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by atmosx
4091 days ago
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It's comments like this that make me sick in the stomach. I won't argue with @derriz because his lack of basic understanding of the situation both in Greece and the EU is extremely low. To get a perspective of how inadequate German and EU (generally speaking) technocrats are at basic macro-economics take a look at Ben Bernanke's blog, on Germany's trade surplus[1]. NOTE: Noting @derriz posts I'd say there's a strange patterns emerging. He probably jumps into conversations just to make a point: Greeks are bad and they get what they deserve while Germans are good and we should follow their example. I will just say that this view is naive and stupid :-) [1] http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/04/03... |
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I'm from one of the other PIIGS, lost my job and had to emigrate. I lived through bank and property implosion and unemployment increasing more than 3-fold. I saw friends lose effectively ruined.
However, the other PIIGS have all faced the unfortunate reality of their position, recognized their OWN mistakes and tried to correct things by cutting back on public and private wages and government spending. After a few years of pain, they are all seeing improvement - particularly falling unemployment.
Only Greece seems to think the party can keep and what's even more irritating is that they are angry and bitter towards the very people - the voters other EU countries - who have made huge sacrifices to provide them with almost a quarter of a trillion euro to ease them over the required adjustments. Put yourselves in the shoes of a politician in a poorer (than Greece) EU country sending money to Greece instead of spending it on hospital, schools, etc. in their own country.
It's time for a reality check, my sick-in-the-stomach friend. It's time for Greeks to consider the plausible possibility that they bear some of the responsibility for its own unfortunate state. But I guess it's easier to blame German trade imbalances, international capitalism, the IMF, the EU, the US, bankers, anyone besides Greeks themselves for the problems of Greece.