[TazeTSchnitzel]

Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation.

Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts.

Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones that also keep the book balanced, but do not hurt the weakest in society as much or destroy economic productivity.

[jeroen94704]

While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

This entire mess started with Greece not having its finances in order, and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup. After it became clear how dire the situation was, the Eurogroup stepped in and helped Greece by giving them money (LOTS of money). Had the Eurogroup not done this, Greece would have defaulted on its debts years ago, and the country would have gone bankrupt.

Now if someone offers to help you by giving you money, provided you meet certain conditions, you can either accept and comply with the conditions, or you can refuse. The fact is that Greece gladly accepted the billions upon billions of euros, and the conditions that money came with.

I am fully aware that the measures demanded by Greece's creditors are tough. Some would say it is doubtful whether they are actually effective at all. And the demanded measures are certainly driven partly by political motives. All this is true.

But it is mind-boggling to me that after the Eurogroup provided several hundred billion euro's in aid to Greece, anyone would turn around and claim the current crisis is in no way the Greeks' own fault.

[gizmo]

Your narrative is mostly incorrect.

- The EU was aware that Greece's finances were not as portrayed. This was an open secret. However, Germany and France were breaking max deficit rules at the time, and they would look like huge hypocrites if they complained about Greece's numbers. So they didn't. Rose colored glasses and political expedience played a huge role here.

- A country can't go bankrupt. They can simply refuse to pay their debts, and because they're a sovereign nation they're in their right to do so.

- When banks lend money to a country it isn't charity. They get interest payments and in exchange risk not getting paid back at all if things go sour. It was astoundingly unwise for banks to lend money to Greece at practically zero interest (as they did during the boom period). Had the banks been responsible, or had the oversight institutions not been asleep at the wheel, this crisis would not have happened.

- The banks who lent to Greece got 90% of the bailout package. Not the people of Greece. So it's not true Greece received "several hundred billion in aid".

- "Some would say it is doubtful whether they are actually effective at all.". It's certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the austerity policies enforced by the troika were actively harmful. It's delusional to pretend otherwise, given that the GDP shrank so much the debt burden INCREASED as a result.

[peteretep]

    > When banks lend money to a country this isn't charity. 
    > They get interest payments and in exchange risk not
    > getting paid back at all if things go sour

...

    > The banks who lent to Greece got 90% of the bailout
    > package. Not the people of Greece. So it's not true
    > Greece received "several hundred billion in aid"

It's a shame that these two pieces of information aren't at the absolute top of every article, every piece of coverage about Greece.

If Greece was a person, they'd have gone through bankruptcy and been discharged by now, and the banks who'd imprudently lent to them would have taken a haircut.

[aikah]

> While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

Nobody is denying that fact. But it seems you are forgetting that Greece made a lot of tough decisions for its people when asked by its creditors to "reform" yet it is just not sustainable, it's like asking the greeks to commit suicide.

> and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup

And who do you think helped cook the books? Goldman Sachs

If a country gets out of the Euro, it will set a precedent and other countries might do that in the future. The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural and economical differences between euro countries. UK was smart enough not to get into that mess. It seems that the only country really profiting from this is Germany. While they are obviously not responsible for that mess , there is a lot of resentment against Germany in southern European countries and France. For these countries the Euro is just the Deutsche Mark 2.0.

[smhg]

> And who do you think helped cook the books? Goldman Sachs

Did GS get any "punishment" for this? And does this take away all guilt from Greece?

> The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural and economical differences between euro countries.

As someone without an economics background, I'm interested to know what these insurmountable differences are?

[pgeorgi]

> Did GS get any "punishment" for this?

I guess the punishment is that former GS executive Mario Draghi now runs the ECB.

[jeroen94704]

> you are forgetting that Greece made a lot of tough decisions for its people when asked by its creditors to "reform" yet it is just not sustainable, it's like asking the greeks to commit suicide.

No, I am not forgetting this. The Greek people are certainly suffering from the reforms. But this suffering would have happened anyway, with or without the Euro.

Greece has made such a mess of its finances, in a number of ways, that even if it had never joined the Euro, it would have gone bankrupt at some point anyway.

> The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural and economical differences between euro countries.

Perhaps, but I hope you're wrong :).

> It seems that the only country really profiting from this is Germany.

There is free trade between all EU countries, not just the Euro countries. It is this free trade that Germany is profiting from, not the Euro currency.

[gizmo]

> It is this free trade that Germany is profiting from, not the Euro currency.

Once again a blatant falsehood.

When economically strong and weaker countries share a currency the stronger countries benefit, because it pushes the value of their currency down. This means they can export effectively, especially to the countries who suddenly have a stronger currency with more purchasing power than they otherwise would have had.

[smhg]

> countries who suddenly have a stronger currency with more purchasing power than they otherwise would have had

Does this mean Greece (let's stick to them) was predetermined to get hit the moment they joined the Eurozone?

If yes, could you please elaborate how that wasn't visible to them? Or, if it was, what motivated them to take this road anyway?

[gizmo]

Yes, Greece was predetermined to "get hit" as you put it. There was no need for it to get this bad, though. A number of US states (e.g. Mississippi) have a similarly inferior economy compared to the union average, but the situation is stable thanks to federal fiscal policy.

I can only speculate about what motivated Greece to join the Eurozone.

My guess would be that Simitis' believed his reforms (Eksynchronismos) fundamentally transformed the Greek economy. Politicians take bold action to ensure their legacy, and it must be tempting to go down in history as the man who fixed his country's economy and led it down a road of mutual prosperity.

Perhaps he understood the economic risks, perhaps he didn't. He was certainly warned by economists. Perhaps he simply didn't believe the rest of the Eurozone could be this obstinate and cruel. It's hard to say for sure. We certainly can't take the politicians' words at face value.

[rorykoehler]

It's no surprise that Germany only briefly went into a technical recession. I definitely didn't notice any extra financial hardship or reduction in spending here in Berlin. In fact it seems everyone is going crazy buying new sports cars.

[xkarga00]

And you really believe that the middle and lower class Greeks ie. "the Greeks" did benefit from that money, right? It's their mistake voting for shady politicians all these years but this situation is a result far away from their powers.

[chongli]

it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

To what extent is any one person responsible for the actions of their government?

[enraged_camel]

Except it's not just one person. Most Greeks lived well beyond their means for over a decade. I'm from Turkey and have many Greek friends, and the overall sentiment in the country up until 2008 was that they could just continue borrowing and living like kings and queens until the end of time. Then the financial meltdown happened, foreign investors became bearish and the Greeks lost their easy access to capital, and things quickly unraveled.

[spdionis]

Reminds me of America...

[smil]

No nation has its finances in order, whether they are part of the EU, or if it's the U.S. or Japan or China. Get off your high horse.

[kuschku]

The issue is: All the cutbacks aim at the government, while all the EFSF money goes towards the banks – the greece government isn’t bailed out, it’s again banks that cash out big.

[sambe]

It's hard to say the austerity measures are to blame for their economic downturn. The Greek economy has by some measures continued on the path started by the financial crisis and by some measures improved (bank capitalisation, budget surplus before debt payments). If they have a recession at the same time as austerity it's a bit of a stretch to say the cutbacks ruined the economy. I'd also say that Syriza is a pretty hard left wing party, of whose proposals I've seen little that doesn't amount to "borrow more and spend more". Their election rhetoric was "we shouldn't have to repay because that's insulting to us".

[tomjen3]

That line of reasoning proves too much - If you want to use this argument then you also have to argue that the IMF is more interested in reforms that won't help Greece than a chance to get some its money back - that is that greedy international capitalistic bankers hate Greece more than they love money.

[honest_joe]

So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks

[quonn]

I don't have the statistics [0][1], but I would be very, very surprised, if the amount of money Slovakia is putting into the EU and Euro zone comes even close to the transfers they receive. Slovakia does not fund anything at all, they just receive a little bit less.

[0] Actually, here is some data for the EU (German): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Nettozah...

[1] And here is more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#N...

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks?

The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.

[celticninja]

He may not be correct in what he is saying, but the underlying message is that Greece and the Greeks were enjoying the benefits of the EU on the never never, their attitude to taxation was part of the problem and now Greece expects to be taken care of by the rest of the EU taxpayers who actually pay their taxes. They don't want to affect their pensioners but it is many of those pensioners who benefitted the most from the money years of the EU.

So I guess the question is who should be paying for Greece's poor financial planning because Greece do not appear to think it should be them.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Greece does not want to affect their pensioners? What? Greece has already made massive cuts across the board on Government services, including pensions.

[radicalbyte]

They retired at 61, whilst in Northern Europe we've just had to raise the age to 67. They - like the Italians - don't like paying their taxes.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/02/greeces_g...

We should bail them out, but they should also retire at 67, the (existing) final salary pensions should be cut back and they should start paying their taxes.

[quonn]

This claim has been debunked here: http://blog.zeit.de/herdentrieb/2015/06/18/die-griechische-r...

EU data: Greece 64.4 years, Germany: 65.1.

OECD data: Greece 61.9 years vs. Germany 62.1

So it is actually the same.

[rorykoehler]

Good find. The amount of self-serving disinformation around this whole debacle is disturbing.

[celticninja]

They are retiring earlier, maybe just by a small margin, but earlier regardless. I think that if you also compare the average tax contribution of those retired people you would see that the level of contributions paid by germans would exceed those paid by Greeks. So a direct age comparison won't give a true picture of fairness.

[rorykoehler]

I have to agree with this. It is inhumane and immoral not to bail them out if we can. Sure they have a huge responsibility for their situation however we all do. Much of what caused the crisis globally is being allowed to continue unchecked. We are sleep walking into another crisis yet we are all happy to point the finger at Greece's transgressions as if they are somehow worse than our own.

I don't agree with much of the fiscal and financial structures, strategies and ethos of the world at the moment however this is the path we are on and pivoting out of it will cause huge disruption and suffering. Austerity and measures forced by her creditors have so far failed Greece. It doesn't look bright in the future so they are correct to question the strategy however if they don't get their own house in order it will all be in vain. I think they realise this.