Most probably you're wrong. Spain's economy is growing, the governmental budget is more balanced than US or GB for example (not sure about the debt of the regions) and the trade balance is only slightly negative. Unemployment still is very high and it might take years to get down which is really bad. I wish we had more inflation which would help there naturally. But apart from this I don't think Spain will have any problems like Greece in the next 10 years. Not much chance for that.

On the other hand the point of real.geizterfahr is valid, isn't. Greece made quite some debt and the question is who is paying for it. Naturally views differ on that but it goes without saying that referendums in the other EU states would equally well refute any payments. So you need always two sides for a compromise.

I think the best is a Greek exit of the euro now with a strong devaluation and regained competitivity. This will neccessarily include a default on the debt and negotiations who much debt will be paid back. I strongly favor to spread the debt repayment over the next 30 years and coupled to the economic development (2-3% of GDP). That way the debtors get not more than 50% back of what they gave to Greece but that may be the best they can ever hope for.

I'll post it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mnvKLoMC7Y

"Lending is not helping".

You'll get your money back (plus interest). And so far Greece has been the perfect client for the banks since it always pays back every loan it takes.

The problem is that the 3 organisations who negotiate with Greece want to intervene politically in the governing of Greece (instead of just economically)

The result of this referendum is just saying to them: "These austerity measures lead to no future. We must find another way to handle this debt"

Maybe by focusing on development instead of constant tax raises and public property selling. (This is my opinion)

Regarding the historical context I would say that fortunately it is very different here. One must be carefully to compare everything with everything because some aspects are always different. Especially leaving the rational level and going into a more emotional state might result in refusal on all sides.

I mean that one thing is for sure. Greece will not pay back all of its debt (as Germany did). And Germany helped Greece a lot in the last five years (which is unfortunately not mentioned in the linked articles).

Just as a general approach when a creditor cannot pay back all it's debt: You calculate what the creditor can pay back and then he pays this back and not more and the debtor will just be more cautious in the future with this particular creditor. Also the paying back is limited to a fixed time period after which everything is forgotten. That's how it is usually done and in this case here probably it would work too.
But only because it got new money to pay back old loans. It could not have done it on its own. I thought this is called a Ponzi scheme which is not sustainable. Greece will surely not pay back even half of its current debt. I'm absolutely sure.

Also it didn't. Wasn't there this big debt cut in 2012?

Hmm. I would say this has not much to do with democracy. I like democracy a lot but if in this direct way then please everywhere. In a democratic Europe Greece might even end up with less help. I don't know if you meant that?

I'm not sure what do you mean by change? Who shall pay for Greece's debt and for all the other money they want and need if they stay in the eurozone? A big democratic majority here would probably see it very critical - as you probably know too. Not sure if you meant this.

That is very ambiguous. The EU helped Greece to repay european banks (which was the EU's priority) and little of the money that Greece recieved was used or meant to be used for Greece itself, that is the whole issue of the debt's unsustainability. And the part which was, was also largely used to buy stuff from Germany and France (remember the EU forbidding Greece to cut military expenses and forcing them to buy the german military material ? Or do you only remember the EU's recent u-turn on that point since a governing leftists+militarists alliance had to be brought down ?). Not to mention that the money "given" was still loaned, which is still a manner to profit from it on the long term...

So, I wouldn't really qualify this as a "thing for sure". The altruist narrative should be taken with a grain of salt, just as the pseudo-candid "we offered them all this money, what but what have they even done with it ?"...

(I could also point out the Germany did not "pay all of its debts", technically, but I don't like going there because the sentence hardly makes any sense to me. "Germany" is not "germany". I consider that holding an anti-nazi government/society accountable for a nazi government/society is a bit dubious, even if both were localized in the same geographical territory at different times. If's not like today's Germany has profitted much from the nazi era.)

I'm talking on a much bigger scale: http://www.logiosermis.net/2012/08/1821-2011.html#.VZpFMPntlBc (sorry not available in English, please use google translate)

Also 12% is not considered a "big debt cut" (expecially when it comes together with new loans and austerity measures that reduce the goverments income)

Yes. Of course - would love to see more direct democracy but the sentence was an allusion to a sentence written by Karl Marx....

What i mean with change is that the austerity politics need to end. I'd go along with Thomas Piketty who demanded a European debt conference. Greece will never be able to repay its debts and the social situation got worse in the last years...

In the end they all play stupid blame games. Does it really matter if the EU expelled Greece from the euro or Greece exited the euro by itself. What if no better offer comes? Whose fault is it then? Greece because it refused the offer which was there or the other European countries because they didn't make a better one?

Maybe to get a more neutral perspective it would be good to think about general rules should look like in the EU about how growth, debt, inflation, unemployment, solidarity shall be coordinated.

That way in the end nobody can feel unfairly treated.

Either we are all independent countries, then everyone please pay for his/her own debt, or we are all connected, then you get help but also have to play by the rules (cut expenses, etcetera). This would work, the other variants don't and it's better not to try too long in my eyes.

One could maybe take the US as a example to get a working fiscal and economic policy as well as Europe-wide social systems. Together with a Europe-wide joint military this might be a viable plan for in 10-30 years maybe.

I still don't know what that is supposed to mean. Who should do what, what steps should be taken, who pays for it all etc.?

The current situation is oxymoron: Tsipras demands that one third of the old debts should cut, and at the same time wants to start negotiations of a new bailout package as soon as possible. So, cut old debts, and give more debt money? Huh? Wouldn't it make more sense to discuss about the cutting debts when one doesn't want more new debt on top of it?

Why would other EU countries (their citizens) want to give more bailout money to Greece, when they are already saying they aren't going to pay their old debts back either?

Since lots of the "austerity is baaad" comments come from US, should EU follow what US is doing? As far as I've understood, USA (federal state) didn't bail out e.g. Detroit or Stanton, and is also leaving Puerto Rico with its huge debts on its own now. If that is what "no austerity" means, ie, no bailouts from other EU countries (nor ECB financing Greek banks anymore), then that sounds agreeable.

That's exactly what is (slowly) happening, but there's a lot of resistance, as you likely know, usually coming from various nationalists/extremists (Le Pen, Farage, Tsipras, etc). Which is not unexpected - giving up control is never an easy thing - but it's certainly not helping anything.

am i still on gog yet?

First of all all previous bailout didn't help Greece nor the greeks. Around 90% of that bailout money went straight to banks that lent Greece money before the crisis ---> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/where-did-the-greek-bailout-money-go
From what i know a bailout would be for the Greece itself for the first time.
The main problem is that the debts are now public debts unlike in the beginning of the crisis where the majority of the greek debts were private debts (from the FIRE sector...). The previous bailouts changed that.

Well greece will need money to kickstart their economy. Austerity actually shrinks the economy faster than it reduces the debt --> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/austerity-arithmetic/
And a haircut is also needed similar to Germany's haircut in 1953. Again referring to the Interview with Thomas Piketty which was posted earlier.

Concerning the "Austerity is bad" see above. It doesn't work. Why not try keynesian or neo-keynesian politics for a change? Anti-cyclical economy politcs also include saving and debt reducing but only during economic growth and not during a recession....

And i think no one would disagree that Greece has to save money and reduce its bloated administration (and the military of course - something the EU / NATO doesn't want btw.) There was mismanagement from the old parties in Greece. No doubt about that but working on that needs a functioning economy somwthing which can't be achieved by Austerity (which does not equal saving)

There will always be a way to treat each others unfairly, don't worry. Especially when policies on growth, debt, inflation, unemployment, solidarity, etc have to be defined : they depend on ideological beliefs (the left wing and the right wing would disagree on the way these parameters are interrelated, on their mechanisms, on their moral fairness, etc), and may also not be applicable the same way universally (different cultures with different dominant values, norms, internal tensions, historically-driven representations, productions, etc, would make a given same policy function at different efficiencies).

That's a major issue with the EU project : it was meant to uniformize "societies" while respecting "culture" differences, but both are interrelated, as "culture" (shared values, norms, etc) determines the perceives legitimacy of implemented rules. A neutral perspective should take much much more in account than the technocratic reduction to financial aspects which is the current trend in the EU, but everybody (especially voters) prefer simple reductionist narratives. There will necessarily be clashes between perceived fairnesses. Heck, just look at the ambiguities of the "fair price" issue on GOG. What is "fair" (to whom, why), here ? It will always be debatable.

Playing by the rules depend on the rules. To go back to the specific EU exemple : Greece is, on a whole, motivated for changes (the election of Syriza is actually a symptom of that : it was about ditching the ND/Pasok dinosaurs and their history of clientelism and corruption), but the ones that are being enforced by the EU are unapplicably stark and fast-paced (because they are short-term pojects made by (crypto-ideologue) technocrats with zero concern for human level consequences). There is on one hand the general project, and there is on the other hand the way to do it - the latter is what is being rejected by the referendum. And is where "fairness" issues arise.

And to take another exemple : Germany doesn't follow rules either (and all of Europe pays the price for it), but EU is not about fairness and rules implementations. It's about double standards selected by the dominant actors.

What I mean is that I do not even believe in the possibility of an EU driven by a "neutral perspective", and applying "fair universal rules". I'm all for international solidarity, but this requires an analytical perspective that decision-makers and (especially) voters cannot afford, and there would always be room for subjective perceptions of the "fairness" of any too global rule. And I think the EU project has a strong "actually all countries should be Germany" undertone (if not requirement), which is neither feasible nor really desirable.

I expect the EU project to collapse on its implicit self-contradictions. One form that these take is the "national sovereinty vs federation" debate. I'm not sure how the EU can balance this fairly (or even looking fair). Going back all the way to national sovereignties can be dangerous (sovereignists are often anti-international-human-rights militants, for instance, and let's not even mention international solidarities), and going all the way to USA-like federalism would be quite a bit reminiscent of colonial imperialism (full with the naively ethnocentered "let's take our current organisation as The Leading Natural Exemple of how everyone objectively should be shaped like" project). The EU will probably tip over to one of these extremes soon.

I'm not sure how it could be avoided. But more decent management of the Greek crisis, and less poisonous propaganda, would probably have helped a bit...

I guess one could interpret the call for an end of austerity at least two ways:

- One possible way: let the member states make more debt and forget about balancing the budget and in the end the ones with the lowest amount of debt have to pay for the rest. In a way it would mean the worst, because it would prolong the structural inbalances which are a big part of the cause of the crisis.

- Or: counterbalance budget cuts by either other economic stimuli or by inflation. That way the economy is boosted and the costs of the wealth of those have, but not very much, because a stronger economy is good for all. In a way it would be the best of all solution, because the structural problems would be solved and the slump in demand which is a natural reaction would be temporarily counteracted, therefore supporting the economy in times of crisis. Basically good Keynesian policy.

Or in even shorter: If you need to balance, first cut down the expenses and the taxes, then slowly increase the taxes again. That way you do not end up in hell and while balancing takes longer, it has the advantage of actually working.

I mean, look at Greece. Austerity never worked for them. Not because it's wrong but because it wanted too much too soon. Wages were too high for the competitivity and they only decrease slowly and while they do the economy is in danger and must be supported. That was missing in all the help packages.

The best for Greece and the Greek economy in the long run would be too further cut down government expenses but not to raise taxes now and to invest in the economy now. That way you pay more now but may also get more back later from a then competitive, balanced Greece.

But is this also what everyone wants (my fellow Germans, other Europeans, Greeks, Syriza, Anel, Tsipras)? Maybe not enough people want the hard but successfull way out on all sides and so it may not happen.

Also there is the issue of trust. Unfortunately there is not much trust here that Greeks can/will do the right things like fighting corruption. I'm not sure myself but I probably would try it once more even if I think that Syriza is not the best possible partner (Potami would more likely be a better choice). But others might not and therefore it might all fail anyway in the end because of mistrust across Europe.