you are saying a country is not able to evaluate whether they can comply with the contract agreements? It was evil Europe and evil Germany that dared to send money via Greece? The bailout package had nothing to do with any bad banks. It had to do with European and IMF specialists putting together a package to assist Greece. Are you seriously saying that Germany, the EU, and the IMF tried to shoot into their own foot? A Greek default hurts Germany to some degree, no question. By the way, Greece has gotten multiple breaks on its debt already, lower interests than initially agreed, a cut on the overall level, a free tranche, and the repayment modalities were also adjusted in Greece's favor. Please can you tell us where the fault can be found with the EU? I just fail to see that. I take the stern stance that even before the mortgage crisis a defaulting home owner regardless of his credit rating (800 or 100) is 100% at fault, not his/her bank or mortgage company. If anything then some banks did a favor to extend credit to those credit should not have extended. But the borrower turning around and accusing the bank that it should not have given him money in the first place is unheard of and an audacity on a new never seen before level.
they did not burn bridges when Dijsselbloem was sitting right next to Varoufakis and Varoufakis told Dijsselbloem and the Troika literally to "fuck off"? Varoufakis did not burn bridges in Berlin last week when he told Scheuble that "we did not even agree to disagree", and he did not burn bridges when he travelled each European capital and basically said "we will not continue with any bailout anymore, your money is lost that is a given, but hey, give us some bridge loan". You know the perfect response came from Dijsselbloem last week when he said "WE DONT DO BRIDGE LOANS". You are completely lost in translation if you are honestly believing that Greeks are currently not burning bridges.
see, this is exactly what I mean. You just do not want or cannot argue by picking up the topic discussed and make your point WHY you disagree. I picked up your issue on "burning bridges" and gave concrete examples to demonstrate that what you are saying is just not the case. All you can reply to this is "we shall see"? And this approach you are taking for over 30 pages now.
You don't give concrete anything. You just speculate. And any point that is offered to you counter to your narrative is immediately assaulted with insults, "screaming and ranting" and name calling. There's absolutely no point in trying to have a debate with you. So instead I'll just respond with a "we'll see" and have discourse with other posters in the thread. You're worthless, pretty much.
For Visaria http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/historically-speaking-germany-a-bigger-deadbeat-than-greece-1.2948158 Historically speaking, Germany a bigger deadbeat than Greece Germany's debt defaults after the two world wars dwarfs anything Greece has done, economists say By Joe Schlesinger, CBC News Posted: Feb 08, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Feb 08, 2015 5:00 AM ET (Joe Schlesinger was a foreign correspondent for CBC for 28 years, covering natural disasters, political upheavals and conflicts from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. In 2009, the Canadian Journalism Foundation honoured Schlesinger for his body of work.) In its attempt to bust the austerity shackles that lenders have imposed, Greece's new leftist government is finding a particularly unsympathetic ear in Germany, the European Union's paymaster, which says it is done writing off Greek debt. That warning from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others is overwhelmingly backed by a German public outraged by the contrast between Greece's spendthrift ways, with its penchant for treating tax bills as junk mail, and their own obsession with a tight hold on the purse strings, both personal and as a country. What the Germans are conveniently ignoring is their own record as one of history's biggest deadbeats. In the 1920s, according to a prominent German economic historian, Germany was "like Greece on steroids." Albrecht Ritschl, a professor at the London School of economics and an adviser to the German ministry of economics, says that Germany's current prosperity was built on borrowed — mostly American — money, much of it written off. It all started in 1918 when Germany lost the First World War. In the peace settlement that followed, the victors exacted payment of 269 billion marks or 96,000 tonnes of gold. Mirroring the Greeks' current sentiments regarding debt repayment and forced austerity, Germans after WWI saw the reparations as a national humiliation and rejected the validity of that Versailles Treaty. They did pay, though. But they made their payment by printing ever more money, which led to the kind of hyperinflation where money was carried around in suitcases. By 1923, one U.S. dollar was worth billions of marks. In Berlin, a streetcar ticket cost 15 billion marks. The collapse of the German economy led to the demise of the country's Weimar Republic democracy and the rise of Adolf Hitler, who promptly stopped the payments once he came to power. The Marshall Plan It is often said that the debacle of the Versailles settlement thus led directly to Second World War. But once that war was over, with Germany having lost again, the lesson of Versailles was finally heeded. Instead of punishing the Germans, the victorious Western allies decided to help them get back on their feet again. Not all German's are wedded to austerity, it seems. Supporters of the Germany's Left party (Die Linke) protest in solidarity with Greece outside the finance ministry in Berlin on Thursday. (Reuters) Not all Germans, of course, because by that time the country was divided between the Soviet satrapy of Communist East Germany and the budding democracy of West Germany. The Cold War was on, and the allies wanted to make sure that Western Europe didn't succumb to Joseph Stalin, as it had a decade earlier to Hitler and his collaborators. The problem, though, was that Western Europe lay in ruins and its people were starving. There was only one possible rescuer — the U.S. The Americans had the money to help. They also had a motive: Having been entangled in Europe's wars twice, they were eager not to have their soldiers fight another war across the Atlantic. The solution was to provide the Europeans with billions in U.S. government credit to rebuild their countries, not an easy political task. That it happened was due to a remarkable man: Gen. George C. Marshall, America's top soldier during the war and a secretary of state after it. He persuaded President Harry Truman that all of Europe would turn Communist unless Washington helped. In 1947, the U.S. Congress voted $13 billion in aid to the Europeans, a massive sum at the time. A British politician of the day called it "a lifeline to sinking men." Greece is owed, too The Germans got $1.45 billion of that money. They were also allowed to put off paying, and indeed never did fully repay, the money they already owed to other Europeans as well as the Americans. Taken alongside the default after WWI, this makes Germany the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century, says Ritschl. Of course, for all the Marshall Plan largesse, Germany deserves credit for the skills and discipline its people showed, which enabled it to recover — in what came to be called an economic miracle — faster than its neighbours. As for the money they owed, in 2010 the Germans made a last payment of 69.9 million euros to settle all their debts from both world wars. That settlement, though, was more symbolic than real as the original debt was repeatedly reduced over the decades. In addition, and of particular relevance to the political drama surrounding the current crisis, is that, according to the Greeks, Germany never repaid Greece the equivalent of 476 million reichmarks for an interest-free loan that Nazi Germany forced on them during the Second World War. The Germans argue the loan was covered by the negotiated lump sum they paid the Greeks for the war damage they inflicted on them. But add in the ancient Greek antiquities that the Nazis stole from Greece, and the total tally owed by Germany to Greece comes to a lot more. This situation, like so many others like it, symbolizes the murkiness of debt repayment between nations caught up in wars. What is clear, though, is that by deferring payments and whittling away at them, countries can buy the time that allows them to fulfill their obligations more easily. It worked for the Germans then. And it would almost surely work for the Greeks if they were given the same chance now. (TT disclaimer - I don't necessarily agree with all of this, but it's an interesting read)
where did I not go into details with the following? I even specified the week in which it happened, and I posted a video of the very same press conference: they did not burn bridges when Dijsselbloem was sitting right next to Varoufakis and Varoufakis told Dijsselbloem and the Troika literally to "fuck off"? Varoufakis did not burn bridges in Berlin last week when he told Scheuble that "we did not even agree to disagree", and he did not burn bridges when he travelled each European capital and basically said "we will not continue with any bailout anymore, your money is lost that is a given, but hey, give us some bridge loan". You know the perfect response came from Dijsselbloem last week when he said "WE DONT DO BRIDGE LOANS". You are completely lost in translation if you are honestly believing that Greeks are currently not burning bridges.
If Greeks and theirchampions keep on insisting with their postwars comparisons, maybe we should just bomb Greece into oblivion and restructure the debt afterwards, just to help their point...