European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 205

On July 15 2015 01:23 Acrofales wrote:

Firstly, it was 7-1, and secondly that is the dumbest analogy in this thread full of dumb analogies. Really, as if any other football team would have let up and said "enough guys, stop humiliating them, we're 4-1 (safer margin) ahead. Let them save face on their home ground". Lol. Deluded. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with German mentality vs. other countries. That simply has to do with them being competitive sports players!

On July 15 2015 01:29 Simberto wrote:


The reason is probably how we deal with our history. Germany is very ashamed of the nazi time. And modern Germany has basically nothing to do with Nazi Germany, except that we speak a similar language and are in roughly the same area.

Meanwhile, i don't think france really regrets Napoléon trying to invade everyone multiple times. I would guess that the most common regret is that he failed, or they otherwise just really don't care because it is ancient history.

Note that none of the above means either that i agree that the EU is a "German Empire", or that France should be ashamed of stuff that happened 200 years ago. In my opinion, most of history is pretty shitty, and for some reason aggressive conquerors become awesome badasses if enough time passes. Most modern nations have barely anything to do with the ancient constructs that birthed them, all of which did horrible things at some point or another. I wouldn't blame current italy for Julius Caesars wars of aggression, or belgium for the Congo free state, or any country for any dirt that you can dig up on them from some point in the past.

On July 15 2015 02:02 aqui wrote:
@White Dog. What would have been the proper way to deal with the situation according to your view? In July 2015 i mean, not 5 years back.

I don't know much about this situation, but to me it seems this was handleld very badly from the EU side.
I read a few times that there are historic reasons that the Hellenic Republic is not very much felt as a res publica by her citizens, the governing entity is not the public but a separated class. Surly this is more or less the case in most countries, but it sounds sound, that this is more so the case in Greece than say in Switzerland or Sweden.
In my opinion a state can only work well if the people feel that it is their state, at worst in so far that a benevolence towards its citizens is perceived, at best by actively shaping (communal) live and politics. Suppose Greece is lacking this, the worst thing you could do is dictate policy from the outside as was seemingly done now. If the feeling of self-determination is taken away even more, how do you expect people to happily pay their taxes just so their hard earned money is shoved into the mouth of an (ultimatley) monstrous Banking system. With the current deal, the paid taxes would not even seem to benefit the public.
To me the most urgent political matter seems to let the people of Greece take possession of Greece, which of course also implies finding solutions not demanding solutions. How this can be done, i have no idea.

I also think that a lot of nationalism is a what-have-the-Romans-ever-given-us phenomenon. At a national level in any EU country, if you were to actually propose to exit Schengen, quit the Euro and establish your own currency, reinstate national regulatory agencies for all sectors (instead of CE marking for example), undo the Bologna reforms and change your academic system away from the EU standardization, withdraw from cooperation in H2020 projects, withdraw from the Erasmus program, etc, etc, most people would think that you're out of your mind.

On July 15 2015 03:21 warding wrote:
There are already transfers from richer countries to the poorest. It's also not Keynesianism, whose models concern how to address short-term problems and point out that government spending is a possible solution to bring GDP back to potential. Cash transfers to poorer countries don't really do all that much to generate economic growth.

John Maynard Keynes, wary of repeating the Great Depression, was behind Britain's proposal that surplus nations be forced by a "use-it-or-lose-it" mechanism, to either import from debtor nations, build factories in debtor nations or donate to debtor nations. The US opposed Keynes' plan, and a senior official at the US Treasury, Harry Dexter White, rejected Keynes' proposals, in favor of an International Monetary Fund which would have enough resources to counteract destabilizing flows of speculative finance. However, unlike the modern IMF, White's proposed fund would have counteracted dangerous speculative flows automatically, with no political strings attached—i.e., no IMF conditionality. According to economic historian Brad Delong, on almost every point where he was overruled by the Americans, Keynes was later proved correct by events.