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As a Canadian living in Singapore I have no skin in this game, but here's a counterpoint: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-27/germany-deserved-deb

As a Canadian living in Singapore I have no skin in this game, but here's a counterpoint: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-27/germany-deserved-debt-relief-greece-doesn-t-i5fdca2y http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-27/germany-des... The kind of summary (though the article is short and worth reading, if only to get some balance): There is a not-so-subtle difference between voluntarily taking on debts made by previous, rogue governments at a currency rate favorable to the creditors -- and heedlessly accumulating debts of one's own while concealing the true size of budget deficits. In the first case, the implication is harsh self-imposed discipline and penitence. In the second case, profligacy. For those inclined to dig in and do deeper research, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/10137.pdf http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/10137.pdf and in particular http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=493802 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=493802 give lots of great details on what happened back in 1953 with Germany.

elorant 11y ago
From the article: "There are ruins at the center of Athens, too, but they are rather more ancient." This insults us. Germans left Greece literally in ruins. The author of the article obviously don't know shit about history. I'm not surprised, even Germans chose to neglect their atrocities. Please people, become a little more informed about what Germany did to my country during the war. It might be irrelevant to the current situation but for us Greeks it is all about justice. In our five thousands years of history no other invading nation inflicted as much damage as Germany. Germans are the most ungrateful fuckers there are.
- saryant 11y ago
  I think that's an unfair characterization. We're talking about a country that requires its schoolchildren to tour the remnants of a genocide committed only 70 years ago. To say that Germany "neglects their atrocities" is, IMO, out of line. http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-in-Germany-to-learn-about-the-Holocaust-in-school http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-i...
  - elorant 11y ago
    Unfair? It took the Germans 70 years to apologize for the Distomo genocide. Just last year the German president officially visited Distomo to apologize to survivors. And yet, even to this day they refuse to pay the mere 28 million to individuals as war reparations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre
    - saryant 11y ago
      Yes, absolutely unfair. To cherry-pick select ignominies from WWII while ignoring the larger efforts in Germany to recognize the horrors committed by the Nazi regime is intellectually dishonest. WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing. I'm not Greek, I'm not German. My only connection to any of that atrocity is the tales my grandfather told me about his service in the war. But after seven decades you have to forgive and move on. Scratching that wound isn't going to help anyone (just look at the howls across Asia every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni shrine).
      - elorant 11y ago
        WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing. I beg to differ. I think that “repeatedly bringing this up” is going to accomplish something. Because for the last fifty years every time we brought this issue up everyone was telling us it’s not the right time. Well you know what, we’re sick of waiting. At the very least they should pay us the loan Hitler took by force from our central bank. That’s not war reparations, it’s a fucking state loan.
        sorincos 11y ago
        It would be about time Greece pays back what Alexandre the Great robbed from all his neighbours! We waited long enough, I say.
- claudiug 11y ago
  soo, let say this. you do not pay any money to germans, but pay the rest of the debt?
  - elorant 11y ago
    How about you help us recover and we pay all of the debt? If we could sustain a 4% grow for a decade the debt could become sustainable. But with all this massacre of austerity measures it's impossible to repay while the economy tanks. How come every US economist can see that simple truth but Germans can not.
- ghshephard 11y ago
  I understand this is very personal to you, but it's important to move forward. Hundreds (thousands?) of nations/people probably have all sorts of historical grievances against hundreds of other nations/people - just look to Rwanda and the Hutus/Tutsi's for the most recent example. Also - it's important to understand the difference between a regime was has thoroughly been expiated - If you can't let go of your past, you can never have a future. The point that was being made, is that debt forgiveness after a war makes a lot more sense than debt forgiveness after a country has gone out and splurged on all sorts of luxuries. Even after austerity, greek pensions are greater than what some other countries can afford to give their people - prior to austerity they were way beyond the means of Greece to pay, and the politicians elected by the people refused to own up to this - and the result was a foregone conclusions that could have been avoided.
  - elorant 11y ago
    Dude, we have moved forward. Millions of Germans visit Greece for vacations for decades and we treat them as we treat every other visitor to our country. Some of them even retire here. It’s not about the money, it’s about gratitude and the feeling of justice. We feel like the world doesn’t acknowledge the extend of the suffering we endured during the war. We talk about the Holocaust, and rightly so, but how many of you know the atrocities that happened to Greece during the war? I don’t expect Germany to pay us 300bn euros for war reparations. This is hilarious. And chances are with our corruption most of those money if they were to paid they’d end up in the pockets of the elites and the politicians. I just want some fucking remorse. It’s not that we remembered reparations when our state failed and our economy tanked. We’ve been constantly asking them for decades and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue. It just surfaced now because we’re in the spotlight.
- radumza 11y ago
  Please Greece become a little more informed WHO actually did fucked you country during WWII, it wasn't the Germans, it was the Nazi. The majority of the population living in Germany now are the ones who are born after the war, so hating them is plain stupid, and the rest part are the ones who wanted him dead, and the rest have no power whatsoever. So before invoking WWII again just to find an excuse for your poor administration think about it. Who is the actual idiot for the crisis?
MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
And here's an economical analysis of Greece's finances and what happened to the bailout money: "The Greek Tragedy", https://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/publications/docbase/details.html?docId=19161354 https://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/publications/docbase/...
quonn 11y ago
This piece is titled "Germany Deserved Debt Relief, Greece Doesn't". > It might still be argued that if Germany deserved a second chance after all it did to Europe, then surely Greece should also be granted one [... but ...] "under the rules of the international financial system, the people of the country are still responsible for the debt [...]" In other words, while a war killing maybe 60 million can be forgiven, it is unthinkable to forgive debt accumulated by previous governments. > There is, however, a stronger reason why it would be wrong to write off Greek debt while the country is run by Syriza. [... blah blah ...] anti-Communist and anti-Marxist. [...] Now, far-left Syriza wants to be on the inside [...] It will use the debt relief to provide free electricity to households, subsidize rents, restore Christmas bonuses to pensioners, raise minimum salaries [...] It is an extreme case of moral hazard. A moral hazard, no less! In any case, SYRIZA has no plans like that. I would like to see a source, since these claims are completely new to me. The fact is, that Greece has structural problems. Those problems were mostly caused or accepted by central/conservative/socialdemocratic governments over decades. SYRIZA is the first government that may be willing to change the situation. In addition to those structural problems, there is currently a depression that needs to be solved first. This was primarily caused by the EU/ECB/IMF and at least the IMF accepts that now (and has been accepting it since 2013). SYRIZA also recognises this. SYRIZA are also convinced democrats, as they have repeatedly shown, something that the Marxists never were. Therefore those comparisons are not helpful at all.
- verinus 11y ago
  i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state. i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce. i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example) but what i have read is, that tax evasion is wide spread as well as the exploitation of social services- there was a news coverage where a considerable part of the inhabitants of an island received pensions for people without eyesight... edit: fixed spelling mistakes
  - quonn 11y ago
    > i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state They do. They have stated this clearly ("Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.", "Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.", "Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.", [0]), over and over again. However, you can't change a country that quickly. It will take many years. > i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce. First, just because jobs are performed by the government and not by private companies does not imply that they are not needed. There likely is greater inefficiency, I agree. But 'public sector jobs = unneeded jobs' is wrong. Second, cutting those jobs is often impossible (for example in Germany it would be, because government jobs are guaranteed for a lifetime.) and even if they can be cut, they will drive up unemployment which already stands at 25% and 60% for young people. > i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example) They do [1]. They proposed it, but the IMF did not go along, as far as I know. Reeders are also probably harder to tax, because they can probably simply fly the flag of a country that doesn't tax them. [1] [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40-point-manifesto http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40... ; I have some doubts about the reliability of the source. There are other sources, but I can't be bothered to search right now. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-tax-plan-1422363968 http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-ta...

elorant 11y ago

From the article: "There are ruins at the center of Athens, too, but they are rather more ancient." This insults us. Germans left Greece literally in ruins. The author of the article obviously don't know shit about history. I'm not surprised, even Germans chose to neglect their atrocities. Please people, become a little more informed about what Germany did to my country during the war. It might be irrelevant to the current situation but for us Greeks it is all about justice. In our five thousands years of history no other invading nation inflicted as much damage as Germany. Germans are the most ungrateful fuckers there are.

saryant 11y ago
I think that's an unfair characterization. We're talking about a country that requires its schoolchildren to tour the remnants of a genocide committed only 70 years ago. To say that Germany "neglects their atrocities" is, IMO, out of line. http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-in-Germany-to-learn-about-the-Holocaust-in-school http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-i...
- elorant 11y ago
  Unfair? It took the Germans 70 years to apologize for the Distomo genocide. Just last year the German president officially visited Distomo to apologize to survivors. And yet, even to this day they refuse to pay the mere 28 million to individuals as war reparations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre
  - saryant 11y ago
    Yes, absolutely unfair. To cherry-pick select ignominies from WWII while ignoring the larger efforts in Germany to recognize the horrors committed by the Nazi regime is intellectually dishonest. WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing. I'm not Greek, I'm not German. My only connection to any of that atrocity is the tales my grandfather told me about his service in the war. But after seven decades you have to forgive and move on. Scratching that wound isn't going to help anyone (just look at the howls across Asia every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni shrine).
    - elorant 11y ago
      WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing. I beg to differ. I think that “repeatedly bringing this up” is going to accomplish something. Because for the last fifty years every time we brought this issue up everyone was telling us it’s not the right time. Well you know what, we’re sick of waiting. At the very least they should pay us the loan Hitler took by force from our central bank. That’s not war reparations, it’s a fucking state loan.
      - sorincos 11y ago
        It would be about time Greece pays back what Alexandre the Great robbed from all his neighbours! We waited long enough, I say.
claudiug 11y ago
soo, let say this. you do not pay any money to germans, but pay the rest of the debt?
- elorant 11y ago
  How about you help us recover and we pay all of the debt? If we could sustain a 4% grow for a decade the debt could become sustainable. But with all this massacre of austerity measures it's impossible to repay while the economy tanks. How come every US economist can see that simple truth but Germans can not.
ghshephard 11y ago
I understand this is very personal to you, but it's important to move forward. Hundreds (thousands?) of nations/people probably have all sorts of historical grievances against hundreds of other nations/people - just look to Rwanda and the Hutus/Tutsi's for the most recent example. Also - it's important to understand the difference between a regime was has thoroughly been expiated - If you can't let go of your past, you can never have a future. The point that was being made, is that debt forgiveness after a war makes a lot more sense than debt forgiveness after a country has gone out and splurged on all sorts of luxuries. Even after austerity, greek pensions are greater than what some other countries can afford to give their people - prior to austerity they were way beyond the means of Greece to pay, and the politicians elected by the people refused to own up to this - and the result was a foregone conclusions that could have been avoided.
- elorant 11y ago
  Dude, we have moved forward. Millions of Germans visit Greece for vacations for decades and we treat them as we treat every other visitor to our country. Some of them even retire here. It’s not about the money, it’s about gratitude and the feeling of justice. We feel like the world doesn’t acknowledge the extend of the suffering we endured during the war. We talk about the Holocaust, and rightly so, but how many of you know the atrocities that happened to Greece during the war? I don’t expect Germany to pay us 300bn euros for war reparations. This is hilarious. And chances are with our corruption most of those money if they were to paid they’d end up in the pockets of the elites and the politicians. I just want some fucking remorse. It’s not that we remembered reparations when our state failed and our economy tanked. We’ve been constantly asking them for decades and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue. It just surfaced now because we’re in the spotlight.
radumza 11y ago
Please Greece become a little more informed WHO actually did fucked you country during WWII, it wasn't the Germans, it was the Nazi. The majority of the population living in Germany now are the ones who are born after the war, so hating them is plain stupid, and the rest part are the ones who wanted him dead, and the rest have no power whatsoever. So before invoking WWII again just to find an excuse for your poor administration think about it. Who is the actual idiot for the crisis?

MrBuddyCasino 11y ago

And here's an economical analysis of Greece's finances and what happened to the bailout money: "The Greek Tragedy", https://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/publications/docbase/details.html?docId=19161354 https://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/publications/docbase/...

quonn 11y ago

This piece is titled "Germany Deserved Debt Relief, Greece Doesn't". > It might still be argued that if Germany deserved a second chance after all it did to Europe, then surely Greece should also be granted one [... but ...] "under the rules of the international financial system, the people of the country are still responsible for the debt [...]" In other words, while a war killing maybe 60 million can be forgiven, it is unthinkable to forgive debt accumulated by previous governments. > There is, however, a stronger reason why it would be wrong to write off Greek debt while the country is run by Syriza. [... blah blah ...] anti-Communist and anti-Marxist. [...] Now, far-left Syriza wants to be on the inside [...] It will use the debt relief to provide free electricity to households, subsidize rents, restore Christmas bonuses to pensioners, raise minimum salaries [...] It is an extreme case of moral hazard. A moral hazard, no less! In any case, SYRIZA has no plans like that. I would like to see a source, since these claims are completely new to me. The fact is, that Greece has structural problems. Those problems were mostly caused or accepted by central/conservative/socialdemocratic governments over decades. SYRIZA is the first government that may be willing to change the situation. In addition to those structural problems, there is currently a depression that needs to be solved first. This was primarily caused by the EU/ECB/IMF and at least the IMF accepts that now (and has been accepting it since 2013). SYRIZA also recognises this. SYRIZA are also convinced democrats, as they have repeatedly shown, something that the Marxists never were. Therefore those comparisons are not helpful at all.

verinus 11y ago
i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state. i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce. i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example) but what i have read is, that tax evasion is wide spread as well as the exploitation of social services- there was a news coverage where a considerable part of the inhabitants of an island received pensions for people without eyesight... edit: fixed spelling mistakes
- quonn 11y ago
  > i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state They do. They have stated this clearly ("Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.", "Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.", "Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.", [0]), over and over again. However, you can't change a country that quickly. It will take many years. > i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce. First, just because jobs are performed by the government and not by private companies does not imply that they are not needed. There likely is greater inefficiency, I agree. But 'public sector jobs = unneeded jobs' is wrong. Second, cutting those jobs is often impossible (for example in Germany it would be, because government jobs are guaranteed for a lifetime.) and even if they can be cut, they will drive up unemployment which already stands at 25% and 60% for young people. > i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example) They do [1]. They proposed it, but the IMF did not go along, as far as I know. Reeders are also probably harder to tax, because they can probably simply fly the flag of a country that doesn't tax them. [1] [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40-point-manifesto http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40... ; I have some doubts about the reliability of the source. There are other sources, but I can't be bothered to search right now. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-tax-plan-1422363968 http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-ta...