The Greek crisis

[Chris MacDonald]

Just wondering how many Greeks there are here and what their opinions on the current financial crisis is? And non Greeks too, I suppose.

[Tommy L]

Its going to get worse before it gets better. EU needs to circle the wagons and make sure Greece is on the inside. They need to forgive some of the dept and print more Euros. Inflation will be inevitable, but the burden will lie across Europe and not just in Greece. European co-operation has enabled record period of peace and prosperity amongst historically warring nations. They cant afford to let that slide.

[Nic H]

the neoliberal evil germans need to let greece off the hook

lets not forget that germany got let off the hook debt wise in 1953 to allow it to rebuild

 

happy that the greek people said no

[heni30]

the neoliberal evil germans need to let greece off the hook

lets not forget that germany got let off the hook debt wise in 1953 to allow it to rebuild

 

happy that the greek people said no

 

Agree - except maybe (maybe) for the "evil" part.

[Nic H]

ok ill change that to evil government.

[Chris MacDonald]

Sums up exactly my thoughts in a far more eloquent manner than I could have written;

 

http://moronwatch.net/2015/07/greece-syriza-and-conspiracy-theory-as-politics.html

[harryhirsch]

''They need to forgive some of the dept and print more Euros.'' .....forgive dept? Just print more Euros? Really?

''the neoliberal evil germans need to let greece off the hook''

 

If you dont have arguments, at least you could read up on the story.

Greek is not in dept because of other countries but because they payed themself over the last 40 years 16-18 anual salaries, 35% of the employees work for the government. There is almost no industry and this small country has the 4th biggest Army in the EU...and there is no proper tax system. I quote my workmate ''i do not know anybody who payes taxes''. Greek entered the EU with faked economy numbers. How can you blame other countries for that? The Germans do not rule the EU, dont forget the French and England, then there is the European Central Bank and the IWF. The EU countries have the right to ask Greek to do something in return, a lot of other countries had to change a lot to get money, like Spain, Portugal and Ireland. And these countries do way better now. The Greek people have elected a government that consist of Communists and Nazi Party members.But whatever happens, it is never the fault of Greek huh?

[Chris MacDonald]

It's a ludicrous situation.

 

Firstly that the government (Syriza) have been telling people that they can say no to austerity yet remain in the euro, something that is clearly nonsense. And secondly that they have abdicated themselves of any responsibility by putting it to referendum. What on earth do you think people will vote for?

 

If we all vote to have Ferrari's does that mean we will all get them? Of course it doesn't. And what's more is that the political elite are essentially handing down a very complex problem that really only economists can get a full grasp of and then letting the average person have their say in it. It's absolutely ludicrous.

 

The problem is as Harry pointed out that Greece does not have the GDP to support its current spending programme; massive government employment, large pensions, early retirement, etc. Austerity doesn't mean living like a pauper, it means simply living within your means; something that billions of people do across the globe on a daily basis.

 

If Greece were to actually table some reasonable spending cuts in an attempt to balance their books then the chances are France/Germany would be far more forgiving.

 

And this whole argument of "greece let germany off" is silly too, because if the Greek economy slides then the rest of Europe will be just fine, however if the German economy were to have collapsed it would have meant disaster for Europe. There was simply no choice.

 

The way I see it at the moment is that the Greek government are acting like spoiled children that just want to take, take and take and will throw a tantrum when they don't get what they want. All the rest of the EU is asking is that they comply just a little and then they can have what they want; the equivalent to a mother telling her child to eat just some of its vegetables before it has dessert.

Edited July 9, 2015 by Macker

[Nils Norgren]

I don't have a strong opinion either way, but this video is very informative...

 

 

-Nils

[Chris MacDonald]

What that video neglects to mention is that actually Greece fudged their economic figures in order to join the Euro and that all of the borrowing was in hindsight a bad idea, something that few people had any problems with several years ago.

[Tommy L]

''They need to forgive some of the dept and print more Euros.'' .....forgive dept? Just print more Euros? Really?

''the neoliberal evil germans need to let greece off the hook''

 

If you dont have arguments, at least you could read up on the story.

Greek is not in dept because of other countries but because they payed themself over the last 40 years 16-18 anual salaries, 35% of the employees work for the government. There is almost no industry and this small country has the 4th biggest Army in the EU...and there is no proper tax system. I quote my workmate ''i do not know anybody who payes taxes''. Greek entered the EU with faked economy numbers. How can you blame other countries for that? The Germans do not rule the EU, dont forget the French and England, then there is the European Central Bank and the IWF. The EU countries have the right to ask Greek to do something in return, a lot of other countries had to change a lot to get money, like Spain, Portugal and Ireland. And these countries do way better now. The Greek people have elected a government that consist of Communists and Nazi Party members.But whatever happens, it is never the fault of Greek huh?

 

The only way to resolve a crisis is to look forward, not devolve into finger pointing and blame, which is the penultimate step before major collapse. I am a libertarian, I dont particularly believe in countries having borders, so yes, Im not a typical political thinker. Star Trek Next Generation is my idea of utopia and I like the way they chuckle about the past (our present) and our naive squabbles.

Yes, the Greeks sit around drinking coffee saying malaka all day, but they need a break and their own government is not in the position to give them one. That only leaves the EU to help out about 10m people who are suffering.

This is not a political forum, its cgarchitect, so keep it light hearted.

[CliveG]

Of course, with regards to Greece, you're all correct....

 

That's why it's a deadlock and proving very tricky to reconcile now. Yes the books were cooked to get in there and they're taking the P with a retirement age of 57 (I think) when northern Europeans have a further 10 years to work until 67 in order to help pay for the Greeks generous welfare. But also for the Greeks to be borrowing billions just to pay interest on their other bailout loans shows that the Brussels luminaries have taken leave of their senses if they think there is any realistic resolution to the mathematics even with a booming Greek economy, let alone a crushed austerity based economy that they've inflicted on Greece, Spain, Italy etc. This is resulting in catastrophic unemployment and will of course push the marginalised to more extreme parties - not what the Brussels Eurocrat wants.

 

Greece should decouple (from the Euro) and deflate ( the new Drachma) their way out of this, it'll be hard to start with but their two main money earners of Shipping and Tourism should flood money in to a deflated Drachma economy and hopefully pretty quickly get the economy breathing again.

 

As an aside - some wise man said (a century or so ago) that democracy would work until the voters realised that they could vote selfishly to put money in their own pocket... a quick look at the balance sheets of most of our big democracies shows that this may be true, we're getting the governments we deserve, poorer and poorer quality governments prepared to just promise us the earth.

[harryhirsch]

The only way to resolve a crisis is to look forward, not devolve into finger pointing and blame, which is the penultimate step before major collapse. I am a libertarian, I dont particularly believe in countries having borders, so yes, Im not a typical political thinker. Star Trek Next Generation is my idea of utopia and I like the way they chuckle about the past (our present) and our naive squabbles.

Yes, the Greeks sit around drinking coffee saying malaka all day, but they need a break and their own government is not in the position to give them one. That only leaves the EU to help out about 10m people who are suffering.

This is not a political forum, its cgarchitect, so keep it light hearted.

 

''The only way to resolve a crisis is to look forward, not devolve into finger pointing and blame''...great...but something like ''''the neoliberal evil germans need to let greece off the hook''...is not finger pointing or blaming? You should have quoted that one as well then.

'' This is not a political forum, its cgarchitect''...oh really? I listed facts, that aint blaming. That was my response to the actual nonsense blaming like ''the evil whatever''.

'' That only leaves the EU to help out about 10m people who are suffering''...that is the whole point. How can you help someone if theyrefuse help? The people demonstrated against help and EU countries with burning flags and everything, the Greek president asked the Greek people to vote No, to say no to a change and to say no more EU money. The people then voted No last Sunday, and 4 days later (yesterday) the Greek President ask the EU for 35 Billion Euros and he is suddenly willing to accept the changes that the EU wants. It is not jus that the Europeans loose taxmoney...I travel a lot and the Euro has lost about 16% of its value and I feel that every week , so whenever I exchange money I loose.

[neo83_gr]

Hi all there. I am from Greece, I am a civil engineer in my 30s and I also do some small visualization works. I will try to tell you my opinion briefly and scratch the surface of the problems in our strange little country.

 

Everyone knew that the country was living with loans beginning from the late 80s until mid 00s. After adopting the euro (with fake numbers), loans got even cheaper and this destroyed the production. There were loans for everything! On the same time, after euro, prices skyrocketed too but it was ok because there were some balance in people's income. When loaning slowed down after '08, we were left with a huge and very slow public sector, very high prices and very low productivity. So reforms were and are VERY necessary in order to become a normal country. I think people learned a lesson that loans for public and private sector are not a solution.

 

On the other hand, the last five years, economy is pretty much dead. Construction (my field) is very slow (almost dead), a lot of small firms, companies, shops & freelancers closed their firms or offices and a lot of people went abroad to work, especially the most educated. Have in mind that a great part of our economy is based in small independent firms and companies with small numbers of employees. Now we have very high rates of unemployment, it's very difficult to find to work, salaries are very low and working conditions gone worse. So the country is not in good shape and it's difficult to survive for young and older people too. The only people who are ok, are the more wealthy because they can buy everything with better prices. So poor and mid-class became a poorer, and the wealthy are relatively better.

 

I believe that the country needs to fix a lot to become more competitive and create wealth. Tourism is good but not everyone works in tourism. Most of us live in big ugly cities, actually. So we need to create more works. Reforms are welcome from everyone, except public employees maybe. But taxation is very high, laws and procedures very complicated, cost of living is still high but a little better and problems go on. Government also has to adapt the type of reforms. No one tried to punish the high tax evaders or reduce the cost of the public sector. This resulted to very high taxes in fuel and property (like cars and houses).

 

What happens next? We will see in the weekend. I think we will stay in eurozone (people feel safe with it) with a new memorandum and reforms. But after 5 years, people lost the income and wealth they had from the previous years and started to get desperate with the new taxes. Really tough situation