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They overspent. Their economy is dysfunctional. They share a big part of the blame. But they have been following the Troika's plan for over 7 years now, they h

They overspent. Their economy is dysfunctional. They share a big part of the blame. But they have been following the Troika's plan for over 7 years now, they have reduced spending, they have done a huge effort, and still their GDP has collapsed. It seems that the Troika's plan is not working. That is what Tsipras is saying: we can not continue doing this, and the rest of Europe/Troika has to recognize part of the blame. Not only that: it seems it has the support of his people (we'll see on Sunday) If Greece had defaulted (or restructured the debt) at the beginning of this crisis, as Iceland did, the situation would be much better. But nobody was interested, since big banks where holding big chunks of high-paying Greek debt, and they needed some time to unload it. I still remember how the Iceland success story was completely ignored by European media - and still is.

tosseraccount 11y ago
Iceland (Island) is 300,000 people and did NOT join the EU. Iceland collects their taxes. Iceland dealt with problem promptly. Greece needs to bite the bullet. Harder. Stop blaming others.
- DannoHung 11y ago
  > On October 6, the Icelandic legislature instituted an emergency law which enabled the Financial Supervisory Authority to take control over financial institutions and made domestic deposits in the banks priority claims. In the following days, new banks were founded to take over the domestic operations of Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir. The old banks were put into receivership and liquidation, resulting in losses for their shareholders and foreign creditors. Outside Iceland, more than half a million depositors lost access to their accounts in foreign branches of Icelandic banks. This led to the 2008-2013 Icesave dispute, that ended with a ESA ruling that Iceland was not obliged to repay Dutch and British depositors minimum deposit guarantees. So, what you're saying is default and fuck over foreign investors.
  - tehmaco 11y ago
    > So, what you're saying is default and fuck over foreign investors. Yes. A government should have its own people as it's primary concern.
    - DannoHung 11y ago
      Ah, "Bite the Bullet" in this context sounds more like you're saying, "MORE AUSTERITY!" and that you weren't aware of what Iceland actually did.
  - mcv 11y ago
    Exactly. Default and fuck over foreign investors, because that's what investors are for. They take risk. If they win, they get profit. If they lose, they carry the loss. This entire mess is getting out of hand because Germany wants to shield the investors from that risk.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>But they have been following the Troika's plan for over 7 years now Except they aren't. They aren't fixing their tax fraud - no one is paying enough taxes. They didn't fix their retirement age, there are easy loopholes around it, etc and a million other things. Greek fraud predated this plan and worked during this plan. The EU cant fix Greece's corrupt governments and leaders. That's why we're where we're at right now. Also Iceland is a edge case. It has one tenth the amount of people of the city I live in. Its like a small suburb going broke. Greece has 12 million people. More than likely you're looking at an Argentina-like situation.
- sergiosgc 11y ago
  > They aren't fixing their tax fraud - no one is paying enough taxes. This is something that takes a long time. It is unrealistic to expect Greeks can fix something like this in the time-frame needed to solve this crisis. Worse, during a crisis there is pressure to escape taxation making the job a lot more difficult. I'm from Portugal. Portugal had Greek levels of tax fraud in the 80s. It took twenty years, from the late 90s onward, to get to decent levels of fraud. I rate the work done here as excellent. And even then, it took two decades! If Europe were serious about helping Greece, they'd be assisting with setting up an efficient finance ministry, not jacking up VAT levels and pushing more of the economy outside legality.
- cgio 11y ago
  Ok we got it, you don't like Greeks even though you are one. No need to reiterate a thousand times. We judge the austerity program and theoretically, with your assertions on the volume of flaws in the Greek economy, it should be easy to demonstrate improvements in 6-7 years. The opposite happened, therefore something was wrong with the imported wisdom and despite the moral integrity of the troika (the troika is not Greeks, that should give you some confidence.)
tonylemesmer 11y ago
do you mean Iceland? [edit] did not know that. thx (I could not reply to the replies)
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  It's "Island" in the local, Viking dialect.
  - toothbrush 11y ago
    If we're going to act as if we're using the local name, it should probably be Ísland. :)
- gonvaled 11y ago
  Sure, thx. (in Spanish it is "Islandia")
dragonwriter 11y ago
Austerity plans always fail to produce results. They never work. They never worked in any of the dozens of countries the IMF and World Bank forced them on in the developing world, they didn't work in Ireland, and they aren't working in Greece. Austerity isn't just faith in the absence of evidence, its face in spite of overwhelming evidence.
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  "Austerity" worked in Britain and Ireland. Fiscal responsibility is good policy ... for individual, households, companies and governments! http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-an... [ set start year to 2008 ]
  - the_why_of_y 11y ago
    The UK GDP actually performed better during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that was despite deflation due to the gold standard in the early years - doesn't sound like a success story to me. http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing-different-recessions/ http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing-d... I've always wondered about Ireland - it seems they have a strategy for the last decade or so of positioning their country as a tax haven, so that multi-national corporations tend to incorporate in Ireland and move their profits that are actually made in other countries there by creative accounting (like Intellectual Property licensing deals between subsidiaries). What effect does that have on GDP? Has anybody investigated this?
- gonvaled 11y ago
  I wouldn't say it never works: containing spending is good policy. It worked, for example, in Spain. But Spain had going for it that the economy (although badly performing) was doing much better than Greece at the start of the crisis, and specially that the markets had somebody else to bet against, namely Greece. The Spanish bond risk premium (compared to German bonds) was widening rapidly, but the Greece one was humongous. So, the market pressure was a huge problem for Greece. While the market was betting against Greece (and making handsome profits with big interests and, as we now know, zero risk), Spain was quietly improving. I am sure that, if Greece had been brought to its knees by the market, the next to fall would have been Spain (well, the next in line was probably Portugal). In that situation, austerity measures are actually counter-productive. This is what we have in Greece. Europe needs to face the markets here. And the problem is that, once Greece defaults in the following weeks (if Europe decides to let it fall, that is), Portugal will be the next to feel the pressure. Spain is probably out of the woods by now - by luck, so to speak.

tosseraccount 11y ago

Iceland (Island) is 300,000 people and did NOT join the EU. Iceland collects their taxes. Iceland dealt with problem promptly. Greece needs to bite the bullet. Harder. Stop blaming others.

DannoHung 11y ago
> On October 6, the Icelandic legislature instituted an emergency law which enabled the Financial Supervisory Authority to take control over financial institutions and made domestic deposits in the banks priority claims. In the following days, new banks were founded to take over the domestic operations of Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir. The old banks were put into receivership and liquidation, resulting in losses for their shareholders and foreign creditors. Outside Iceland, more than half a million depositors lost access to their accounts in foreign branches of Icelandic banks. This led to the 2008-2013 Icesave dispute, that ended with a ESA ruling that Iceland was not obliged to repay Dutch and British depositors minimum deposit guarantees. So, what you're saying is default and fuck over foreign investors.
- tehmaco 11y ago
  > So, what you're saying is default and fuck over foreign investors. Yes. A government should have its own people as it's primary concern.
  - DannoHung 11y ago
    Ah, "Bite the Bullet" in this context sounds more like you're saying, "MORE AUSTERITY!" and that you weren't aware of what Iceland actually did.
- mcv 11y ago
  Exactly. Default and fuck over foreign investors, because that's what investors are for. They take risk. If they win, they get profit. If they lose, they carry the loss. This entire mess is getting out of hand because Germany wants to shield the investors from that risk.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>But they have been following the Troika's plan for over 7 years now Except they aren't. They aren't fixing their tax fraud - no one is paying enough taxes. They didn't fix their retirement age, there are easy loopholes around it, etc and a million other things. Greek fraud predated this plan and worked during this plan. The EU cant fix Greece's corrupt governments and leaders. That's why we're where we're at right now. Also Iceland is a edge case. It has one tenth the amount of people of the city I live in. Its like a small suburb going broke. Greece has 12 million people. More than likely you're looking at an Argentina-like situation.

sergiosgc 11y ago
> They aren't fixing their tax fraud - no one is paying enough taxes. This is something that takes a long time. It is unrealistic to expect Greeks can fix something like this in the time-frame needed to solve this crisis. Worse, during a crisis there is pressure to escape taxation making the job a lot more difficult. I'm from Portugal. Portugal had Greek levels of tax fraud in the 80s. It took twenty years, from the late 90s onward, to get to decent levels of fraud. I rate the work done here as excellent. And even then, it took two decades! If Europe were serious about helping Greece, they'd be assisting with setting up an efficient finance ministry, not jacking up VAT levels and pushing more of the economy outside legality.
cgio 11y ago
Ok we got it, you don't like Greeks even though you are one. No need to reiterate a thousand times. We judge the austerity program and theoretically, with your assertions on the volume of flaws in the Greek economy, it should be easy to demonstrate improvements in 6-7 years. The opposite happened, therefore something was wrong with the imported wisdom and despite the moral integrity of the troika (the troika is not Greeks, that should give you some confidence.)

tonylemesmer 11y ago

do you mean Iceland? [edit] did not know that. thx (I could not reply to the replies)

tosseraccount 11y ago
It's "Island" in the local, Viking dialect.
- toothbrush 11y ago
  If we're going to act as if we're using the local name, it should probably be Ísland. :)
gonvaled 11y ago
Sure, thx. (in Spanish it is "Islandia")

dragonwriter 11y ago

Austerity plans always fail to produce results. They never work. They never worked in any of the dozens of countries the IMF and World Bank forced them on in the developing world, they didn't work in Ireland, and they aren't working in Greece. Austerity isn't just faith in the absence of evidence, its face in spite of overwhelming evidence.

tosseraccount 11y ago
"Austerity" worked in Britain and Ireland. Fiscal responsibility is good policy ... for individual, households, companies and governments! http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annual http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-an... [ set start year to 2008 ]
- the_why_of_y 11y ago
  The UK GDP actually performed better during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that was despite deflation due to the gold standard in the early years - doesn't sound like a success story to me. http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing-different-recessions/ http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing-d... I've always wondered about Ireland - it seems they have a strategy for the last decade or so of positioning their country as a tax haven, so that multi-national corporations tend to incorporate in Ireland and move their profits that are actually made in other countries there by creative accounting (like Intellectual Property licensing deals between subsidiaries). What effect does that have on GDP? Has anybody investigated this?
gonvaled 11y ago
I wouldn't say it never works: containing spending is good policy. It worked, for example, in Spain. But Spain had going for it that the economy (although badly performing) was doing much better than Greece at the start of the crisis, and specially that the markets had somebody else to bet against, namely Greece. The Spanish bond risk premium (compared to German bonds) was widening rapidly, but the Greece one was humongous. So, the market pressure was a huge problem for Greece. While the market was betting against Greece (and making handsome profits with big interests and, as we now know, zero risk), Spain was quietly improving. I am sure that, if Greece had been brought to its knees by the market, the next to fall would have been Spain (well, the next in line was probably Portugal). In that situation, austerity measures are actually counter-productive. This is what we have in Greece. Europe needs to face the markets here. And the problem is that, once Greece defaults in the following weeks (if Europe decides to let it fall, that is), Portugal will be the next to feel the pressure. Spain is probably out of the woods by now - by luck, so to speak.