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Greece among others pardoned your Nazi debts and reparations in 1953, helping you rise. Greeks did nothing so terrible to "owe a debt". You owe them a debt whic

Greece among others pardoned your Nazi debts and reparations in 1953, helping you rise. Greeks did nothing so terrible to "owe a debt". You owe them a debt which is far stronger than promises ("debt") held by investors, part of which was from the dictatorship and therefore odious debt. Piketty: "When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.(https://medium.com/@gavinschalliol/thomas-piketty-germany-has-never-repaid-7b5e7add6fff https://medium.com/@gavinschalliol/thomas-piketty-germany-ha...)

ssalazar 11y ago
Pffff ridiculous. Can we starting calling this the Godwin's Law of economics? Economic policy intended to rebuild an entire continent after the most traumatic conflict in its history is necessarily going to differ from policy during times of peace.
- twobits 11y ago
  So your solution is for greece to start WW3?
  - ssalazar 11y ago
    Ha. Is that a joke?
    - corin_ 11y ago
      Not him but if I were my answer would be: not just a joke but a rather clever comment about the logic behind the idea that Greece would be more deserving of debt-forgiveness if they started a war on top of the current situation.
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
Greece must stop spending 50% of its GDP on bloated government bureaucracies. That is the bottom line. More money stops them from taking the hard steps. Greeks make nearly nothing that anybody wants, but they want the goods everyone else makes. They are not adjusting themselves to the realities of the modern world. You want cell phones, computers, cars, shoes, t-shirts, refrigerators ... all these things ... but you want to not actually make anything ... just sit at desks in secure government jobs doing nothing productive. This has to stop. But politically there is no will to stop it, because people there don't seem to understand that secure, easy jobs for life, where you don't make things, don't actually create wealth for the country. They think jobs are some thing where you just show up in the morning for work, do some paper shuffling and go home at night. And get your secure paycheck from government. How do we change this attitude? The same attitude is in India's public sector too. The way is you have to cut off the money faucet for the government. If the issue is poverty in Greece ... then let Europe provide basic needs for the Greek citizens as they reorganize the country. But feeding the Greek bureaucracy really shouldn't be done. Also continuing to perpetuate this attitude towards what employment is and what jobs are should also not be done.

ssalazar 11y ago

Pffff ridiculous. Can we starting calling this the Godwin's Law of economics? Economic policy intended to rebuild an entire continent after the most traumatic conflict in its history is necessarily going to differ from policy during times of peace.

twobits 11y ago
So your solution is for greece to start WW3?
- ssalazar 11y ago
  Ha. Is that a joke?
  - corin_ 11y ago
    Not him but if I were my answer would be: not just a joke but a rather clever comment about the logic behind the idea that Greece would be more deserving of debt-forgiveness if they started a war on top of the current situation.

TheMagicHorsey 11y ago

Greece must stop spending 50% of its GDP on bloated government bureaucracies. That is the bottom line. More money stops them from taking the hard steps. Greeks make nearly nothing that anybody wants, but they want the goods everyone else makes. They are not adjusting themselves to the realities of the modern world. You want cell phones, computers, cars, shoes, t-shirts, refrigerators ... all these things ... but you want to not actually make anything ... just sit at desks in secure government jobs doing nothing productive. This has to stop. But politically there is no will to stop it, because people there don't seem to understand that secure, easy jobs for life, where you don't make things, don't actually create wealth for the country. They think jobs are some thing where you just show up in the morning for work, do some paper shuffling and go home at night. And get your secure paycheck from government. How do we change this attitude? The same attitude is in India's public sector too. The way is you have to cut off the money faucet for the government. If the issue is poverty in Greece ... then let Europe provide basic needs for the Greek citizens as they reorganize the country. But feeding the Greek bureaucracy really shouldn't be done. Also continuing to perpetuate this attitude towards what employment is and what jobs are should also not be done.