What to do about Greece?

[Ali]

I can see why a lot of people are ready to blame this crisis on spendthrift, no-account Greeks and venal Greek politicians (and they do exist, of course). But the same centrist consensus in the UK blames our economic woes on benefits scroungers, EU immigrants and lazy, lazy disabled people. I'm not saying that Greece's social problems don't play a role in the debt crisis, or that the situation in Greece isn't more extreme. But, I think looking at the world through the prism of neo-classical economics gives us a perspective dramatically skewed in favour of the very wealthy.

I know this is a simplistic take on the Greek/Eurozone crisis, but I think the Young Turks have something interesting to say about the way debt has been shifted out of the private sector:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7EJsyynpbc

[Snarky]

The blame does not belong to "shiftless" regular Greeks (as has often been reported, Greeks work longer hours than most other Europeans), but clearly Greek politicians and policies bear much (probably most) of the blame here, with the EU "kick the can down the road" approach to problem-solving the other main culprit.

As for the video, there is one huge problem with what he's saying. It's not true. Private creditors did not "get off scot-free" when the EU took on the Greek debt: As Wikipedia says, "all private creditors holding Greek government bonds were required at the same time [May 2010] to sign a deal accepting extended maturities, lower interest rates, and a 53.5% face value loss."

Also, it's not true that they bailed out the banks "for no reason": At the time, the EU was facing a continent-wide crisis, and they were afraid that banks would go under, taking with them fragile economies in a domino effect (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy...). This fear was probably well-founded, and the consequences we've seen in Greece in recent weeks of when the banking system has to be kept on life support demonstrate vividly that you can't just say fuck'em to the bankers, because they provide vital infrastructure.

The bigger issue, that profits are privatized and losses socialized (to an extent), is definitely valid, but that's a problem with "too big to fail", with having such vital infrastructure in private hands. It's a bigger issue with our economic system, not a direct cause of present problems.

The Economist has mostly taken a view of the crisis that I guess you would call neo-classical, but they have a couple of very good blog posts from the last days about the impossible situation both Greece and the EU find themselves in. (They've also now concluded that Grexit is a near-certainty, but they've been wrong in their predictions so many times that it's hard to take them seriously.) There will be no winners here:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/07/greek-crisis-2
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/07/euro-area-crisis

[Ibispi]

I think the biggest mistake Greece made was not in 21st century, nor 20th century. In fact, I think they made mistake in 5th century BC when they fought off the Persian empire.

They should have just surrendered and would have avoided all these troubles with European Union. I mean, there would be no western civilization and we would all live happily in a big empire under one currency. Unfortunately, their politicians did not care about their future generations, and hence they decided to not be conquered by Persians.

[Nikolas]

News in Greece say that there will be a deal, after all...

Obviously I'm not an idiot to enjoy such austerity measures,

BUT

My mother in law spent the last 3 days searching for her (new) cancer medicine, after she had surgery 2 weeks ago!

For that I blame Tsipras and his mother fucking policy of attempting to bully the rest of Europe, ending in an even worst deal, and destroying half (at least) of the economy in Greece (and lest we forget it IS the summer, where Greece generally attempt to rejuvenate).

That, along with the fact that Syriza members have shown some of the worst fascist faces in the recent Greek history (I mean COME ON! Marin Le Pen is supporting Tsipras in the EU parliament?!?!? Get the fuck out of here), is enough for me to want to flee the country.

If the deal comes to pass, I'll just wait a few extra months to prepare my life, kids, scores, business, etc and then... world here I come!



Congratulations Greece. One of your fiercest supporter (I did move out of London in 2008 to come back to Greece, hoping to start a business and bring something back to Greece) is ready to flee! :'(