed, Friedman). What they truly are is an assortment of bootlicks and quislings for a handful very influential transnational banks and investment groups. Their final aim is not actually economic recovery/reconstruction, but merely rent extraction.
Coriolanus
Banned
And their lack of trust can be attributed to shitty greek governments as much as it can to political opportunists taking advantage of easy "lazy greeks" xenophobic rethoric in the better off countries.
Shit's fucked top to bottom.
Fenderputty
Banned
Until the participating countries unite to form a single entity with unified goals it's a stupid currency. Regardless of the mix. Greece just highlights this. One country wants to devalue their currency but the remaining of the union don't. In the future it could be Austria or Holland etc etc. Either way this issue isn't one that will go away. Countries should have control of their own money supply.
ClosingADoor
Member
It is basically the whole world, since otherwise they would get their money somewhere else. But nobody outside of the Eurogroup is wanting to take that risk, because it is almost sure you'll lose the money.
The problem is that no country, no investor and no companies trust greece to fix their problems.
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
To use a phrase from Dan Carlin's show, what you and people that agree with you are doing is "Logical Insanity". The question you ask is insane and idiotic and wrong. But the answer to it is logical. You want Greece's response to the negotiations to make sense, but the negotiations themselves are insane. They haven't worked. They are not working right now. And they will never work. And in that light, what the Greek government is doing makes sense.
And "just get out of the union" or "you should have never joined" are not valid arguments against someone bringing up the problems with these terms being shoved down Greece's throat.
My Greek family doesn't trust Greece to fix their problems.
Coriolanus
Banned
True, Greece should pull the plug. We're in agreement there.
Asssss for the sacrifices germans have made...well, about that, imma assume that you're talking about this lovely shitstain of a human being, Mister Gerhard Schroder, which was the chief proponent of austerity in Germany.
He's a corrupt, lying sack of shit to a grotesque degree, and it baffles me that he ever held a public job. You can see from his lovely resume that whatever measures he implemented most fucking certainly did not have the best interest of the german population in mind. No surprise there, since he also brought that fuck Wolfgang Clement along.
Weeeell, there is probably ONE country... although one of their mottos is "trust but verify", so w/e
maniac-kun
Member
Is it just me or was all the bailout money used to pay the bills of some banks instead of helping the greeks?
Nikodemos
Member
Indeed, however not too low, since one can reaach a point where the increased sales stop compensating for the reduced per-unit profit. And, besides, there's a limit to how much a) you can produce; b) the others can buy. Furthermore, Northern European industrial goods haven't competed on the international markets on price, but rather quality/exclusivity. It bears reminding that when the euro was under par with the dollar, Germany's economy was less hot than it is today. A very low euro (under par w/ $) would benefit agrarian countries more than the industrial ones.
Ether_Snake
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It's nice to see that the support for Greece outside of Greece is growing and manifesting itself. Ultimately austerity is a common threat and such politics and their supporters will increasingly find themselves isolated. The current events only speed this up as people feel sympathy for Greeks and can see themselves facing the same demands, if not now, soon enough:
The Guardian
The Guardian
Ninja Of Chaos
Member
I may be remembering wrong (I was young), but wasn't "fixing the corruption" one of the hopes the Greeks had after joining the union?
Coriolanus
Banned
That's in the op. It's exactly where nearly all the money went.
Previous administrations were using a credit card to pay other credit card debts.
And what´ll happen when the "plug" is actually pulled?
Hyperinflation. The question of humanitarian aid for Greece will be one of weeks rather than months. Greece will basically fall to the Status of a 3rd world Country for at least two years, before the effects of cheaper exports can be felt.
Do you really think the European countries would simply write off their debts?
If what happened in Argentina is any indication, they would sell those to hedge funds, for around 30cents on the Euro. And those hedge funds would simply freeze Greek assets until those are paid.
Really a Scenario no one could want.
Hari Seldon
Member
Hopefully everyone bailed their money out of those banks a while ago. Capital controls are the first step to large scale thievery of everyone's savings.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
It's more than just that. In other countries, poorly performing areas that can't just devalue currency have outmigration to better performing areas. In my own country, we've seen masses of young people leave Nova Scotia to find jobs elsewhere in Canada. This doesn't happen in the EU due to language barriers; generally speaking, Greeks can't find a job in Germany without first learning German.
In other countries, poorly performing areas get propped up by social spending by the country as a whole. Again, in my own country you see large wealth transfers for health, old age security, economic stimulation efforts, and even defense spending from the rest of Canada to Nova Scotia. None of this is happening in Europe.
In other countries, localized government debt is often guaranteed by the country as a whole. In Canada if Nova Scotia defaults on its debt the federal government will pick up the tab. This doesn't happen in Europe either.
The Euro could work maybe if there was a broader European government and an effort to stimulate multilingualism across all European citizens. Until that happens it's a raw deal for any country involved in it.
Coriolanus
Banned
Funny you should mention third world countries, since quite a lot of them have better stats than Greece right now.
As for what might happen, you can look both at Argentina and at Iceland. I'd say Iceland is the fairer example since, y'know, Greece doesn't have the same fucking family in charge of the country for the last 12 years straight.
The scenario no one outside of the creditors want, however, is one of perpetual debt, which is absolutely assured if the same measures that have been adopted in the last five years continue being adopted.
You offer a shitplate and perpetual debt vs a shitplate and maybe not perpetual debt, do not be surprised when people pick the latter.
No one wants it, but it's probably inevitable at this point. This situation has gone on for too long and it just keeps repeating.
Nikodemos
Member
My biggest regret in all this affair is to see how Cameron lets such a golden opportunity pass him by. He could snatch the mantle of anti-austerity and lead a crusade against Germany's moronic stubborn bullshit. As the leader of a country who took a long look at austerity then said "hahaha NO" he could be a far more effective spokesperson than a bunch of "shifty Southerners". He could maneuvre Britain into the driver's seat regarding intra-Union affairs.
Unfortunately, that would necessitate the prerequisite of David Cameron actually thinking, and, as we know, his body goes into respiratory shock when he tries to do that. It would also necessitate him not being a pandering parochialistic scrote who plays everything for the Sun/Daily Mirror brigade.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Nobody buys their bonds, they can't pay wages, social chaos, etc.
ClosingADoor
Member
People will stop lending you money and you run out of it sooner or later. Nobody is going to keep giving you money if you can't make the payments.
Iceland is exactly the example that doesn´t work, as Iceland had a lot of "transitional" (Read: foreign) workers, which were basically expelled, thus reducing the Impact of the shrinking Labor market.
That´s were I think you miscalculate. Buy leaving the Eurozone, the debts do not magically disappear. Nor do they magically transform from a Euro/Dollar Denomination to a New Drachma Denomination.
If Greece would really go rogue (as Argentina tried) and not pay them anymore at all, the hedge funds would come into Play.
Coriolanus
Banned
So, at best, we've two examples that don't apply. Lovely. Just usual fearmongering then.
You really should stop using Argentina as an example for anything, since those poor bastards also screwed themselves by allowing US courts to rule in the matter.
Oh god. It's bad enough comparing a country's economy to a person's budget, but this isn't even accurate for people. Most people get mortgages or student loans, or get loans for a whole other load of valid reasons.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Fenderputty
Banned
I don´t think they "allowed" anything - thats not how it works.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Didn't the UK government work with the banks to minimise UK exposure to this? If they did, good thinking.
This situation makes me glad that we are going to have a debate and referendum about Europe in the coming years. We'll vote to stay in, but EU leaders need to accept that we won't ever be an ever closer union. That won't work.
This situation makes me glad that we are going to have a debate and referendum about Europe in the coming years. We'll vote to stay in, but EU leaders need to accept that we won't ever be an ever closer union. That won't work.
Coriolanus
Banned
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