I couldn't agree more with you.

Maybe one of the most important lessons to be learnt from this, one would think, is that it's essential to not get into such a situation. Deficit spending should be avoided at all costs. Otherwise you may end up a slave to someone.

But here comes the paradox I never really could solve. It still puzzles me.

People hate politicians who propose higher taxes and/or spending cuts, but they love politicians who propose to lower taxes and/or increase spending, even if there is already a budget deficit. I mean love as in they vote for them and hate as in not voting for them.

Why are people so irrational? Do they want to become slaves?

For example Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Including all the costs for building the needed staff that is not in use anymore there surely is a loss of several billions. Why did Greek people agree to such an undertaking? For Olympic Games you either must be really rich and not caring or really well organized and with low corruption, not poor and badly organized, where the risk is very high you are paying billions just for the privilege. Greeks should have been very much against it but they weren't, at least I cannot remember really big protests.

Maybe it has to do with widespread corruption. If the people do not trust their politicians at all they are seeing no alternative to being a slave in the end anyway. They just like to have a bit a longer party now which of course would be perfectly understandable.

But in all the countries with still kind of working systems I think that people should pay more attention towards balanced budgets. Either cut spending or increase taxes (for example on the rich) or do both. It cannot be that hard and it will make all the difference for the future.

Don't forget the tanks :

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/german-arms-manufacturer-fined-37m-for-greek-bribes-1.2034844

Antonios Kantas, the former civil servant, claimed to have received €1.5 million from Rheinmetall for green- lighting the purchase of the air-defence system and an upgrade of Greek submarine electronics. (IIRC neither of these actually worked, the subs sailed at an angle, and the air defence system didn't actually work at all)

German tank manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann allegedly paid him €600,000 for supporting the purchase of 170 tanks at a cost of €1.7 billion.

He received a similar amount, the official said, by backing the purchase of German submarines from Kiel- based company HDW.

In other news...

Former Greek Defense Minister Convicted of Graft

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304441404579121201477002812

Akis Tsochatzopoulos, 74 years old, was given a maximum sentence for accepting and hiding some €55 million ($74.6 million) in bribes from a series of arms deals dating back to the 1990s. He has denied the charges.

Apparently he and his missus were living in a house owned by a holding company (that was owned by his cousin or something), but when Greece brought in a law to tax people living in houses like this, the ministers wife bought the house, the government followed the money and the scam all fell apart.

Are you sure it is 8? I read they paid 2 for the submarines somewhere.

As I already said, all the cuts that are done now (for example to the military) could already have been done 5 years ago too. So maybe Greece should just have canceled these expensive submarines then (or better never ordered them).

On the other hand, even if they had, the debt pile would only be a few percent lower, still they would be totally bankrupt.

If you ask me, Greece will never really pay these 2 billion (or 8) because even if it already did, they won't pay other billions which are equalling to a sum even greater.

I guess in the end it will be a nice gift. We will pay for the submarines completely. I don't like that either but that's the way how it will go.

I guess the biggest mistake was made like ~13 years before in 2002 when they were ordered but in truth Greece was not rich enough to be able to afford them. The company bribed officials and both, the Socialists and the New Democracy used creative accounting to help obfuscate everything.

For example from:
http://www.lepointinternational.com/it/politica/europa/550-the-submarine-deals-that-helped-sink-greece-.html

"When the Socialist government first bought the submarines, it post-dated the accounting for them to the day when the vessels were to be delivered, rather than when they were purchased."

"The New Democracy government that year then used a similar tactic, by retroactively accounting for the expenditures on the date of purchase. That inflated the budget deficits of the previous government—while making it easier for the New Democracy government to meet its own deficit goals."

Maybe they can find the ones responsible on all sides and get a court result saving them a few billions. I guess banks will only play one part of many in it but still it would be very nice.

Regarding Greece and the situation now: The best they can do is probably to concentrate on getting more stimulus out of the EU. Whether in the negotiations or just at every other possibility later, insist on getting more money invested and directly relate all the future economic problems to missing stimulus (which is very likely true). Threaten to default otherwise but say this only occasionally. If you run such a clear campaign I think they can create a lot of support everywhere. The public in Europe may very likely rather see the rescuer as the problem if the rescue repeatedly fails even though the demanded measures where harsh and the Greek implementation was reasonable. At some point public opinion will be that the rescuers made the wrong decision and then the situation may change. I hope so.

That's what they've been doing for 5 months.

I think we agree on, if 1.6 or 8, with the total debt it doesn't matter anymore :(

BUT, the main question here is: Did they (bankers and so on) knew about it? That is not really a question as it was all over the press, media and so on.

Hence they aided in the bankruptcy and shall be hold accountable! Do we agree on this?

From what I have read, yes there was quite a bit of background deals involved, but as usual at this level, nothing happens in Europe.

Don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the order itself, BUT if YOU buy something and don't have the money you will go to jail (and anyone assisting you).

Show me ONE bank which will give any private person a credit, when your debts outrank your income! ;)

Scuse me???? What are you dreaming off??? ;)

Just look here in Germany, were also thanks to the hostile coverage of the press a lot of people just blame Greece! Ignoring all facts behind it.....

Just look how the prior plans were called, rescue plans and whatever...

All what happened till now was a bank bail-out (again). Nothing else. 89% Percent of the money given was going towards banks, not towards Greece.

EDIT: And not the banks of Greece, rather German and French banks

Why do they do that again? It seems like throwing money in a black hole.

" Culture is not the main thing. Modern culture is a factor."

I don't get your meaning there.

The willingness for people to go to war is related to ww1 if the feelings are similar to how people felt back then. People have a lot of feelings that makes war easier and they don't go out of style until we evolve out of them.

Oh and this got bumped and I had forgot about this thread. So respond if you like but my heart and mind ain't really in this so don't expect genius level of responses from me.

There is a certain difference between as culture as in people and modern culture as the effects and trends that came, come, and will continue to come with an increased globalization.

This is unrelated in any way to what I said and in no way has any relevance to the feelings of the new generations that have never experienced large conflicts and will most likely not engage in them.
How exactly do you think a 25-30 year old young adult in a first world country feels about war right now, especially since in the last 100 years weaponry has advanced at a faster rate than any recorded time in history? This is pretty much the basic question around which this argument revolves. People don't want to go to war. And why would they? Modern first world, in spite of its incredible economic instability is a hell-of-a-lot better place than any kind of war.

I still don't get your meaning. But anyway I guess it's not all that important I do.

You say the basic question that this revolve around is the tolerance (Or want if you want.) for to go to war. I agree.
My argument is that all the war talk and vibes are coming from safe and stable countries that have several generations not having known a full out war. That's the situation we had before ww1. Including growing nationalism.

Not exactly what they've been doing. They did insist on a debt restructuring now. I didn't even mention it, although I think it must come at some point. They were haggling about expenses cuts, I didn't say so. They made a rather pointless referendum and had to close banks for two weeks instead of giving in and just pointing out the lack of stimulus. They didn't threaten with an euro exit and devaluation because they don't want that. They compared Germany to Nazis which was quite unnecessary (well quite some media in Germany weren't any better - basically worst English tabloid level).

All in all I think they lacked the focus on stimulus. There was not enough focus to really make all this the question of: Is there enough stimulus or not? Please correct me if I'm wrong but my impression was they rather wanted much more and gambled too much instead of making it an essential question about stimulus. I don't know really, because the negotiations were not public, but that is my impression. There was just not enough discussion on stimulus. Did I mention that stimulus is essential for Greece's recovery? Without stimulus the economy of Greece won't recover within the next 10 years and they will need a big pile of billions of euros. It's stimulus that is needed now. Now or never.

It might have been cleverer if the Greek government would have just said No to every proposal of the EU not containing substantial stimulus, but otherwise agreeing to everything and then instead of a referendum just wait until the deadline of end of June and then saying, look they never made a proposal that is going to work, we probably have to default now if nothing else comes because we want a working solution and this must contain stimulus. They may not have convinced Germany but maybe many other countries which in turn may have convinced Germany to move. But it's not what they did. Among other things they wasted one week for a referendum that had no consequences.

We totally agree on this. But then we live in a law system where everyone is innocent until proven guilty (even the banks). This means without evidence, witnesses, ... this is all in vain. As much as I would like to see all criminals, especially the high ranking, in jail, I guess the chances here are rather slim. Basically this is a matter for the courts in my eyes and until they convict someone, nothing we can do. Do we also agree on this?

What can you learn from this? Well that hard anti corruption laws and high level of transparency and independent justice is one of the highest valued things you can have. Next time there is an election everyone should vote preferably for the party with the best programm regarding this. This should be a very, very important point in your political decision because it determines if ever your government cheats on you or not.

In short: If we all do not insist on strong anti-corruption measures now, we are lost. We will be cheated until the debt is too much everywhere.

I know. It's terrible. I meant it more from a European perspective. So on average across Europe there is a good chance that the assessment of the situation changes. If then for example France wants to speak out against Germany, why not. The idea is just to shift the compromise.

However very disappointing a comment in the public German TV (http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/gabrielmerkelschaeuble-101.html) said that again Ms. Merkel did everything right. Really? This guy must be living on another planet.

But hey, you have to understand the common people here. They know that they will have to pay for Greece anyway. They want to minimize this, so any harsh measure now seems like the maximum they can get and they cheer for it. That it will mean even higher payments over a longer period of time - they don't see it and they don't trust noone. They just have not enough economic education. Maybe it should be teached more in school (especially macroeconomics is probably good for a lot of interesting discussions). I even have some sympathies for them. And I'm not mad at them.

But I'm really mad at my government. They in comparison to the common people are smart enough to understand the situation and still doing the wrong thing. They are part of the problem. But already I'm not voting for them.

Somehow that's interesting. It's a factor of roughly 3,000 between the two sums. Apart from the fact that all this would be illegal I'm actually surprised that you could have so much leverage in bribery, i.e. that with 1 euro you could bribe someone to buy things from you for 3,000 euro.

I guess that Greece actually anyway wanted to buy a lot of tanks (for whatever stupid reason - stupid because they clearly have more than they need) and the effect of the bribery is not that they bought more than they wanted (I mean the whole government was acknowledging the military budget, weren't they?) but rather more expensive ones than they wanted. In that case the damage would not be the total costs of €1.7 billion but rather a certain smaller part of it, the difference to if you would have bought them at the cheapest competitor instead. But maybe there would have been bribery too with the competition. Surely no company selling weapons in the world is an angel.

So the exact effect of the bribery on the transactions as well as the exact financial damage is unknown and very difficult to assess. It's probably less than the total sum of the transactions.

And at least they have the tanks now. Not that they help much if there is no war. (And please don't get any wrong ideas. ;)) Maybe the Baltic countries could buy them second hand from Greece.