That probably works if you believe the creditors can't start any meaningful actions against you (which may well be the case with a country usually), and you don't care that other creditors will consider you as a risky investment in the future as well, ie. one who will not pay back his debt or even the interests.

What's happening with the vulture funds against some debt countries (in South America if I recall right), who is winning there?

By the way, our finance minister is Alexander Stubb. That occurred to me a few days ago, maybe Greece should make him their head of state? He will unite the Greeks and Macedonians, and invade Iran (former Persia) and India. Sounds like a plan.

Fortunately Finland is so far up in the north that even the Romans didn't want to advance here. Something about remaining where olives still can grow etc.

how the hell did you read that out of my posts? I really need to re-evaluate my english skills it seems.
I was simpy explaining why I think that austerity has a negative impact on the economy . You just ignore that and claim I said something about increasing pensions to create sustainable growth. huh?

I specifically said what I think the european reforms are lacking is a plan and money to develop/stimulate a sustainable industry in Greece. I never said anything about _just_ pumping money into it and ignoring the structural problems. Fixing the structural problems is absolutely vital.
But if you damage your economy while fixing your problems and a large part of your population is unemployed and lives in poverty you will still end up with an unbalanced budget and the need for more credit.
Thats why I think the austerity measures need to be more balanced to not impoverish the people too much and keep some level of domestic demand going.
And can you please stop this talk about extra pension money? I never said to give them more, just to make the cuts less severe.
That there will be some reduction in the living standard is unavoidable. But do you really want to push them as low as possible?

no, they did acknowledge that the negative economic impact of the structural reforms is so high, that it negates the efforts to balance the budge.

but it does cause problems for Germany. The domestic consumption in Germany is at a absolut low level. The german economy is only doing well because of its ridiculous high trade surplus. But that can't really be a role model for everybody, can it? Not everybody can run a trade surplus. Somebody will have to have the corresponding trade deficit. So for a more sustainable economy Germany absolutly needs to drop this "austerity above all" attitute even here in Germany
(and then there is the problem with the neglected infrastructure because the government don't want to spend more money)

now this is much more the quintessence of the problem that people have with sending more money to Greece. And I absolutely see where you're coming from. Looking at the many problems here in Germany it is really hard to not agree with you. But on the other hand, this currency union can only succeed imo when we try to eliminate the economic differences. which atm basically would mean dumping a whole lot of money to southern europe. similar like west germany has been propping up eastern germany since 1990(and still is). Would that even work? Hell, i have no idea. Maybe we just need to rethink this whole euro idea?
But the current way the EU is acting with trying to keep Greece in the euro, trying to fix their budget but ignoring the problem of the almost dead economy behind it will surely not work either.

Two things were needed - pumping said billions, -and- fixing the Eastern Germany's laws, policies, etc. And if you notice, that's exactly what is being proposed to Greece as well - "we'll give you money you need, but you will also have to enact laws and otherwise do what is needed to fix your country".

That's what has been done for several years, and interestingly enough, it -worked-. The changes were of the "short-term bad, long-term good" variety, as that's what was necessary, but things have been improving lately. Had Greece kept course for another 4-5 years, they would have been fine.

Instead, they elected Tsipras and it all went to shit.

that's a bad comparison. ;)
we simply extended the laws of western germany to the east. I don't think that will work with Greece :p
(in hindsight some people might wish they had had the chance to fight some of those changes like the Greek. But thats an entirely different topic)

if things " have been improving lately", why would the greek suddenly vote for another party?
maybe our view of that "improvement" is slightly flawed?

TL;DR 5-grader version (no swearing, even!)

Countries' economies don't work like private budgets. They work like the Bible says: you save during the good years and spend during the tough years (so as not to starve).

A slump means doing business is risky. Investing is risky. It's better to just sit on the money. So that people don't sit on the money, the government should print more of it and give it to the (poor) people. This way, the (comparatively rich) corporations will want to spend the money that they would have otherwise hoarded, and the economy starts working again.

The EU countries on the euro CANNOT PRINT MONEY themselves, only jointly, through the ECB. Furthermore, different countries have different economic problems and want different amounts of money printed and given to their people (hur hur). The more powerful countries have way more say how much money gets printed, and they happen to need way less money than the poorer countries. Also, (economically ignorant) voters are against printing money, emotionally, as a matter of national pride.

Private, mainly German banskters gave a bunch of completely bogus loans to Greece (which the embezzlers in the Greek government gleefully accepted), with full knowledge that Germany calls the shots in Europe and they would be fully compensated for those bogus loans from the joint European coffers. (They were.)

When the slump hit, not only the Greek people couldn't climb out of it under their own power (being unable to print money), they were also on the hook for all the criming Europe's corrupt politicians did, who gleefully announced the cause of the crisis was the Moral Failing of the Greek people, who needed to Suffer, Starve and Bleed in order to Redeem themselves. (Also: sell off public property for peanuts.) And suffer they did, except they (predictably) didn't get redeemed as promised.

Tsipras made big promises during the election, but, having been elected, got cold feet, befriended a number of Russian neo-Nazis, and made a very small request: "Mmkay, we'll bleed moar, but can we pretty please not bleed to death?" To which Europe replied with a "Haha, NO". Now Greece faces a choice: either refuse to pay off the debt, or sell the whole country on ebay. There's "no talk of leaving the euro", which is probably politics -- an independent country must have their own currency.

Masterpiece!

You can whine, but the traditionalist "hey it is not racist at all to say that coreans suck" clique is not inactive either. The sacred right to see the world through such culturalist filters is well defended, and not only by the local Blocher militant. I hope you have no issue with that.

As long as world events will be interpreted that way (with short culturalist explanations, and with "fuck them" attitudes towards whole countries), then we're ready to sacrifice whole populations (of actual real life diverse human individuals) to either economic collapses, like in greece, or physical bombing, like in iraq. For the sake of being all so badass and rebellious against "political correctness", what sort of mindets, worldviews, and reflexes are being encouraged ?



That's the main issue here. The austerity diktats had unbearable consequences on the greek population, leading to what has been described as a humanitarian crisis on several levels. For technocrats it's just numbers. For many outside observers, it's an abstraction. But behind this are human realities, indivuduals enduring it. Now, it appears that some first statistical signs of amelioration were shown, and hinted at a long-term solving of the issue. But with two problems : Firstly, the fact that, in the meantime, real life true people had to keep enduring these measures, and felt they could only endure that much (despite the outside propaganda claiming that greeks have it easy and applied no reform all these years). Secondly, more measures were demanded, increasing the crushing pressure on people, in order to simply accelerate the process every year, and these were not accepted.

So there are two rationales, each focusing at a different level (technocratic statistics and long term view, versus ground-level realities and how much more of this could be afforded, for how much longer). Depending on the perspective, the process was being a success (lookie, number projection), or a failure (but at what everyday cost). Making the situation much more complex, and less clear-cut, than proponents of both "solutions" make it (again, each have a political agenda to support by exagerating the irrationality of the opposite view).

When you add the opacity of the actual negociations, and the ambivalences of the current government (a left-winged gvt was supposed to re-balance taxations to target big money actors like ship owners and the church, but is said to not having done much in that direction either), the ambivalence of the EU (the forced military expenses, the loan interests profit, the populist local short-term re-elections priority), and the absurdity of the global economic system that lead to this crisis (in particular the interests explosions, that swallows in priority whatever wealth greece can produce, making the whole debt unsustainable in and by itself), then the sort of basic black and white interpretations that we are being offered through european medias and political statements simply do not cut it. And the strong categoric positions that the public takes, ready to sprout them and have them snowball through internet medias, become easily slightly obscene.

Again, we are in the dark. And I am super tired of hearing only one simplified half of the story in each ear. And when you actually attempt to make a synthesis of them, holding a firm opinion (not to mention making radical essentialist judgements, as we so often see from spectators and actors alike) becomes much more difficult.

Unfortunately, tiny easy-to-chew narrative is the main currency both in politics and medias. So we're in for more years of competing "totally obvious common sense" clashes...

Austerity measures being a "short term bad, long term good" concept is a well known fact - they very rarely bring immediate benefits.

Thing is, these things come with a delay. When an economical growth happens, it takes some time for it to be felt by the average person. Similarly, a recession is likewise felt after a delay (unless you are a stock investor or something).

It doesn't help that many people are easily fooled - if you tell people that their situation is bad and you will improve it, many will believe you even if their promises would instead make things even worse.

First of all, it was a question. I asked if that was what you meant, since you seem to be so feverishly supporting the idea of pumping tax payers money from other euro countries to Greek pensions.

If your economy is based largely on debt money, naturally your economy will hurt if that money channel will dry up. If you haven't noticed, private banks don't really want to loan more money to Greece, it is considered too risky now.

It is the same if I keep up unrealistically high standards of living (going abroad etc.) by getting loans that I don't realistically can pay back. My personal economy will hurt when I can't do that anymore, spend someone else's money.

It is Greece who should propose how they want to stimulate the sustainable growth in Greece with the money other EU countries and IMF are pumping there, and the creditors will say whether they agree it will create that much needed growth. After all, it is the creditors' money at stake there.

That is why e.g. IMF recently rejected Greece's proposals, they didn't find it plausible for helping Greece to stand on its own in the long run.

Sorry but that doesn't make any sense at all. There you still seem to believe that pumping debt money into bigger pensions and more public sector jobs (and bigger wages for them) creates sustainable growth, or even saves money.

After all, why else would you claim that otherwise Greece needs more credit?

Then again, no one has claimed no money at all should be allowed to domestic market. For instance, no one claimed that no money at all should be allocated to pensions, or wages in the public sector.

The question merely is what is considered to be a healthy balance in Greece's current situation, all things considered.

So what exactly is the correct level? Should it be somehow related to how much Greece produces? Norwegian pension level? Romanian level? Thai level?

No, only to realistic levels. Just as in Finland (albeit in Finland the pension system is different, it isn't directly paid from tax money but mostly from separate funds which are collected throughout your work history, but the same rules still apply, especially when expanding the discussion from mere pensions to the public sector).

Was that an official statement from IMF, or a guess from one IMF representative? Why then IMF is the strictest one at the moment?

I did see some messages where IMF suggested Greece's debt is too high, but I saw that only as a message to other EU countries "You know, you should cut your loans to Greece.", without an intention to cut their own because IMF rules and shit. Of course it would help also IMF if other creditors would suddenly decide to forgive Greece's debts.

What problems does that cause to Germans? What consumption exactly should the Germans increase, and for what purpose? Who would benefit from it?

I understood much of the German's austerity is self-induced and voluntarily. It is not because German people couldn't afford to spend money, but because Germans are Germans. They like to use their bath water several times and water their flowers with the water they used to brush their teeth, and crazy shit like that. Maybe they get excited for spending as little money as possible, except on German cars.

"Only because of high trade surplus"... Come on, that's like saying "You are rich only because your wage is so high and you have made so much of money in your life, and haven't spent it all!"

Yes it is true not all can have trade surplus, common sense says it is impossible. Just like not all people can be brighter or make money than the average,49.99999% will be below the average. But it is a good target. For individual countries, having a bigger trade surplus than other countries (which in fact are your competitors) is considered an asset, not a handicap.

How do you feel the German infrastructure is neglected? Autobahns are broken, people can't get treatment in hospitals etc.? It has been a long time since I've been in Germany, no idea what the living standards are nowadays.

But WHY?

When the Germany expended east, the SOCIAL system was actually improved not castrated. This in turn meant more money for the local shops and so on, which in turn did help the local industry.

If you cut at the bottom, it is a sure fail. Money always flows upwards, never downwards. Look at the US, the so called tr (IIRC) trickle down theory. A COMPLETE failure and utter nonsense. It isn´t working. End of story.

What they did in Greece is for sure not working. Who will invest in a country were the infrastructure is rotten or damaged?

Who will invest in a country with no social system (hospitals and so on), unless we are talking about slave wages, like in China.

I DO agree, that especially the previous Greek government could have done far more. But to blame the actual government is wrong. From what I have heard and read they are trying to improve things, but those shall have been done even prior. In the moment, the money which is/was being given went mainly back to the banks! WTF????

That is no help at all, as OUR money is just going to some large corporations and individuals. (Oligarchy)
PLus, why is the EU and others just NOW starting to make demands? They could have done so earlier....

The problem here is we have globalization at its best. But funny enough the laws which other countries have in place (like minimum wage etc) ARE NOT being globalized. Until this isn´t implemented, it is nothing else then extortion and slave work.

And another point: Look at the UK (not only) accepting all the greek money, what about money laundering laws? They would apply in this case as well. SO it is not only Greece at fault.

That's one humorous view on it. Another one, just as truthful, would be:

Tsipras: "Hey you Finns up there in the north! Cut our existing debts, and on top of it give us more money for our pensions, on our terms! We need the money more than you do! We want to keep Norwegian living standards with Romanian GDP!"

Finland: "Ahem, how about no? Shit, I knew we should never had entered the whole bailout process, it is causing nothing but headache to us. We didn't have anything to do with it to begin with, we weren't even part of eurozone when Greece was gleefully building up its debt already."

Depends from whose viewpoint you look at it.

So is leaving the eurozone the third option? Why is Syriza and most of Greeks against leaving the eurozone? You present it as if other euro countries and ECB are preventing Greece from leaving, but it starts to be the exact opposite: Greek finance minister just threatened today ECB of legal actions, if they would do anything that could be considered as trying to push Greece out of eurozone. (Other eurocountries have no means to oust Greece even if they wanted to, but ECB might theoretically have means to do it, with time.)

Based on the growth rate of the Greek economy, what else? Negative growth rate in this case, of course, and it's not an exact number.

If you want a specific illustration, 354 billion GDP in 2008 to 238 billion (est) 2014. That's actually about a third rather than a quarter, but I like to be conservative about such things. Partly fear of the unknown, partly a belief that the IMF etc had their interests if not at heart then at least not as completely irrelevant for the first. For the second, it's questionable whether they genuinely want to stay now, only thing certain is that they want it to look like it's the EU kicking them out because Euro membership is generally popular and they can also blame them for any economic problems too.

Also, they will get knifed if they go, nothing surer. The Eurozone will not want it to be a credible thing to do lest Spain, Italy, Portugal etc go too so they will make it as nasty as they can, and anyone with any sense knows it. Syriza is a relatively minor problem, Podemos on the other hand is not. Well, it hasn't, whatever they may believe. The way the Euro is built is a loaded deck/ slanted playing field. The figures I've quoted show it pretty comprehensively. Shrug. That's how the Euro works, if you want the benefits you have to take the costs as well. It's not really unfair in the sense that Greece is at least partly in this mess because the system is unfair. What are you going to do, kick out the PIIGSCS? It won't be fun for Finland when you're the weakest economy left and find yourself with exactly the problems Greece has, because they are inherent problems that have not been fixed and give all appearances of not ever being fixed because it's politically inconvenient to do so.

Really though, you have the choice of subsidising a country that has 400 billion euro in debt- at 5% bond rate that's 20 billion euro, near 10% of GDP let alone taxes, in interest alone- or letting them go. They're never going to repay that, especially when IMF/ EU policies cripple growth and lead not to 5% growth but 5% recession. Pfft.There was no 'rich people are evil' about it, my ire is aimed at neo liberal economic dogma- austerity- because it is demonstrably stupid in this case. Rich people have options, Greece is not a good option, everyone agrees, yet somehow the IMF expects rich greeks to invest there and not remove their money instead- that is stupid, no two ways about it, it's illogical, it's... well, what more can you say. The ideologues think that taxes on the rich should not be raised, pensions should be cut. Indeed, if you want to get self righteous about your money going to Greeks get self righteous about you- effectively- subsidising the well off while a third+ of the population is below the poverty line. Give them money and it gets spent, give the rich money and it goes offshore, that's economics much as neo liberals would like to pretend it isn't.

If anything I suggest that the rich are sensible by not investing in Greece.

I rather suspect you couldn't find any rebuttal and that is why you cut it and put in a childish paraphrasing instead. Because there is no rebuttal- the whole current dispute is that Syriza wanted to raise money by taxing the more well off while the IMF in particular demanded pensions be cut instead; that is what precipitated the current events. Care to show how this rather than taxing the more well off will benefit the Greek economy and lead to increased repayments when you're sucking another 400 odd million euro straight out of their economy? Will the 400 million euro the rich get instead not go into the London housing market or a Frankfurt bank? Yes, I'm sure that this is all some sort of scam to milk cash off the EU. 35% poverty rate, loss of a quarter of their economy, it's all a way to weasel out of something something. Greeks are actually and already the hardest working in Europe, per the OECD. You aren't going to get the money back, I know it and you know it. So, why not recoup off the banks you bailed out?

The purpose of the bail out was to help those banks, not Greece, as people are petrified of another Bear Stearns, let alone another Lehmann Bros, there is as little chance of getting your money back as there was of them getting their money back, less since their economy has regressed 30%. That's a bitter pill to swallow, but that's reality; it's Too Big To Fail and Privatise the Profits, Nationalise the Losses just with Euro banks instead of US ones/ AIG/ GM etc.

Want it not to happen again? You need to fix the eurozone. You can't have monetary union without fiscal union, you can't have it without rules everyone follows. If you can't do it, disband it no matter what ideological attachment the Euro has for the pan European movement. Otherwise this will happen again.

I don't understand why they keep dragging this shit on over months and months, if they can't pay back the debt they they can legitimately default on it. What's the big deal? The creditors will get all huffy for a while that they've lost money, but they'll get over it. It accomplishes nothing to drive the Greek economy further into the ground and cause more suffering.

There is a strong belief that being in the eurozone is about being recognized as a part of Europe, and this is a high stake for greece since its fundation (in opposition to the ottoman empire). Politics have been hammering that greece is european, and western, by nature and destiny and other super strong empty words. In the sense that being rejected from europe would be felt as being rejected by some "western world" into some "eastern world".

And underlying this, the opposition to Turkey. At a symbolic level, the Turks are described as the savage backwards easterners, and Greece itself as the advanced, western european. And beyond this sort of symbolic legitimation, there is the fear that, once Greece will be outside the eurozone, Turkey will launch an invasion on its (ever disputed) islands. Greece and Turkey keep fearing each other's invasions for ages.

Point is : There is a whole array of representations, symbolisms, prides, anxieties, discourses, that enhance the importance of the "europe" concept (and its institutional incarnations) for many people in Greece. Don't underestimate the weight of such things (heck, look at Greece's policies wherever the "macedonia" word is at stake).