You realise the troika had predicted growth with the implementation of their measures?
I’m not debating that really, just pointing out when people say “Austerity caused a 25% drop in GDP” it is a falsehood. Greece had massive structural and regulatory problems that once they were faced up to were always going to cause a huge correction across the economy.
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Were Greece not running a surplus for the past couple of years, right up until Syriza got elected?
That’s fair enough and recognised by everyone. The question was how to address it. The austerity enthusiasts said austerity would cure Greece, instead it made everything worse. They now want to fix the further destruction they’ve wrought with more austerity.
You couldn’t make it up!
The bailout required them to.
No it’s not, people are saying its solely down to austerity which is as misleading as saying this is all the feckless Greek’s fault!
Agreed. The degree of poverty inflicted in the last three years is down to austerity though. The galling part is that the troika takes no responsibility for this and Germany reckons more austerity will do the trick.
This is equally if not more the feckless banks fault.
They lent to the feckless Greeks, knowing their economy was a pile of garbage.
If you have someone who can’t repay their debts you don’t give them a credit card*
If that someone then shock horror comes out with their hands up and says eh ya we can’t pay that back obviously, you can’t be surprised.
So you have private institutions that lent wrecklessly and a country that borrowed wrecklessly. Presumably between the two of them they’ll have to meet in the middle, stretch out repayments, write off unsustainable debt etc?
No. The ECB sides with the banks, who take some cuts before skipping away into the sunshine and away from the mess. The Greeks are forced to pay more to their private creditors than they can realistically afford as the Troika (see Germany/Deutsche Bank et al) have stepped into negotiations to protect the BANKS! Think about that for a second they bail out the private institutions without getting anything from them in return, no equity, no penalties to be repaid at a future date nothing. The Banks don’t take the write down they should have for their stupidity and instead are encouraged to further stupidity in the future with the assurances that they will be bailed out if it goes wrong. In a straight shoot out between a private corporation and European tax payers they picked the fucking Banks. Were the banks forced to cut their cloth to measure after this? Were they put through draconian austerity, did their lifestyles suffer? Did they fuck.
Now instead of negotiating with their original creditors, the Greeks are in Hoc to Ze Germans.
They are forced to negotiate with Merkel (who died and made her President or Europe?) etc who, having had no problem bailing out bankers, now want their ounce of flesh from the Greeks. The Germans have much more leverage over Greece (being Kings of the EU) and are now able to screw the Greeks to the wall, in a way their Bank creditors never could (Deutsche Bank couldn’t force them to exit the Eurozone like the Germans can etc).
Public opinion loathes the feckless Greeks for their wanton spending, supported by constant media portrals of their Tax evasion, huge Public Sector and generous working hours etc.
How dare they live a life of luxury on German tax payers money**.
Meanwhile the public never bats an eyelid at the Bankers who lent them all the money and were bailed out and continue to pay themselves hugely inflated salaries, retire early, avoid tax etc, etc. and were bailed out by German tax payers money.
Of course as a “coup de gras” the chief beneficiary of all this Euro weakness are the Germans themselves.
*Well actually this is exactly what banks do.
**Of course they didn’t borrow German tax payers money. The German tax payer jumped in to save their banks.
This would all sound like a bizarre conspiracy, if it weren’t entirely 100% true.
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I’m pretty sure the banks who lent to Greece all had rigorous credit approval processes.
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Julio rated this post agree
Excellent post Julio.
This.
Like. Winner. Informative.
It sounds like catch 22 for economics.
The combination of the financial crash and austerity cased the massive drop in GDP, actually -33% from the peak in 2007 to the trough in 2014. The only period where Greece were fudging their debt numbers was 1999 to 2001 when they were seeking entry into the Eurozone. It was a great move for them at the time as they were able to borrow at low interest rates (3% compared to the 10% they had been paying). Their economy ballooned from 2001 to 2007, a 100% surge in GDP, driven by cheap money, not that dissimilar to Spain, Italy, Ireland etc. but more pronounced.The point is that while most countries contracted in 2008 by about 1 to 2%, every other country was back to flat or growing again by 2009. Greece is the exception and the contraction just kept going due to the austerity measures.
There is nothing new here in terms of Greece. They invented banking 3,000 years ago so they know how to game it. They have been borrowing and defaulting since then, many, many times in the last 200 years alone. Its not in their nature to pay back debt, no matter how loud the Germans shout. They really don’t care, I saw a lad being interviwed this morning and he basically said “we’ll be fine, whether its the Euro, the drachma or feta”.
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The Greeks are tough. The auld ones there have lived through German occupation, military dictatorships etc. They do their own thing.
Anybody else see no paragraphs and skip over posts in this thread but if it was a championship related thread you would make the effort to read it
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no. 
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I’'ll say it again lads, no matter what happens there will never be a Greek exit from the Euro. The real power brokers in Europe will not let that happen, it’s clear as day democracy means fuck all to these cunts.
Saying that, what’s happening over in China is nuts altogether. Put’s the whole Greek fiasco globally into perspective really by the sheer scale of it.
So what’s the deal with this new Greek proposal? I’ve seen plenty of references to it being big on austerity in exchange for some small debt relief but not much in the way of details on the debt relief side of things. Is it a token gesture or is it substantially different from the last deal offered?
Are you going to bail out your pal Samaras Rocko?
I’m Turkish mate. We don’t care for the Greeks very much.
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