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Comment by bostich | Hacker News Reader

I am German and have had a very negative opinion of Tsipras. He makes some very good points in this letter and his view seems to be consistent. I can understand his position and my opinion of him has improved a bit after reading the letter.

Nevertheless I see no solution, only 3 possible bad outcomes:

1. Europe loans more money to Greece and we can be pretty certain that they can't pay it back.

2. Europe gifts money to Greece (forgive some of the debt) to temporarily reduce their debt and after a few years we are in the same situation again

3. Greece defaults on its debt (and maybe exits the Euro) and can't borrow money for the foreseeable future.

None of these options looks particularly desirable and imo Tsipras doesn't help the situation when he says to hell with it; let's rehire all these public servant. We don't have the money for that but it wont matter much regardless which possible outcome becomes reality

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How about 4. Greece leaves the EU.

There could still be favourable trade agreements and some currency stabilizing etc. so it's not the end of the world, but it would be a wakeup call for everyone to treat their finances a little more seriously.

German yellow press also mentioned various social programs in Greece that can only be described as frivolous even by social state standards. It's harder to be sympathetic with the Greek cause if we're paying for higher welfare abroad than we enjoy ourselves.

> German yellow press also mentioned various social programs in Greece that can only be described as frivolous even by social state standards. It's harder to be sympathetic with the Greek cause if we're paying for higher welfare abroad than we enjoy ourselves.

You are free to move there.

This has nothing to do with me:

- I wouldn't be eligible to most of these purported benefits in Greece - My standards of living would likely be lower even with funny welfare - Moving there would theoretically make it worse since theoretically I'm currently helping/paying

So, why not write another open letter that discusses reasonable ways to save some money, OR debunk myths that discourage peope from helping?

Yellow press, you said it.

> only 3 possible bad outcomes

4. All south European people stop buying german products until the end of the actual bullying.

This is a no-no win for all.

The fact that the german people are not the same as the german government can not be ignored. Germans are suffering also this trap, carefully placed by a few. People at the South were increasedly thinging that a percentage of the debt is simply faked by banksters and not our responsability at all.

4b. Northern Europeans stop visiting and spending money in Athens, Rome, Algarve, Canary Islands, and buying Mediterranean produce until the end of Northern-sponsored dolce vita.

This cuts both ways, and the ultimate end is economic war and possibly real war.

Exact, a total no-win situation for both parts.

Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland (...and oh-la-la... your turn, France?) are in fact more or less in a post-war scenery. Why? Because much of the money either did never changed of hands or either ended in the wrong hands with the bleesings of all surveillance organs and agencies.

So whe have a curious crime here, millions of money vanishing and, big surprise, nobody wanted to see this and nobody wants to investigate now where the money goes.

Much better find a fool to pay for our disaster.

So they sell us some bright recipes poisoned from the start. All benefits that they predict crashed loudly and became chains and viper pits, but, hey!, those smart guys that were taking money from you germans, to "give the money" to you Greeks, are richer than ever... How could this happen?. And everybody feels cheated and angry now.

The Irish and the British are Northern Europeans? Because I'm not getting the feeling the majority in either of these countries would like to join the Germans (in any kind of game...).

Eurozone Northern Europeans

As a German, how do you feel about 3 April 1948[1]?

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

A state couldn't benefit from the Marshal plan without reforms, including collecting proper, truthful national statistics (through the forerunner institution to the OECD). The US didn't just hand out money willy-nilly. In the case of (West) Germany, they had lots of troops stationed in Germany who could accidentally break something if the country didn't happily reform practically everything.

No one is against reform in Greece. Literally no one (except maybe the far-left which is less than 5% of the population).

The thing is that all the reforms proposed by the Troika as of today were absolutely against boosting any form of healthy growth. The troika actively supported the governments which are responsible for Greece's troubles and extra-ordinary debt. That says a lot IMHO. I didn't get the feeling that the EU+ECB+IMF was interested in actually helping at any point of this negotiation.

So, I'm sorry but I'd rather for Greece to exit the Euro and let hell broke loose than continue down the road we've been for 6 years. After all the country is already in ruins.

I, as a German, feel good about the Marshall Plan. Do you suggest to implement something similar for Greece? I don't think a lot of Greeks will be in favor for it.

> Do you suggest to implement something similar for Greece? I don't think a lot of Greeks will be in favor for it.

Just read Varoufakis articles and you'll see that the current government would've take that proposal any day of the week.

The austerity measures was the only rational thing that Greece did and even then they complained.

There's really no out for Greece on this one: their economy seems to be dependent on tourism, they have little to no manufacturing, probably little exports, and imports many of their goods. Greece's economy was never stable to begin with and I do think that they ought to exit the Euro not for Greece's sake but for the Euro's sake.

No, the "austerity" was very half-hearted and almost exclusively hurt the little people, i.e. those who relied on state pensions, health care, or unemployment benefits.

Still, I hope Greece suffers hard and suffers long.

Portugal, Italy, Spain, and France need all the encouragement they can get...

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