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On June 29 2011 23:50 Velr wrote:
This question is maybe stupid but...
Why are you blaming the Banks/Countries that give/gave you Loans so you could afford your way to good social systems, your way to good loans (in the public sector) and the miriads of other stuff while not being serious about collecting taxes, constantly voting for the same incompetent politicians and not your fucking selfs?
Yeah, now the Loans kill you, but it was your friggin stupidity that made these Loans necessary to support Greece as long as it did. At the latest when you joined the Euro someone in your country should have realised whats happening.
But well.. Go on, burn some more cars and do other retarded shit because you spent more money than you earned for decades...
True, but this doesn't answer the question if we should help them or not. If you give your own child some money to buy himself something to eat and it ends up swallowing the actual money...do you decide to let it starve just to "teach him a lesson?"
Of course, Greece messed up big time; but as surprising as it may sound, this has little to nothing to do with the question as to if and how we should help them.
Personally, I think there's no way to avoid a "haircut" to investors/banks, a civilized restructuring. The problem isn't if we can bail out Greece again and again (because, "yes, we can") but that for that to be the right choice there would have to exist some chance that Greece would ever be able to pay the debt back. Current prognoses show otherwise - this means, regardless of bail out packages, Greece will never be able to pay back their debts...which means, at "some point" a debt restructuring HAS to take place.
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On June 29 2011 21:26 Sumsi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 21:11 iamtheoneneo wrote:On June 29 2011 21:00 accela wrote:
no worries your banks won't fail, their puppets in our parliament will most probably approve the new "economical help" (read new massive debts)
sad day I dont get how you think going bankrupt will actually save your country? No-one in the world will invest in Greece if they go to zero. Maybe they should learn to recover on their own then, shouldn't be that hard if they really want it.
The reason countries ever get bankrupt to beginwith is outside factions (countries, foreign banks blabla) invest a massive ammount of capital over time. If they decide to collect early take their cash and gtfo the country is brought to debt.
They can ofcourse recover on their own over a long time, but when an economy regresses that bad it will enter deflation, so the money in that country loses it's value. Surprise that's the euro all the other eurozone countries use.
Investing a little capital is simply the easiest way to save the EU from deflation. You could ofcourse say let's absolve them of their debts, but that would be a great setback for the countries throwing money at them.
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On June 29 2011 21:51 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 21:45 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 21:08 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 20:48 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 20:11 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 19:25 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 19:05 amatoer wrote:On June 29 2011 18:30 schaf wrote:
yes, EURO will go down if we keep trying to help countries who simply cant get enough economic power to pay us back or at least pay for themselves some day
thank you, CDU. i know why i never voted for u -.- wrong. The Euro will go down if we refuse to help countries that belong to the Eurozone or if we keep on destroying its economy. There is no possibility of banning Greece from the EU, because it would only put the focus onto Spain, Ireland or even Italy. That would be the slow death for the Euro and the EU. And since no country benefits from the Euro and the Schengen Agreement as much as Germany does, so it's our own interest that we keep Greece alive at all cost (because everything else would be multiple times more expensive). So I really cannot understand why the EU politics are so hard and want to cure the greece economy within 1 or 2 years. It obviously doenst work that way since the people are very, very upset, anti-european opinions and partys are getting popular and the economy becomes weaker and weaker. I dont see the problem in a slower progress. I'm talking here about 10 or 15 years of regaining economic strength, managed by greece politicians with european support. Of cause it has to be discussed in a more detailed way, but a slower, lasting growth is better than a quickly foced one. But at the moment, the EU doenst seem to me like one big group with the same goal, it's more like everyone follows his own egoitic ideas and wants to reach common goals with the own best possible benefits. But that's not really the idea behind the EU and it needs politicians who believe in the "european idea" again, to overcome this crisis. How is forcing more debt upon someone with massive debt problems "helping them"? All you're doing is delaying the inevitable collapse, and making it worse in the process. Your "European Idea" is anti-democratic, anti-sovereignty, and pro-slavery. You can't buoy up an inherently unstable system by shoveling in more and more debt. Watch the video above to learn what the monetary system is, posted by your fellow German who happens to be far more sensible. The EU is a lobbyists wet dream, and is the institution by which corporations are conquering your continent. As much as I hate the current Euro "rescue" politics, I'd appreciate people wouldn't spit bullshit about the European idea as a whole like this. Looking at what it has achieved it is absurd to call it "pro-slavery". Hmm, it's achieved a lawmaking body that is unaccountable to the people. Its created a kangaroo court that is entirely under their control that can overrule any law in any country. Its created a system in which a body of lobbyists proposes all laws and whose identities are kept entirely secret to the public. Its created a constitution for itself, with the unique ability to amend itself internally with no consultation of the member states or the people. Its created a lucrative gravy train for those lucky enough to be a part of it. Its created a massive bureaucracy that oversees the details of peoples everyday lives, such as tractor seat size standardization. Very important law there. Its obliterated fish stocks in the UK through the common fisheries policy. Its caused massive wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich. Its centralized a huge amount of power among a SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE few people. Its created a police force that has the convenience of diplomatic immunity. What positive thing has it achieved? What a ridiculous question. Free travel, a unified market for labor, goods, services, and capital, enables more trade between member states than any other group of countries, abolished tariffs, encourages reform in satellite countries, enables crime prosecution across borders, numerous advances in human rights like anti descrimination agreements, advancments in resaerch and education beyond anything another group of countries enjoys, and if I spend more than 5 minutes of this I would probably find 10x more. It's easy to take all that for granted, but all these things that make our lives so much better were achieved by the EU, or, what people call the European Idea. Yes, it does come with a lot of baggage. Yet for all its shortcomings, who would really want to give up the achievments mentioned above. I certainly don't. Switzerland enjoys those things without the baggage. Also, accepting for a moment the bogus notion that the EU is necessary for such agreements to occur, you certainly don't think those things outweigh the things I mentioned, do you? Thats not exactly true. The contracts that allow Switzerland certain freedoms inside the EU work both ways and are constantly fought over and we also pay good sums of money to the EU for it. The main problem i have with the EU is, that there seems no "Goal" for it... Some seem to want kind of a "united states of europe" while others just want a bondary free market... No wonder there is constant infighting/disagreement  .
The point is a better economy for everybody. And the EU does achieve that through various ways the most important of which is the boundary free market. In order to keep it afloat you need political power like a "united states of europe".
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On June 30 2011 00:17 Cyba wrote:
They can ofcourse recover on their own over a long time, but when an economy regresses that bad it will enter deflation, so the money in that country loses it's value.
This is called inflation....also the effects you've described are incorrect due to the monetary union. Would be correct if Greece had its own currency.
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On June 29 2011 21:50 Jayjay54 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 21:08 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 20:48 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 20:11 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 19:25 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 19:05 amatoer wrote:On June 29 2011 18:30 schaf wrote:
yes, EURO will go down if we keep trying to help countries who simply cant get enough economic power to pay us back or at least pay for themselves some day
thank you, CDU. i know why i never voted for u -.- wrong. The Euro will go down if we refuse to help countries that belong to the Eurozone or if we keep on destroying its economy. There is no possibility of banning Greece from the EU, because it would only put the focus onto Spain, Ireland or even Italy. That would be the slow death for the Euro and the EU. And since no country benefits from the Euro and the Schengen Agreement as much as Germany does, so it's our own interest that we keep Greece alive at all cost (because everything else would be multiple times more expensive). So I really cannot understand why the EU politics are so hard and want to cure the greece economy within 1 or 2 years. It obviously doenst work that way since the people are very, very upset, anti-european opinions and partys are getting popular and the economy becomes weaker and weaker. I dont see the problem in a slower progress. I'm talking here about 10 or 15 years of regaining economic strength, managed by greece politicians with european support. Of cause it has to be discussed in a more detailed way, but a slower, lasting growth is better than a quickly foced one. But at the moment, the EU doenst seem to me like one big group with the same goal, it's more like everyone follows his own egoitic ideas and wants to reach common goals with the own best possible benefits. But that's not really the idea behind the EU and it needs politicians who believe in the "european idea" again, to overcome this crisis. How is forcing more debt upon someone with massive debt problems "helping them"? All you're doing is delaying the inevitable collapse, and making it worse in the process. Your "European Idea" is anti-democratic, anti-sovereignty, and pro-slavery. You can't buoy up an inherently unstable system by shoveling in more and more debt. Watch the video above to learn what the monetary system is, posted by your fellow German who happens to be far more sensible. The EU is a lobbyists wet dream, and is the institution by which corporations are conquering your continent. As much as I hate the current Euro "rescue" politics, I'd appreciate people wouldn't spit bullshit about the European idea as a whole like this. Looking at what it has achieved it is absurd to call it "pro-slavery". Hmm, it's achieved a lawmaking body that is unaccountable to the people. Its created a kangaroo court that is entirely under their control that can overrule any law in any country. Its created a system in which a body of lobbyists proposes all laws and whose identities are kept entirely secret to the public. Its created a constitution for itself, with the unique ability to amend itself internally with no consultation of the member states or the people. Its created a lucrative gravy train for those lucky enough to be a part of it. Its created a massive bureaucracy that oversees the details of peoples everyday lives, such as tractor seat size standardization. Very important law there. Its obliterated fish stocks in the UK through the common fisheries policy. Its caused massive wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich. Its centralized a huge amount of power among a SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE few people. Its created a police force that has the convenience of diplomatic immunity. What positive thing has it achieved? What a ridiculous question. Free travel, a unified market for labor, goods, services, and capital, enables more trade between member states than any other group of countries, abolished tariffs, encourages reform in satellite countries, enables crime prosecution across borders, numerous advances in human rights like anti descrimination agreements, advancments in resaerch and education beyond anything another group of countries enjoys, and if I spend more than 5 minutes of this I would probably find 10x more. It's easy to take all that for granted, but all these things that make our lives so much better were achieved by the EU, or, what people call the European Idea. Yes, it does come with a lot of baggage. Yet for all its shortcomings, who would really want to give up the achievments mentioned above. I certainly don't. this. so many times this. all this bullshit about 'hey let's keep our own currency' is just stupid. e.g. (from German point of view) if we would have kept our Mark and all other European currencies have started to descent in value, the mark would have gotten more and more expensive. Our exports would have been decimated and our precious economy would look much worse than it does now, even if we have to pay a lot money to keep Greece floating. We HAVE to save Greece, Ireland , Spain and Portugal as unpleasent as it may be. The EU has to stick together in order to save the € and not fall apart.
Which is wonderful for Germany, but not so good for less productive countries such as Greece and Italy. The Euro is higher than what their currencies "should be according to their economic strength", making their goods more expensive and reducing tourism.
The correct thing for Greece or Italy or other such less productive countries to do, since they cannot devalue their currencies, is to reduce their wages. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to reduce wages than to devalue currency from a political point of view.
I'm not against the Euro or the EU by any means, but this problem is a bit troublesome.
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That's the entire point since it uses the euro as well the euro will loose some of its value not only in Greece but everywhere.
And ye i ment inflation deflation was stuck in my head from something else.
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On June 29 2011 23:50 Velr wrote:
This question is maybe stupid but...
Why are you blaming the Banks/Countries that give/gave you Loans so you could afford your way to good social systems, your way to good loans (in the public sector) and the miriads of other stuff while not being serious about collecting taxes, constantly voting for the same incompetent politicians and not your fucking selfs?
Yeah, now the Loans kill you, but it was your friggin stupidity that made these Loans necessary to support Greece as long as it did. At the latest when you joined the Euro someone in your country should have realised whats happening.
But well.. Go on, burn some more cars and do other retarded shit because you spent more money than you earned for decades...
Our good social system, our good way of life and all that is a nice story but still a myth. In fact just after the first austerity measures ordered by IMF/EU almost immediately we had increased unemployment, a big amount of small and mid size businesses shut doors (more or what remained will go out of business with the new measures that voted today), recession and poverty increased. All that simply mean that tax evasion all those years was nothing but a way to have a sustainable (and nothing more) life.
In fact since last year the taxes income is completely disanalogous with the taxes increase, in other words people don't have money to pay taxes.
And yes we also blame our politicians first but the bank mafia is not without responsibility.
So no more loans, default and debt restructure is the way to go. Of course exit from eurozone is always something that can happen.
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On June 30 2011 00:31 Cyba wrote:
That's the entire point since it uses the euro as well the euro will loose some of its value not only in Greece but everywhere.
This would only be true if Greece were...like the size of USA or Russia. Greece is WAY too small to have any significant influence on the Euro. Unless you bring in the confidence of financial markets, say, they expect Spain, Ireland, Italy etc. to also go down.
On June 30 2011 00:30 targ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 21:50 Jayjay54 wrote:On June 29 2011 21:08 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 20:48 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 20:11 zatic wrote:On June 29 2011 19:25 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 19:05 amatoer wrote:On June 29 2011 18:30 schaf wrote:
yes, EURO will go down if we keep trying to help countries who simply cant get enough economic power to pay us back or at least pay for themselves some day
thank you, CDU. i know why i never voted for u -.- wrong. The Euro will go down if we refuse to help countries that belong to the Eurozone or if we keep on destroying its economy. There is no possibility of banning Greece from the EU, because it would only put the focus onto Spain, Ireland or even Italy. That would be the slow death for the Euro and the EU. And since no country benefits from the Euro and the Schengen Agreement as much as Germany does, so it's our own interest that we keep Greece alive at all cost (because everything else would be multiple times more expensive). So I really cannot understand why the EU politics are so hard and want to cure the greece economy within 1 or 2 years. It obviously doenst work that way since the people are very, very upset, anti-european opinions and partys are getting popular and the economy becomes weaker and weaker. I dont see the problem in a slower progress. I'm talking here about 10 or 15 years of regaining economic strength, managed by greece politicians with european support. Of cause it has to be discussed in a more detailed way, but a slower, lasting growth is better than a quickly foced one. But at the moment, the EU doenst seem to me like one big group with the same goal, it's more like everyone follows his own egoitic ideas and wants to reach common goals with the own best possible benefits. But that's not really the idea behind the EU and it needs politicians who believe in the "european idea" again, to overcome this crisis. How is forcing more debt upon someone with massive debt problems "helping them"? All you're doing is delaying the inevitable collapse, and making it worse in the process. Your "European Idea" is anti-democratic, anti-sovereignty, and pro-slavery. You can't buoy up an inherently unstable system by shoveling in more and more debt. Watch the video above to learn what the monetary system is, posted by your fellow German who happens to be far more sensible. The EU is a lobbyists wet dream, and is the institution by which corporations are conquering your continent. As much as I hate the current Euro "rescue" politics, I'd appreciate people wouldn't spit bullshit about the European idea as a whole like this. Looking at what it has achieved it is absurd to call it "pro-slavery". Hmm, it's achieved a lawmaking body that is unaccountable to the people. Its created a kangaroo court that is entirely under their control that can overrule any law in any country. Its created a system in which a body of lobbyists proposes all laws and whose identities are kept entirely secret to the public. Its created a constitution for itself, with the unique ability to amend itself internally with no consultation of the member states or the people. Its created a lucrative gravy train for those lucky enough to be a part of it. Its created a massive bureaucracy that oversees the details of peoples everyday lives, such as tractor seat size standardization. Very important law there. Its obliterated fish stocks in the UK through the common fisheries policy. Its caused massive wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich. Its centralized a huge amount of power among a SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE few people. Its created a police force that has the convenience of diplomatic immunity. What positive thing has it achieved? What a ridiculous question. Free travel, a unified market for labor, goods, services, and capital, enables more trade between member states than any other group of countries, abolished tariffs, encourages reform in satellite countries, enables crime prosecution across borders, numerous advances in human rights like anti descrimination agreements, advancments in resaerch and education beyond anything another group of countries enjoys, and if I spend more than 5 minutes of this I would probably find 10x more. It's easy to take all that for granted, but all these things that make our lives so much better were achieved by the EU, or, what people call the European Idea. Yes, it does come with a lot of baggage. Yet for all its shortcomings, who would really want to give up the achievments mentioned above. I certainly don't. this. so many times this. all this bullshit about 'hey let's keep our own currency' is just stupid. e.g. (from German point of view) if we would have kept our Mark and all other European currencies have started to descent in value, the mark would have gotten more and more expensive. Our exports would have been decimated and our precious economy would look much worse than it does now, even if we have to pay a lot money to keep Greece floating. We HAVE to save Greece, Ireland , Spain and Portugal as unpleasent as it may be. The EU has to stick together in order to save the € and not fall apart. Which is wonderful for Germany, but not so good for less productive countries such as Greece and Italy. The Euro is higher than what their currencies "should be according to their economic strength", making their goods more expensive and reducing tourism. The correct thing for Greece or Italy or other such less productive countries to do, since they cannot devalue their currencies, is to reduce their wages. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to reduce wages than to devalue currency from a political point of view. I'm not against the Euro or the EU by any means, but this problem is a bit troublesome.
This man speaks the truth. Without the possiblities to influence the strenght of the currency, wages must be reduced to make up for the low output/productivity. In other words, if country A produces more with 1 hour of worker-input than country B, than the workers in country B must receive less payment than the workers of country A to make up for that.
What would be needed is a system that "forces" country B to improve productivity - if it can't then country A must PAY country B. This happens INSIDE countries on a regular basis....rural areas are compensated for having lower productivity than cities.
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On June 30 2011 00:35 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:31 Cyba wrote:
That's the entire point since it uses the euro as well the euro will loose some of its value not only in Greece but everywhere. This would only be true if Greece were...like the size of USA or Russia. Greece is WAY too small to have any significant influence on the Euro. Unless you bring in the confidence of financial markets, say, they expect Spain, Ireland, Italy etc. to also go down.
Incorrect. The whole point is that the European Central bank, the French/German/UK governments and private investors through out the Eurozone are all holding significant amounts of Greek paper. What do you think would happen if Greece refuses to pay Germany the 60 billion Euro's they owe them? All of a sudden future revenue is lost, size of economy shrinks, euro gets weaker. Europes exposure to Greece is HUGE, several billion euros.
I know a lot of people in this thread are saying its Greece's fault, but in the end the Greek people didn't vote for any of this - you can't put millions of the Greek public in the same boat as a few politicians who negotiated these packages and implemented fiscal policy that lead to this situation in the first place.
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On June 30 2011 00:49 Trowa127 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:35 sleepingdog wrote:On June 30 2011 00:31 Cyba wrote:
That's the entire point since it uses the euro as well the euro will loose some of its value not only in Greece but everywhere. This would only be true if Greece were...like the size of USA or Russia. Greece is WAY too small to have any significant influence on the Euro. Unless you bring in the confidence of financial markets, say, they expect Spain, Ireland, Italy etc. to also go down. Incorrect. The whole point is that the European Central bank, the French/German/UK governments and private investors through out the Eurozone are all holding significant amounts of Greek paper. What do you think would happen if Greece refuses to pay Germany the 60 billion Euro's they owe them? All of a sudden future revenue is lost, size of economy shrinks, euro gets weaker. Europes exposure to Greece is HUGE, several billion euros. I know a lot of people in this thread are saying its Greece's fault, but in the end the Greek people didn't vote for any of this - you can't put millions of the Greek public in the same boat as a few politicians who negotiated these packages and implemented fiscal policy that lead to this situation in the first place.
Completely different subject, he was talking about inflation in the Eurozone as a result of REGRESSION in GREECE!
You are talking about the exposure of the ECB, that's something else - here it gets more complicated, but there are various mechanisms floating around to stabilize the Eurozone in case of a haircut. Eventually it will come down to the taxpayer's money. Nevertheless, if Greece can "never" pay back, then at "some point" this will also be the case if we keep pumping money in.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On June 30 2011 00:49 Trowa127 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:35 sleepingdog wrote:On June 30 2011 00:31 Cyba wrote:
That's the entire point since it uses the euro as well the euro will loose some of its value not only in Greece but everywhere. This would only be true if Greece were...like the size of USA or Russia. Greece is WAY too small to have any significant influence on the Euro. Unless you bring in the confidence of financial markets, say, they expect Spain, Ireland, Italy etc. to also go down. Incorrect. The whole point is that the European Central bank, the French/German/UK governments and private investors through out the Eurozone are all holding significant amounts of Greek paper. What do you think would happen if Greece refuses to pay Germany the 60 billion Euro's they owe them? All of a sudden future revenue is lost, size of economy shrinks, euro gets weaker. Europes exposure to Greece is HUGE, several billion euros. I know a lot of people in this thread are saying its Greece's fault, but in the end the Greek people didn't vote for any of this - you can't put millions of the Greek public in the same boat as a few politicians who negotiated these packages and implemented fiscal policy that lead to this situation in the first place.
Yeah the Greek public only voted to get paid with borrowed money of the politicians.
They didn't vote for the austerity of not getting paid with borrowed money.
They also didn't vote for the part where they need to pay back borrowed money.
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK?
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On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK?
Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs?
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Sanya12364 Posts
On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK? Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs?
Tax evasion culture is part of a country/government's poor balance sheet. Banks should have known all about it. They also should be doing their own audits.
Unless you have further complaints, I stand by my statement that Greece and the banks deserve each other.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On June 30 2011 00:30 targ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 21:50 Jayjay54 wrote:On June 29 2011 21:08 zatic wrote:
What a ridiculous question. Free travel, a unified market for labor, goods, services, and capital, enables more trade between member states than any other group of countries, abolished tariffs, encourages reform in satellite countries, enables crime prosecution across borders, numerous advances in human rights like anti descrimination agreements, advancments in resaerch and education beyond anything another group of countries enjoys, and if I spend more than 5 minutes of this I would probably find 10x more.
It's easy to take all that for granted, but all these things that make our lives so much better were achieved by the EU, or, what people call the European Idea. Yes, it does come with a lot of baggage. Yet for all its shortcomings, who would really want to give up the achievments mentioned above. I certainly don't. this. so many times this. all this bullshit about 'hey let's keep our own currency' is just stupid. e.g. (from German point of view) if we would have kept our Mark and all other European currencies have started to descent in value, the mark would have gotten more and more expensive. Our exports would have been decimated and our precious economy would look much worse than it does now, even if we have to pay a lot money to keep Greece floating. We HAVE to save Greece, Ireland , Spain and Portugal as unpleasent as it may be. The EU has to stick together in order to save the € and not fall apart. Which is wonderful for Germany, but not so good for less productive countries such as Greece and Italy. The Euro is higher than what their currencies "should be according to their economic strength", making their goods more expensive and reducing tourism. The correct thing for Greece or Italy or other such less productive countries to do, since they cannot devalue their currencies, is to reduce their wages. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to reduce wages than to devalue currency from a political point of view. I'm not against the Euro or the EU by any means, but this problem is a bit troublesome.
It's not a problem with the common currency but the inclination of the PIIGS countries and their government to borrow and inflate their own wages in the build up. They were still operating under the impression that they could devalue the currency to counter the debt and wage inflation. But without ECB inflation, they will have to undo the wage inflation. Unfortunately, wage inflation was how politicians were getting elected in the past decade.
Saving or not saving the euro is not a wonderful thing either way for Germany. A wage deflation or monetary devaluation will have a similar impact on Germany competitive strength. In German marks or Euros, products coming out of the PIIGS will be cheaper.
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On June 30 2011 00:07 Hatsu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 23:22 smokeyhoodoo wrote:On June 29 2011 23:03 Gaga wrote:
@smokeyhoodoo
the EU achieved peace in a continent where in its previous history there was always war (including the 2 World Wars)
that alone makes the EU good enough for me.
central banking and all that comes with it is something completely different. Smaller nations will be enslaved by it in the same way like bigger countries (or unions) will. That claim is absurd and laughable. I could just as easily say it was Nato, or the UN, or the struggle against the Soviet Union, or that it was simply post WW2 politics in general. The EU wasn't really even a significant political entity until the 90's or so. If the EU disappeared today, would there even be a risk of war in Europe? No. I am not sure you can understand this as you are not European, but the EU ideal really does matter for a lot of Europeans and has done so since the 70s. It greatly increases cohesion and there is pride to be found in building something that can finally unite our continent. Although I hold an Italian passport, what I think of what my rights are and what my place in the world is I regard myself as a European citizen first, and an Italian after. Also, as mentioned by another poster, the greatest factor you can bring to the table in order to avoid war is economic unity and trade. Without the EU there would be a far higher risk of war in Europe, yes.
I was born in Germany to a German mother. I am technically an EU citizen. I understand the pride you speak of. It is rooted in nationalism and will lead to a totalitarian state. It will unite the continent alright, under the tyranny of a select few. Centralized governments, alienated from those they govern, and claiming great, wonderful causes that will bring us all to prosperity, have and always will be the bane of liberty in this world. I am not sure you can understand this as you are not an individual. Although I hold an American passport, I regard myself as a member of my family first, and my community after.
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On June 30 2011 01:23 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:30 targ wrote:On June 29 2011 21:50 Jayjay54 wrote:On June 29 2011 21:08 zatic wrote:
What a ridiculous question. Free travel, a unified market for labor, goods, services, and capital, enables more trade between member states than any other group of countries, abolished tariffs, encourages reform in satellite countries, enables crime prosecution across borders, numerous advances in human rights like anti descrimination agreements, advancments in resaerch and education beyond anything another group of countries enjoys, and if I spend more than 5 minutes of this I would probably find 10x more.
It's easy to take all that for granted, but all these things that make our lives so much better were achieved by the EU, or, what people call the European Idea. Yes, it does come with a lot of baggage. Yet for all its shortcomings, who would really want to give up the achievments mentioned above. I certainly don't. this. so many times this. all this bullshit about 'hey let's keep our own currency' is just stupid. e.g. (from German point of view) if we would have kept our Mark and all other European currencies have started to descent in value, the mark would have gotten more and more expensive. Our exports would have been decimated and our precious economy would look much worse than it does now, even if we have to pay a lot money to keep Greece floating. We HAVE to save Greece, Ireland , Spain and Portugal as unpleasent as it may be. The EU has to stick together in order to save the € and not fall apart. Which is wonderful for Germany, but not so good for less productive countries such as Greece and Italy. The Euro is higher than what their currencies "should be according to their economic strength", making their goods more expensive and reducing tourism. The correct thing for Greece or Italy or other such less productive countries to do, since they cannot devalue their currencies, is to reduce their wages. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to reduce wages than to devalue currency from a political point of view. I'm not against the Euro or the EU by any means, but this problem is a bit troublesome. It's not a problem with the common currency but the inclination of the PIIGS countries and their government to borrow and inflate their own wages in the build up. They were still operating under the impression that they could devalue the currency to counter the debt and wage inflation. But without ECB inflation, they will have to undo the wage inflation. Unfortunately, wage inflation was how politicians were getting elected in the past decade.
That is not true, minimum wage is something like 560euro, maybe less. Even before the recession was about 700euro.
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On June 30 2011 01:09 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK? Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? Tax evasion culture is part of a country/government's poor balance sheet. Banks should have known all about it. They also should be doing their own audits. Unless you have further complaints, I stand by my statement that Greece and the banks deserve each other.
On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:
Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs?
Edit: actually I was just confused by your statement...Ithink some people in this thread have no idea what happened =.=
At least do a bit of reading =.=
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Sanya12364 Posts
On June 30 2011 01:34 TrainSamurai wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 01:09 TanGeng wrote:On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK? Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? Tax evasion culture is part of a country/government's poor balance sheet. Banks should have known all about it. They also should be doing their own audits. Unless you have further complaints, I stand by my statement that Greece and the banks deserve each other. Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:
Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs?
So who hired Goldman? What specific thing are you quipping about?
And yeah Greece probably deserves Goldman too.
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On June 30 2011 01:40 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 01:34 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 01:09 TanGeng wrote:On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK? Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? Tax evasion culture is part of a country/government's poor balance sheet. Banks should have known all about it. They also should be doing their own audits. Unless you have further complaints, I stand by my statement that Greece and the banks deserve each other. On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:
Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? So who hired Goldman? What specific thing are you quipping about? And yeah Greece probably deserves Goldman too.
Yea I was confused. You see what happened was the Greeks expect the government to somehow function without their tax( or most of it). After a while the government hired Goldman Sachs to make sure everything was looking fine and dandy. Greece scammed everyone.
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On June 30 2011 01:43 TrainSamurai wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2011 01:40 TanGeng wrote:On June 30 2011 01:34 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 01:09 TanGeng wrote:On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:On June 30 2011 00:55 TanGeng wrote:
The banks themselves are at fault for lending to country with such a poor balance sheet. Ahhh, Greece and the Banks - they deserve each other. Just leave the rest of us out of this mess. OK? Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? Tax evasion culture is part of a country/government's poor balance sheet. Banks should have known all about it. They also should be doing their own audits. Unless you have further complaints, I stand by my statement that Greece and the banks deserve each other. On June 30 2011 00:59 TrainSamurai wrote:
Hey buddy guess who has the tax evasion culture? Guess who hired Goldman Sachs? So who hired Goldman? What specific thing are you quipping about? And yeah Greece probably deserves Goldman too. Yea I was confused. You see what happened was the Greeks expect the government to somehow run without their tax( or most of it). After a while the government hired Goldman Sachs to make it seem like everything was looking fine and dandy. Greece scammed everyone.
when you want to say something you better say the whole story and without wrong assumptions.
Greek government back to 2001-2 with the help by Goldman Sachs through currency swaps tried to keep deficit below 3% that eurozone "requires"
Some points: a) Eurostat knew about this b) they were OK with it back then and c) other european countries did the same thing.
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EPT
