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On July 05 2015 03:59 maartendq wrote:
Apparently Varoufakis decided to show off his diplomatic skills again and refered to the creditors as "terrorists" in a Spanish newspaper.
Honestly, I am starting to understand why those creditors increasingly refuse to deal with the T&V duo.
I can only marvel at how you choose to ignore so much information posted right here about Greece's actual position, creditors' position, whether they make any sort of sense, so on and so forth and instead zoom in on what irks you, namely the outspokenness of Varoufakis, no matter the substance of what he's saying.
How the hell do you ignore the fact that the refusal of creditors to budge a tiny inch has thrown Greece way back into recession? How do you ignore the fudging of the matter of debt? How do you focus on the person who is calling them out on all their bullshit and say 'well their bullshit is OK since he is not a very nice guy, he calls them names'?
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Because we dispute your assertions of facts Taguchi. Since we're operating on different interpretations of the evidence, we come to different conclusions. Is it not clear that things you regard as fact are not thought to be so by many others here?
Greece's recession is mostly because of the failings of its own government. There are some other factors as well.
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just haters, haters everywhere.
no one denies that the initial fuck up was Greece's fault but the fucking they got after that, made everything 34095739248 times worse.
them terrorists should see prison. cookin' books, delaying/hiding reports ... but they're bankers so yea.
somewhere, some zillionaires are betting hard on the fall of Greece then of the Euro.
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Taguchi, I'm guessing this is the mindset of the creditors. IMO, they have legitimate reasons to feel this way:
The creditors want a state of having Greece continuously on a leash because they don't trust the Greek politicians. If Syriza had the two years to implement their political program they'd take the Greek economy further down the drain - in the minds of the creditors. They want Greece to undertake the reforms THEY believe will make the Greek economy grow sustainably.
They are not sensitive to the "Greek debt is unsustainable argument" because 1. they've shown willingness to cut it down before; 2. they've offered interest rates that put the Greek debt service as % of GDP at a really low level. The unsustainability of the Greek debt doesn't really hurt yet and it won't unless the creditors let it. Until then, they don't see it as a reasonable argument. Cutting Greek debt because Syriza kicks and screams is not political feasible in the creditor countries. Cutting it down because despite Greece's best efforts it is dragging down the economy and hurting the Greek people is more politically feasible.
They've been rigid in the negotiating table mainly because of how Syriza has acted. They've shown incompetence, inexperience and petulance. If Syriza's style actually worked in getting the creditors to concede where they didn't concede to the 'well-behaved' centrist parties, then what message would that send to the likes of Podemos in Spain? Even the choice between high taxes vs pensions, it is a trade-off between cutting down on government spending (good for growth) vs introducing more taxes, especially on business (bad for growth).
Finally, on the idea that 'the creditors fucked Greece over by forcing it to undergo austerity that destroyed the Greek economy', my question is, why did Ireland's or Portugal's economy contract much less? What was it about the Greek economy that made it contract so hard? I would wager that, in the minds of the creditors, it was because the Greek economy was simply way way above its potential, having gone up there unsustainably based on debt and 'cooking the books'. There was no alternative to austerity as huge imbalances had to be corrected. That inevitable correction led to an inevitable economic contraction. Moreover, this process requires even more supervision because the needed reforms are extremely difficult at a national political level - you need to undergo an internal devaluation of wages and reduce the public sector to a level that fits the new size of the economy.
EDIT: The media in Portugal is very positive towards the Greeks. One journalist made a report about tax evasion in Greece and everyone got hysterical criticising him. While sympathy for Greece is overwhelming, most people think Syriza are lunatics and that Greece should vote yes.
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Very well written post Warding.
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I don't know too much about the situation in Greece, but I'm pretty sure that 90% of what I hear about it in popular media is based on lies and misconceptions. The media here frames it in stereotypes about lazy Greeks that want to live off welfare and retire early, and how they are responsible themselves and we shouldn't bail them out because of tough love.
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Yeah, every time I hear something about Greece or Greeks today it's about laziness, begging or taking loans recklessly. Their reputation is ruined and it will take decades to get rid of such a bad image
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Then how about changing your primary information place?
We live in a world, where you are not dependent on one newspaper or TV channel.
Once I read about 'lazy Greeks' in an article, the source would get a serious downgrade in my view.
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Yeah, here everyone things the EU technocrats are wasting our money to do everything to artificially keep Greece in the Euro.
But what is really happening is that they are going all-in with all our money saying they will kick Greece out, hoping Greece won't call the bluff.
They also believe the average Greek retires at 53.
These news sources always had their bias, but they have always been fair in a way. But right now, it is absurdly skewered in a way it maybe never was before. And why? It isn't even helping Merkel&Junker&Dijsselbloem achieve their goals but in fact limiting their options and forcing them to make decisions that are bad for everyone, except their political careers. Public opinion right now is so extreme here that German & Dutch politicians commit political suicide if they were to make a rational decision. The general public here is still under the delusion Greece can pay, for example. When they are finally told for real Greece won't be paying, they will be supermad.
They are very mad at Greece. They don't realize their own government gambled with their money and lost. The way people here see it is that Greece has our money but just refuses to give it back.
In the mean time, even the most minor reform proposed here is shot down immediately. Besides not forcing Greece to do extreme reforms and not accepting debt restructuring, the best way to commit political suicide is to propose a minor reform. Besides extreme delusion we also have extreme hypocrisy.
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On July 05 2015 05:19 Taguchi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2015 03:59 maartendq wrote:
Apparently Varoufakis decided to show off his diplomatic skills again and refered to the creditors as "terrorists" in a Spanish newspaper.
Honestly, I am starting to understand why those creditors increasingly refuse to deal with the T&V duo. I can only marvel at how you choose to ignore so much information posted right here about Greece's actual position, creditors' position, whether they make any sort of sense, so on and so forth and instead zoom in on what irks you, namely the outspokenness of Varoufakis, no matter the substance of what he's saying. How the hell do you ignore the fact that the refusal of creditors to budge a tiny inch has thrown Greece way back into recession? How do you ignore the fudging of the matter of debt? How do you focus on the person who is calling them out on all their bullshit and say 'well their bullshit is OK since he is not a very nice guy, he calls them names'?
I don't even know why everyone suddenly thought that the creditors would budge an inch. It was pretty much clear to me even before Tsipras and Syriza got elected that the creditors have little reason to budge, especially not if that new government came to power based on promises to undo austerity, or rather the reforms demanded by the Troika in return for keeping the country afloat.
Most of the information I've seen posted here and elsewhere are articles by economists who conveniently ignore Greece's instututional and societal structure and choose to focus on the financial side only. Restructuring Greece's debt would sure help them pay their bills (pensions and public sector wages) in the short term but it's not as if a strong, flourishing private sector or effective, meritocratic institutions will magically appear out of thin air because of it.
I did actually read one of Varoufakis' ideas: the one where he said that richer countries should divert part of their profit into investments in the poorer countries (which would be a fiscal union if I'm not mistaken). Not only did I find that horribly self-serving since the North would pretty much be paying for Greece's private sector while Greece itself would happily be able to continue its decades-old tradition of clientelism. Additionally, it would also remove any and all incentive to actually become competitive because "hey, the rich countries are funding us anyway". Fiscal unions like that can only happen if all member countries of the EMU are prepared to give up most of their sovereignty, because systems like that cannot exist unless all countries follow one single economic policy (which, in the EMU's case, would be a German-style system based on competitiveness, wage moderation, not spending more than you have while still providing a rather high degree of labour rights).
A nasty part of belonging to a union of any kind is that every member of the union needs to adhere to certain standards and a code of conduct. A union where every member does as it damn well pleases is hardly worthy of the name.
I actually want Greece to get better, and I don't want to see it fall out of the EU.
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On July 05 2015 17:17 maartendq wrote:
I did actually read one of Varoufakis' ideas: the one where he said that richer countries should divert part of their profit into investments in the poorer countries (which would be a fiscal union if I'm not mistaken). Not only did I find that horribly self-serving since the North would pretty much be paying for Greece's private sector while Greece itself would happily be able to continue its decades-old tradition of clientelism. Additionally, it would also remove any and all incentive to actually become competitive because "hey, the rich countries are funding us anyway". Fiscal unions like that can only happen if all member countries of the EMU are prepared to give up most of their sovereignty, because systems like that cannot exist unless all countries follow one single economic policy (which, in the EMU's case, would be a German-style system based on competitiveness, wage moderation, not spending more than you have while still providing a rather high degree of labour rights).
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Uhm... This already exists. It's called the cohesion fund. Then there's a regional fund for poorer regions within countries.
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On July 05 2015 17:31 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2015 17:17 maartendq wrote:
I did actually read one of Varoufakis' ideas: the one where he said that richer countries should divert part of their profit into investments in the poorer countries (which would be a fiscal union if I'm not mistaken). Not only did I find that horribly self-serving since the North would pretty much be paying for Greece's private sector while Greece itself would happily be able to continue its decades-old tradition of clientelism. Additionally, it would also remove any and all incentive to actually become competitive because "hey, the rich countries are funding us anyway". Fiscal unions like that can only happen if all member countries of the EMU are prepared to give up most of their sovereignty, because systems like that cannot exist unless all countries follow one single economic policy (which, in the EMU's case, would be a German-style system based on competitiveness, wage moderation, not spending more than you have while still providing a rather high degree of labour rights).
. Uhm... This already exists. It's called the cohesion fund. Then there's a regional fund for poorer regions within countries.
But it does not exist on the level that Varoufakis meant, I guess.
I'm all for a United States of Europe, but that won't work if every country goes after its own interests instead of the common European one.
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Dutch media has a picture that says when it is a 'yes', there will be new negotiations. When there is a 'no' there will be no deal and possible Grexit.
But the Greek government says that when it is a 'yes' they will sign the 'take it or leave it' deal they were offered last week.
Now I guess you can interpret the question any way you want. But isn't it the Greek government that both initiated it, set up the question and will tonight be the ones interpreting the result and deciding what to do? They aren't going to renegotiate in the case of a 'yes'. So how the fuck do Dutch media, Dijsselbloem and whoever else keep repeating that?
They flipped it backwards. They say the only way for Greece to renegotiate something is if they vote to not negotiate any further and sign the old 'take it or leave it' deal. WTF
EC is trying to re-brand this referendum, where yes is a no-vote for Syriza and no is a no-vote to Europe. That's fucked up. All they care about is getting rid of Syriza.
Maybe the EC and media here think that 'nai' means 'no'.
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On July 05 2015 19:02 Alcathous wrote:
Dutch media has a picture that says when it is a 'yes', there will be new negotiations. When there is a 'no' there will be no deal and possible Grexit.
But the Greek government says that when it is a 'yes' they will sign the 'take it or leave it' deal they were offered last week.
Now I guess you can interpret the question any way you want. But isn't it the Greek government that both initiated it, set up the question and will tonight be the ones interpreting the result and deciding what to do? They aren't going to renegotiate in the case of a 'yes'. So how the fuck do Dutch media, Dijsselbloem and whoever else keep repeating that?
They flipped it backwards. They say the only way for Greece to renegotiate something is if they vote to not negotiate any further and sign the old 'take it or leave it' deal. WTF
EC is trying to re-brand this referendum, where yes is a no-vote for Syriza and no is a no-vote to Europe. That's fucked up. All they care about is getting rid of Syriza.
Maybe the EC and media here think that 'nai' means 'no'.
The offer that is mentioned in the referendum is no longer on the table, the deadline past. hence why re-negotiation needs to happen in the case of a yes.
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There was an interview with a retired boss of the Swedish tax collection agency (40 years of experience) who had been in Greece as an expert adviser together with an Irish expert. His opinion is that it basically doesn't matter what kind of tax changes are done because the Greek government lacks any ability to collect them.
Him and his colleague were sent to assist the new boss of Greek tax collection. They expected corruption which they found but they also found out that the entire organization was inefficient to the point of uselessness. Tax collection was done by outdated and incompetent methods for example manually checking trucks cargo manifests in the field instead of seriously reviewing companies books, almost all methods were completely outdated for a modern society. Things like all the archives being in paper form and spread all over the country also made serious tax collection almost impossible.
The new boss also faced pressure from the employees and from the politicians to keep the current conditions. After a year he was fired for achieving nothing.
He describes the general attitude of politicians and employees to be "wait for this to blow over and continue business as usual". His opinion is that 1 person is not enough for reform, there needs to be a group of 5-6 preferably young, well trained ambitious, driven and above all extremely motivated to the cause of reforming Greek tax collection and they need to have the political backing do whatever it takes both in their own department and others (centralizing all records necessary for a start, rooting out corruption at all levels) in order for any tax reforms to be meaningful at all.
Edit: He was there earlier in the crisis, before Syriza. Just to clarify.
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On July 05 2015 19:19 Gorsameth wrote:
The offer that is mentioned in the referendum is no longer on the table, the deadline past. hence why re-negotiation needs to happen in the case of a yes.
So, if the Greeks vote 'yes', they will only get a worse deal than the one offered before? Didn't they say or suggest the opposite this week?
Otherwise, they can just put it back on the table. Either way, why take a deal off the table just because the Greek government want to hold a referendum on it?
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On July 05 2015 19:45 Alcathous wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2015 19:19 Gorsameth wrote:
The offer that is mentioned in the referendum is no longer on the table, the deadline past. hence why re-negotiation needs to happen in the case of a yes. So, if the Greeks vote 'yes', they will only get a worse deal than the one offered before? Didn't they say or suggest the opposite this week? Otherwise, they can just put it back on the table. Either way, why take a deal off the table just because the Greek government want to hold a referendum on it?
If they vote no what is the use of putting forward the same deal? THe majority of the Greek people just rejected it if that is the case.
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On July 05 2015 19:49 RvB wrote:
If they vote no what is the use of putting forward the same deal? THe majority of the Greek people just rejected it if that is the case.
It means that gambling junkies Junker/Merkel/Dijsselbloem then have to decide to lose 240 billion, or negotiate a deal Greece can accept. A deal they can afford.
Greece can't afford 'yes' deal. All economists and now even the IMF say so.
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On July 05 2015 19:02 Alcathous wrote:
Dutch media has a picture that says when it is a 'yes', there will be new negotiations. When there is a 'no' there will be no deal and possible Grexit.
But the Greek government says that when it is a 'yes' they will sign the 'take it or leave it' deal they were offered last week.
Now I guess you can interpret the question any way you want. But isn't it the Greek government that both initiated it, set up the question and will tonight be the ones interpreting the result and deciding what to do? They aren't going to renegotiate in the case of a 'yes'. So how the fuck do Dutch media, Dijsselbloem and whoever else keep repeating that?
They flipped it backwards. They say the only way for Greece to renegotiate something is if they vote to not negotiate any further and sign the old 'take it or leave it' deal. WTF
EC is trying to re-brand this referendum, where yes is a no-vote for Syriza and no is a no-vote to Europe. That's fucked up. All they care about is getting rid of Syriza.
Maybe the EC and media here think that 'nai' means 'no'.
The deal that was in question was not even agreed upon in the negotiations (so you cannot even call it a deal in that sense), it was also negotiated with the assumption that it would be based upon the second programme - the one that expired last tuesday. Since these programmes naturally have to be approved by the parliaments or at least the governments of the other euro zone countries, it really is impossible to get that exact same deal again without any negotiation. For example, the Bundestag gave the Merkel government a mandate to negotiate and appropriated according funds for the help of Greece (I know, the way it is perceived is hardly help, and I certainly do not agree with all the measures, but please realize that the credits are about a very, very large sum and need to be approved and paid for by somebody) when it approved the 2nd programme - currently, that mandate is expired. I assume it is at least somewhat similar with the majority of other EZ countries.
So I don't really know what Syriza is promising or what the referendum is exactly about (if anybody even knows) - what I could imagine, should the "yes" side win, is that a third programme with the conditions mentioned in the referendum can be negotiated. But assuming the Syriza government resigns in case of a yes vote, I don't know who would negotiate on the side of Greece, or would implement the measures. It will probably mean either new elections, or some kind of grand coalition would need to be formed?
Either way, this will take some time. I hope some emergency funds can be granted from somewhere, or at least the ECB increases the ELA credits once again, so the most severe repercussions for the Greek people can be lessened.
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EPT
