Merkel depicted as Nazi in greek rag

[Bakustra]

Oops! A couple of Greeks drew Nazi analogies, so they should all be shocked into poverty for the benefit of the IMF!

While it isn't a constructive reaction, the people of Greece see this as coming from the government of Germany, rather than the real direction- the IMF, or rather, globalist capitalism. So they react with anti-German slogans rather than anti-capitalist ones. Now, was the path Greece was on prior to the financial collapse sustainable? No, but that path was the path of globalist capitalism and the only way to really avoid this happening again is to either tighten the restrictions on international lending and finance so that predatory behavior is no longer as profitable, or else a (genuinely, not Starglider-defined) socialist revolution to permanently remove the capitalist classes who promulgated this disaster from power.

[Thanas]

“We’ve fought several times for liberation, but this slavery is worse than any other,” said Stella Papafagou, 82, pulling down a surgical mask worn over her mouth to keep out tear gas being fired by the police to push back protesters from Parliament. “This is worse than the ’40s,” she said, referring to the Nazi occupation.

Really now? I must have missed the part where German troops are marching in, massacring civilians and raping and plundering their way to Athens.

[Baffalo]

“We’ve fought several times for liberation, but this slavery is worse than any other,” said Stella Papafagou, 82, pulling down a surgical mask worn over her mouth to keep out tear gas being fired by the police to push back protesters from Parliament. “This is worse than the ’40s,” she said, referring to the Nazi occupation.

Really now? I must have missed the part where German troops are marching in, massacring civilians and raping and plundering their way to Athens.

If I may, from Wikipedia:

Increasing attacks by partisans in the latter years of the occupation resulted in a number of executions and wholesale slaughter of civilians in reprisal. In total, the Germans executed some 21,000 Greeks, the Bulgarians 40,000 and the Italians 9,000.

So far the Germans have killed... none? How is this somehow worse? Considering the entry under Axis Occupation of Greece gets it's own section for attrocities, somehow your complaint that you're not getting a check doesn't seem to stack up.

[Chirios]

Oops! A couple of Greeks drew Nazi analogies, so they should all be shocked into poverty for the benefit of the IMF!

While it isn't a constructive reaction, the people of Greece see this as coming from the government of Germany, rather than the real direction- the IMF, or rather, globalist capitalism. So they react with anti-German slogans rather than anti-capitalist ones. Now, was the path Greece was on prior to the financial collapse sustainable? No, but that path was the path of globalist capitalism

No it wasn't, that path was the path of cronyism and sinecure positions in government jobs.

and the only way to really avoid this happening again is to either tighten the restrictions on international lending and finance so that predatory behavior is no longer as profitable, or else a (genuinely, not Starglider-defined) socialist revolution to permanently remove the capitalist classes who promulgated this disaster from power.

This had nothing to do with capitalism, it had to do with corruption.

[Narkis]

Really now? I must have missed the part where German troops are marching in, massacring civilians and raping and plundering their way to Athens.

Yes, how dare that lady use hyperbole! Doesn't she know that all statements should be scientifically backed, and accurate to the decimal? You should send a letter to Merkel to have this added to the memorandum, so that next time she should say "The nazi occupation was exactly 64.7% worse than this, and this study here proves it."

This shit is why I've largely refrained from posting in all the Greece-related threads. Bakustra and Simon have covered most of what I'd like to say anyway.

I have a nasty suspicion (unproven) that the Greek parliament is falling too eagerly into the position of doing what the EU says to keep the money coming in, while letting the people take up a lot of the load if it lets them spare expense to themselves.

You may consider that proven. The left parties tried recently to have an amendment passed that would replace some of the pension cuts with a reduction to parliamentary benefits. The rest had it quashed. And that's only one example of many.

Starglider does not know that ECB has essentially pushed for laissez-faire capitalism in most Europeriphery nations. Including pushing for tax rate reduction, with which Greece and many others obliged. It also supported bailouts in 2008, which tanked the periphery's budgets. Oh the times.

Wait so the government backed off on government regulation and oversight, cut the budget, then supported the bailouts when it all went to shit? Or am I missing something? Not being a smartass or anything just trying to understand what's going on.

Almost. The government did back off on regulation and oversight and cut the budget, but didn't support the bailouts until it was forced too. Even the banks didn't want to be bailed out back then, they hadn't done the stupid stuff that led things to shit, and had an advantage over their competitors that did.

[Simon_Jester]

Really now? I must have missed the part where German troops are marching in, massacring civilians and raping and plundering their way to Athens.

So far the Germans have killed... none? How is this somehow worse? Considering the entry under Axis Occupation of Greece gets it's own section for attrocities, somehow your complaint that you're not getting a check doesn't seem to stack up.

In bodycount, it doesn't nearly stack up.

Allowing for hyperbole, there are four answers I can imagine this woman giving, if we asked her this question.

One is that the lawful government of Greece is actively cooperating with foreign interests in ways that directly hurt common citizens. In 1941, the invaders had to create a puppet government, and the legitimate government-in-exile escaped to speak for the people and rally forces for the liberation. Here, the Greeks have no one to speak for them but a parliament that to their eyes must seem totally committed to doing whatever it takes to get the next round of bailouts, no matter how hard it is on the Greeks themselves.

Two, in 1941 there was at least the hope that they had foreign allies who would one day liberate them. Powerful nations fought on their side. Now, the entire power structure of the global economy is either indifferent to whatever happens to Greece, or actively trying to push for the austerity package. They are effectively alone.

Three, in 1941 the hope for reconstruction left room for Greeks to think that in ten years, things would have improved. They would be better off, their children could work and marry and find homes, eventually things would get better. Here, there is very little room for such hopes, because there's no obvious way for the Greeks to get back to anything like their old standard of living.

Four, this particular woman was an adolescent during the occupation. She only had herself to worry about. For that matter, she personally might not have done so badly- not everyone in Greece was equally miserable in those years. Now, she's worrying about the future of her children (nearing retirement age as pensions disappear) and grandchildren (trying to make their way into a workforce that has no room for them). That's going to knock out her sense of proportion.


Now, if it were me, I'd far rather be dealing with the problems Greece has now the ones it had in 1941. Financial collapse and massive government budget cuts are much better than being occupied by foreign armies. But I think I understand what she's saying, even if it sounds insane when taken literally.

[K. A. Pital]

This had nothing to do with capitalism, it had to do with corruption.

You're really an idiot. The Eurozone periphery's entire growth was financed by low-cost borrowing where the rates were not adequate to their own economies, but rather due to the common currency they were artificially low. This was fictitious growth and now it has come to a logical end.

No matter how you spin it, Spain and Greece are in the same boat, and Spain is in that boat because its entire boom has been debt-financed, much like Greece. The latter simply relied on the state sector to finance it, while the former concentrated the debt in the private sector, but was forced to take much of that debt on the state when the crisis struck.

Regardless of how you spin it, this crisis has all to do with the Eurozone's free-trade policies.

The left parties tried recently to have an amendment passed that would replace some of the pension cuts with a reduction to parliamentary benefits. The rest had it quashed. And that's only one example of many.

That is so awful that it makes me cringe. If that sort of shit didn't routinely happen in Russia, I'd be even amazed. I mean yeah, how dare you finance pensions with those multimillion handouts to bureaucrats who engineered the entire crash. Oh no. Those who are responsible have to be shielded from answering to the people at all costs.

I wonder if it will come to a point where the successing power will have to grant immunity to the former deputees'/presidents/prime ministers so that they won't stand trial for their crimes against the people.

[Thanas]

Really now? I must have missed the part where German troops are marching in, massacring civilians and raping and plundering their way to Athens.

Yes, how dare that lady use hyperbole! Doesn't she know that all statements should be scientifically backed, and accurate to the decimal? You should send a letter to Merkel to have this added to the memorandum, so that next time she should say "The nazi occupation was exactly 64.7% worse than this, and this study here proves it."

Was she using hyperbole? I dunno, when people are openly equating Merkel to Hitler I kinda tend to not give them the benefit of the doubt here.

[K. A. Pital]

Was she using hyperbole? I dunno, when people are openly equating Merkel to Hitler I kinda tend to not give them the benefit of the doubt here.

They clearly "really" think that she's Hitler? When people equate Bush or Obama (or Putin maybe) with Hitler casually, they usually hyperventilate. Nobody in their sane mind would seriously consider this comparison a 100% identical match used logically.

[Thanas]

Was she using hyperbole? I dunno, when people are openly equating Merkel to Hitler I kinda tend to not give them the benefit of the doubt here.

They clearly "really" think that she's Hitler? When people equate Bush or Obama (or Putin maybe) with Hitler casually, they usually hyperventilate. Nobody in their sane mind would seriously consider this comparison a 100% identical match used logically.

Tell that to the people burning Nazi flags in Athens. They look quite serious to me.

[LaCroix]

Tell that to the people burning Nazi flags in Athens. They look quite serious to me.

This makes me wonder where they got them? I mean, this isn't something you can order over ebay, don't you? (I actually had to check this now and no, you can't.)

Are there some companies that supply protestors with 100% flammable flags on demand?

[Tribun]

Well, they're now busy with burning down whole buildings instead of flags. I sincerely doubt that the pictures of what happened on the streets of Athens will create much new confidence in Greece. Seriously... I know that it isn't that easy, but many will just look at it and think "what a bunch of dicks". Say what you want, but Greece is on a good way to lose any kind of good credibility.

[Simon_Jester]

At this point, the Greeks are starting to want a government that listens to them more than they want international credibility.

Who is the sovereign authority here? If not the Greek people, then who? And if the Greek people are the sovereign authority, then do they not have a right to replace a government foreigners view as credible with one that is less credible but more responsive to their concerns?

I'm reminded of some of the military interventions 19th century colonial powers would undertake, marching armies into South American countries to take control of the government after it failed to pay off its loans. What's happening to Greece now is far less intrusive and violent, but there's a similar dynamic (just with fewer bayonets). And it raises a similar question of sovereignty.

[K. A. Pital]

Considering that the government which they have right now basically fell and caved in like a pussy on the matter of a national referendum on whether they should actually exit Eurozone and have a sovereign default or continue the current course, and that was pretty much the only time they seriously wanted to consult the people on the matter...

I can't say I'm terribly dissappointed that a bunch of angry youngsters attempted to burn down the fucking Treasury. After all, if the power is composed of corrupt and completely unresponsive, callous dickheads, the only thing that they understand is when their buildings will be set on fire, I guess.

[Thanas]

At this point, the Greeks are starting to want a government that listens to them more than they want international credibility.

Who is the sovereign authority here? If not the Greek people, then who? And if the Greek people are the sovereign authority, then do they not have a right to replace a government foreigners view as credible with one that is less credible but more responsive to their concerns?

Internally, the duly elected Government as it so happens in a republic. Externally, the duly elected Government as representing the (as of now) sovereign nation of Greece.

That said, what is your solution to the problem? Do you simply want the German citizenry to write a big check and say "there you go, we do not mind paying the same figures in the next five years when the problem simply repeats itself?" The Greeks are also (non-surprisingly) resisting any outside influence to come in and fix their country (if that is even possible).

So what is the solution here?

[Bakustra]

The solution here is to convince the private holders of Greek debt to forgive that debt until the level of Greek debt is small enough for them to service it without pauperizing Greek society as a whole. France should probably do this, because they have, as I understand it, fewer moral and historical restraints on state-sponsored violence (e.g. the DGSE, Bob Denard) than Germany does and it will be somewhat easier for them to shake people down. Then the EU needs to restructure its internal financial system to prevent poorer nations (the so-called "PIIGS") from being exploited by private lenders to this extent again. In the process, Greece should probably use this opportunity to focus on developing a less dysfunctional and corrupt government, but this is only ancillary to the process, in the inevitable event that EU restructuring eventually fails and the sharks start to circle the poorer nations of Europe again.

That is the most palatable solution I can offer- all the others are variations on the theme of "popular socialist revolutions across Europe".

The current solution will extend the current recession in Greece. It will hurt Germany, because Greek labor will become cheaper as its social protections are dismantled in the process of austerity and that will make German companies more willing to hire Greek migrant laborers, who will be cheaper than Germans, and it will weaken German protections for its citizens, because the multinationals who ran this scheme will see that Europe is vulnerable to their goal of destroying social welfare and social democracy worldwide (It will also hurt the other richer nations of the EU, but you were talking about Germany).

It will also hurt a bunch of people in Greece, but that's abstract suffering as the poorer Greeks lose a fifth of their income and 150,000 people are thrown out of work at a minimum and Greece is forced into an inescapable spiral of debt, and probably forced to privatize its entire social services network if the multinationals/IMF are bold enough.

EDIT: Granted, you too seem to think that the problem is primarily internal policies of Greece's- I wonder why the lenders have no fault in this situation.

[Thanas]

The solution here is to convince the private holders of Greek debt to forgive that debt until the level of Greek debt is small enough for them to service it without pauperizing Greek society as a whole.

That is already ongoing.

Then the EU needs to restructure its internal financial system to prevent poorer nations (the so-called "PIIGS") from being exploited by private lenders to this extent again.

How?

The current solution will extend the current recession in Greece. It will hurt Germany, because Greek labor will become cheaper as its social protections are dismantled in the process of austerity and that will make German companies more willing to hire Greek migrant laborers, who will be cheaper than Germans, and it will weaken German protections for its citizens, because the multinationals who ran this scheme will see that Europe is vulnerable to their goal of destroying social welfare and social democracy worldwide (It will also hurt the other richer nations of the EU, but you were talking about Germany).

Meh. German companies like hiring Germans and our labour market is going pretty good right now. That can't actually be a reason for it.

It will also hurt a bunch of people in Greece, but that's abstract suffering as the poorer Greeks lose a fifth of their income and 150,000 people are thrown out of work at a minimum and Greece is forced into an inescapable spiral of debt, and probably forced to privatize its entire social services network if the multinationals/IMF are bold enough.

Hmmm. To be honest, I think Greece can probably get to the level of Portugal when it comes to state support of its citizens. (And before you cite median numbers, remember that Greece pays 14 monthly "salaries" whereas Portugal pays 12).

EDIT: Granted, you too seem to think that the problem is primarily internal policies of Greece's- I wonder why the lenders have no fault in this situation.

They have some fault, but it is not like they forced Greece to take the loans. And it is not like the Greek Government (and its people) have been engaging in this corrupt system and been swindling the EU for over a decade. Had they been honest, they would not have gotten into the EU and everybody would be better off now.

However, more pressing than that is the problem of how you are going to get an international or american bank to pay for this, considering the US and Britain are opposing anything related to extra taxation for them.

[Sephirius]

How about they just get kicked out of the Euro, and have their own currency such that they can devalue it and spare them from the- oh wait, that would make too much sense, and it would piss off the almighty eurocrats.

[Baffalo]

How about they just get kicked out of the Euro, and have their own currency such that they can devalue it and spare them from the- oh wait, that would make too much sense, and it would piss off the almighty eurocrats.

When you say devalue their currency, you mean actually take money out of the system right? As in reduce inflation and make each Drachma (pre-Euro currency) actually worth more?

[Thanas]

How about they just get kicked out of the Euro, and have their own currency such that they can devalue it and spare them from the- oh wait, that would make too much sense, and it would piss off the almighty eurocrats.

That will not work because their foreign debt is held in Euro. They could pretty much destroy all their domestic debt and their economy with it if they go down that route and use hyperinflation, but it is going to do zilch for their foreign debt.

[Chirios]

This had nothing to do with capitalism, it had to do with corruption.

You're really an idiot. The Eurozone periphery's entire growth was financed by low-cost borrowing where the rates were not adequate to their own economies, but rather due to the common currency they were artificially low. This was fictitious growth and now it has come to a logical end.

No matter how you spin it, Spain and Greece are in the same boat, and Spain is in that boat because its entire boom has been debt-financed, much like Greece. The latter simply relied on the state sector to finance it, while the former concentrated the debt in the private sector, but was forced to take much of that debt on the state when the crisis struck.

A large part of the reason why Greece is suffering as much as it is is because government corruption led to a huge build up of the public sector in absence of a corresponding build up in the private sector. And that build up was caused by the Greece, amongst other things, paying for promotions in public sector jobs, being unable to be fired and having huge pensions which they couldn't afford. The problems that Greece faces were caused by it's corruption, the problems Spain faces weren't.

[K. A. Pital]

The problems are the same, and if acting like Spain does not protect you from being bankrupt as poor old Lehman, it does not really matter how you act. Europeriphery had different conditions, but they're all in the same boat now.

[Chirios]

The problems are the same, and if acting like Spain does not protect you from being bankrupt as poor old Lehman, it does not really matter how you act. Europeriphery had different conditions, but they're all in the same boat now.

Now they are, but there have been multiple things that have happened now to put them in that boat. That doesn't, however, mean that the causes are entirely the same. Spain, if I remember correctly, was running a budget surplus of something like 3% pre crisis, and I think Ireland was running a budget surplus as well. Which suggests that the ECB's emphasis on austerity in those cases was badly thought through. Greece however was profligate, profligate in corruption, in pension schemes, in payment for parliamentarians. It would have been better had the Germans et al agreed to deal with some of the problems you mentioned, yes, but the idea that corruption was not the cause of the Greek crisis specifically is simply not true.

Edit:- I just checked and yes, Spains pre crisis budget was running a surplus. As was Irelands. Greece's however was heavily in debt before the crisis, even though they had promised before they joined the union that they would deal with said debt.

[aerius]

How about they just get kicked out of the Euro, and have their own currency such that they can devalue it and spare them from the- oh wait, that would make too much sense, and it would piss off the almighty eurocrats.

That will not work because their foreign debt is held in Euro. They could pretty much destroy all their domestic debt and their economy with it if they go down that route and use hyperinflation, but it is going to do zilch for their foreign debt.

You do know there's this thing called a debt default, right? If they default it wipes out ALL of their debt, of course a default has a whole bunch of problems of its own but the way things are going they'll end up there one way or another.

[Thanas]

How about they just get kicked out of the Euro, and have their own currency such that they can devalue it and spare them from the- oh wait, that would make too much sense, and it would piss off the almighty eurocrats.

That will not work because their foreign debt is held in Euro. They could pretty much destroy all their domestic debt and their economy with it if they go down that route and use hyperinflation, but it is going to do zilch for their foreign debt.

You do know there's this thing called a debt default, right? If they default it wipes out ALL of their debt, of course a default has a whole bunch of problems of its own but the way things are going they'll end up there one way or another.

Maybe you should have read the quoted post and realized we were talking about the ever so popular solution of Greece leaving/getting kicked out and devaluing their currency via hyperinflation?