I'm brushing up on my German - they are taking over Europe as we knew it ! EIN ZWEI EIN ZWEI EIN ZWEI Heil Frau Frumpy
Huge mistake letting foreign companies take over national companies. It keeps happening in Britain too !! But the politicians just can't learn that lesson. For instance Cadburys, the multinational even promised not to asset strip it but within months factories were closed. Steel, football clubs etc. etc. Keep one's sovereignty and dignity or become economic slaves eventually imho. Make sure one's politicians don't sell-out to the competition and lose jobs etc. They aren't interested in the companies that need saving, oh no, only the best companies are bought and then stripped usually !
Selectively presenting "facts" to support a one-sided viewpoint is an example of having a bias. Everything wrong with Greece is everyone elses fault - yea, good story, stick with that.
Where money is king and greed is good - politicians just don't seem able to resist buckets of dough !
The political class in Greece conflated the idea of income and debt and treated both as revenue. That worked so long as new debt was forthcoming. Now, that new debt is not forthcoming the political class is forced to confront a basic truth, and this is the key to Greek future prospects. That truth is that income is different from debt. You cannot repay debt with debt; it requires income. The present schemes really do not fully grasp this basic truth as they are all schemes to pay debt with debt and the pretense is that the income to pay the old debt and the new debt will come from 'austerity.' The hard realization that must be admitted before Greece can move on is that reduced spending is not 'income' either. 'Austerity' is not a substitute for growth; it is a failure to grow. 'Austerity' is not income; it is a failure to produce income. So, you can't pay debt with 'austerity' either. This leaves Greece with only one solution. It has to create a plan to grow and then it can pay only so much debt as the growth plan will allow...the rest has to be written off; it cannot be paid. This is a difficult position becuase they will have to go through a transition with no functioning currency. They have few basic industries that are poised for growth. Tourism has never been a path to success and the failure of the currency and related social unrest will contract tourism before low prices will allow it to come back. Nonetheless, there is an inevitabilty that default will occur and credit will contract making the economy shrink to a clearing point before it can grow again.
1. Greece agreed to take the euro as they also benefited from a stable currency. 2. The fact that Greek businesses (and government) are ran so badly, is not the fault of the Germans. 3. The Greeks elected the same politicians who made these decisions and here we are now. They aren't victims as you portray them. You must be Greek to mention some ridiculous "half a trillion dollars", a number taken from air and having no meaning whatsoever. How many trillions does the US with allies owe to Iraq and Afghanistan then?
Greece... the PIIGS... America... it's all a circle jerk. Debt financing should be for EMERGENCIES... like WWII... or VITAL ESSENTIALS... like building the power grid, interstate highway system. Living on "debt to support consumption for political favor" is immoral and corrupt. Can't we all learn from our mistakes... from history... and live within our means? Of course we won't ever be able to alter our present course... only a BLOODY REVOLUTION will change that... Can't we be half-intelligent and learn from history? Or does GREED overwhelm us regardless of intellect? (That is, we're really just "stupid, greedy little FUCKS who can't help ourselves")? Greece's token "austerity" is just a band-aid... once they burn through the borrowed sums and guarantees, we'll be having this crisis all over again. The ONLY solution is to wean the "parasites off of the tit"... so to speak. Not likely to happen without a revolution, IMV.
Interesting article: "Does Germany Owe Greece $95 Billion from WW II?" http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2093990,00.html
The greeks came into Europe with a bunch of lies in 2001. Now they say: Hey, we had to lie because otherwise it would be impossible to join the EU. I hope they all starve over there. I have zero respect for a bunch of people avoiding taxes like hell, lying and cheating in every way possible and then expecting the other countries in the EU to bail them out. Forget about them, they are meaningless in Europe. Let's kick them out and just forget about them. I went there on travel once, never going back again. The seawater is cold and the wind to fast ;-) also, greek women have strange legs. I know it sounds weird but like every greek women I looked at her legs, they all had these messed up legs.
Reminds me of another country in Middle East which has been basically built up by German reparation funding, the major ally of US nowadays. Should Germany forced to pay, how many trillions should the Soviet Union or rather its legal descendant Russia pay? Katyn, Budapest. Let's not forget the complete nationalization of all private property, much of which was destroyed. Huge numbers of people sent to Siberia to freeze to death. How much should the US pay for attacking civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Attack on Pearl Harbor was directed at military targets, so it was clearly unjust retaliation from the US. I could bring many more examples but I guess I've made my point.