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This one http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 ? "By the time country was reunified, in 1990, the world h

This one http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 ? "By the time country was reunified, in 1990, the world had changed dramatically since the days of Versailles, and policymakers decided to write off most of the original sum." So he's still correct.

restalis 11y ago
"This one http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 ?" It was a similar article. "So he's still correct." The Germany's case was very, very different than that of Greece. After the both wars the winning forces just dictated the sum and the loosing forces had very little saying in the mater. It was most likely an exaggerated figure to start with, probably out of PR reasons - "we made them pay, dear people!" Later, when the emotions faded for the most part, a more realistic figure could be put in discussion and sold to the wide public as an act of generosity. Now let's talk about Greece and how many parallels can be drawn here. Greece was not being dictated figures of debt, Greece took the money willingly. Well, one could argue that only a small political elite made the decisions, but the money were actually reaching the average persons too, as budgetary salaries and pensions (and I bet they all enjoyed it). Write off some of the debt? There's no real reason to do that (but if that would be what it takes to bring them to saner fiscal practices, I would be OK with it anyway). So, Mr. Piketty may be "correct" in some twisted view in which paid-in-full war compensations are not actually recognized as such¹ and more importantly - he wants to be correct in an even more twisted context that puts on the same footing a subject of dictated-upon debt and the one of self-inflicted debt. ¹ Because the war winners have chosen later to adjust low the asked war compensation, and by doing that they manage to morally deny the "repaid" status. They could however have managed to achieve just the same by adjusting high (i.e. continuously calling for higher and higher sum so that it could never be paid in full).

restalis 11y ago

"This one http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11442892 ?" It was a similar article. "So he's still correct." The Germany's case was very, very different than that of Greece. After the both wars the winning forces just dictated the sum and the loosing forces had very little saying in the mater. It was most likely an exaggerated figure to start with, probably out of PR reasons - "we made them pay, dear people!" Later, when the emotions faded for the most part, a more realistic figure could be put in discussion and sold to the wide public as an act of generosity. Now let's talk about Greece and how many parallels can be drawn here. Greece was not being dictated figures of debt, Greece took the money willingly. Well, one could argue that only a small political elite made the decisions, but the money were actually reaching the average persons too, as budgetary salaries and pensions (and I bet they all enjoyed it). Write off some of the debt? There's no real reason to do that (but if that would be what it takes to bring them to saner fiscal practices, I would be OK with it anyway). So, Mr. Piketty may be "correct" in some twisted view in which paid-in-full war compensations are not actually recognized as such¹ and more importantly - he wants to be correct in an even more twisted context that puts on the same footing a subject of dictated-upon debt and the one of self-inflicted debt. ¹ Because the war winners have chosen later to adjust low the asked war compensation, and by doing that they manage to morally deny the "repaid" status. They could however have managed to achieve just the same by adjusting high (i.e. continuously calling for higher and higher sum so that it could never be paid in full).