[Sidon]

Maybe your colleague from Greece should realize that when DB 'falls' tons of people will take the fall for it, regular people like you and me, people who are just trying to make a living, like all those poor fucks in Greece. The group of people taking the fall for it won't be limited to Germany, you can be sure Greeks will feel it as well.

Tell him to just stfu and get back to work.

[wobbleblob]

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. For the past 8 years, day in day out you have to hear jokes about how dishonest and unreliable Greeks are, that they caused these problems for us with their cheating, how they should be strictly honest and reliable like Germans, how they shouldn't spend money they don't have and get their finances in order like Germans, and then the Volkswagen scandal happened, and now this. You know, it doesn't involve me at all, but I can imagine why he finds this amusing.

[Kristine1975]

The anti-Greek propaganda in German mainstream media was disgusting.

[pofjer]

... and all sane people in Germany condemned them for that.

BTW nobody spoke on the issues of other EU members, like e.g. Greece's northern neighbours Bulgaria and Romania where people live with less than the Greeks during the worst times of their crisis. And all this just because someone somewhere gave carte blanche to the Soviet Union to install pro-communist forces in countries of strategic interest to them where there was almost non-existant communist movement compared to Greece where the UK allegedly intervened so that this won't happen. Just for perspective: people lived comparably good/bad in all three countries before WW2.

As a German, you should know how economically devastated was the DDR after 1989. And bear in mind that it was the best player in the Eastern league of non-representativeness and corruption. (comparisons with the West are another topic altogether)

[Atropos]

But quite tame in comparison to Greek media the picturing Merkel with a swastika or the Schäuble cartoon where it was implied he wanted to make soap out of Greek citizens in new concentration camps...

[TurboHaskal]

Yeah, tell that dirty lazy Greek to get back to work. They deserve every bit of what happened to them and the debt won't pay by itself.

Such a banking fiasco would never happen in a country filled with precise, punctual, hard-working and responsible light beings such as Germany.

[StavrosK]

But, I mean, apart from his offensive last line, he has a point. I'm Greek and I wouldn't wish bank failure on anyone, German or not.

[wobbleblob]

The Germans will be ok, don't worry about them, but maybe they'll change their mind about collective guilt now.

I never saw the EU bailouts as handouts from the virtuous to the losers, nor do I see it as an altruistic gift to our friends in need. I see it more as an insurance. Do people whose house isn't on fire want to punish those whose house burned down? No. We all know it could happen to us.

I don't think Germany will need a bailout, but if some day they do, we should do it.

[StavrosK]

Oh, definitely, but it's still not something to wish on someone. Then again, I guess the colleague was just laughing at the irony, so we aren't all arguing the same point here.

[Atropos]

Fact is, it hasn't happened in Germany so far, even in the big financial crisis 2008, all the banks could easily be bailed out by Germany's own public funds. In addition, Deutsche Bank hasn't failed yet, so save your gloating until something actually happeny...

[Oletros]

The only difference is that right now the bank is German.

When the banks were Greek, Spanish, Portuguese or Irish, the German government didn't give a fuck about the people.

Don't tell us about regular people, we have suffered it since years ago and Merkel just said STFU and fuck off

And don't talking about the moral lessons they gave us. But ohh, the German banks are exactly the same as the other ones

[patrickk]

The reason the Spanish and Irish bailouts happened in fact was to protect the "contagion" spreading to the banks of the "core" countries.

Why? Because German and French banks lent huge sums to periphery countries - which is why the bailouts were forced on them.

What you are seeing now is the chickens coming home to roost.

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2012/05/10/financial-contagion...

[pvaldes]

I could not upvote you more. Eight years of economic war and now that their popularity sinked, politics are afraid that the people could suffer. Seriously?

Portuguese, Spaniards, Greeks... were sold in the slave market for the dirty tricks of banks like this. We'll never know how many Europeans will not born or how many suicides or premature deaths are directly caused by the big scam. So please, politicians, don't illustrate us about suffering when the people don't want to vote you anymore. We'll survive with or without you.

[pofjer]

Small correction: "When the banks were Greek, Spanish, Portuguese or Irish, the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Irish governments didn't give a fuck about the people."

Since you appear to be from one of those countries, you should see how to get more responsible for your choices and look for better representatives to elect. I don't see what's your point about another sovereign country. Everyone has their own problems, let's just focus on ours.

BTW you would be surprised how pissed off were Germans at that time, because every sane person knows the old saying: "Bankers here, bankers there, all the same everywhere." So we (at least not the bigots among us) should be allowed to speak of regular people bearing the cost of such changes, shall they happen, just as we (and YOU) did it when the same thing happened in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

[Oletros]

No, your correction is a lie. The ones that didn't give a fuck, didn't want to help and made the crisis worst were the German government and their negative to help because the South countries were just a bunch of people that didn't work, expend too much and deserved all that happen.

>? Since you appear to be from one of those countries, you should see how to get more responsible for your choices and look for better representatives to elect. I don't see what's your point about another sovereign country. Everyone has their own problems, let's just focus on ours.

This must be a fucking joke looking what happened to Greece. When the people elected different government, the German one did what they did.

[pofjer]

Precisely! You prove my point. It was the German government and not the regular people in Germany. My "advice" applies to Germany and elsewhere equally as well. The point being, ΣΥΡΙΖΑ won with sweet words, but failed to act upon them, which is a pity. Don't think that just because Merkel gets reelected, everyone from the German nation stays behind all her government does. NO! And there was, is and will be a lot of criticism from the German people for things like this.

So, για όνομα του Θεού, don't fall into the trap the media tries to put us into (for whatever reasons, I don't care). This is not about Germans vs Greeks, it's about the consistently failing banking system around the world. Only when we realise the true nature of the problems at hand, can we deal with them.

Be well and prosperous!