5 ms·

Except the reforms were not reasonable. More like telling a man to cut off an arm to get a fish. Doesn’t teach you to fish in the future and creates lots of suf

• Hamuko 6y ago
  >Except the reforms were not reasonable. So the optimal option would've been to leave Greece to its own devices?
  • fauigerzigerk 6y ago
    The optimal option would have been to demand root and branch reforms in exchange for very substantial debt relief.
• oneplane 6y ago
  I wonder who would be suitable to decide what is reasonable. Is it: a) a country with a record of mismanagement and debt it cannot pay back b) a set of countries that do not have a record of mismanagement and have the ability to help out a country that is in debt If we take your metaphor we could say the choice is: a) do not accept the terms and starve to death b) cut off your arm and live with rules to live by to prevent the scenario from repeating
  • dash2 6y ago
    I think it is widely accepted that the terms imposed on Greece were unreasonable – not just because they caused very high unemployment and poverty, but also because they were based on a completely unrealistic assessment of the country’s ability to pay back its debt. A good book on the topic (and much else) is Adam Tooze’s Crashed.
  • phs318u 6y ago
    Let me rephrase your first (b). b) a set of banks who were willingly ignorant that they were lending to a state with a history of bankruptcy over many decades, because they believed/knew that when push came to shove the EU (taxpayers) would bail them out (which they did. You realise that the Greek "bailout" was a bailout of the EU banks that lent to the Greek state).