I get that people do not like the fact that they can't retire now at 55yo or that they had to privatize a few big national companies, but I think it's a perfect example where the doctor knows better than the patient what's best for them.
Loans are a two party relationship and people tend to view the borrower more harshly than the lender. Lenders tend to get bailed out and somehow aren’t viewed negatively for their profligate lending. Why is it only the borrowers that suffer?
https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/10/greece-to-renew-call-for...
Those loans are not reparations, were never cancelled and, due to continuity of government, are still owed by Germany to Greece.
Debts must be paid after all.
The net effect of the whole saga was Greece getting to spend a lot of money in the 90s and 2000s, and the stronger countries of the Eurogroup ending up paying for (at least part) of that.
Focussing on these countries' motivation is somewhat useless speculation, and arguably unfair if you manage to twist it so far around the people paying end up as the bad guys, and the people spending as the victims.
In any case: French and German banks could have absorbed a Greek default, although it would have been painful. Because these banks held only part of the debt[0], it would have always been cheaper to make them whole again and tell Greece to take a hike.
Considering a decade has passed and some things happen, one might also want to reevaluate the motivations ascribed to, for example, Angela Merkel. Does she still strike people as incapable of aiming higher than just immediate parochial needs?
[0]: around 30% IIRC, can't be bothered to look this stuff up again ten years later)
The motivation of the German and French governments was that German and French banks not suffer. And of course the leaders of those countries cared more about their people than the people of Greece. This is natural and part of the psychology of being part of a nation. We ended up with things like:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece-warships-...
At any rate, both parties are at fault and both parties ought to have suffered. From my perspective only one party suffered.
Greek lenders were forced to pardon half it's debt, which ultimately caused some banks to bankrupt. Enough with this tale of how Greek governments are victims for repeatedly requesting loans, and then falsify their accounting to keep requesting loans, and then hiring professional accounting teams to optimize their accounting forgery to keep receiving loans.
Enough with this tale of how German and French banks are victims for repeatedly giving loans and looking the other way at the bad accounting!
Somehow you misread what I said. "Greek lenders" means those who lent money to the Greek state. Those were European private banks, including French and German. Those banks were forced to bear the loss of half of Greece's sovereign debt in Greece's famous 2011 debt hair cut.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-banks/europes-bank...
> Enough with this tale of how German and French banks are victims for repeatedly giving loans and looking the other way at the bad accounting!
It's too late to act that ignorant, sykick. The truth is out for almost a decade, and you simply cannot turn a blind eye to the facts. Go browse Wikipedia's article on the subject to get an idea of how Greek governments created their whole mess and how Europe's economy and the EU were forced to bear the brunt of the economic and financial and political problem Greece's ruling regime created for their country.
Why do you ignore the fact that lenders knew the sorry state of standards in Greece and still lent massive amounts of money to Greece? Why did they continue to lend money? Isn’t the most likely reason being that the people involved in making the loans do so for short term gain knowing they won’t go to jail and they personally won’t go bankrupt? You keep neglecting to hold the lender accountable. I’ve repeatedly mentioned that borrower should suffer and is responsible. All I’ve done is mention that the lender should be held responsible too. Isn’t it obvious that the lender should be held responsible? And by lender I mean the people making the decisions not just the corporate entity.
I think clearly we won’t agree. As I mentioned before in these discussions too often people neglect to realize that lending is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities. My sole aim has been to point out that the lender ought to have suffered too.
[1] https://shadowproof.com/2012/05/30/greek-bailout-is-a-bank-b...
"privatize" means that today all the Greek airports are owned by German companies. Is it legit to suppose there was a slight conflict of interest between the "doctor" and the "patient"?
I mean, would you trust your doctor if he gains on your death?
"Like many EU countries, the general retirement age in Greece is 65, although the actual average is about 61. However, the deeply fragmented system also provides for early retirement – as early as 55 for men and 50 for women – in many professions classified as unhealthy."
55 and 50!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-to-ca...
But although it was less than Germany, let's say 60 or 59 or even 55:
1) lenders knew it, so it's also their fault on not weighting the risk well or not asking for an higher interest rate or avoiding giving them money at all. To check is their responsibility.
2) IMF decisions brought an increase in suicide rate and children mortality rate. Are the lenders allowed to bring death to the borrowers? Is this illegal for the mafia but allowed for IMF/ECB/EC?
How does one make this claim? What would the alternative have looked like? It's not like the IMF just decided to tank a healthy economy.
Regarding early retirement, I'm sure this is the case in many "industrious" countries too. You probably don't want 65 year olds running around in combat boots with a machine gun and 20kg of supplies on their back.
Haha! That was a good one.
It's a win-win.
I think the accusation of ignorance is kinder than the alternative ("let's not pay our taxes, the germans will pay for us").
With all the corruption going around I would not blame them. (even without it I would not blame them regardless. There are many people all over the world -including me- who consider taxes thievery)
Anyway, please do correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't it only the rich/rich companies that did that? Similarly to how Amazon, Google, or Apple for example pay almost no tax.
> who thought it was a good idea to adopt a foreign currency when it didn't make sense economically
Do you have a citation for this? As far as I know the Greek population was not asked about it.
What do you mean the population wasn't asked? It's a democracy. The population elects polititians that vote laws and make decisions. Like in almost every country and for almost every topic. If the greeks didn't care about what their polititians did, good for them. But they aren't children. They are a sovereign democracy. They own the consequences.
Yes? Cash is the standard method of payment, what is the issue exactly? Regardless of that, employees (who are the majority of the workforce in pretty much every country) can't tax-evade.
> What do you mean the population wasn't asked?
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22385367
And at the end of the day, even if there was true democracy it would still not make sense to blame all the population for the choice of the majority. In the same way that you can't blame every American for the killer drones, or every German for the election of the NSDAP.
What happened to greece was a disaster. Of course it required to be handled by adults, and they did what was necessary. But the whole thing is hardly "a success story".