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As another HN thread notes: Piketty mentions that Germany got a lot of their own debt written off after WW2. Germany itself has shirked paying reparations to Gr
by signal11 11y ago
As another HN thread notes: Piketty mentions that Germany got a lot of their own debt written off after WW2. Germany itself has shirked paying reparations to Greece for all the looting they did (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOKuNAdMIEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOKuNAdMIEI for example). Also "pieces of national territory as collateral" has not worked out very well during say WW1 reparations -- it just encourages far right politics.
Again, I am not saying Greece should not be more fiscally prudent. The Greek government needs to be more fiscally transparent, collect more tax and generally run itself better. However clearly the austerity medication has not worked and (as the IMF itself recognizes). At some point the EU has to decide if punishing Greece's youth (who will not get decent pensions or social benefits anyway) is an appropriate response to overspending by their parents and grandparents.
- anovikov 11y agoGreek youth will be punished much more heavily if the country leaves the EU than if part of their territory or other assets are taken to pay the debt. Greece is a basket case: it has never paid for itself in its sovereign history and will probably never do. But being EU citizens, young Greeks can leave the country to work elsewhere. Being forced out of EU, they will find themselves in a poor country which is bound to remain poor, and with no easy way out, like say Albanians.