| The sad thing in this (politics) is that no one gives a sh!t about real people and real situations besides imaginary currency. Over the last few years, while Greece sinks slowly due to financial situation, IMF and Germany won't back on austerity measures demands. Even if, in reality, those measures are making the country sink even deeper due to very low income and chopping away peoples' pensions. As I live in Greece, I can say for sure that the situation is getting worse and worse over time. While Greece took huge loans over the last few years, almost everything went to fuel German and French banks so they won't collapse. Very little -if anything- was used to help the situation. But not even those same countries acknowledge that fact. They demand "their" money that used to fuel their banks. Smart thing (not). Of course I could be a troll and mention that after WWII Germany received a lot of help to be able to reconstruct the country, even if they slaughtered millions across Europe. But that's politics. ;) Personaly, I'm tired of all that bs. Europe is _not_ a union and this situation is getting out of hand. Supposedly "friendly" countries demanding everything from another member of the "union" is not what Europe was -supposedly- all about. At least with a new government that is able to say the word 'no' for a change, almost anyone can see the true face of European "union". |
Well, I'm German, and I think that this is an extremely pertinent point. The German economic recovery after WW2 should have been a blueprint for how to deal with the Greek situation. Germany received both cash infusions (the Marshall plan) and benefited from the deferral of debt (the London Agreement on German External Debts) that required Germany to only repay debts when a trade surplus allowed for it. It was a strategy that allowed both economic growth and debt service. Instead, Greece was strangled by an austerity regimen that impeded economic growth and as a consequence also made it impossible for Greece to fix its debt issues.
Yes, the Greek government was cooking the books when it joined the Euro, but as you correctly point out, that doesn't even come close to starting a couple of world wars. Policy-making should focus on fixing economic problems (that 99% of the population aren't responsible for), not exercises in finger-pointing.