Hypocritical Germans refuse to aid the countries that aided them

[Velasco]

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

[Velasco]

I do believe that Syriza could be a breath of fresh air when it comes to dealing with tax evasion and other endemic Greek problems. I just doubt their primary economic programs that can be boiled down to "let's throw money at it" will do a better job of getting Greece out of this mess than austerity (which Greece did a pitiful job of implementing).

Obviously Samaras was unwilling to address issues like tax evasion or endemic corruption; it's good that you admit that the new government has at least the intent. However, Greece has been running a primary surplus which has been handed on creditors, so... was really the previous administration so bad in implementing austerity? Also, is there any historical precedent proving that austerity works? What debt ratios and socioeconomic indicators say?

[Velasco]

Well, according to the current Greek finmin that (2013) surplus wasn't much of a surplus after all...

Good. Very useful link, thanks. Here we have a good argument not only to distrust the Samaras administration, but the very European institutions. I guess you do realise that in the whole issue of the Greek bailout and the austerity we seem to be living in a great lie. However, don't lose sight on the basic fact: while huge amounts of money have been spent in paying interests to creditors (which are the ones who the bailout has been financing, including German banks), Greece is facing a huge depression, unemployment increased from 9% in 2009 to 28% now and the country is in a state of social emergency. Why? You claim that it's because austerity policies should have been better implemented. However, other people challenge that argument:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/paul-krugman-ending-greeces-nightmare.html

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[Velasco]

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?

Do you mean people on this forum? There are competent and more skilled people out there proposing other alternatives. Another question is that you can agree or not with one proposal or another. Personally, I don't believe that the solution is pouring money indefinitely in exchange for nothing. Varoufakis seems to be in the same opinion, since he says that Greece doesn't need more "doses of dope" (loans) to pronlong its agony. My impression is that he is saying that Greece needs some air to breathe, as well as he's willing to undertake reforms in his country. On the other hand, it's easy to check (even for non-experts) that austerity has been extremely costly (both socially and economically), aside an utter failure.

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.

I couldn't agree more. The question is that austerity isn't helping Greece to reconstruct itself, but deepening the devastation. That's the reason why other policies are needed. Which policies would be better are, of course, a matter of debate.

(Well, this is more or less what Antonio already said).