4 ms·
Who says the creditors were fully aware of the government's misrepresentations? Those misrepresentations were discovered when the Troika started to investigate
by telepheron 11y ago
Who says the creditors were fully aware of the government's misrepresentations?
Those misrepresentations were discovered when the Troika started to investigate Greece's financial state.
- rosser 11y agoWhen you're lending out billions of dollars, you don't take the debtor's statements at face value. You do very thorough due diligence, and employ very capable people to do it for you. There is no excuse for Deutsche Bank, et al, not to have known exactly how tenuous the strength and solvency of the Greek economy were. The notion that no-one knew the Greek government was lying about the state of their economy until it was too late is ludicrous on its face.
- tormeh 11y agoJust a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period. If you don't pay them back you're a morally deficient scoundrel. If you're ever bankrupt then the legal system will permanently brand you. German economics is a mix of Austrian school economics and strict morals. It doesn't excuse the largely international banks a la Deutsche, but it does explain the Germanic outrage.
- throwaway2048 11y agojust like germany paid off its debts post ww1 and ww2?
- oldmanjay 11y agoHalf of the country got to suffer under the yoke of the USSR for half a century. The debt is paid.
- peterfirefly 11y agoThere shouldn't have been /any/ debt after WWI (except to Belgium, who didn't ask to be a battle field in the self defense of Germany). Russia, France, Britain, and the US should have paid reparations to Germany, not the other way around. Why? Because Germany /didn't/ start the war. It just ended up as one of the losers. Germany had huge territorial losses after both wars, parts of Germany were under forceful occupation for a long time afterwards, and they paid heavily in terms of manufacturing equipment and money afterwards. I'd say they paid.
- r0naa 11y agoGermany declared war on Russia and France, on August 1st and 3rd respectively. Not sure what you mean by: > Why? Because Germany /didn't/ start the war. It just ended up as one of the losers. It also didn't blame Germany for starting the war but for the damage caused by German troops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_231_of_the_Treaty_of_Versailles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_231_of_the_Treaty_of_V...
- crdoconnor 11y ago>Just a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period. It's neither Anglo-Saxon nor German. It's a creditor perspective. The same perspective that brought us debtor's prisons, and even (in Roman times), the notion of bankruptcy meaning "selling yourself into slavery".
- icebraining 11y agoNews articles from back in 2003 openly said that the dealing Greece had with Goldman-Sachs were a way of playing with the numbers to present an "acceptable" deficit. It wasn't hidden. Also, from 2004, long before any Troka: "Greece admits fudging euro entry" "Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, said the announcement would not be a surprise for Brussels insiders. "Quite a few member states did something similar because of the political imperative to join the euro as soon as possible. Greece has just gone a bit further," she said." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4012869.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4012869.stm The idea that Greece simply fooled everyone is nothing more than propaganda.
- peterfirefly 11y agoEverybody knew they cheated (as did France and Italy, for example). The /extent/ was a surprise.