4 ms·

Greece (and Spain, and Italy, etc) spend profligately, Germany is asked to bail them out yet again...and the Germans are the bad guys? I couldn't understand th

by temphn 15y ago

Greece (and Spain, and Italy, etc) spend profligately, Germany is asked to bail them out yet again...and the Germans are the bad guys? I couldn't understand the worldview of the Greeks, but now I realize that the grasshopper -- by its very nature -- hates the ant and always thinks he cheated.

archangel_one 15y ago
The Greeks, Spaniards and Italians aren't blameless here, but the point is that the Germans aren't as noble as they like to make out - they have benefited significantly from being a stronger economy in the euro at some expense of the weaker countries.
- deleted 15y ago
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RockyMcNuts 15y ago
Worth keeping in mind that Greece is quite unequal and oligarchical. The oligarchs' game is, to some degree, 1) salt away Euros abroad 2) blame all Greece's problems on Germany and whip up the masses with media they control, 3) have Greece leave the Euro, 4) buy privatized assets on the cheap with their safe Euros while the masses suffer, 5) profit! in particular avoid having to pay all the back taxes they evaded, or pay in devalued drachma. A big part of the issue is lack of solidarity, no one trusts the government, no one wants to pay taxes, no one wants to make the hard choices. But when the government and leadership is seen as out for itself and dysfunctional and the wealthy are inoculated from pain while the average people suffer, then people think they are unfairly asked to sacrifice. (if I may digress, some of this, sadly, is increasingly applicable to the US, including adoption of inflammatory ant/grasshopper rhetoric/posturing. There are a lot of dysfunctional poor subcultures, but also a lot of poor people who work a lot harder than middle and upper classes with little to show for it, limited opportunity to join the middle class, limited access to decent education and health care for their kids When someone is trying to take away what you are accustomed to having, it's quite easy to persuade yourself of their moral degeneracy, whether they are 'dirty hippies', or 'fat cat banksters'. When you have interests to protect, it's quiet easy to find ideologies that make them just and necessary. Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles - Ambrose Bierce)

by temphn 15y ago

archangel_one 15y ago

The Greeks, Spaniards and Italians aren't blameless here, but the point is that the Germans aren't as noble as they like to make out - they have benefited significantly from being a stronger economy in the euro at some expense of the weaker countries.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

RockyMcNuts 15y ago

Worth keeping in mind that Greece is quite unequal and oligarchical. The oligarchs' game is, to some degree, 1) salt away Euros abroad 2) blame all Greece's problems on Germany and whip up the masses with media they control, 3) have Greece leave the Euro, 4) buy privatized assets on the cheap with their safe Euros while the masses suffer, 5) profit! in particular avoid having to pay all the back taxes they evaded, or pay in devalued drachma. A big part of the issue is lack of solidarity, no one trusts the government, no one wants to pay taxes, no one wants to make the hard choices. But when the government and leadership is seen as out for itself and dysfunctional and the wealthy are inoculated from pain while the average people suffer, then people think they are unfairly asked to sacrifice. (if I may digress, some of this, sadly, is increasingly applicable to the US, including adoption of inflammatory ant/grasshopper rhetoric/posturing. There are a lot of dysfunctional poor subcultures, but also a lot of poor people who work a lot harder than middle and upper classes with little to show for it, limited opportunity to join the middle class, limited access to decent education and health care for their kids When someone is trying to take away what you are accustomed to having, it's quite easy to persuade yourself of their moral degeneracy, whether they are 'dirty hippies', or 'fat cat banksters'. When you have interests to protect, it's quiet easy to find ideologies that make them just and necessary. Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles - Ambrose Bierce)