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This is just stupid. The German regime that racked up the WWII debts was destroyed and its leaders suicided or executed. The entire country was split in half

This is just stupid. The German regime that racked up the WWII debts was destroyed and its leaders suicided or executed. The entire country was split in half by the war. The regime in power when those debts were rescheduled was a completely different entity. And Greece enjoyed similar, if not proportionately greater, economic support at exactly the same time. The Marshall Plan started in Greece, after all. And there are enormous differences in the uses of the new debt capacity. Germany used the capacity to rebuild its economic capacity. Greece would use its new capacity to fund further welfare transfers and tax dodgers. Germany did not use the new capacity to repeat the same mistakes that created the old debt (and the vastly more important war). Greece would continue the exact same policies, and arrive at the same point of demanding debt concessions.

deciplex 11y ago
> The German regime that racked up the WWII debts was destroyed and its leaders suicided or executed. Yes, but most of the people who enabled that regime to do its work, were still around. It's not as though the entire population of Germany was swapped out for a different one, after the war. The average German was not a murdering genocidal maniac, but he did fall under the sway of idiotic fascism, and while it would have served no one's interest to force him to pay the price, there is nothing wrong with pointing out that he did not, in fact, pay the price. > Greece would use its new capacity to fund further welfare transfers and tax dodgers. Let's talk about those tax dodgers, then. You make it sound as though the Greek government has some sort of policy in place where they encourage people not to pay their taxes. Rather, the Eurozone is set up in such a way that it is very easy for the rich to avoid paying taxes by putting all their asset in tax havens e.g. Luxembourg and with very little oversight. And the wealthier nations in the EU tend to support this status quo, not the poorer ones.
- chernevik 11y ago
  Greece actually does have such de facto policy, through its miserable and corrupt tax collection mechanisms. Those other countries seem able to collect tax to fund their governments.
  - deciplex 11y ago
    Are you denying the existence of tax havens in the EU?
- shin_lao 11y ago
  There is a difference between having tax loopholes and being a state that doesn't collect taxes properly and where tax avoidance and black work is everywhere. Greece is the latter. Having been in Greece several times, it is very unsettling to being issued fake bills all the time for everything. A famous example is the swimming pool tax avoidance: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-tax-avoidance-101-cover-your-swimming-pool-tarp-fool-satellite http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-tax-avoidance-101-cov... Some more information: http://uk.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-reason-greece-has-a-massive-tax-evasion-problem-2015-2?r=US http://uk.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-reason-greece...
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    Without knowing anything about the details of it, I am immediately suspicious of the truth of the swimming-pool allegation simply because of how universally it is mentioned in discussions of Greece's economic situation. Anything which gets used that ubiquitously, in my experience, ends up debunked on Snopes or Politifact sooner or later.

deciplex 11y ago

> The German regime that racked up the WWII debts was destroyed and its leaders suicided or executed. Yes, but most of the people who enabled that regime to do its work, were still around. It's not as though the entire population of Germany was swapped out for a different one, after the war. The average German was not a murdering genocidal maniac, but he did fall under the sway of idiotic fascism, and while it would have served no one's interest to force him to pay the price, there is nothing wrong with pointing out that he did not, in fact, pay the price. > Greece would use its new capacity to fund further welfare transfers and tax dodgers. Let's talk about those tax dodgers, then. You make it sound as though the Greek government has some sort of policy in place where they encourage people not to pay their taxes. Rather, the Eurozone is set up in such a way that it is very easy for the rich to avoid paying taxes by putting all their asset in tax havens e.g. Luxembourg and with very little oversight. And the wealthier nations in the EU tend to support this status quo, not the poorer ones.

chernevik 11y ago
Greece actually does have such de facto policy, through its miserable and corrupt tax collection mechanisms. Those other countries seem able to collect tax to fund their governments.
- deciplex 11y ago
  Are you denying the existence of tax havens in the EU?
shin_lao 11y ago
There is a difference between having tax loopholes and being a state that doesn't collect taxes properly and where tax avoidance and black work is everywhere. Greece is the latter. Having been in Greece several times, it is very unsettling to being issued fake bills all the time for everything. A famous example is the swimming pool tax avoidance: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-tax-avoidance-101-cover-your-swimming-pool-tarp-fool-satellite http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-tax-avoidance-101-cov... Some more information: http://uk.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-reason-greece-has-a-massive-tax-evasion-problem-2015-2?r=US http://uk.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-reason-greece...
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  Without knowing anything about the details of it, I am immediately suspicious of the truth of the swimming-pool allegation simply because of how universally it is mentioned in discussions of Greece's economic situation. Anything which gets used that ubiquitously, in my experience, ends up debunked on Snopes or Politifact sooner or later.