Hypocritical Germans refuse to aid the countries that aided them

[Antonio the Sixth]

Tell me, dear Very Serious People, how has austerity helped Greece enact structural reforms? Unless slashing the minimum wage and stopping to provide basic social services is what you mean by "structural reforms".

[Antonio the Sixth]

Tell me, dear Very Serious People, how has austerity helped Greece enact structural reforms? Unless slashing the minimum wage and stopping to provide basic social services is what you mean by "structural reforms".

So let's say that Greece just get the money, what happens then, dear very unserious person? Have Greece given any kind of indication that they will make any kind of structural reforms, have they given any indication that we can trust their promises?

I would certainly trust Syriza more than the old parties to crack down on tax evasion and curtail the privileges of protected categories, yes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Who's we?  You and the turd in your pocket?

Im sure the Greeks are happy to know that random Danes are doing their moral duty and ensuring they don't get a single penny until they've completely and utterly dis/daned them and let them know that they think Greeks are dhildren that must be dealt with like children.

Is this a unique attitude to you Ingemann or is it a common viewpoint in that least of Scandinavian nations?

Why do you have to get snarky about his nationality? ("dis/daned" ). It is not a matter of nationality.

And Denmark is not the least of the Scandinavian nations. It is the largest by territory and the second largest by population and GDP.

You're right, it's not a Scandinavian thing. All the North European countries (even France, to some degree) have the same smug attitude and feel entitled to educate those lazy southerners about how to best manage their economy.

[Antonio the Sixth]

LOL ingemann. You seem determined to deny any grace period to the new government! Do you really think that the EU taxpayers and the Greek public (this one paying a high price, in terms of humanitarian catastrophe) have been funding Greece? Ah, the Serious People

It's not like northern countries even lost money by "helping" Greece. They've been lending this money with rates higher than what they pay for their own government bond, so they are actually profiting from this whole situation. Unless Greece defaults, obviously. What they don't realize is that austerity is increasing the probability of a Greek default, not reducing it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So take the ideological glasses off.

That's funny considering you're the one who's in favor of continuing a policy that has clearly been a complete and utter failure by every measure for everyone involved.

You're right, it's not a Scandinavian thing. All the North European countries (even France, to some degree) have the same smug attitude and feel entitled to educate those lazy southerners about how to best manage their economy.

Well, considering the economic state the north and south find themselves in, a certain smugness is not necessarily uncalled for.

Following your logic, wealthy people are entitled to be smug towards poor people. How progressive!

[Antonio the Sixth]

You're right, it's not a Scandinavian thing. All the North European countries (even France, to some degree) have the same smug attitude and feel entitled to educate those lazy southerners about how to best manage their economy.

Well that is because those countries are actually able to manage their economies...

The problem with the anti-austerity camp is that so far I've never seen anyone of you present any options to the current policy. Do you want to keep pouring money into Greece indefinably with-out any sort of counter requirements?

That is like giving money to someone who has gambled away all their money in Vegas, that will just gamble away the money once you give it to them. It's not social justice, it's idiocy.

It's not that we shouldn't help those who are in a weaker position economically than we are, indeed I believe strongly that we must help them. But the help should be in order to reconstruct them, so that they eventually can stand on their own feet, and in order for that to happen they must do what they themselves are able to do to achieve that goal. It's all really simple, and can be applied to individual citizens, as well as countries.

This is all well and good, but you still have to explain how austerity has helped Greece "reconstruct itself, so that it can eventually stand on its own feet". In fact, it has achieved the exact opposite! Even Greek debt is bigger now than when the crisis began!

So I'm not an economist and I can't tell for sure which policies are going to work in solving Greece's economic problems (although cracking down on corruption and tax evasion, which is what Tsipras has vowed to do, certainly can help a lot), but anyone can easily tell which policies haven't worked.

You guys are hilarious, trying to defend failed policies through strawmen of other policies nobody has argued for.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is all well and good, but you still have to explain how austerity has helped Greece "reconstruct itself, so that it can eventually stand on its own feet". In fact, it has achieved the exact opposite! Even Greek debt is bigger now than when the crisis began!

So I'm not an economist and I can't tell for sure which policies are going to work in solving Greece's economic problems (although cracking down on corruption and tax evasion, which is what Tsipras has vowed to do, certainly can help a lot), but anyone can easily tell which policies haven't worked.

You guys are hilarious, trying to defend failed policies through strawmen of other policies nobody has argued for.

Now who is using strawmen? I'm certainly not defending Samaras or his policies, or holding him up as an example to be followed, and I don't really see anyone else doing so either. It is clear that tax evasion and corruption are two big issues that need to be handled for Greece to get back up. Obviously you have to have an income. If you collect no money it doesn't really matter how much you cut your spending, we all now that. New Democracy's failure to tackle those problems is a failure indeed, and I don't mourn their passing one bit.

I do hope that Tsipras will follow through and try his best to accomplish something on both tax evasion and corruption. But what if he doesn't? What if his government just raises the spending limit and don't actually do something to collect more revenue? Do you still think they should be handed money unconditionally? That is the central question. The Greek state will never reform, if they know that they can just carry on as always and just get saved by Northern Europe. The money they get need to be conditioned.   

You see I don't like austerity because I believe the Greeks need to be punished, or because I think it is a useful lesson for them. But what I do believe, and what I feel very strongly in my gut, is that you don't get to spend money you don't have, and then expect someone else to come and pick up the tab for you. That is why there is a need both to curve spending and to raise income by collecting tax revenue. If that is your goal, people should help you get there, but not if you intend to sail by.

Gut feelings don't make for sound policy, though. And yes, if the alternative is between spending money you don't have and depriving your citizens of the most basic services, cutting their wages to 3rd world levels and letting them sink into absolute destitution, the first option is preferable. Besides the fact that austerity is inhumane, it doesn't even work for the narrow goal that has always been set for it, as it ends up causing a depression that makes the debt even worse. To cling to this idea just because your guts tell you it's right is not only immoral, it's stupid even by a strictly economic standpoint.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Gut feelings don't make for sound policy, though. And yes, if the alternative is between spending money you don't have and depriving your citizens of the most basic services, cutting their wages to 3rd world levels and letting them sink into absolute destitution, the first option is preferable. Besides the fact that austerity is inhumane, it doesn't even work for the narrow goal that has always been set for it, as it ends up causing a depression that makes the debt even worse. To cling to this idea just because your guts tell you it's right is not only immoral, it's stupid even by a strictly economic standpoint.

What exactly is morality if not gut feelings, Antonio? Is there a scientific calculation for what counts as good moral? I fail to see how one gut feeling is more correct than another.

My point still stands true. The anti-austerity crowd on here can't present a single option except to keep giving money to them, and hope they do the right thing. Then what? Call that a strawman if you want, but then also present what your alternative line of action is.

If a government can be as populist as it pleases, promising everything to everyone without considering if they can actually afford it, and be allowed to run the country into the ground with-out any consequences, because someone will always be there to bail you out, eventually there will be no one left who can bail out, and we will all  eventually sink into absolute destitution.

Thankfully over thousands of years humanity has been able to conceive moral principles slightly more articulate and sound than those based on gut feelings. It's a shame you appear to be stuck in this primary state. OK, that was needlessly harsh and uncalled for, I apologize for the tone. I still dispute the notion that morality=gut feeling, but there were nicer ways to put it. Sorry.

I don't need to present a fully fleshed alternative (though many brilliant economists have, SWL is right that you should check out Piketty), because austerity is objectively worse than any of the conceivable alternatives from any perspective. Since you seem so concerned about Greece reforming itself, you should be the one coming up with a reasonable solution to achieve this goal. Because austerity hasn't achieved that outcome.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I hope you're aware that you just threw in the trash millennia of philosophical reflection on morality. Of course that doesn't mean everybody thinks about Kant or Rawls when deciding if something is right of wrong, but forging solid moral principles requires more than "trusting your guts" and I, for one, like to think that I'm trying harder than that.

I'm glad that you have a legitimate option to offer to Greece (unlike austerity which, again, has been tried and epically failed). It wouldn't be my favorite outcome, but it's certainly preferable to continuing the current set of policies. My solution, as you might imagine, involves mutualizing the interest rates across countries (while keeping the debts separate... so don't worry, you won't have to pay for those damn lazy southerners) and having an ECB that actually does its job and pursues expansive monetary policies. Also, delaying the reimbursement of Greek debts might also be necessary.

[Antonio the Sixth]

To put this in perspective, in the US, which has a functioning internal labour market, little welfare, much more homogeneity economically AND a common language and culture, the richer states still pay roughly the equivalent of the largest Greek bailout from Germany. Every year. As a constant state of affairs, more or less. That's what monetary union is. Once people realize this they might also realize how ridiculous it is to try and sustain this nonsense.

So you also support disbanding the US?