Yup. If you aren't like Germany you aren't ''competitive'' enough, thus austerity measures and a plethora of never ending criticisms and ''suggestions'' (usually you need to privatize more and sell your things off) from Brussels. It's impossible for any country to become the next Germany though.
If they can't pay back half the debt, then partial forgiveness does nothing. And as such it's not even worth doing it, because next they want all the rest of it forgiven too, so they can party some more debt up, and we're back to square one despite forgiving all of it once.
Stupid thread is stupid, please close.
can you explain that more than in one hate sentence ?
please use this map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...y_average_wage in your arguments.
I've been able to figure just fine, that after all those money packages sent their way, nothing has improved. Maybe their corrupt politicians should think of fixing things with said money, to then be able to pay back loans. But no, they want to extend the unsustainable lifestyle they've grown accustomed to instead. Every chance they get.
And you think they won't continue down the very same line if you magically wipe all their debt away? I guess it's the evil EU who made them that corrupt or something? Nevermind that they in all their noncorrupt honesty totally didn't doctor the books to be able to join EU in the first place.
Or how about they just get on with paying the debts, without the neverending excuses.
Oh, it's that thread. Unlike often assumed, Germans don't run around with big knives and small guns forcing foreigners to buy German shit. Both the decision to buy and the decision to sell is voluntary, often made by people who are not completely braindead. The premise, that some invisible, benevolent hand forcing either side to do otherwise will increase the common good, is at least questionable.
But they certainly make one good point. German infrastructure is - indeed - crap. Investing in roads, schools, prisons (with all the rabid leftists and recent non-european immigrants doing their thing the most urgent) is overdue. It will have a small impact on the trade surplus, but the assumption that all those schools will be painted by uzbek painters using mexican brushes and angolan paint is a tad farfetched.
In the end, it all comes down to the Euro. There have been significant trade surplusses in the past, but a D-Mark strengthening vs other EU currencies always tended to balance it out. As mentioned before in this thread with Reunification, France blackmailed Germany into giving up the Mark. With that vent gone, some labour reforms in Germany under Schröder and the Euro vs Dollar performing much worse than Mark vs Dollar used to, it all escalated quickly.
But after endless rounds of negotiation and blackmail, Greece already pays one of the lowest average interest quotas in Europe: 2.5%. Lower than Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal.
Germans tend to buy German so do the Japanese. It's nationalism in the market place. American's are less patriotic and will buy whatever.
And the few companies we have that are competitive in the EU, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, the EU makes up some spiteful law based solely on getting votes to punish these companies. I don't get it.
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"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."
-- Capt. Copeland
At least they have a federal minimum wage now..Underlying Germany’s surplus is a decades-old accord between business and unions in favour of wage restraint to keep export industries competitive (see article).
It is a funny complaint though. In other places the right to fire people on a whim is guaranteed by law so if a random industrial worker thinks of joining a union or asking for more in wage you can just fire them (i think it is jokingly called right to work) I bet the economist would be fine with that.
For pretty obvious reasons too. While I support currency sovereignty, I only support it if its actually beneficial to a nation. Clearly the Euro is a better deal for Germany than otherwise.
I'm not really sure I understand the difference, but then I'm learned in political theory, not economic theory so my economics knowledge is sort of fuzzy on specific names and styles.Yes and that's neoclassical thinking. Neoliberalism is somewhat similar but not the same.
Really? I'm surprised I'd give anyone that idea. I support globalization to the point that interconnectedness does work at keeping people from going to war with each other. I don't support that via "win-win neoliberalism" and "free trade", both of which I find only effective between nations of similar economic development, ethics and social structure. Everyone else gets "fair trade".
I'm well aware of that. But Greece didn't need Germany's permission to go back to using its own currency, all it needed to do was leave the EU. The EU needs to understand that like the USA, under a Federal currency system, some states will always be takers and some states will always be givers. The EU is in part struggling because it can't accept this and expects everyone to be givers. The EU must either accept that the international economic, political and social leverage brought about by being "one nation" is more valuable than every member being a giver, or they must reevaluate their unification goals.
Germany actually gets this (in part because it's totally benefitting from the current arrangement) which is why via the EU, they have been subsidizing other countries. The problem is they're still treating that like loans and debt to those nations, which you can't do if you want to be "one nation" because that debt and its repayment will just crush their economies because they'll never not be debtors.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.
I don't think you understand how money and loans work. The people who lent the money knew exactly what will happen. When I say Greece can't repay their debt I mean it. Everyone who lent them the money knows it. This isn't a simple case of them just ''having to pay back and stop being lazy/wasteful''.
https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2017/...petual-crisis/
I'm not trying to excuse corrupt government officials, I am thinking about how not to throw the people of Greece completely under the bus. In the same way when I say ''Germany'' and ''EU'' I don't mean the people but the government officials and financiers.
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Good post, I agree. However I do think Greece had very little choice in the matter of leaving EU or dropping the Euro.
That parallel universe of yours; is there kinky stuff as well? And no, in this reality Americans are not less patriotic than Germans; never thought I'd ever need to spell that out. In less than one year in the states, I've seen way more 'buy American' advertising than 'buy German' in decades living in Germany.
Microsoft and Google both have monopolies and are not squeamish about securing them. Facebook blatently lied to EU trade and market commissioners during the 'whatsapp' takeover. It cost them a mere 110 million Euro, which is a joke. Apple virtually pays no taxes in Europe. I don't like the EU and many of their regulations, but they didn't hit any innocents here.
There is a clear imbalance concerning banking regulations. Deutsche Bank had to pay billions in the US - quite possibly deservedly. On the other hand Goldman Sachs was instrumental in helping Greece cook the books for Euro entry. What happened? Nothing. EU should have crushed them.
What I (probably unlike 95% of europeans) find problematic are the measures against genetically modified food and seeds. Those hit US companies as well and they are not necessarily on solid scientific ground. If unsure, just mark the products as genetically modified and let the consumer decide.
But in the end, those are EU decisions, not german ones and I doubt they contribute in a relevant way to the trade surplus.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.