4 ms·

I feel like I should have stopped reading this missive after the first phrase, which is "The economic crisis in Greece is the most consequential thing to have h

I feel like I should have stopped reading this missive after the first phrase, which is "The economic crisis in Greece is the most consequential thing to have happened in Europe since the Balkan wars." The Balkan wars were in 1912-1913. I can think of a few other significant things that happened in Europe since then. This crisis - it is really more of a tantrum than a crisis, since the Greeks know perfectly well they are on the hook for the money they spent on themselves - doesn't even register as a blip. It's not going to collapse the economy of the 400 million people within the EU/eurozone area, and even if it did, it still wouldn't reach the significance of 70 years of revolutions and communism and dictatorships and the freaking Holocaust and a couple of world wars, now would it? This sort of wild-eyed panic mongering by people who take a bath on their real estate or stock purchase, and think that they are living through the worst crisis in the 7,000 years of recorded history, is beginning to wear thin. It's annoying even as deliberate hyperbole. On top of this, the economic points made are stale and unconvincing. He talks about low interest rates being appropriate for Germany, but not for Greece. Well, guess what? You don't have to lend at low rates to Greek institutions. You can take a risk premium on top of the basic Euro central bank rates. People weren't doing that because they thought that Greece would catch up economically to the Euro average; it didn't, and the risk premiums went up. Hardly worth killing the Euro zone over this. EDITED to add: he probably meant the wars in former Yugoslavia, rather than what's actually known as the Balkan wars. OK, but frankly, this is still crap, since clearly the creation of the Euro block itself and the unprecedented economic expansion in its new members is far more significant than a tantrum in 3% of the Eurozone. And the economic points are absolute garbage: yes, Argentina recovered, because it is a mining/exporting country and commodity prices skyrocketed. Not very relevant to Greece.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tspiteri 15y ago
I think the author means the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, which have been called the War in the Balkans by some.
idonthack 15y ago
he is obviously referring to the breakup of Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
Someone 15y ago
It is fairly common to describe what Wikipedia calls the Yugoslav Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars) as de Balkan War(s) that broke out after Yugoslavia fell apart. I read it as referring to those conflicts. I think that makes more sense, too, as the target audience wouldn't really know of those earlier wars (I knew, but not even for a monument thought of them when reading this)
- yaakov34 15y ago
  OK, OK, I agree now that that's what he meant. But for me, "the Balkan wars" is standard terminology referring to those wars, which really did involve all of the Balkans, and I thought he was making some kind of a point about a century of history in Europe coming full circle - some people like to do that. And I still think that the article is panic-mongering badly-argued long-winded garbage.
  - cstross 15y ago
    +1 on this unfortunate terminological crash: "Balkan wars" to me means the stuff that happened between 1830 and 1913 as the Ottoman empire withdrew from eastern Europe; "Yugoslavian civil war" is what happened in the 1990s/00s. (Oh, and the First Gulf War was 1980-88, the Second Gulf War was 1992-93, and the Iraq Invasion was the Third Gulf War. It's odd how wars get air-brushed out of the record if America wasn't involved ...)
    - guelo 15y ago
      > the First Gulf War was 1980-88, Are you referring to the Iran-Iraq war? If so, that seems a strange name for it since it mostly had nothing to do with the Persian Gulf. Though admittedly neither did the other Iraq wars except that that's where the American ships attacked from.
mcantelon 15y ago
>it is really more of a tantrum than a crisis, since the Greeks know perfectly well they are on the hook for the money they spent on themselves The Greeks didn't know the gov was in debt because Goldman Sachs colluded with corrupt government officials to hide the debt[1]. They have ample reason for a "tantrum" against their corrupt government. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.... Goldman Sachs has made a good business out of contributing to, and capitalizing on the, collapse of countries by corrupting their officials (Greece, Russia, the US). In my opinion, they should be treated like a dangerous cult (which is how they operate).
- yaakov34 15y ago
  Come on, have you actually read the article that you quoted? It says that GS helped Greece borrow an additional $1 billion in 2002 by having it assume unrealistic exchange rates. Assuming for the sake of argument that this is completely true, this sum barely passes the threshold of significance in the mismanagement of Greece. The Greeks ran a corrupt, overspending government all by themselves, and they have themselves to blame. Maybe GS evaded half the Greek taxpayers' taxes for them, too?
  - danenania 15y ago
    The main problem with your reasoning is the assumption that the government of Greece is a legitimate democratic representative of its people. If ordinary Greeks had significant power in the political process that shapes the course of their lives, perhaps they would share responsibility, but the fact is that all the critical decisions were made and continue to be made by unelected, unaccountable, extremely wealthy elites. Terming an economically oppressed people's outrage a "tantrum" simply reveals your own bias, conscious or otherwise, in favor of the corrupt establishment, along with a distasteful bit of arrogance. This isn't about Greeks taking responsibility for themselves, it's about Greeks challenging the rampant criminality of international banks, multinational corporations, and the governments they control. It's the same challenge that faces people in every nation on this earth, and we won't see a truly free and fair global society until every nation's people have overcome it.
corin_ 15y ago
I was thinking what you suggest in your edit, though it seems weird to say "the Balkan wars" (plural) if you're referring to what is sometimes (and only sometimes) called the "third Balkan war". If that is what he meant, then I think it's hard to debate what is "more significant", a change in the continent's politics with economic impact, or hundreds of thousands of lives ended and ruined, albeit in only a limited region of the continent. I wouldn't really know where to come down on that fence. On the other hand - my history is very rough, but I do believe there is at least a case for claiming that the first two Balkan Wars had a hand in leading to the first world war, which in turn lay the foundation for the second world war... if you make that logic stick, then suddenly they were crazily important to the entire continent/world.
- yaakov34 15y ago
  That's what I thought he was going for - some kind of a history-comes-full-circle argument involving the Balkans. Also, please note that I did not say that I think that economics is more important than the wars in (former) Yugoslavia. I don't know how to compare that, either. What I said is that there were more significant events since the wars in FY, and this seems clearly true to me, even just sticking to the economy.
wnight 15y ago
> the Greeks know perfectly well they are on the hook for the money they spent on themselves You mean they're more able to influence their politicians than we are? Because I certainly don't spend the money my politicians take from me, or borrow in my name. Also, why should they pay back their debt? Nobody else is going to. We printed trillions to bail out the banks to avoid paying back our debts.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tspiteri 15y ago

I think the author means the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, which have been called the War in the Balkans by some.

idonthack 15y ago

he is obviously referring to the breakup of Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia

Someone 15y ago

It is fairly common to describe what Wikipedia calls the Yugoslav Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars) as de Balkan War(s) that broke out after Yugoslavia fell apart. I read it as referring to those conflicts. I think that makes more sense, too, as the target audience wouldn't really know of those earlier wars (I knew, but not even for a monument thought of them when reading this)

yaakov34 15y ago
OK, OK, I agree now that that's what he meant. But for me, "the Balkan wars" is standard terminology referring to those wars, which really did involve all of the Balkans, and I thought he was making some kind of a point about a century of history in Europe coming full circle - some people like to do that. And I still think that the article is panic-mongering badly-argued long-winded garbage.
- cstross 15y ago
  +1 on this unfortunate terminological crash: "Balkan wars" to me means the stuff that happened between 1830 and 1913 as the Ottoman empire withdrew from eastern Europe; "Yugoslavian civil war" is what happened in the 1990s/00s. (Oh, and the First Gulf War was 1980-88, the Second Gulf War was 1992-93, and the Iraq Invasion was the Third Gulf War. It's odd how wars get air-brushed out of the record if America wasn't involved ...)
  - guelo 15y ago
    > the First Gulf War was 1980-88, Are you referring to the Iran-Iraq war? If so, that seems a strange name for it since it mostly had nothing to do with the Persian Gulf. Though admittedly neither did the other Iraq wars except that that's where the American ships attacked from.

mcantelon 15y ago

>it is really more of a tantrum than a crisis, since the Greeks know perfectly well they are on the hook for the money they spent on themselves The Greeks didn't know the gov was in debt because Goldman Sachs colluded with corrupt government officials to hide the debt[1]. They have ample reason for a "tantrum" against their corrupt government. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.... Goldman Sachs has made a good business out of contributing to, and capitalizing on the, collapse of countries by corrupting their officials (Greece, Russia, the US). In my opinion, they should be treated like a dangerous cult (which is how they operate).

yaakov34 15y ago
Come on, have you actually read the article that you quoted? It says that GS helped Greece borrow an additional $1 billion in 2002 by having it assume unrealistic exchange rates. Assuming for the sake of argument that this is completely true, this sum barely passes the threshold of significance in the mismanagement of Greece. The Greeks ran a corrupt, overspending government all by themselves, and they have themselves to blame. Maybe GS evaded half the Greek taxpayers' taxes for them, too?
- danenania 15y ago
  The main problem with your reasoning is the assumption that the government of Greece is a legitimate democratic representative of its people. If ordinary Greeks had significant power in the political process that shapes the course of their lives, perhaps they would share responsibility, but the fact is that all the critical decisions were made and continue to be made by unelected, unaccountable, extremely wealthy elites. Terming an economically oppressed people's outrage a "tantrum" simply reveals your own bias, conscious or otherwise, in favor of the corrupt establishment, along with a distasteful bit of arrogance. This isn't about Greeks taking responsibility for themselves, it's about Greeks challenging the rampant criminality of international banks, multinational corporations, and the governments they control. It's the same challenge that faces people in every nation on this earth, and we won't see a truly free and fair global society until every nation's people have overcome it.

corin_ 15y ago

I was thinking what you suggest in your edit, though it seems weird to say "the Balkan wars" (plural) if you're referring to what is sometimes (and only sometimes) called the "third Balkan war". If that is what he meant, then I think it's hard to debate what is "more significant", a change in the continent's politics with economic impact, or hundreds of thousands of lives ended and ruined, albeit in only a limited region of the continent. I wouldn't really know where to come down on that fence. On the other hand - my history is very rough, but I do believe there is at least a case for claiming that the first two Balkan Wars had a hand in leading to the first world war, which in turn lay the foundation for the second world war... if you make that logic stick, then suddenly they were crazily important to the entire continent/world.

yaakov34 15y ago
That's what I thought he was going for - some kind of a history-comes-full-circle argument involving the Balkans. Also, please note that I did not say that I think that economics is more important than the wars in (former) Yugoslavia. I don't know how to compare that, either. What I said is that there were more significant events since the wars in FY, and this seems clearly true to me, even just sticking to the economy.

wnight 15y ago

> the Greeks know perfectly well they are on the hook for the money they spent on themselves You mean they're more able to influence their politicians than we are? Because I certainly don't spend the money my politicians take from me, or borrow in my name. Also, why should they pay back their debt? Nobody else is going to. We printed trillions to bail out the banks to avoid paying back our debts.