7 ms·

That's neoliberal propaganda. 1. Greece did not live above it means. It did not have more debts than other countries in the EU zone, countries that did not cra

by onli 8y ago

That's neoliberal propaganda. 1. Greece did not live above it means. It did not have more debts than other countries in the EU zone, countries that did not crash 2. Greece would have been fine it it had not been forced to destroy its economy with an austerity program > They lived way above their means You probably are german, because that is a BILD/CDU slogan. It's very hard to qualify what that is supposed to mean. A country can not "live above their means". It can have too much debts. That wasn't the case here.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 8y ago
I'm not German and I don't see why it would have anything to do with that. "Living about their means" is what happens when their debt levels grow exponentially: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAAlk/jzf-BOZBbe0/s1600/GreeceDebtGDP.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAA... in what world do you think this is sustainable? The US can get away with huge amount of debts because they have the dollar, which the most trusted international currency for virtually every commodity trade. Other countries don't have that luxury.
- jorvi 8y ago
  Not to mention they literally asked Goldman-Sachs to help cook the books so they could qualify for joining the EU. I don't understand why people keep perpetuating this 'poor Greece is so innocent' myth. There was rabid government overspending, they literally defrauded the EU and they still got saved!
  - deninho 8y ago
    EU was not defrauded, since they admitted they knew how the books where altered. On the other hand, do you know who didn't know nothing about it? Greek people, particularly young people who are now in their 20s and 30s, and can't find a job to live as proper human beings (>30% youth unemployment). Yet, you look like you enjoy this. I, just, wish you will never face something like that in your future.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      > do you know who didn't know nothing about it? They can blame their parents and grandparents who voted for stupid and corrupt politicians. You don't need to look very far.
dantheman 8y ago
Why did they need an austerity program if they were fine?
- sgt101 8y ago
  the 2008 banking crisis caused credit to dry up, this caused a rise in debt costs which caused attention to focus on the greek economy which caused the fraud that allowed eurozone admission to become widely known which destroyed confidence in the greek administration which then turned to Europe who didn't help which destroyed confidence further.
  - namdnay 8y ago
    Exactly - the crisis exposed the fundamental issues in Greece. It didn't create them, though of course it made things worse (as for pretty much every country in the developed world)
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Greek debt was running at 100% of GDP since the nineties, if they had a better handle on it then the economic crisis wouldn't have hit them so hard. https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-debt-to-gdp
namdnay 8y ago
In what parallel universe was Greece fine before austerity? They had fiddled their books for decades (with help from predatory bankers). Even in the 90s it wasn't hard to see there was a fundamental issue in the way the country was managed
emptyfile 8y ago
Hilarious, is this what Greeks think? Its not the size of the debt or the deficit that matters but what its spent on. Take a look at pre-2009 retirement ages, number of employees in the public sector and the wages in the public sector.
- ravingraven 8y ago
  All those numbers are lower or comparable to other EU countries. The public sector was not much bigger than that of e.g. Germany. The difference was its effectiveness and productivity.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    You can handle a certain mass of civil servants when you have a strong private sector. The UK, France and Germany can live with it. Most of the other countries, not so much.
akvadrako 8y ago
Actually you are correct - Greece's debt load is one of the lowest in Europe. The reason it looks high is propaganda; they are using an obsolete accounting method. The modern standard is IPSAS or equivalents which consider what matters - the market value of the debt. https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/09/2161851/what-if-greece-got-massive-debt-relief-but-no-one-admitted-it-part-2/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/09/2161851/what-if-greec... http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087 http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087
- mpweiher 8y ago
  Err...so the debt is "low" because we are assuming it won't be repaid. Hmm...
  - akvadrako 8y ago
    It's because of low interest rates, much of it deferred. It's easier to pay off a 10 year loan of $2 @ 1% interest than $1 at 10% interest.
    - mpweiher 8y ago
      And deferring the debt was part of the bailout package.
5ersi 8y ago
Then your propaganda must be neo-communist. Take a look at this graph (and read the article it comes from): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#/media/File:HellenicOeconomy(inCurrentEuros).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#/... 1. After Greece entered Eurozone in 2001, their already large debt exploded. They had 4-14% yearly deficit - they clearly "lived way above their means". 2. In 2011 Greece themselves declared that they can no longer service their debt, e.g. they defaulted. In this sense they had "more debts than other countries in the EU zone" and they clearly would not "have been fine it it had not been forced to destroy its economy with an austerity program". If there was no bailout, they would default on their debts and their economy would totally collapse (think Venezuela style). This also goes against you claim that "[a county] can have too much debts. That wasn't the case here." 3. Greece government was until 2011 reporting fraudulent financial statistics in order to hide true extent of debt, also employing the help of international banks. Some actions were clearly fraudulent (cross currency swap at fictitious rates). 4. Greece asked other (mainly EU) countries to help her, the result was a massive reprogram of their debts (basically they got low interest rates and reprogrammed debts to 30-50 years, something you do not get at financial markets). 5. Greece negotiated a 50% "haircut" on debt owed to private banks in 2011, which amounted to a €100bn debt relief. Most affected were EU banks (Deutsche bank, BNP Paribas, etc..). So there were private entities that actually lost money on Greece. This pretty much dispels the claim that they were a victim of neoliberalists and/or capitalists. 6. Also, it's a totally false premise that a country can not "live above their means". The leftist agenda has been to portray Greece as a victim of capitalism and/or neoliberalism. This was mostly dispelled by facts, and I rarely see this kind of propaganda in 2018. The reality is that Greece put themselves in this situation and international community (especially EU) stepped way out of their way to help them, except offering them a massive write-off, which if happened, would be IMO a grave mistake.
- ravingraven 8y ago
  >The leftist agenda has been to portray Greece as a victim of capitalism and/or neoliberalism. This was mostly dispelled by facts, and I rarely see this kind of propaganda in 2018. It was both capitalist governments that created the crisis and capitalist governments that tried to remedy it (no government has moved away from a market economy and privatizations since the late 80ies, including SYRIZA). We Greeks are 100% absolutely right to blame capitalism and/or neoliberalism. It was a capitalist/neoliberal system that created the crisis and a capitalist/neoliberal idea (austerity) that utterly failed to remedy it (it has been almost 20 years since the crisis and there is not an end in sight).

by onli 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 8y ago

I'm not German and I don't see why it would have anything to do with that. "Living about their means" is what happens when their debt levels grow exponentially: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAAlk/jzf-BOZBbe0/s1600/GreeceDebtGDP.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAA... in what world do you think this is sustainable? The US can get away with huge amount of debts because they have the dollar, which the most trusted international currency for virtually every commodity trade. Other countries don't have that luxury.

jorvi 8y ago
Not to mention they literally asked Goldman-Sachs to help cook the books so they could qualify for joining the EU. I don't understand why people keep perpetuating this 'poor Greece is so innocent' myth. There was rabid government overspending, they literally defrauded the EU and they still got saved!
- deninho 8y ago
  EU was not defrauded, since they admitted they knew how the books where altered. On the other hand, do you know who didn't know nothing about it? Greek people, particularly young people who are now in their 20s and 30s, and can't find a job to live as proper human beings (>30% youth unemployment). Yet, you look like you enjoy this. I, just, wish you will never face something like that in your future.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > do you know who didn't know nothing about it? They can blame their parents and grandparents who voted for stupid and corrupt politicians. You don't need to look very far.

dantheman 8y ago

Why did they need an austerity program if they were fine?

sgt101 8y ago
the 2008 banking crisis caused credit to dry up, this caused a rise in debt costs which caused attention to focus on the greek economy which caused the fraud that allowed eurozone admission to become widely known which destroyed confidence in the greek administration which then turned to Europe who didn't help which destroyed confidence further.
- namdnay 8y ago
  Exactly - the crisis exposed the fundamental issues in Greece. It didn't create them, though of course it made things worse (as for pretty much every country in the developed world)

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

Greek debt was running at 100% of GDP since the nineties, if they had a better handle on it then the economic crisis wouldn't have hit them so hard. https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-debt-to-gdp

namdnay 8y ago

In what parallel universe was Greece fine before austerity? They had fiddled their books for decades (with help from predatory bankers). Even in the 90s it wasn't hard to see there was a fundamental issue in the way the country was managed

emptyfile 8y ago

Hilarious, is this what Greeks think? Its not the size of the debt or the deficit that matters but what its spent on. Take a look at pre-2009 retirement ages, number of employees in the public sector and the wages in the public sector.

ravingraven 8y ago
All those numbers are lower or comparable to other EU countries. The public sector was not much bigger than that of e.g. Germany. The difference was its effectiveness and productivity.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  You can handle a certain mass of civil servants when you have a strong private sector. The UK, France and Germany can live with it. Most of the other countries, not so much.

akvadrako 8y ago

Actually you are correct - Greece's debt load is one of the lowest in Europe. The reason it looks high is propaganda; they are using an obsolete accounting method. The modern standard is IPSAS or equivalents which consider what matters - the market value of the debt. https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/09/2161851/what-if-greece-got-massive-debt-relief-but-no-one-admitted-it-part-2/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/09/2161851/what-if-greec... http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087 http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087

mpweiher 8y ago
Err...so the debt is "low" because we are assuming it won't be repaid. Hmm...
- akvadrako 8y ago
  It's because of low interest rates, much of it deferred. It's easier to pay off a 10 year loan of $2 @ 1% interest than $1 at 10% interest.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    And deferring the debt was part of the bailout package.

5ersi 8y ago

Then your propaganda must be neo-communist. Take a look at this graph (and read the article it comes from): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#/media/File:HellenicOeconomy(inCurrentEuros).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#/... 1. After Greece entered Eurozone in 2001, their already large debt exploded. They had 4-14% yearly deficit - they clearly "lived way above their means". 2. In 2011 Greece themselves declared that they can no longer service their debt, e.g. they defaulted. In this sense they had "more debts than other countries in the EU zone" and they clearly would not "have been fine it it had not been forced to destroy its economy with an austerity program". If there was no bailout, they would default on their debts and their economy would totally collapse (think Venezuela style). This also goes against you claim that "[a county] can have too much debts. That wasn't the case here." 3. Greece government was until 2011 reporting fraudulent financial statistics in order to hide true extent of debt, also employing the help of international banks. Some actions were clearly fraudulent (cross currency swap at fictitious rates). 4. Greece asked other (mainly EU) countries to help her, the result was a massive reprogram of their debts (basically they got low interest rates and reprogrammed debts to 30-50 years, something you do not get at financial markets). 5. Greece negotiated a 50% "haircut" on debt owed to private banks in 2011, which amounted to a €100bn debt relief. Most affected were EU banks (Deutsche bank, BNP Paribas, etc..). So there were private entities that actually lost money on Greece. This pretty much dispels the claim that they were a victim of neoliberalists and/or capitalists. 6. Also, it's a totally false premise that a country can not "live above their means". The leftist agenda has been to portray Greece as a victim of capitalism and/or neoliberalism. This was mostly dispelled by facts, and I rarely see this kind of propaganda in 2018. The reality is that Greece put themselves in this situation and international community (especially EU) stepped way out of their way to help them, except offering them a massive write-off, which if happened, would be IMO a grave mistake.

ravingraven 8y ago
>The leftist agenda has been to portray Greece as a victim of capitalism and/or neoliberalism. This was mostly dispelled by facts, and I rarely see this kind of propaganda in 2018. It was both capitalist governments that created the crisis and capitalist governments that tried to remedy it (no government has moved away from a market economy and privatizations since the late 80ies, including SYRIZA). We Greeks are 100% absolutely right to blame capitalism and/or neoliberalism. It was a capitalist/neoliberal system that created the crisis and a capitalist/neoliberal idea (austerity) that utterly failed to remedy it (it has been almost 20 years since the crisis and there is not an end in sight).