Originally Posted By TP2000 I only pop in to World Events once a year or so, but I'm very surprised that the Greece implosion and $350 Billion debt isn't being discussed. Or, perhaps I'm not surprised since so many here trend rather far left and the Greek implosion is embarrassing to the Socialist cause of living off of other people's money. Eventually the money runs out. Or, in this case, the Germans and other Northern Europeans won't lend Greece any more and they want the loans they did make over the last 20 years to be paid back. Reading all the Greek news articles this past week from both sides of the political spectrum, I'm reminded of Margaret Thatcher's famous quote... "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." It will be interesting to watch this develop over the next few weeks, and see how it impacts the rest of Europe. So far the impact has been negligible since Greece is a tiny economy. But the lenders would like payments made on all the loans the Greeks took out, and won't lend them any more until they start making payments again. Greece seems to be at a dead end.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Well hey, your first paragraph is full of sh!t, so please come by more often.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The reality is, of course, more complicated than that. As with our own housing crisis, it was precipitated more than anything by lenders all too eager to lend to a bad credit risk, confident that THEY would be bailed out if push came to shove. Because surely irresponsible banks should never be held accountable for anything or lose money lending to bad risks. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vox.com/2015/7/1/8871509/greece-charts">http://www.vox.com/2015/7/1/88...e-charts</a> "The roots of Greece's crisis are simple. Before Greece joined the Eurozone, investors treated it as a middle-income country with poor governance — which is to say, a credit risk. After Greece joined the Eurozone, investors thought that Greece was no longer a credit risk — they figured, if push came to shove, other Eurozone members like Germany would bail Greece out. They were wrong." (snip of some good explanation, and then): "In other words, the debt crisis destroyed Greece's economy, which in turn destroyed Greece's ability to pay back its creditors or employ its people, which in turn forced Greece to beg the Eurozone and IMF for help and the austerity measures they demanded destroyed Greece's economy even more." (And this was a summation of American Enterprise Institute's Desmond Lachman, if you don't like the later Krugman quote). (snip) "The unemployment numbers should put to rest any belief that the Greek people are somehow surviving this crisis unscathed, but if you want something more specific, then this chart, via the Center for European Reform's Simon Tillford, is useful. If you take 2007 as a baseline, Greece has cut government spending by much more than other Eurozone countries. Indeed, as Paul Krugman wrote, "If you add up all the austerity measures, they have been more than enough to eliminate the original deficit and turn it into a large surplus." But Greece is in worse shape than ever. Why? Krugman again: "Because the Greek economy collapsed, largely as a result of those very austerity measures, dragging revenues down with it." The Greeks may not have had a choice other than austerity. But austerity has still been a disaster for them." It's also worth pointing out that the current socialist government has only been in power since March, elected in reaction to the harsh and not-working austerity measures. The government in power when this crisis was all coming to a head was... the center-right party.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."<< The problem with conservatism is that eventually grossly oversimplified rhetoric doesn't match the complicated realities of life.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt >>But Greece is in worse shape than ever. Why? Krugman again: "Because the Greek economy collapsed, largely as a result of those very austerity measures, dragging revenues down with it."<< The hypocrisy and short term memory loss of the policy makers in Western Europe over the Greek debt crisis is pretty stunning. Germany's refusal to write off at least a segment of Greece's debt and forcing more austerity on helpless EU citizens is pretty ballsy. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.france24.com/en/20150129-london-agreement-1953-debt-write-germany-economic-miracle-greece-austerity">http://www.france24.com/en/201...usterity</a>
Originally Posted By SuperDry I don't know that austerity was the right decision. It also may be that austerity was the straw that broke the camel's back. But the camel was already way overburdened before the recent economic troubles and austerity policy. The focus should be on the totality of the camel's health, not the straw.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Merkel's new rap song to the impoverished seniors of Greece: "It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! Germany First! Germany First! It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! It's your patriotic duty to F off and die! Germany First! Germany First!" For a country that's never repaid its debts, Germany sure loves to tell other nations they must repay. Hypocrites.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>For a country that's never repaid its debts, Germany sure loves to tell other nations they must repay. Hypocrites.<< There is a parable in the Bible about that. Matthew 18:23-34New International Version (NIV) 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[a] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf Writing off Greece's debt is a very slippery slope. Greece is small potatoes compared to countries like Italy, Spain and even France, which all have large debts as well. If any of those countries find themselves in trouble, should Germany write off their debt too? Where do you draw the line? And the "austerity measures" are not much more than asking Greece to change some of its economic policies to match those of the wealthier Euro countries. For example, increasing the retirement age to match that of Germany. Some of the Mediterranean countries embrace a certain lifestyle that worked when they had their own currencies. They regularly devalued their currencies when debts grew too high. But they made a pact with the devil (so to speak) when they tied themselves to Germany and the Euro. They should've recognized early on that they had to make some changes. They didn't, and here we are.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "And the "austerity measures" are not much more than asking Greece to change some of its economic policies to match those of the wealthier Euro countries. For example, increasing the retirement age to match that of Germany." If it were only that, there wouldn't be this problem.
