4 ms·

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iP

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
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.
- honest_joe 11y ago
  So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.
    - celticninja 11y ago
      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 11y ago
        Greece does not want to affect their pensioners? What? Greece has already made massive cuts across the board on Government services, including pensions.
    - radicalbyte 11y ago
      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_generous_pensions 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 11y ago
        This claim has been debunked here: http://blog.zeit.de/herdentrieb/2015/06/18/die-griechische-rentenluege_8472 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 11y ago
        Good find. The amount of self-serving disinformation around this whole debacle is disturbing.
        celticninja 11y ago
        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 11y ago
        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.
  - quonn 11y ago
    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/Nettozahler_und_-empf%C3%A4nger_pro_Kopf_2012_mit_Werten.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Nettozah... [1] And here is more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#Net_contributors_and_recipients https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#N...
- kuschku 11y ago
  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.
- jeroen94704 11y ago
  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.
  - aikah 11y ago
    > 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.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  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.
- sambe 11y ago
  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".
jkot 11y ago
Not really. Most people I know have long hours and work their arses of. Taxi driver usually works 12 hours / 6 days a week for 20 euro a day net profit. Security guy takes about 500 euro a month for similar hours. It is about pensioners and state employees.
- johansch 11y ago
  I agree, I found the greek taxi drivers quite diligent in ripping me off when I was there last time.
- jmedwards 11y ago
  I think it is unfair and lazy to characterise a people that way. There is, however, deep structural or cultural issues that causes Greece to have such a massive tax gap: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13155.pdf http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13155.pdf. People may well be working hard, but a significant enough number of people are not contributing enough to the state, yet are demanding (by voting) ever more from it, and leaders seemed to have always been relaxed about it (I can't find the source again, but I remember reading that there is even a significant tax cap in the civil service itself).
  - jkot 11y ago
    What is unfair about it? Greek public sector has the same size as France. Pension system is even more generous than Italy. Retirement at 50 with full salary is not uncommon. No, instead of cutting that, they should squeeze even more money on taxes. Even EC is criticizing Greek government for collecting too much money on income tax and VAT. Just for illustration VAT tax on heating oil is 60%, most houses I know just do not order it. Last winter had a few weeks bellow freezing.
    - jmedwards 11y ago
      I was agreeing with you; I took your response to be one to a sentiment in this thread that 'Greek people are lazy'
gizmo 11y ago
That's a shockingly ignorant statement. You should be ashamed of yourself.
aikah 11y ago
> It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more. You have a limited understanding of the situation. And you don't need to be that insulting toward Greece. I know here it is apparently ok to make fun of people in a dare situation and talk about them like they are fool and idiots yet in that case the responsibility is shared across many parties and the EU itself has a huge responsibility in that fiasco. What the point saying what you just said? does it make you feel smarter or like you belong to a superior class? Would you want others to talk about you or your country that way when things turn south? no, so have a little respect. We are talking about people here who are mostly victims. Or do you think people here will laught at your speech because that's what they do in real life when you say horrible things?
johnchristopher 11y ago
It saddens me to see someone here picturing the greece situation with such a simplistic and idiotic analogy. It frigthens me to think such a line of reasonning could pop up on security or war matters.
- davidw 11y ago
  That kind of thing is why politics are off topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

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.

honest_joe 11y ago
So? Much poorer countries had to support greece. How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? No thanks
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > How come a poor slovakia should fund the lifestyle of lazy greeks? The Greeks are not lazy. Suffering is not lazy.
  - celticninja 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      Greece does not want to affect their pensioners? What? Greece has already made massive cuts across the board on Government services, including pensions.
  - radicalbyte 11y ago
    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_generous_pensions 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 11y ago
      This claim has been debunked here: http://blog.zeit.de/herdentrieb/2015/06/18/die-griechische-rentenluege_8472 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 11y ago
        Good find. The amount of self-serving disinformation around this whole debacle is disturbing.
      - celticninja 11y ago
        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 11y ago
      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.
- quonn 11y ago
  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/Nettozahler_und_-empf%C3%A4nger_pro_Kopf_2012_mit_Werten.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Nettozah... [1] And here is more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#Net_contributors_and_recipients https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#N...
kuschku 11y ago
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.
jeroen94704 11y ago
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.
- aikah 11y ago
  > 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.
tomjen3 11y ago
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.
sambe 11y ago
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".

jkot 11y ago

Not really. Most people I know have long hours and work their arses of. Taxi driver usually works 12 hours / 6 days a week for 20 euro a day net profit. Security guy takes about 500 euro a month for similar hours. It is about pensioners and state employees.

johansch 11y ago
I agree, I found the greek taxi drivers quite diligent in ripping me off when I was there last time.
jmedwards 11y ago
I think it is unfair and lazy to characterise a people that way. There is, however, deep structural or cultural issues that causes Greece to have such a massive tax gap: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13155.pdf http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13155.pdf. People may well be working hard, but a significant enough number of people are not contributing enough to the state, yet are demanding (by voting) ever more from it, and leaders seemed to have always been relaxed about it (I can't find the source again, but I remember reading that there is even a significant tax cap in the civil service itself).
- jkot 11y ago
  What is unfair about it? Greek public sector has the same size as France. Pension system is even more generous than Italy. Retirement at 50 with full salary is not uncommon. No, instead of cutting that, they should squeeze even more money on taxes. Even EC is criticizing Greek government for collecting too much money on income tax and VAT. Just for illustration VAT tax on heating oil is 60%, most houses I know just do not order it. Last winter had a few weeks bellow freezing.
  - jmedwards 11y ago
    I was agreeing with you; I took your response to be one to a sentiment in this thread that 'Greek people are lazy'

gizmo 11y ago

That's a shockingly ignorant statement. You should be ashamed of yourself.

aikah 11y ago

> It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more. You have a limited understanding of the situation. And you don't need to be that insulting toward Greece. I know here it is apparently ok to make fun of people in a dare situation and talk about them like they are fool and idiots yet in that case the responsibility is shared across many parties and the EU itself has a huge responsibility in that fiasco. What the point saying what you just said? does it make you feel smarter or like you belong to a superior class? Would you want others to talk about you or your country that way when things turn south? no, so have a little respect. We are talking about people here who are mostly victims. Or do you think people here will laught at your speech because that's what they do in real life when you say horrible things?

johnchristopher 11y ago

It saddens me to see someone here picturing the greece situation with such a simplistic and idiotic analogy. It frigthens me to think such a line of reasonning could pop up on security or war matters.

davidw 11y ago
That kind of thing is why politics are off topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html