Greece - demise of the eurozone as we know it?

[BackTrak]

QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ May 23 2012, 09:42 AM) But a watered down melting pot of the these would be like killing all of these cultures and would leave an entire continent with a manufactured identity.

Pish posh, Sir! I contend their identities would be as different as those of Indiana and Ohio. And we all know both of those start with a completely different vowel.

There, I said it, and I'm not going to take it back neither!

[HJ_KG]

,

[Adept]

QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ May 23 2012, 05:42 PM) But a watered down melting pot of the these would be like killing all of these cultures and would leave an entire continent with a manufactured identity.

Nah, I don't buy this for a minute.

The world is changing fast. The culture we live in now is pretty damn far from the fifties, and starting to be pretty far from the eighties already. The local flavour of Spain, Italy and Sweden will still be there... and if it won't then it wasn't really that important to begin with.

[lexaal]

I do not think how a reparation payment would solve the problems of Greece in any time. Sure Germany can buy some time.. but time was bought before and it did not work. Much money was "donated*" and it disappeared, only boosted the number of people who are financially dependent on the state. Even with (on the paper very strong) savings Greece still could not balance out their budget. An unlimited amount of money could be burned there but that will not change anything (OK... maybe it would create increased submarine sales..). What Greece really need is a complete turnaround of their economic system.

If you see what money has been sunk... Europe and banks gave a yearly-10% of their GDP-Bonus (which consists of not-paid-back debt and subventions) to boost their economy but that money was burned without any significant effect.

You can blame the EU, and if u want, mostly Germany for not checking their numbers when they joined the Euro. We had hope for greece. Everyone thought that the economy with a stable currency would be in advantage over an economy with high inflation. The reality, as i see it now, is: bad/good currency is only a symptom of underlying problems.

Surely you can blame EU for not forcing Greece to get a balanced household, for not forcing Greece to reform their retirement system and for not forcing Greece to reduce their large number of public servants.
But in Europe states were sovereign in their decisions and responsible for the results of those decisions. This is changing now.

If that what is happening now would have happened much earlier they would fall same deep but not from the current but a much lower level.

The once who will suffer most are people of Greece.

For those many who live by leeching out their own state it is okay, they deserve it. But i do not think whatever is going to happen is fair for all the Greeks who work hard in the industrial, agriculture, tourism and service sectors because they work hard for what few they get, and if they keep their jobs during the crisis they have the guarantee that they must pay for the still growing number who get their earnings by the state and not by the real economy. (But the migration to more hopeful states has already started.)

*) officially it is called borrowed but without the expectation to get it back it can be considered as a gift.



I believe that the EU will completely change its face during the current process. One political movement goes towards more EU control, e.g. of the individual states' budget.
Another movement goes towards less dependence on each other and more individual responsibility. Both ideas have disadvantages and advantages.

I believe that parts of the german gouverment are more caring about the political profit during the next elections than on the actual problems of greece. In greece itself the future major party is based on an anti-eu/anti-germany movement. Similar movements are growing and getting stronger in almost every country.
The whole story will have an effect on almost every one and most probably not a good effect, so i am really sad about it.

tl;dr:
greek is in trouble and it's most their fault but also a bit the fault of the rest. Europe will change it's political face, most probably not towards a good direction.

[djrbk]

Eh easy solution. Have Germany take total domination over the EU. Make the fourth Reich a fiscal one, in the true spirits of liberal capitalism.

[mcwarren4]

I got it... maybe we should ask the Greeks to pay reparations to Egypt for the Wars of Alexander the Great. The whole line of logic just keeps leading us backward into history. There is a group in the US that actually wants African governments to pay reparations for their part in the slave trade.

[fuzzylunkin1]

QUOTE (Adept @ May 23 2012, 10:58 AM) TC is a greek expat. Those people tend to be much more extreme than the people actually living in Europe.

The EU and Euro will be fine. TC is just shouting form the sidelines.

QUOTE (Adept @ May 23 2012, 02:55 PM) Nah, I don't buy this for a minute.

The world is changing fast. The culture we live in now is pretty damn far from the fifties, and starting to be pretty far from the eighties already. The local flavour of Spain, Italy and Sweden will still be there... and if it won't then it wasn't really that important to begin with.

This is all well and good, but I have a hard time believing it. I am American first, and German, English, Native American, etc etc etc blah blah blah second. I would like to get to a point where I just call myself human above all else, because that's what everyone is. But our societies and cultures really do affect how we live. Look at it from the perspective of a visiting alien who's never seen us nor our planet before, seeing all these people who look the same or extremely similar shoot at each other and blow each other up because we have different ideas and beliefs.

Now, I'm not saying it's bad to be proud of where you're from, but what would you, personally, call yourself? Finnish, European, Human? Not ideally, but realistically. Right now, when I introduce myself to someone I generally say something like "I'm Fuzz, I'm American and I live in Wisconsin," assuming it's someone who doesn't recognize my nationality or anything. Note Wisconsin is only used as a place, not as an identity.

The way I see it, we still have some progress to make in regard to social evolution. Yes, I would like to reach the "human" stage eventually (or whatever else we might call ourselves or change into), but I personally think it would be nice to see Europeans label themselves as such, first and foremost. The same applies to the entire world. I'm not saying I think many European countries are avidly hostile toward each other, but it really is the small cultural things that separate us -- often in the way things are expressed, which hint at certain ingrained beliefs.


Sorry my evolution nonsense seems to be spilling over, but I thought it applied here . Though perhaps I just don't understand Europe*.



* See what I did thar?

[Duckwarrior]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ May 23 2012, 05:02 PM) That's all well and good to say, Adept, but some UK fool wrote that article that TC keeps citing, which seems to claim that since Germany never paid any WWII reparations that somehow they have a duty to bail out greece. That's just insane to me, given that all the people who made any decisions, fired any weapons, or did any damage in WW2 are all dead.

QUOTE (Adept @ May 23 2012, 07:37 PM) UK has a big population, so they produce quite a few fools, and it's easy to get populist points over there by predicting doom and gloom on the Euro.

With respect, Prof. Albrecht Ritschl is German. http://mfi.uchicago.edu/people/ritschl.shtml

I would very much like to see the fool to population ratio figures for the UK & the rest of the world, for the purposes of scientific comparison of course. I seem to remember Adept, much like the stories in Bild & Le Fig at least mentioning the UK leaving the EU after Cameron used the UK's veto in January. If we are talking Fools, then that particular point of view is surely a strong contender for the 2012 title. Angela Merkel was attempting to mend fences the very next day, unlike some of Europe, particularly the Baltic states and the gets-funnier-the-more-you-try-to-take-her-seriously Grybauskaitė in particular. Wave goodbye to the second largest net contributor to the EU budget? How was that going to help to repair a financial crisis exactly? I am very interested to hear why this wasn't a ridiculously populist piece of naivety in the extreme.

How about if instead of a punitive tax on the banking sector, the proposal had been to fine manufacturing for producing the goods that people had borrowed money to buy? Or to seriously reform the ludicrous CAP which continues to pump billions into the bloated agricultural sector? I suspect the veto's would have been of German & French origin. Possibly even Finnish, because maybe the "major" players may have permitted you guys to have one, if the matter conformed to their own model of EU solidarity http://euobserver.com/843/114545.

It is quite refreshing for the hate to be directed other than towards the north west of the continent for a change, but I feel for the Greeks. We in the UK know exactly how it feels to be considered naughty, naughty, bad Europeans by our neighbours. It seems that if we are to have a united Europe, then the path to it has to be smooth and trouble free, or else we are just going to have to declare some nations "less" European, and maybe even spank them and ask them to leave the room in disgrace while they just jolly well go and think about what they have done.

In my view we missed a step with the Euro out entirely. Instead of a unified currency, it should have been a universally accepted currency throughout Europe, exchanged at the prevailing rates with national currencies. After twenty years or so, we would have seen exactly where each nation was fixed with respect to its value and what kind of spending parity existed between the various countries. If AS has taught us anything, it is that you can't hide your mu, and your sigma changes only when France says it can (Did I get that right?).

So fear not our Greek brothers, we can shuffle our fat asses up on the Naughty Step to accommodate you. In fact it is a pretty damned big step, and there is plenty of room for the other nations that may have to join us on a time-out in the future.

Haters gonna hate.

[TheCorsair]

QUOTE (Adept @ May 24 2012, 01:58 AM) TC is a greek expat. Those people tend to be much more extreme than the people actually living in Europe.

The EU and Euro will be fine. TC is just shouting form the sidelines.

I am not a Greek expat...you can't get even that right. Sidelines? shouting? lol I do have the ability to read and know what's up ya know.. Also I would expect you adept to bring up personal perceived nationality and shouting because it somehow in your warped mind makes you think it would discredit me, a Greek can't comment on the euro crisis affecting Greece.. oh no... we're all lazy and can't be objective can we. Like all finns are as inept as you? I have no such illusions.

Perhaps you'd like to tell the Pensioner that shot himself in the head in front of the Greek parliament because he did not want to be a burden to his family that he surely isn't as extreme??? you sicken me

In the suicide note, found by police and reported by the Athens News newspaper, Christoulas said: "The government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. "And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting... I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through rubbish bins for my sustenance."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/...5636544797.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sFpbFJPNNY

It's happening in Italy too.. just so we don't hear more stereotypes from you..

An Italian businessman who was depressed over the failure of his construction company has taken his own life, in the country's 25th such "austerity suicide" this year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...f-the-year.html


as for taking arms... I have not one ounce of respect for that "fool" who claims a UK guy fool wrote that article

His failure to read nor comprehend is astounding

If he wasn't such a fool he would see the author is Albrecht Ritschl who of course is GERMAN and went to the Uni of Munich...and is an economics professor who cites FACTS.

I don't accept much from the real FOOLS like Inept and fakingbrains

[TheCorsair]

QUOTE (lexaal @ May 24 2012, 06:18 AM) tl;dr:
greek is in trouble and it's most their fault but also a bit the fault of the rest. Europe will change it's political face, most probably not towards a good direction.

How do you explain Ireland, Spain who had a surplus.. Portugal, Italy

Greece of curse is not an innocent victim here... of course not... but at the same time... lets not forget the companies and government bribing Greek politicians to purchase German and French arms... even Siemens a German company in on the act....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/...E8E90S320120309

but nah it's easier to blame Greece and Greeks for everything who comprise 2% of the Eurozone.