looks like Tsipras has folded

[ingemann]

I've said it before: Greece needs a badass Dom Mintoff figure to run around allying and double-crossing everyone in sight for the benefit of his country. If you're going to play nationalism, you might as well do it right.

The Greek problem are that no one are willing or can afford to give them what EU gives them, and here I'm not thinking about loans and the Euro, but just things like annual transfers of EU funds (to development) or the Schengen Agrement. They can try play the Russians against EU, but Russia can't really afford Greece, and Russia, EU and Greece all know this. That limits the Greek ability to doublecross anybody. It's the same problem Russia have in Ukraine, what EU offer (access to European markets, development help, development of civil society and last of all EU membership) will to any time be better for the population than the Russian bribes, which are why Russia need to keep its clients in place with military force and cheap raw materials.

[ingemann]

I mean, feel free to party, Austerians.  looks like you won.  I won't think the less of you.

Why should they party? They knew they was going to win from the start. I think instead we all should congratulate the Greeks for finally deciding to limit the damage to Greece.

[ingemann]

I mean, feel free to party, Austerians.  looks like you won.  I won't think the less of you.

Why should they party? They knew they was going to win from the start. I think instead we all should congratulate the Greeks for finally deciding to limit the damage to Greece.

no they did not.  some of them may be so enured to the idea that their sh**t stinks that they think they can never lose, that finance capital will endure forever -- it won't.

post-Oxi, the Syriza "Left Platform" drew up a Grexit plan which would have made some aggressive changes to the structure of the state -- nationalizing banks, for instance.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-euro-debt-default-grexit/


fast forward to 2018: the Hellenic Republic has its hands long washed of the Euro and Syriza maintains *popular support.  movements spring up in Spain, Italy in attempt to do the same maneuver.  

there's hardly any guarantee that would have been successful, but it might have been.  unfortunately, Syriza's leadership (from Tsipras to Yanis to Euclid) would never consider it.  they don't have Lenin's set of balls, let's just say.

today, most "left platform" MPs are voting for perpetual debt peonage.  one of them even fcking cried on TV.

Sad that it wasn't the banks Syriza fought against but 18 other EU countries, where Greece only threat was that they could create a new financial crisis by taking their creditors down with them. Of course most of the debt had more or less been taken over by those 18 countries plus ECB and IMF, and Greece was and is not able to take them down with them, which everyone with a brain knew except for a bunch of newly elected amateur politicians in Greece and their pet narcissistic economist. The old Greek government knew it, which was why they didn't take this battle.

[ingemann]

Of all the absurd suggestions so far "five year sabbatical" is the most ridiculous.

If Greece is out, it's hard to see how it can get back 'in'.

Yes I agree.

[ingemann]

A) They just put forward a proposal that was everything the creditors had been asking for and more, and yet the response is still just "kick you out!  We don't care about the human consequences!"

That was then, this is now.

The Greeks took a risk with the referendum, and their creditors seem to have lost trust in them as negotiation partners, plus the referendum showed that the markets reacted very little to the threat of a Grexit.This means that at best the creditor's price have gone up and at worst, their creditors have no longer a wish to reach a agrement.

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...and what do the creditors get out of the Greeks keep their economy going by loaning more money abroad and write off the existing debt? What you suggest won't make Greece able to pay off its debt, you just suggest that the rest of EZ keep sending money to Greece and write of the money they have sent.

[ingemann]

The only way Greece pays off most of its debt is that we forgive a share of it. That's what I don't get. Either you get some of your money back, or you get absolutely nothing because Greece defaults. So if Germany really wanted its money back, they should do the sensible thing and negotiate a restructuring.

But that's not what they want. They want to make an example of Greece, in order to scare bigger countries like Spain and Italy into complying to their absurd, failed economic and monetary policies. They are literally trying to convince all Europeans that, as Ol' Maggie said, there is no alternative.

Greece got a very large write off in 2013. Greece pay  2,6 %of their GDP in interests, significant lower Spain (3+%), Ireland (4%+), Italy (4,6+) or Portugal (around 5%). Even if we cut the Greek debt in half, we will be in these negotiation again next year, when they ask for a new write off, and they haven't kept any of their promises again.

The money are lost no matter what, so why send moregood money are bad ones?

[ingemann]

Greece have unable to pay its debts, because it have a budget deficit, not because of austerity. Your policy suggestion this entire time have been that Greece should increase this deficit. There's nothing in your suggestion which lead to Greece being able to pay off it debt, only increasing it.

In the old day Greece could have grown out of it with population growth in which case new loans wouldn't be the worst idea, but Greece have a shrinking workforce, thanks to their low birth rate, low pension age and demographic transition.

[ingemann]

Actually, Greece currently has a primary surplus.

Not really, they was on the way to a primary surplus, until the the last Greek government tried to bribe the population to reelect them and the common Greeks stopped paying tax before last election.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/02/16/greece-still-has-a-vast-problem-it-doesnt-have-a-primary-budget-surplus/

But it's the Slovaks who's a bunch of pricks because, they don't want to pay to pay to the Greeks, so they don't need to pay tax.

Also Greece barely pay more in interest than France or Germany as part of GDP and they still aren't able to produce a real surplus.

[ingemann]

If you have a working class job (however defined) chances are you don't work Saturdays - which is why Saturday was traditionally the biggest day of the week for shopping in Britain - and if you do work Saturdays (i.e. if you're in retail) then you'll have a weekday off. Historically it was also the case the grocers sold a lot of their wares via delivery vans and in recent decades supermarkets are obviously open longer than normal work hours on weekdays...

Only if you defines a working class job as a job in manufacturing, yes that's how working class was traditional defined. But in the West vastly more "working class" people work and earn less in service jobs rather than in manufacturing jobs. This means that a lot of people work saturday and sunday and those people who are in the lower categories of earners.
 

[ingemann]

1. Persuade the German voters, and you will get it.

See, that's frustrating, because if the their position is (in the formal sense) rational, and certainly not bad for them, it's hard to see how one would make them care that it's so bad for other people. It's not possible to persuade people whose understanding of what's to be valued and what's at stake is so radically and fundamentally different from one's own understanding. Especially if one believes that their position is gravely morally wrong and would have difficulty maintaining any discourse about it for long without getting very, very angry.

Okay

Let's start with this. Have you send several thousands dollars to Greece personal? I don't blame you if you haven't and find you something of a idiot if you have. The German taxpayers doesn't want to send their money for the same reason, they have better things to use them on.

It doesn't help that the Greeks themselves seem to have better things to use their money on, than helping the Greek state or poor Greeks. So why should the Germans care more for the Greek economy or poor Greeks than the Greeks themselves do?

Also the last seven year the Germans have heard a lot of comments about them being a bunch of "Nazi pigs", for some reason that kind of rhetoric tend to be somewhat counter productive, it absolute didn't help, when this changed from pictures and slogans at demonstations, to a new government adopting more diplomatic versions of the same language.

At last the whole Syriza governments negotiation tactic have burned a lot of goodwill, and the German fear to do anything which look like a reward of that kind of negotiation tactic. This is in fact a bigger problem than all the other I have mentioned. Germans may or may not feel sorry for the Greeks. But it would have long term consequences for future negotiation for Germany, if anybody saw the Greek negotiation tactic as a viable option in negotiations with Germany. That's something Germany can't afford as a state. The pure realpolitik is that Germany have to take a much harder stance against Greece, than they had to do, if Greece had chosen a less poisonous negotiation tactic.

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I know that, but are you willing to claim that it's not a panacea therefore it shouldn't be done? You were making the exact opposite point about the goal of enhancing Greece's 'competitiveness' in the other thread.[/quote]

The debt doesn't really matter right now, Greece interests on it (the next ten years) are no higher than if Greece had a debt of 50-60%, because the interest are low and Greece doesn't begin to pay off the debt itself before sometime in the 2020ties. Removing the debt would have little other results than enable Greece to borrow again. That's not in the creditors interests, it's not in the EU or EZ's interests and it's not in the long term interest of Greece as a state.

Greece need to either begin to collect taxes (my prefered option) or lower the Greek budget until it's around the revenues they do collect. In the seven years since the financial crisis, they have not done anything to improve the collection of taxes, in fact they have active said no in help to improve their taxation system, what's even worse is that while we all thought that corruption was the main problem in tax collection, but there's some indication that incompetence are just as big problem. This sadly leave cuts as the only viable option, short of leaving the Euro (which I personal think Syriza should have used the last 6 month to work instead of debt forgiveness).

link in Swedish

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/forre-skattechefen-domer-ut-grekiska-skatteverket/?bcsi-ac-90eef810f62c04e8=1FB1E07000000105XJZGbLgUeS8D75MULqv4vr7ukEBgBQAABQEAAFBPCgWgjAAAAAAAAL+UGwA=

translation

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[ingemann]

Ultimately, Germany owes a lot to the Eurozone. It allows them to have a weak currency and boosts their exports. You'd think they'd be interested in making sure it sticks together...

1: It was not Germany which supported the establishment of the Euro, that was a price they had to pay for their reunification.

2: The adoption of the Euro have resulted in a higher GDP growth in south and east Europe plus Ireland, than it have resulted in in Germany.

3: Giving the Greek debt forgiveness are moore dangerous of EZ than not giving them it.

Many countries enjoyed the benfit of the Euro for years (cheap loans and a stable currency), but the movement the price for enjoying those benefit came, suddenly it was up to other to pay the price.

[ingemann]

Ultimately, Germany owes a lot to the Eurozone. It allows them to have a weak currency and boosts their exports. You'd think they'd be interested in making sure it sticks together...

3: Giving the Greek debt forgiveness are moore dangerous of EZ than not giving them it.

When can that be more dangerous, when IMF has repeatedly claimed that that's the only way in which the Greek economy will not collaps entirely?

A complete Greek collapse while unfortunal would have little real effect on EZ. While telling any of the other south European countries that the Greek negotiation tactic was a viable option would be potential devastating. Spain if they adopted the Greek negotiation tactic could fully destroy the EZ, and they would be to big a country to save.

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The size of Greek debt is meaningless, it's how much they pay off on it which matters. Greece pay next to nothing off of their debt and their interests are minimals. As such the large focus on it right now only serve one purpose. To get rid of the debt, so that they don't need to reform and can borrow cheaply again (and the "evil bankers"(tm) would borrow cheaply to them again, if they could see Germany paid off their debt). Of course in the long term Greece need a write off, and everyone know they will get it, when they have reformed.