Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The problem with Greece, nobody is working:

The Krauts got a 50% writedown of their debt (that's creditworthy?) less than a decade after the war they started killed tens of millions of people. In your eyes, they get a pass for that, and the Greeks have to starve because the troika stuffed some unsustainable debt down their throat. I think we have a double standard here.

I'm not saying they should have taken it. They've got a hell of a mess to clean up. Getting out of the Euro could be the first step to cure them of socialism.

You are omitting the first part of the story. After WWI, the Germans were laidened with with a level of war reparations that pushed them down the road to WWII. Repeating that mistake a second time could have been just as bad if not worse the second time around.

I think many of the Greeks with skills have already bailed. At least that's what my college roommate, who is Greek-American and visits Greece frequently, tells me.

I was suggesting if the gov no longer has free Euros to spend, or the ability to obtain much credit, their ability to fund a free shtuff army will be greatly diminished. Or maybe they just print drachmas until they're worthless. I don't pretend to be able to guess what will really happen though.

I didn't omit anything. Debt relief is debt relief. WWI reparations were only around 25% of their outstanding debt at the time. Half was Marshall plan and other post-war loans, not reparations. Debt relief essentially converted those loans to grants, putting them on footing similar to those who fought alongside us, not against us.

I didn't omit anything. Debt relief is debt relief. WWI reparations were only around 25% of their outstanding debt at the time. Half was Marshall plan and other post-war loans, not reparations. Debt relief essentially converted those loans to grants, putting them on footing similar to those who fought alongside us, not against us.

You can't seem to realize the difference between rebuilding Europe after a devastating war and keeping West Germany viable and not letting it become a Soviet puppet state with bailing out Lazy Communists in the modern world.

This isn't apples to oranges. It's olives to goats. There is no similarity at all.

Greece wants what modern Europe has, but they can't get off their socialist/communist duffs to work for it.

No pity here...

And, if you realize it, Greece is a democracy who voted in these communists and wanted free everything from government. Nobody but the Greeks are to blame.

Let me get your point straight. You would let the Soviets pull the Iron Curtain around all of Germany?

[quote=GunReader]

By tying all it's neighbor states into a single currency, Germany eliminated that safety valve, that equalizing mechanism.

Also, the Eurozone demands elimination of all import restrictions. This, too, just gives Germany carte blanche to rape it's neighboring economies.

Greece is like a canoe being towed behind a motorboat, no control and swamping fast.

The problem is there is no equalizing mechanism. They have the common currency and the common market, but no common taxes or budget.

Is Germany building a Volkswagen or Blaupunkt factory in Greece to absorb some of the unemployment and let some of the profits benefit Greece? No!

The Eurozone has been very inequitable to the less industrialized nations of Europe and the strain is finally reaching a breaking point.

And turned them into an ally, and not and adversary in a Third World War.

I take it you've never read Keynes "The Consequences of the Peace", published in 1919.

The Soviets were a real menace back then, or are you old enough to remember that.

My father visited Greece two years ago. It was a mess at that time. Most of the educated government workers were paid every once in a while and were six months behind on getting paid. They liked Americans and sought to help him anyway that they could. A group of Greek retirees helped wheel him up the Acropolis. It was one of his dreams. He spent more than three weeks in Greece and it was his favorite part of Europe for the people. He felt that most of the common people were getting jerked around.

He went to Turkey next and they were not friendly.
The Turks were nasty and anti-American. He fell out of his wheel chair at the Hagia Sophia and the Turks just left him there. He eventually got back in his wheel chair but it wasn't his best experience in Europe.

Germany and the people of Germany also express anti-American sentiment.

It will be an interesting world in 10 years. We have grown soft and complacent.

Sincerely,
Thomas

I'll take your condescension as admission that you've got nothing further to offer at this stage. Got to go now, have to study some Keynes.