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That same report says that failure of the economy to recover is caused by the failure of the government to implement the necessary changes, worsened by the curr

That same report says that failure of the economy to recover is caused by the failure of the government to implement the necessary changes, worsened by the current government during the past 5 months.

elorant 11y ago
That’s one way to put it. The other is that besides the government IMF fucked up too by setting unrealistic goals, like a 4% surplus by 2016 which led Tsipras denying continuation of the program to avoid further damage to the economy (those goals were eventually reduced but it now seems too little too late). Everyone is looking for a scapegoat. The government is blaming ECB and the Germans, EU is blaming the government, and IMF is blaming everyone including Lagarde who can’t seem to get her head out of her ass. Then there is US who see what a clustefuck this whole situation is but can’t do anything but nagging the Germans to become a bit more flexible and in order to put some pressure on them decided to make the report public just when Tsipras abandoned negotiations. There is a Greek proverb saying that when too many roosters sign the dawn comes late.
andmarios 11y ago
Well, IMF has to explain why it threw billions of dollars to an unsustainable debt. But there are deeper issues too. What the creditors really want is to micromanage Greece while they do not understand our economy and culture. They want to change everything in a couple of years. Change takes time, you can't turn a Greek into a German or an American in 3 or 5 years. In order to do this and protect their interests, they support the previous, crooked goverments. These people acted like lapdogs, signing everything the creditors threw at them, whilst implementing only what didn't touch their rich friends. The creditors did not only got binding agreements through them but also protection. Siemens for example, the German conglomerate that accounts for a large percentage of Germany's GDP has spent over 2 billion euros (!) in bribery to Greek politicians and public servants. If this case ever reached the court, both our politicians would face jail and Siemens wouldn't be able to work with the European public sector again (think from traffic lights, to trains, hospitals, energy, etc). Thus the creditors prefer a goverment that looks like an obedient and honest goverment, whilst it only applies austerity measures for the weak and protect themselves. Our new goverment seems genuinely interested to make things better, but it asks for the freedom to implement their own ideas in order to reach the targets set by our creditors and also a debt restructure so that our debt becomes sustainable.
- elorant 11y ago
  Just for the record I have to say that as a fellow Greek I totally disagree with that line of thinking, which is popular amongst many Greeks. Neither IMF nor EU did anything to cover our corruptive politicians. But they can’t substitute our constitution or our courts. Neither is their duty to govern Greece. Their duty is to set goals and check whether we implement agreeable reforms. Everything else is just conspiracy theories or pure speculations. They don’t have executive jurisdiction to enforce implementation of this or that policy. You mentioned the Siemens scandal for example, by the way your numbers are off by an order of magnitude. This is a typical example of a cover-up from our part. We let the key witness escape to Germany where he is protected from extradition. It’s not their fault, we shouldn’t have let him leave in the first place. Taking responsibility for our mistakes would be a first step in overcoming our inefficiencies. And the previous government was anything but obedient, as a matter of fact all three governments that were called to implement reforms resisted as much as they could. So please, let’s just stop the speculation about EU wanting to rule Greece through puppet governments. I’m sure they have better things to do.
- mafribe 11y ago
  Siemens for example [...] has spent over 2 billion euros (!) in bribery to Greek politicians and public servants. Can you please substantiate this outrageous claim? The Wikipedia page [1] mentions approx €150k. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal

elorant 11y ago

That’s one way to put it. The other is that besides the government IMF fucked up too by setting unrealistic goals, like a 4% surplus by 2016 which led Tsipras denying continuation of the program to avoid further damage to the economy (those goals were eventually reduced but it now seems too little too late). Everyone is looking for a scapegoat. The government is blaming ECB and the Germans, EU is blaming the government, and IMF is blaming everyone including Lagarde who can’t seem to get her head out of her ass. Then there is US who see what a clustefuck this whole situation is but can’t do anything but nagging the Germans to become a bit more flexible and in order to put some pressure on them decided to make the report public just when Tsipras abandoned negotiations. There is a Greek proverb saying that when too many roosters sign the dawn comes late.

andmarios 11y ago

Well, IMF has to explain why it threw billions of dollars to an unsustainable debt. But there are deeper issues too. What the creditors really want is to micromanage Greece while they do not understand our economy and culture. They want to change everything in a couple of years. Change takes time, you can't turn a Greek into a German or an American in 3 or 5 years. In order to do this and protect their interests, they support the previous, crooked goverments. These people acted like lapdogs, signing everything the creditors threw at them, whilst implementing only what didn't touch their rich friends. The creditors did not only got binding agreements through them but also protection. Siemens for example, the German conglomerate that accounts for a large percentage of Germany's GDP has spent over 2 billion euros (!) in bribery to Greek politicians and public servants. If this case ever reached the court, both our politicians would face jail and Siemens wouldn't be able to work with the European public sector again (think from traffic lights, to trains, hospitals, energy, etc). Thus the creditors prefer a goverment that looks like an obedient and honest goverment, whilst it only applies austerity measures for the weak and protect themselves. Our new goverment seems genuinely interested to make things better, but it asks for the freedom to implement their own ideas in order to reach the targets set by our creditors and also a debt restructure so that our debt becomes sustainable.

elorant 11y ago
Just for the record I have to say that as a fellow Greek I totally disagree with that line of thinking, which is popular amongst many Greeks. Neither IMF nor EU did anything to cover our corruptive politicians. But they can’t substitute our constitution or our courts. Neither is their duty to govern Greece. Their duty is to set goals and check whether we implement agreeable reforms. Everything else is just conspiracy theories or pure speculations. They don’t have executive jurisdiction to enforce implementation of this or that policy. You mentioned the Siemens scandal for example, by the way your numbers are off by an order of magnitude. This is a typical example of a cover-up from our part. We let the key witness escape to Germany where he is protected from extradition. It’s not their fault, we shouldn’t have let him leave in the first place. Taking responsibility for our mistakes would be a first step in overcoming our inefficiencies. And the previous government was anything but obedient, as a matter of fact all three governments that were called to implement reforms resisted as much as they could. So please, let’s just stop the speculation about EU wanting to rule Greece through puppet governments. I’m sure they have better things to do.
mafribe 11y ago
Siemens for example [...] has spent over 2 billion euros (!) in bribery to Greek politicians and public servants. Can you please substantiate this outrageous claim? The Wikipedia page [1] mentions approx €150k. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal