European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 160

On July 06 2015 20:19 lastpuritan wrote:
http://i.imgur.com/holpojr.jpg

i dont know how they'll survive.

On July 06 2015 20:23 zlefin wrote:
I do pay plenty of attention to whom I'm talking. He's a persistently rude failure, who threw away Greece's negotiating prospects by being a jerk to those he was negotiating with, as well as being delusional about actual prospects for the situation, and trying to avoid responsibility for both himself and Greece. I've seen more than enough of his direct statements to be able to assess him.

On July 06 2015 20:23 Taguchi wrote:


Same way Germany survived after WW1, WW2. Debt write-off.



But the prospects for the situation depended on the will of the creditors. And the offer of the creditors was economically unviable. So... you dislike him because he refused to sign an unviable deal - refused to kick the can?

The rest is (or rather, should be) fluff.

On July 06 2015 20:37 maartendq wrote:

And what after the debt write-off? Continue business as usual?

On July 06 2015 20:29 zlefin wrote:
He did kick the can, refusal to kick the can would be to accept that there's no deal and prepare for an orderly transition. Not to do last minute bs, lie about others in Europe being terrorists, try to dodge responsibility. It's not fluff at all, lying to his own people and to the world does not sit well with me, nor does being utterly delusional.

On July 06 2015 20:56 Taguchi wrote:Syriza was the ONLY (sane) alternative left since everyone else in the political spectrum was complicit in us getting to this point.

On July 06 2015 18:07 Taguchi wrote:


No no no, we're not talking about Samaras, former leader of ND, here. That was Varoufakis resigning, the only guy in the Eurogroup room who had a grasp on what was needed to resolve stuff (or, more likely, the only guy with the balls to say so, I'm sure a few others were smart enough too), the only guy with whom the IMF agreed in the end, the guy who pushed for a stop to extend and pretend. Don't confuse these people. Even if Greece is left on its own, Varoufakis hugely contributed to it becoming a better country.

So a few days ago I wrote that Europe would have Tsipras's head on a silver platter, then pay up. After the referendum result it looks like they'll have to settle for Varoufakis. So much pettiness.

Also, what is the point of Sigmar Gabriel having his own party at this point? Just merge with Merkel and be done with it.

@c0ldfusion, under the troika the Greek tax collection agency was left with ~200 people who were supposed to check businesses across the entire country. Because the government was barred from hiring new personnel, as part of the cuts it had to go through to 'reform'. Yes, that kind of 'reform' again. Tax collection is in a much worse place today than it was 6 years ago. But you won't hear about that from the news, it doesn't really fit with the austerity success story, the amateur hour of Syriza or the image of generally inept and reckless Greeks.

On July 06 2015 21:02 c0ldfusion wrote:


According to warding (who made a very articulate post on this), this type of tax reform was effective in Portugal.

In any case, even if you call it a problem of implementation, it seems that reforms in terms of enforcement are still necessary.

On July 06 2015 20:47 zatic wrote:

Asked in a less provocative manner, I would also like to know what debt writeoff is supposed to accomplish, near to mid term. I understand Greece's debt is unsustainable and will have to be written off at some point.

However, Greece right now is back at a deficit even with all debt servicing canceled. Defaulting on the debt, and consequently not being able to raise any new debt, would require even further cuts than proposed in the June package.

Again, I think it's out of the question that the Greek debt is unsustainable, but facing virtually certain Greek default even without debt servicing debt relief really does seem to be secondary.

On July 06 2015 21:06 Taguchi wrote:


According to Krugman, all countries under austerity performed more or less the same. It is the amount of austerity that makes the difference.



Greece doesn't really seem like a total outlier, does it. Germany is more of an outlier!

On July 06 2015 20:56 Taguchi wrote:
After the debt-writeoff: Continue full steam ahead with real reforms, get the state functioning properly, hire tax auditors and whatever else you need to improve tax collection, let businesses operate in a stable environment (specific numbers on taxes etc matter less than stability), so on and so forth. Implement the 70% of the MoU that Varoufakis agreed with.

Also on the list: Break the link between media and large private companies receiving state contracts (they are one and the same currently), get rid of monopolies/oligopolies... make your peace with Turkey, reunite Cyprus, attempt to deal with the mass migration issue as well as you possibly can.

The above needs to happen under any scenario. But it can only work if debt is no longer an issue. Whatever you hear about statists, commies and whatnot is hogwash. Greeks simply don't want that. Syriza was the ONLY (sane) alternative left since everyone else in the political spectrum was complicit in us getting to this point.

edit: I also like the idea of the automatic debt brake. If it looks like you're off track, slash wages, pensions, procurement and so on until you're back on track, automatically. Pretty good incentive for a government that wants to get reelected to not fuck up, no?

edit2: Also, responding to Zatic. Yes, after CCs were imposed, it is very likely that we will need to go through harsher austerity in the near term to hit various goals agreed to previously. But if the matter of the debt is settled (or a proper timetable for its settling is formally, as opposed to vaguely, agreed) I believe it'd have been worth it. Should've happened in 2010. Alas.

On July 06 2015 21:23 maartendq wrote:

If Greece does set out for that I'm quite sure it would have the full support of the EU, or at least large parts of the population which would force politicians to follow.

On July 06 2015 21:24 Gorsameth wrote:

If they do it before asking for relief then yes but not after. Greece has already broken several previous agreements, why would they keep this one?

On July 06 2015 21:35 maartendq wrote:

I'm afraid this might very well be the sentiment they will have to deal with during the negotiations.

On July 06 2015 21:35 maartendq wrote:

I'm afraid this might very well be the sentiment they will have to deal with during the negotiations.

On July 06 2015 21:45 Taguchi wrote:


Thing is, all that will not work without debt relief. It is a dynamic situation. This being Europe, perhaps they'll come up with some half-assed scheme of goals, incentives and partial write-offs dependent on those which will produce far worse results than just doing what needs to be done regardless.

After all, if Grexit happens, an even larger amount of debt will be written off (unless the EU invades Greece or something, which is pretty unlikely). What is the point of not doing a proper deal, based on economic reality? If you're worried about leftist movements taking over from the current status-quo just exact your punishment via cuts, if you must. Why jeopardize the longterm as well as the short term?

On July 06 2015 21:44 c0ldfusion wrote:
I think they're going to drag this out. Short term, surely there will be enough emergency measure to keep Greece from falling into total collapse. I find it very difficult to expect something substantial to get done in the Tuesday summit.