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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

Smart. Does this mean I can have a vote and decide to not pay for any games from Steam now?

You're implying Greece did take Euro money without any intention to repay other countries. The reality is much more nuanced.

Greek did take part of a fund destined to boost their economy, like Western european countries with the US's Marshall Plan. Whether the investments made with this money were profitable or not it's up to debate, but the end game (as for Spain, Portugal and Italy) always were to improve the greek economy and middle class in order to strenghten the overall euro economy.

Now that the "southern" euro countries are in deep financial troubles, Euro bons were lended to them, not donated. Thoses bonds has to be repayed fully, but without sucking dry the Greek economy or burdening it for too long (western countries have a rap sheet of taking advantage of African countries in debt).

Please do not mistake Greeks for their representatives.

What about forging documents to get accepted in the eurozone? Forging documents to get more loans? The rampant corruption on every level of the Greek society? [1] Obviously this is not politically correct, so downvotes are expected.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_G...

Politicians from parties who now get 3-4% of the vote lied years ago (to the Greek public as well as EU bankers), so let's take Greek workers' pensions, crush their unions, slash their social services, and offer no jobs or future to 60% of Greek young people. The bankers may not get their money anyway, since the debt is still increasing, but at least the Greeks* will get what they deserve!

*may not apply to the elites who actually bankrupted the country, who don't rely on government services and can keep their money in Swiss accounts

This is vastly mentality problem and consequences that comes with it. Simple fact is, southern european countries have laid back attitude which is nice to enjoy and so on, but doesn't perform well and has more drawbacks in long term, as we can see. The st had to hit the fan hard, and it did for people to wake up.

What do you expect - full pardon on all mistakes? It won't happen next time, we promise? You know, one of life's lessons is - you pay for all your mistakes, and youth is no excuse for them. Sometimes, in a very hard way.

We all have crappy politicians in one or other way, but guess what - unless vote was rigged, they were elected by majority. I do agree with notion that in democracy nation has leaders that it deserves, exceptions will even out in broader average (either location or time based).

One generic example - when there was massive tax evasion, people should have outsted it's government for closing an eye on it. They didn't. Now they face consequences for what every sane moral person must have felt is wrong.

"one of life's lessons is - you pay for all your mistakes"

This isn't true though. The people with the most direct responsibility for crashing the world economy, like those with the most direct responsibility for bankrupting Greece, haven't paid at all.

Also, I think the "citizens of democracies are responsible for the crimes of their leaders" moral principle is one you probably don't want to consistently apply. To try a reductio ad absurdum, I assume you're not in agreement with Bin Laden's reasoning for the WTC attacks, for example.

I am from South Europe but I agree with most of stuff you say. Nobody complained when we were receiving more than we were giving back. And worse, we got used to it.

Everybody is guilt here. Man up.

Out of interest, where do you think the money to pay for pensions, social services and create jobs for young people will come from in Greece in the future?

Surely these all have to be set at a level that is actually sustainable by the Greek economy?

Greece is what I might call cashflow positive - its government is taking in more money than it's spending in its business of running the country. It's only the bond repayments that are pushing it down.

Government spending should be countercyclical - and smart creditors (which, sure, a government beholden to populism can't always be) would realize that. Prop up the economy now, get growth up again, and then cream off some "repayments" when times are good - I'm sure a contract could be structured to specify that they'd repay their bonds in proportion to e.g. growth above 3%. Running Greece into the ground benefits noone, not even Germany. But sadly, decades on, politicians are still ignoring Keynes.

Or they could have simply defaulted. It's worked out pretty well for Iceland. The argument as I understand it for every nation being perpetually indebted is that it ensures outsiders have an interest in that country being successful - if you own Greek bonds you're less likely to invade Greece. But if your bondholders are forcing a lot of suffering on your country, maybe the costs outweigh the benefits.

"Jobs for young people" is not something that's supposed to cost money. The value of what employees produce is supposed to exceed their salaries.

If they stop making interest repayments that will free up a lot of Euros.

Additionally, if you don't pay for pensions, social services and create jobs then people don't have any money. If they don't have any money they don't spend. And not spending isn't sustainable for any economy.

Well, I'm a bit of a radical, so I could give a lot of answers to that question. But even in conventional terms, and even after all the economic destruction of austerity, Greece has been running a primary surplus since 2013. At this point they're borrowing just to pay debt.

See, a friend of mine owned some of those bonds (Icelandic in that case, but similar). He saved money to support his family in case where they'd need it. The money evaporated when Icelandic banks defaulted. The money that was used to prop up Greece came from people that worked for it - some directly, some indirectly. Why should their money be taken from them? Why should German social services be slashed because the EU still needs to funnel more money into Greece? [1] I totally agree that Greece needs help, but I don't have a good answer for those that need to pay for it.

[1] we had a major slashing of social services with the Hartz4-laws. Things are certainly not as ugly as in Greece, but Germany has the highest percentage of low-wage labor in Europe. Germany as a country is rich, but a lot of Germans pay the price.

Would be better to take this money from the Greek oligarchs and keep some level of social safety net. But isn't it up to the Greeks to make that happen?

Oh well, we did on Jan 25 ;)

Yup, and I'm rooting for them.

These things are not solely responsible for the ruinous state of the Greek economy, which can be proven very easily:

Every periphery economy suffered from the same economic malaise caused by a housing boom, a crash, a bailout of their banking sectors and austerity imposed from above (all actions ordered by Brussels).

Yet Greece was the only one that played silly games with Goldman Sachs to get accepted (for which nobody has been punished except the Greek people).

What about working with Goldman Sachs to hide the true level of debt that Greece had from Eurostat?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis...

Legal at the time. Same thing the Italians did.

Not to justify the practice, but pretty much every periphery country fudged the numbers in order to be admitted to the Eurozone because none of them had a strong enough economy then to be let in. One did it, then the next looked at the last one and said "If them, why not us?"

Greece is pretty corrupt though.

>Not to justify the practice, but pretty much every periphery country fudged the numbers in order to be admitted to the Eurozone because none of them had a strong enough economy then to be let in. One did it, then the next looked at the last one and said "If them, why not us?"

The real fun starts when Greece defaults and Italy/France/Spain/Ireland/etc. go...

If them, why not us?

The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that's the reason Greece is being forced to go through painful austerity measures even though everyone knows they won't work. The system survived a Greek defaul^H^Hvoluntary restructuring, but it wouldn't survive every country doing that, so the Greeks have to be seen to suffer.

That's not really a conspiracy theory - it's pretty much all in the open. The ECB and European Commission (even the IMF!) don't pretend that austerity works, they just pretend that there's no alternative and periodically tell us that the seeds of recovery have sprouted.

Why they do it is another matter. Theories I've heard:

* (like you said) They want Greece to be an example for the other periphery countries. * It is used as a pretext to chip away at Greek sovereignty and give the (unlected) European commission additional powers over the country. * The core banks' insolvency becomes totally apparent if Greece defaults, so they pressure the ECB to keep up the charade that it's all necessary. * It's used as an excuse to sell off valuable Greek state assets on the cheap to politically connected individuals and companies. * Or all of the above.

"Greek did take part of a fund destined to boost their economy, like Western european countries with the US's Marshall Plan."

Unless I'm mistaken, you are very mistaken, and confusing things.

"Greek debt" has nothing to do with the EU Cohesion fund (which is open to all member states which meet the criteria) or Euro Bonds (which , to this date, do not exist), but with a large number of national bonds that have been bought by the ECB and IMF specifically.

So yes, basically Greece took Euro money and now is planning not to repay it.

I agree though that saying that every Greek is responsible for this situation, or that the conditions for repayment are fair, are other matters entirely.

Depending on which funds you are referring to, this may or may not be accurate. If you're talking about investment from the European Investment Bank (EIB), then yes, those funds were meant to bolster the economies of all European countries. However, in order to receive funds for a project, the country sponsoring the project has to put up some percentage of the budget. Last I heard it was 50%. That's not really feasible for insolvent countries to do.

If you're talking about the bailout, then no, it was never meant to be a Marshall Plan sort of deal. More or less, it was meant to give money to an insolvent country so it could save its insolvent banks and pay off their creditors. The vast majority of the bailout money did not stay in the country and put to productive use, but instead left the country to pay off its debt.

I don't confuse Greeks with their representatives.

However, and leaving out the current bailout, the reason for Greece to be in the situation it is is because successive governments have provided lavish benefits that they couldn't pay for.

Yes, much like Germany after 2 WW ... They did a damage that they couldn't repay. Then Marshall came but they didn't learn much, did they?

Oh, Germany learned a lot and the Marshall plan succeeded in saving Europe. Germany is now surrounded by friendly nations and no longer a military threat.

I think Marcus Brigstocke says it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsaKgz1v-f8

This sort of snark isn't constructive. The situation is obviously much more nuanced than this, and while this sort of reduction is cognitively convenient, it's not accurate nor useful.

For example, when the money was obviously not going to be repaid, but the Troika continued to lend them more -- at what point does the lender become at least partially responsible? Obviously I don't advocate irresponsible borrowing, but certainly irresponsible lending is also bad.

Ultimately, the bond holders are going to have to take a hair cut, or have their Euros devalued, because the Greek economy cannot possibly hope to repay its current debts. To think otherwise is to hope foolishly for the impossible (all questions of right or wrong aside).

>>For example, when the money was obviously not going to be repaid, but the Troika continued to lend them more -- at what point does the lender become at least partially responsible? Obviously I don't advocate irresponsible borrowing, but certainly irresponsible lending is also bad.

But that isn't the cause of their issues, that is just the latest symptom. The cause is electing a series of governments that promised benefits that they couldn't afford. EG [1] letting trombonists retire at 50 because their work is "hazardous".

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-to-cal...

Yes yes the Government was corrupt. What the parent is saying is: the lender should have checked to make sure that the debtor (Greek Govt.) was actually capable of paying back what it borrowed. But the lenders didn't, because Governments are excellent debtors: they represent the nation! Governments are excellent credit risks: because they will most likely want access to more capital in the future, they cannot tarnish their image in the international community. One of the first thing the Soviets did when they came to power was to repudiate all foreign loans owed by the Tsarist government (which incidentally led to a crisis in France, which had been the biggest lender).

I have to admit to a certain confusion about your point. I guess what you're saying is that anyone who thought to help Greece should have expected to be jerked around and told to pound sand?

I feel like this is some form of victim blaming.

Yes, they should have known exactly what they were getting into. You automatically assume a certain kind of risk when you lend to sovereign nations, which by definition, are not compelled to return your money (although they often are, due to many factors).

You have been able to for a long time. Buy Steam games with a credit card, then don't pay it back. There may be consequences, but you can do it.

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