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Behind Germany’s refusal to grant Greece debt relief

47 points by wsc981 11y ago

gonvaled 11y ago
Is he mad, delusional, crazy or one of the few sincere politicians in Europe? I can not make up my mind ... This theory would indeed explain many things.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  He's better educated than most politicians in Europe - including most finance ministers. I wasn't expecting a deal, and lo - it seems a deal will not happen. Greece could offer to sell its people into slavery, and it seems that still wouldn't be enough for certain elements in the European nomenklatura. So Grexit it is. If anyone is crazy, mad, and delusional, it's the German establishment. Schauble would rather rob his banks of any timetable for repayment than deal with financial reality like a rational adult.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - tiatia 11y ago
    Well, game theory did not work out for him and no he is mad. It is a little bit if your wife threatens you with divorce and you say: OK, let's do it.
    - Ygg2 11y ago
      Will people drop this narrative? It was tired and strenuous, when it was published, but now it literally makes no sense. Sure he did Game Theory research, but LIFE != GAME. He said it so himself. I haven't read a single unified explanation using game theory, that accounts for everything Greece government did during negotiations. It's the Epileptic Trees[1] of the Politics. [1] Epileptic Trees was one of explanations to why trees in Lost were shaking violently.
    - vidarh 11y ago
      I don't think you're right that game theory did not work out for them. Your assumption appears to be that what they could hope for was a reasonable deal. But the way Schäuble has acted, it is by now clear that a reasonable deal is unlikely to be possible. For Germany this is all about ideology, not about economic rationality (amusing they accuse Tsipiras of being too ideological). In that instance, what could they hope for? Their winning scenario is to demonstrate to their own constituency that they've tried everything. They've stretched extremely far. They've demonstrated to their home audience how Germany wants to humiliate them rather than get a fair deal. They've further managed to create substantial cracks in the Euro group facade, with France in particular now openly having taken their side. If they exit, then it is clear the Euro must be reformed if it is to survive. They may in the end have permanently tarnished Merkel's and Schäuble's political legacies. Justifiably so. Would any of this have happened if they had played ball and agreed to a toxic, unsustainable deal? The previous Greek government played ball, and what they got was a death sentence for the Greek economy. Playing ball with these opponents is a bad idea, since they seem intent of kicking in your knees first. > It is a little bit if your wife threatens you with divorce and you say: OK, let's do it. If you're told that to stay you will need to subject to daily beatings, then divorce is the right choice.
  - jules 11y ago
    The banks counted on other countries to bail out any other in the eurozone, so they provided as much risky debt as they could. Maybe I'm cynical, but however this ends, it will probably end up being a wealth transfer from the european taxpayers to the banks. We've seen this time and time again recently: socialize private risk. The only way this ends is by letting the banks go down eventually, otherwise they will continue risky behavior, counting on the public to save them when things go wrong. Unfortunately the system is such that this is not in the interest of the politicians. Politicians with "good behavior" get cosy high paying jobs in the financial sector after their political career. Just look up any ex politicians and I bet you he or she is now working in the financial sector. The solution for this is to extend a politician's salary for say 10 years after, and forbid them from accepting any money from any company for those 10 years. They can work for those companies for free if they want. They cannot get a cosy job after they've shown "good behavior" in their political career. The cost of this is a drop in the ocean compared to the perverse incentives this will remove. Say what you want about Dijsselbloem, but this is one thing that he gets right. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnrccarriere.nl%2Fartikelen%2Fdijsselbloem-ex-politici-moeten-eerst-paar-jaar-afkoelen-voor-ze-in-bedrijfsleven-gaan-werken%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
    - icebraining 11y ago
      "End up"? It has already happened. (From Wikipedia, but well sourced): Initially, European banks had the largest holdings of Greek debt. However, this has shifted as the "troika" (i.e., European Central Bank or ECB, International Monetary Fund or IMF, and a European government-sponsored fund) have purchased Greek bonds. (...) Excluding Greek banks, European banks had €45.8bn exposure to Greece in June 2011, with €9.4bn held by French and €7.9bn by German banks. However, by early 2015 their holdings were minimal, roughly €2.4B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#Creditors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#C...
      - igravious 11y ago
        Euro area population: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/population http://www.tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/population 330,000,000 (2015 numbers) Fiscal transfer: €45.8B-€2.4B = €43.4B (your numbers :) 43.4B / 330M = €131.5 from each man, woman, child in the €zone.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    It is amusing and sad that Merkel apparently described Tsipiras as "hard and ideological" when the German position is so clearly ideologically driven. Merkel is risking her legacy over this, and Schäuble's legacy in Europe is basically sealed - barring something truly crazy happening, he'll be remembered for this, and just this, outside of Germany. And in the end the outcome - no matter what they do - is that Greece will not pay all its debts. Everyone knows this. The IMF have gone historically far in expressing public dissatisfaction with the Euro group and the ECB over their unwillingness to accept this. Yet they appear to insist on sticking with the alternative that will cause the most pain and uncertainty for everyone involved just because further debt relief doesn't fit their ideology, knowing that the end result either way is that the money won't - can't - be paid back on the current schedule or in full.
    - Mithaldu 11y ago
      Schäuble is already remembered in Germany as an insane man.
  - MarkMc 11y ago
    I don't understand why you rail against the 'German establishment'. Aren't they just implanting the wishes of the German people? Same for the Finns, Latvians, etc.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Nope, they play on them and manipulate them to save German banks. It's the "too big too fail" scenario, this time with the Eurozone playing the part of the federal government. Greece plays the role of the people getting mortgages that couldn't afford to repay post bubble. The punishment of Greece (and other countries in turn, including France) will be used to clamp down on the German population in the end and keep them accepting of austerity and neo-liberal measures of their own.
    - gonvaled 11y ago
      Sure, they are maybe implementing the wishes of the people ... or shaping public opinion. I bet that framing this crisis as a humanitarian issue and a people vs banks issue, instead of as a lazy greek vs industrious germans, would have fostered solidarity between european nations instead of increasing nationalistic tensions. We are far away from the climate pre WWI/WWII, but that is the direction we have chosen. Let's hope the next round of politicians are able to take a broader view, and that the current situation is reversible.
    - tomp 11y ago
      Many people in EU think about the situation as "give Greeks more money" vs "give Greeks 0 money", whereas in reality the situation is "get some Greek debt repaid" vs "get 0 Greek debt repaid". Obviously, in the first case, the latter is the better option, while in the second case, the former is. It's mainly the politicians' fault of presenting the issue in terms of the first two options to their people.
  - vixen99 11y ago
    Small point: the 'better educated' comment is at base an appeal-to-authority argument. In other words, irrelevant. Is there an argument or isn't there? And anyway, how is 'better educated' defined? Does the standard 'university degrees ladder' always trump other considerations? Often enough, it probably does not.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  He's probably right. Italy and France are the next overextended countries bound to fall once their ratings go down and their government bond interests go up. And compared to these economies, Greece's is negligible. Maybe the spectacular punishment of Greece will teach them a lesson and convince them to reduce their public debt. Or maybe nothing can convince politicians to worry about the medium-long term.
  - christoph 11y ago
    Don't forget Portugal! There's a major problem unravelling. A large amount of the population live a lot longer than were expected ~90 years ago when the current welfare state system became widespread across Europe. How do you pay pensions in the current economic climate to people that have been retired for 25+ years, who were expected to largely die 25 years ago? In the Greece situation, how do you do this when a large amount of the populace actively avoid paying their fair share of tax? How do you do it when nearly 30%[1] of GDP is exports based around imports and your accounts are frozen and you can't pay suppliers? It's an economic situation that hasn't be witnessed before. All this is before you throw Germany into the mix, who have a _lot_ riding on how this all plays out. The world economic situation is in a very interesting place at the moment - Greece is only the tip of the iceberg. Look at Puerto Rico, look at China, hell look at the UK and how it's economy is currently stacked. Suddenly, overnight, the government won't support "free" TV licences for people aged 75+! The global economic situation at the moment is very interesting. [1] - https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/grc/ https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/grc/
    - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      You're right. Portugal looks actually a bit worse than Greece at roughly the same size of the economy: http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock Maybe it was too close geographically to the big players and that's how it avoided being made the first example :-) BTW, besides people in developed countries living longer we also have the problem of fewer children in each new generation. Not even immigration can balance the low birth rate in Italy, for example. Right now we have only one third of the population working and supporting the other two thirds and the percentage of active people keeps on shrinking. When will it become unsustainable? What will the Italian government do then? > The global economic situation at the moment is very interesting. Way too interesting for my taste. And the sea level rise will make it even more so. I'd rather read about stuff like this in dystopian novels instead of living it...
- pdkl95 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=673 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=673 If you have the time, I highly recommend Mark Blyth's explanation of the EU situation. The article is mostly right. Blyth goes into a lot more detail in the history (pre-euro), showing how the various banks of europe bet against their own sovereigns by exploiting how the bond yields were converging with the introduction of the Euro - often by getting all the Greek and other "risky", high-yield debt that they could. If you thought "too big to fail" was bad enough in the US, at least our Fed could do something other than let the economy fail and now were starting to slowly recover. In Europe, they are "too big to bail", and I expect a few more countries to quickly follow Greece's lead fairly soon.
  - branchless 11y ago
    It's going to be a default on the boomer savings which are far beyond reality. I agree it is coming, hence the desperate rear-guard action against Greece to maintain the line that pretending to be solvent is your best option.
  - redthrowaway 11y ago
    That's a fascinating talk. Thanks for linking to it.
- branchless 11y ago
  I totally believe this is about bailing out French and German banks. It's also about making life really bad for Greece to encourage Ireland/Spain/Italy/Portugal they must keep paying back German/French banks.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    The French and German banks were already bailed out. At this point the issue is that the governments that bailed them out don't want to be the ones left with the bill for the bailout they basically dictated.
    - branchless 11y ago
      surely bailing out Greece when primary exposure is French/German/UK banks is sharing the bailout costs amongst the whole EU in particular poorer countries subsidising richer ones. I agree part of this bailout has already taken place. The second phase is ensuring life in Greece is so bad that other larger countries don't want to default.
- igravious 11y ago
  He is undoubtedly sincere. I'm really sick of the people who come onto this forum (not talking about you, look elsewhere in these threads) and castigate the Greeks for being deadbeats. If they keep repeating this narrative when people have pointed out again and again that the €zone has structural flaws then there is no point in reasoning any more with them and you have to ignore them because they only hear the little voices in their heads. You can't lay it out much clearer than Yanis Varoufakis does here -- "The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state." When you get an unequal club, guess what! someone is going to be the weakest link. It is _inevitable_. If it wasn't Greece, it would have been someone else. Ok, you could make the argument that Greece was particularly lax in how it handled its own finances as part of the club but that (1) does not mean they should be punished with nearly a decade of unremitting poverty (2) not all the Greeks did this so it is _collective_ punishment (3) the €zone needs structural[§] adjustment and (4) we shouldn't keep socialising private debt, there _should_ be some risk to merit the interest charged. We really need to start listening to what the Greeks are telling us. If the €zone starts unravelling things could get very nasty very quickly. I'm not joking. --- [§] Yanis Varoufakis even touches on this, again explicitly -- "Europe did not know how to respond to the financial crisis. Should it prepare for an expulsion (Grexit) or a federation?"
  - icelancer 11y ago
    >We really need to start listening to what the Greeks are telling us. If the €zone starts unravelling things could get very nasty very quickly. I'm not joking. These were all concerns brought up well before the Euro was even instituted, much less expanded to semi-broke nations like Greece. The EU doesn't seem particularly interested in admitting that there are massive differences culturally and fiscally between the countries and that these differences mean that a unified currency with no monetary flexibility is doomed to fail. EUR crushing USD early in its lifecycle after naysayers shouted down EUR didn't help things.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  It's hard to say who someone is, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uNIgDmqwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uNIgDmqwI (Yanis Varoufakis: Confessions of an Erratic Marxist /// 14th May 2013) shows a little bit of his persona. I believe his trustworthy, but this whole catastrophe is so large it's hard to be sure of anything.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
tl;dr The Eurozone needs means to cope with differences in productivity and fiscal policies - either needs free floating exchange rates (ie no Euro) or it needs federal budgets and bonds (ie fiscal Union) Either option scares the shit out of everyone so no one has brought it up. The ex Greek finance minister thinks the current German finance minister is forcing Greece to exit the Euro so they can force the fiscal Union closer - but (implicitly) without having to messily deal with democracy or referendums.
- deleted 11y ago
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m3talridl3y 11y ago
Look for Greece to just start putting land up on ebay.
curiousjorge 11y ago
supposedly greece exiting is more expensive than keeping them but at what point do you kick out someone who is mooching off you and suddenly demanding all sorts of things. It's like the beggar that becomes very choosy and feel a huge entitlement. I don't know why this is the case, someone receiving so much should feel humble and grateful but instead arrogance and a need for more. having said that do they seriously expect greece to ever pay back the debt or even let alone feed their citizens? When was the last time you heard something made in Greece that wasn't in ancient history textbook and encyclopedia of Gods? I also feel irked by the lack of rationalism from EU.
- SuddsMcDuff 11y ago
  Mooching? They're not actually receiving much at all - 90% of the bailout money they have received has gone straight back to their creditors - Deutsche Bank, ECB and IMF. Only a tiny fraction of the bailout actually enters the Greek economy. It's like throwing a money boomerang at someone, and each time it comes back claiming that they owe you another 50 billion
  - curiousjorge 11y ago
    and that's somehow EU and Germany's fault? That they are not handing over truckload of cash to a country which just wants more and more without ever paying any of it back? That they have 50% unemployment rate, and an economy incapable of producing anything worth of value that would pull them out of debt? When South Korea defaulted, the entire country came together to pay off the debt. People even brought their herilooms and personal jewlery to melt to gold bars to help the country pay back the money to IMF. Businesses and large conglomerates were not bailed out but allowed to fail so that they pick up their shit. Now we get smartphones, tv, components, kpop, cars, ships, all sorts of wonderful stuff. And greece? What the hell have they produced in the past 100 years? South Korea has only been around half that. Why should Germany put up with this kind of attitude? Where does this sense of entitlement come from in Greece? Do they seriously believe that the rest of Europe owes them something? If they are this arrogant then let them fail and see just how quickly Greece will downspiral into a failed state.
mianos 11y ago
If they forgive some of their debt and they don't radically restructure their economy they will need to be bailed out over and over again. We have the same thing with employment benefits on a micro-scale here in Australia, people become so used to free money they don't know any better because they have never seen any other system. Its hard to blame them because they don't know any different so they think it's normal.
- vidarh 11y ago
  They have restructured substantially. Enough so that they were on track for a substantial primary surplus. There's much more to do, but the primary problem for the last year has been managing the crushing debt load, not the Greek government.
  - igravious 11y ago
    Agreed, they still need debt restructuring. Also the €zone framework needs simultaneous reconstructing, to route surpluses to places not doing so well. But that would be the beginnings of a real federal EU and European countries are too nationalistic for that which is a shame because Europe is going to fade into relative obscurity economically unless we can make this transition. Though perhaps this crisis presents the opportunity to kick-start that process, but it's a long shot, I'm pessimistic even though I do not want to be.
  - anabis 11y ago
    There are different opinions on restructuring being enough. Still not having a land registry after starting in 1994 gives me a pause.
- mianos 11y ago
  ps. replying to my own comment, I'd like to point out I should have said, 'forgive some more of their debt'. Adding it as a ps, so I don't substantially change the context of the comments. They already got a 50% cut on their bond debt in 2011. Thus, over and over.
- scarmig 11y ago
agopaul 11y ago
As a European I find German foreign policy quite insulting. This needs to change in one way or the other.
- vidarh 11y ago
  It's not just insulting. It's dangerous. If Germany continues this line, not only will the Euro disintegrate, but we can "look forward" to a much higher likelihood the UK will decide to outright leave the EU as well. I know more than one hardline pro-EU people here in the UK that have softened their EU support substantially after seeing the treatment Greece has gotten.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    I'm pro-EU as well, but this is getting ridiculous. There's no way the country will grow like this, all that's happening is that businesses are closing, and obviously nobody wants to start new ones in this uncertainty. The EU seems bent on wringing every last penny from the lower income tiers, which hasn't worked for the past six years, and is unlikely to start working now. The average Greek is, at this point, desperate enough to just want to leave the EU and deal with the consequences rather than watch the country die and/or get sold off over decades.
- copx 11y ago
  As a German I find your complete misrepresentation of reality insulting. The German political class is the reason why Greece still has the Euro. The Eastern Europeans never wanted to bail-out the Greeks to begin with, and have zero sympathy for their cries about inhumane austerity because the "austere" Greeks are still better off than the Eastern Europeans. Thus any transfer of money from e.g. Lithuania to Greece is perceived as a crying injustice. But even in Western Europe Germany is close to being Greece's best friend. The first bail-out was almost sabotaged by the Finns when they demanded collateral for their money. Which caused the Dutch to ask for that too. Meanwhile Evil Evil Schäuble knew that the Greeks would never be able to pay back that money - and lied to the German people about that "your money is safe, we will get everything back", he said.. shortly before agreeing to the first haircut. Billions of Euros of German tax payer money evaporated. Without the German government Finnish and Dutch ships would have transported away the Greek statues, gold, and whatever other valuable thing they could find. And if "European solidarity" depended on the Eastern Europeans the Greeks would have never gotten a cent. The Greeks who are so fond of the Euro should be endlessly thankful to the German political class (not the people - they never supported this bail-out). I think this is also the primary reason why Schäuble does not want another haircut. His original lie would become even more severe and the German electorate would become even angrier.
Keyframe 11y ago
Didn't Greece get a write-off once already? Why hasn't he mentioned that? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-27/papandreou-says-new-funding-gives-greece-time-new-prospects http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-27/papandreou... What would make it different this time around?
- leereeves 11y ago
  According to eurostat, Greek consolidated gross debt was 356bn € in 2011, 305bn € in 2012. (This seems to be sometime in the middle of each year.) There was a write-off, but it wasn't enough.
- giggzy 11y ago
  There has been no write off of debt. The bailout was; Greece was lent money it could not have gotten on the open market. Mostly to pay off debts from bank the Eurozone feels too big too fail ( my speculation ).
tlogan 11y ago
Since I'm from that part of the world (visiting Greece, Balkans and Germany regularly), I will give some feedback here... We have saying here "owns money as Greece" - and that sayings was coined in 19th century. In 1822 Greece declared independece from Ottoman Empire and by 1880 Greece owned 5.243.428 marks to... guess? Germany. From point of Greece, it is much better for them that Greece leaves Eurozone. They already occurred 80% of pain so there is not so much to lose. With Drachmas they will have some inflation and inflation will fix entitlement problem. And tourism will become very very competitive. And they can fix tax evasion problem on their own. From point of France - that will be disaster: the euro an ECB is designed for economies and societies similar to Germany and German's influence in Europe will raise. This crisis is pure politics now. Macedonians have joke that Greece should be renamed: "the former European country Greece".
- anabis 11y ago
  > They already occurred 80% of pain so there is not so much to lose. I think this was the logic for people voting OXI in the referendum, but there is still banking and public infrastructure and host of other things that they could lose.
- scarmig 11y ago
  To readers who don't get the joke: lots of ill-will exists between Greece and Macedonia over a naming dispute, which has led Macedonia to be known as FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) on Google Maps.
cm2187 11y ago
Leaving the euro zone is in Greece's own interest anyway. Greece is in the position it is today because it cannot execute on its structural reforms. It still cannot raise taxes and has an overweight public sector. Leaving the euro zone will at least improve competitivity and give them a fighting chance to produce again. And this is beside the moral position of demanding that the german tax payers cover the expenses of the Greek state that the Greek tax payers can't be bothered to pay. Disruption is often necessary. European countries have a nasty habbit of preferring a permanent mild pain to a greater upfront pain and then drawing a line and starting on a right foot.
Mithaldu 11y ago
Given how insane past decisions of Schäuble have been* Yanis' assessment of him makes a lot of sense. His politics have always swayed between hilarious ignorance, impotent aggression and seemingly crippling senility. Treating the "teaching" of other EU members in a war-like fashion would fit the scheme. * For one he wanted to use a hypthetical threat german harbors by terrorists who would drive ships with bombs into them to force the german government into creating legislation to let the german army operate with live weapons inside german borders; as well as let them shoot down passenger planes within german borders. * Secondly he wanted to create a "federal trojan", a virus he insisted would be capable of infiltrating EVERY computer. Ever. And he wanted its use to be fully legal.
- th0br0 11y ago
  I wouldn't really call his past decisions insane, although I agree with you that he's our (German) version of a political hardliner. Personally, I would describe his reasoning and actions as in line with the aim of always putting the German state (not necessarily its people) first. Maybe his idol is Bismarck, maybe there's some other reason for his actions. Who knows; I surely don't. It is possible, of course, that his views and behaviour have become quite disconnected from the "real" world. After all, he's been a MP for 43 years now - making him the most senior MP in the history of the FRG. But then, he's seen quite a few global disasters happening from a political perspective. In the end, right now, he's doing a fairly good job of maintaining a stable German economic position in the EU/the world and is able to even strengthen Germany's global political position as well. This rather aggressive damage control certainly doesn't support the ideals that the EU is built upon, but then who knows whether he subscribed to it in the first place? I honestly believe that, should the EU fail in the coming decade, he'll be remembered quite positively.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    I can kind of see how the first two could maybe, possibly, be seen as not insane. However, how do you defend the Bundestrojaner thing, in light of the fact that what he intended was literally impossible?

47 points by wsc981 11y ago

Is he mad, delusional, crazy or one of the few sincere politicians in Europe? I can not make up my mind ... This theory would indeed explain many things.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
He's better educated than most politicians in Europe - including most finance ministers. I wasn't expecting a deal, and lo - it seems a deal will not happen. Greece could offer to sell its people into slavery, and it seems that still wouldn't be enough for certain elements in the European nomenklatura. So Grexit it is. If anyone is crazy, mad, and delusional, it's the German establishment. Schauble would rather rob his banks of any timetable for repayment than deal with financial reality like a rational adult.
- deleted 11y ago
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- tiatia 11y ago
  Well, game theory did not work out for him and no he is mad. It is a little bit if your wife threatens you with divorce and you say: OK, let's do it.
  - Ygg2 11y ago
    Will people drop this narrative? It was tired and strenuous, when it was published, but now it literally makes no sense. Sure he did Game Theory research, but LIFE != GAME. He said it so himself. I haven't read a single unified explanation using game theory, that accounts for everything Greece government did during negotiations. It's the Epileptic Trees[1] of the Politics. [1] Epileptic Trees was one of explanations to why trees in Lost were shaking violently.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    I don't think you're right that game theory did not work out for them. Your assumption appears to be that what they could hope for was a reasonable deal. But the way Schäuble has acted, it is by now clear that a reasonable deal is unlikely to be possible. For Germany this is all about ideology, not about economic rationality (amusing they accuse Tsipiras of being too ideological). In that instance, what could they hope for? Their winning scenario is to demonstrate to their own constituency that they've tried everything. They've stretched extremely far. They've demonstrated to their home audience how Germany wants to humiliate them rather than get a fair deal. They've further managed to create substantial cracks in the Euro group facade, with France in particular now openly having taken their side. If they exit, then it is clear the Euro must be reformed if it is to survive. They may in the end have permanently tarnished Merkel's and Schäuble's political legacies. Justifiably so. Would any of this have happened if they had played ball and agreed to a toxic, unsustainable deal? The previous Greek government played ball, and what they got was a death sentence for the Greek economy. Playing ball with these opponents is a bad idea, since they seem intent of kicking in your knees first. > It is a little bit if your wife threatens you with divorce and you say: OK, let's do it. If you're told that to stay you will need to subject to daily beatings, then divorce is the right choice.
- jules 11y ago
  The banks counted on other countries to bail out any other in the eurozone, so they provided as much risky debt as they could. Maybe I'm cynical, but however this ends, it will probably end up being a wealth transfer from the european taxpayers to the banks. We've seen this time and time again recently: socialize private risk. The only way this ends is by letting the banks go down eventually, otherwise they will continue risky behavior, counting on the public to save them when things go wrong. Unfortunately the system is such that this is not in the interest of the politicians. Politicians with "good behavior" get cosy high paying jobs in the financial sector after their political career. Just look up any ex politicians and I bet you he or she is now working in the financial sector. The solution for this is to extend a politician's salary for say 10 years after, and forbid them from accepting any money from any company for those 10 years. They can work for those companies for free if they want. They cannot get a cosy job after they've shown "good behavior" in their political career. The cost of this is a drop in the ocean compared to the perverse incentives this will remove. Say what you want about Dijsselbloem, but this is one thing that he gets right. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnrccarriere.nl%2Fartikelen%2Fdijsselbloem-ex-politici-moeten-eerst-paar-jaar-afkoelen-voor-ze-in-bedrijfsleven-gaan-werken%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
  - icebraining 11y ago
    "End up"? It has already happened. (From Wikipedia, but well sourced): Initially, European banks had the largest holdings of Greek debt. However, this has shifted as the "troika" (i.e., European Central Bank or ECB, International Monetary Fund or IMF, and a European government-sponsored fund) have purchased Greek bonds. (...) Excluding Greek banks, European banks had €45.8bn exposure to Greece in June 2011, with €9.4bn held by French and €7.9bn by German banks. However, by early 2015 their holdings were minimal, roughly €2.4B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#Creditors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#C...
    - igravious 11y ago
      Euro area population: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/population http://www.tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/population 330,000,000 (2015 numbers) Fiscal transfer: €45.8B-€2.4B = €43.4B (your numbers :) 43.4B / 330M = €131.5 from each man, woman, child in the €zone.
- vidarh 11y ago
  It is amusing and sad that Merkel apparently described Tsipiras as "hard and ideological" when the German position is so clearly ideologically driven. Merkel is risking her legacy over this, and Schäuble's legacy in Europe is basically sealed - barring something truly crazy happening, he'll be remembered for this, and just this, outside of Germany. And in the end the outcome - no matter what they do - is that Greece will not pay all its debts. Everyone knows this. The IMF have gone historically far in expressing public dissatisfaction with the Euro group and the ECB over their unwillingness to accept this. Yet they appear to insist on sticking with the alternative that will cause the most pain and uncertainty for everyone involved just because further debt relief doesn't fit their ideology, knowing that the end result either way is that the money won't - can't - be paid back on the current schedule or in full.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    Schäuble is already remembered in Germany as an insane man.
- MarkMc 11y ago
  I don't understand why you rail against the 'German establishment'. Aren't they just implanting the wishes of the German people? Same for the Finns, Latvians, etc.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Nope, they play on them and manipulate them to save German banks. It's the "too big too fail" scenario, this time with the Eurozone playing the part of the federal government. Greece plays the role of the people getting mortgages that couldn't afford to repay post bubble. The punishment of Greece (and other countries in turn, including France) will be used to clamp down on the German population in the end and keep them accepting of austerity and neo-liberal measures of their own.
  - gonvaled 11y ago
    Sure, they are maybe implementing the wishes of the people ... or shaping public opinion. I bet that framing this crisis as a humanitarian issue and a people vs banks issue, instead of as a lazy greek vs industrious germans, would have fostered solidarity between european nations instead of increasing nationalistic tensions. We are far away from the climate pre WWI/WWII, but that is the direction we have chosen. Let's hope the next round of politicians are able to take a broader view, and that the current situation is reversible.
  - tomp 11y ago
    Many people in EU think about the situation as "give Greeks more money" vs "give Greeks 0 money", whereas in reality the situation is "get some Greek debt repaid" vs "get 0 Greek debt repaid". Obviously, in the first case, the latter is the better option, while in the second case, the former is. It's mainly the politicians' fault of presenting the issue in terms of the first two options to their people.
- vixen99 11y ago
  Small point: the 'better educated' comment is at base an appeal-to-authority argument. In other words, irrelevant. Is there an argument or isn't there? And anyway, how is 'better educated' defined? Does the standard 'university degrees ladder' always trump other considerations? Often enough, it probably does not.
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
He's probably right. Italy and France are the next overextended countries bound to fall once their ratings go down and their government bond interests go up. And compared to these economies, Greece's is negligible. Maybe the spectacular punishment of Greece will teach them a lesson and convince them to reduce their public debt. Or maybe nothing can convince politicians to worry about the medium-long term.
- christoph 11y ago
  Don't forget Portugal! There's a major problem unravelling. A large amount of the population live a lot longer than were expected ~90 years ago when the current welfare state system became widespread across Europe. How do you pay pensions in the current economic climate to people that have been retired for 25+ years, who were expected to largely die 25 years ago? In the Greece situation, how do you do this when a large amount of the populace actively avoid paying their fair share of tax? How do you do it when nearly 30%[1] of GDP is exports based around imports and your accounts are frozen and you can't pay suppliers? It's an economic situation that hasn't be witnessed before. All this is before you throw Germany into the mix, who have a _lot_ riding on how this all plays out. The world economic situation is in a very interesting place at the moment - Greece is only the tip of the iceberg. Look at Puerto Rico, look at China, hell look at the UK and how it's economy is currently stacked. Suddenly, overnight, the government won't support "free" TV licences for people aged 75+! The global economic situation at the moment is very interesting. [1] - https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/grc/ https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/grc/
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    You're right. Portugal looks actually a bit worse than Greece at roughly the same size of the economy: http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock Maybe it was too close geographically to the big players and that's how it avoided being made the first example :-) BTW, besides people in developed countries living longer we also have the problem of fewer children in each new generation. Not even immigration can balance the low birth rate in Italy, for example. Right now we have only one third of the population working and supporting the other two thirds and the percentage of active people keeps on shrinking. When will it become unsustainable? What will the Italian government do then? > The global economic situation at the moment is very interesting. Way too interesting for my taste. And the sea level rise will make it even more so. I'd rather read about stuff like this in dystopian novels instead of living it...
pdkl95 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=673 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=673 If you have the time, I highly recommend Mark Blyth's explanation of the EU situation. The article is mostly right. Blyth goes into a lot more detail in the history (pre-euro), showing how the various banks of europe bet against their own sovereigns by exploiting how the bond yields were converging with the introduction of the Euro - often by getting all the Greek and other "risky", high-yield debt that they could. If you thought "too big to fail" was bad enough in the US, at least our Fed could do something other than let the economy fail and now were starting to slowly recover. In Europe, they are "too big to bail", and I expect a few more countries to quickly follow Greece's lead fairly soon.
- branchless 11y ago
  It's going to be a default on the boomer savings which are far beyond reality. I agree it is coming, hence the desperate rear-guard action against Greece to maintain the line that pretending to be solvent is your best option.
- redthrowaway 11y ago
  That's a fascinating talk. Thanks for linking to it.
branchless 11y ago
I totally believe this is about bailing out French and German banks. It's also about making life really bad for Greece to encourage Ireland/Spain/Italy/Portugal they must keep paying back German/French banks.
- vidarh 11y ago
  The French and German banks were already bailed out. At this point the issue is that the governments that bailed them out don't want to be the ones left with the bill for the bailout they basically dictated.
  - branchless 11y ago
    surely bailing out Greece when primary exposure is French/German/UK banks is sharing the bailout costs amongst the whole EU in particular poorer countries subsidising richer ones. I agree part of this bailout has already taken place. The second phase is ensuring life in Greece is so bad that other larger countries don't want to default.
igravious 11y ago
He is undoubtedly sincere. I'm really sick of the people who come onto this forum (not talking about you, look elsewhere in these threads) and castigate the Greeks for being deadbeats. If they keep repeating this narrative when people have pointed out again and again that the €zone has structural flaws then there is no point in reasoning any more with them and you have to ignore them because they only hear the little voices in their heads. You can't lay it out much clearer than Yanis Varoufakis does here -- "The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state." When you get an unequal club, guess what! someone is going to be the weakest link. It is _inevitable_. If it wasn't Greece, it would have been someone else. Ok, you could make the argument that Greece was particularly lax in how it handled its own finances as part of the club but that (1) does not mean they should be punished with nearly a decade of unremitting poverty (2) not all the Greeks did this so it is _collective_ punishment (3) the €zone needs structural[§] adjustment and (4) we shouldn't keep socialising private debt, there _should_ be some risk to merit the interest charged. We really need to start listening to what the Greeks are telling us. If the €zone starts unravelling things could get very nasty very quickly. I'm not joking. --- [§] Yanis Varoufakis even touches on this, again explicitly -- "Europe did not know how to respond to the financial crisis. Should it prepare for an expulsion (Grexit) or a federation?"
- icelancer 11y ago
  >We really need to start listening to what the Greeks are telling us. If the €zone starts unravelling things could get very nasty very quickly. I'm not joking. These were all concerns brought up well before the Euro was even instituted, much less expanded to semi-broke nations like Greece. The EU doesn't seem particularly interested in admitting that there are massive differences culturally and fiscally between the countries and that these differences mean that a unified currency with no monetary flexibility is doomed to fail. EUR crushing USD early in its lifecycle after naysayers shouted down EUR didn't help things.
agumonkey 11y ago
It's hard to say who someone is, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uNIgDmqwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uNIgDmqwI (Yanis Varoufakis: Confessions of an Erratic Marxist /// 14th May 2013) shows a little bit of his persona. I believe his trustworthy, but this whole catastrophe is so large it's hard to be sure of anything.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

tl;dr The Eurozone needs means to cope with differences in productivity and fiscal policies - either needs free floating exchange rates (ie no Euro) or it needs federal budgets and bonds (ie fiscal Union) Either option scares the shit out of everyone so no one has brought it up. The ex Greek finance minister thinks the current German finance minister is forcing Greece to exit the Euro so they can force the fiscal Union closer - but (implicitly) without having to messily deal with democracy or referendums.

deleted 11y ago
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m3talridl3y 11y ago

Look for Greece to just start putting land up on ebay.

curiousjorge 11y ago

supposedly greece exiting is more expensive than keeping them but at what point do you kick out someone who is mooching off you and suddenly demanding all sorts of things. It's like the beggar that becomes very choosy and feel a huge entitlement. I don't know why this is the case, someone receiving so much should feel humble and grateful but instead arrogance and a need for more. having said that do they seriously expect greece to ever pay back the debt or even let alone feed their citizens? When was the last time you heard something made in Greece that wasn't in ancient history textbook and encyclopedia of Gods? I also feel irked by the lack of rationalism from EU.

SuddsMcDuff 11y ago
Mooching? They're not actually receiving much at all - 90% of the bailout money they have received has gone straight back to their creditors - Deutsche Bank, ECB and IMF. Only a tiny fraction of the bailout actually enters the Greek economy. It's like throwing a money boomerang at someone, and each time it comes back claiming that they owe you another 50 billion
- curiousjorge 11y ago
  and that's somehow EU and Germany's fault? That they are not handing over truckload of cash to a country which just wants more and more without ever paying any of it back? That they have 50% unemployment rate, and an economy incapable of producing anything worth of value that would pull them out of debt? When South Korea defaulted, the entire country came together to pay off the debt. People even brought their herilooms and personal jewlery to melt to gold bars to help the country pay back the money to IMF. Businesses and large conglomerates were not bailed out but allowed to fail so that they pick up their shit. Now we get smartphones, tv, components, kpop, cars, ships, all sorts of wonderful stuff. And greece? What the hell have they produced in the past 100 years? South Korea has only been around half that. Why should Germany put up with this kind of attitude? Where does this sense of entitlement come from in Greece? Do they seriously believe that the rest of Europe owes them something? If they are this arrogant then let them fail and see just how quickly Greece will downspiral into a failed state.

mianos 11y ago

If they forgive some of their debt and they don't radically restructure their economy they will need to be bailed out over and over again. We have the same thing with employment benefits on a micro-scale here in Australia, people become so used to free money they don't know any better because they have never seen any other system. Its hard to blame them because they don't know any different so they think it's normal.

vidarh 11y ago
They have restructured substantially. Enough so that they were on track for a substantial primary surplus. There's much more to do, but the primary problem for the last year has been managing the crushing debt load, not the Greek government.
- igravious 11y ago
  Agreed, they still need debt restructuring. Also the €zone framework needs simultaneous reconstructing, to route surpluses to places not doing so well. But that would be the beginnings of a real federal EU and European countries are too nationalistic for that which is a shame because Europe is going to fade into relative obscurity economically unless we can make this transition. Though perhaps this crisis presents the opportunity to kick-start that process, but it's a long shot, I'm pessimistic even though I do not want to be.
- anabis 11y ago
  There are different opinions on restructuring being enough. Still not having a land registry after starting in 1994 gives me a pause.
mianos 11y ago
ps. replying to my own comment, I'd like to point out I should have said, 'forgive some more of their debt'. Adding it as a ps, so I don't substantially change the context of the comments. They already got a 50% cut on their bond debt in 2011. Thus, over and over.
scarmig 11y ago

agopaul 11y ago

As a European I find German foreign policy quite insulting. This needs to change in one way or the other.

vidarh 11y ago
It's not just insulting. It's dangerous. If Germany continues this line, not only will the Euro disintegrate, but we can "look forward" to a much higher likelihood the UK will decide to outright leave the EU as well. I know more than one hardline pro-EU people here in the UK that have softened their EU support substantially after seeing the treatment Greece has gotten.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I'm pro-EU as well, but this is getting ridiculous. There's no way the country will grow like this, all that's happening is that businesses are closing, and obviously nobody wants to start new ones in this uncertainty. The EU seems bent on wringing every last penny from the lower income tiers, which hasn't worked for the past six years, and is unlikely to start working now. The average Greek is, at this point, desperate enough to just want to leave the EU and deal with the consequences rather than watch the country die and/or get sold off over decades.
copx 11y ago
As a German I find your complete misrepresentation of reality insulting. The German political class is the reason why Greece still has the Euro. The Eastern Europeans never wanted to bail-out the Greeks to begin with, and have zero sympathy for their cries about inhumane austerity because the "austere" Greeks are still better off than the Eastern Europeans. Thus any transfer of money from e.g. Lithuania to Greece is perceived as a crying injustice. But even in Western Europe Germany is close to being Greece's best friend. The first bail-out was almost sabotaged by the Finns when they demanded collateral for their money. Which caused the Dutch to ask for that too. Meanwhile Evil Evil Schäuble knew that the Greeks would never be able to pay back that money - and lied to the German people about that "your money is safe, we will get everything back", he said.. shortly before agreeing to the first haircut. Billions of Euros of German tax payer money evaporated. Without the German government Finnish and Dutch ships would have transported away the Greek statues, gold, and whatever other valuable thing they could find. And if "European solidarity" depended on the Eastern Europeans the Greeks would have never gotten a cent. The Greeks who are so fond of the Euro should be endlessly thankful to the German political class (not the people - they never supported this bail-out). I think this is also the primary reason why Schäuble does not want another haircut. His original lie would become even more severe and the German electorate would become even angrier.

Keyframe 11y ago

Didn't Greece get a write-off once already? Why hasn't he mentioned that? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-27/papandreou-says-new-funding-gives-greece-time-new-prospects http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-27/papandreou... What would make it different this time around?

leereeves 11y ago
According to eurostat, Greek consolidated gross debt was 356bn € in 2011, 305bn € in 2012. (This seems to be sometime in the middle of each year.) There was a write-off, but it wasn't enough.
giggzy 11y ago
There has been no write off of debt. The bailout was; Greece was lent money it could not have gotten on the open market. Mostly to pay off debts from bank the Eurozone feels too big too fail ( my speculation ).

tlogan 11y ago

Since I'm from that part of the world (visiting Greece, Balkans and Germany regularly), I will give some feedback here... We have saying here "owns money as Greece" - and that sayings was coined in 19th century. In 1822 Greece declared independece from Ottoman Empire and by 1880 Greece owned 5.243.428 marks to... guess? Germany. From point of Greece, it is much better for them that Greece leaves Eurozone. They already occurred 80% of pain so there is not so much to lose. With Drachmas they will have some inflation and inflation will fix entitlement problem. And tourism will become very very competitive. And they can fix tax evasion problem on their own. From point of France - that will be disaster: the euro an ECB is designed for economies and societies similar to Germany and German's influence in Europe will raise. This crisis is pure politics now. Macedonians have joke that Greece should be renamed: "the former European country Greece".

anabis 11y ago
> They already occurred 80% of pain so there is not so much to lose. I think this was the logic for people voting OXI in the referendum, but there is still banking and public infrastructure and host of other things that they could lose.
scarmig 11y ago
To readers who don't get the joke: lots of ill-will exists between Greece and Macedonia over a naming dispute, which has led Macedonia to be known as FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) on Google Maps.

cm2187 11y ago

Leaving the euro zone is in Greece's own interest anyway. Greece is in the position it is today because it cannot execute on its structural reforms. It still cannot raise taxes and has an overweight public sector. Leaving the euro zone will at least improve competitivity and give them a fighting chance to produce again. And this is beside the moral position of demanding that the german tax payers cover the expenses of the Greek state that the Greek tax payers can't be bothered to pay. Disruption is often necessary. European countries have a nasty habbit of preferring a permanent mild pain to a greater upfront pain and then drawing a line and starting on a right foot.

Mithaldu 11y ago

Given how insane past decisions of Schäuble have been* Yanis' assessment of him makes a lot of sense. His politics have always swayed between hilarious ignorance, impotent aggression and seemingly crippling senility. Treating the "teaching" of other EU members in a war-like fashion would fit the scheme. * For one he wanted to use a hypthetical threat german harbors by terrorists who would drive ships with bombs into them to force the german government into creating legislation to let the german army operate with live weapons inside german borders; as well as let them shoot down passenger planes within german borders. * Secondly he wanted to create a "federal trojan", a virus he insisted would be capable of infiltrating EVERY computer. Ever. And he wanted its use to be fully legal.

th0br0 11y ago
I wouldn't really call his past decisions insane, although I agree with you that he's our (German) version of a political hardliner. Personally, I would describe his reasoning and actions as in line with the aim of always putting the German state (not necessarily its people) first. Maybe his idol is Bismarck, maybe there's some other reason for his actions. Who knows; I surely don't. It is possible, of course, that his views and behaviour have become quite disconnected from the "real" world. After all, he's been a MP for 43 years now - making him the most senior MP in the history of the FRG. But then, he's seen quite a few global disasters happening from a political perspective. In the end, right now, he's doing a fairly good job of maintaining a stable German economic position in the EU/the world and is able to even strengthen Germany's global political position as well. This rather aggressive damage control certainly doesn't support the ideals that the EU is built upon, but then who knows whether he subscribed to it in the first place? I honestly believe that, should the EU fail in the coming decade, he'll be remembered quite positively.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  I can kind of see how the first two could maybe, possibly, be seen as not insane. However, how do you defend the Bundestrojaner thing, in light of the fact that what he intended was literally impossible?