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Do you really think that is just? Are the people who are being forced to take a huge drop in living standards to blame for corruption or unpaid taxes by the more wealthy?
Yes.
Elections have consequences. The greek mess is collectively and very firmly the product of the Greek citizens.
Sovereign states have no duty to repay their creditors.
Don't like that? Don't lend money to sovereign states.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Nobody will lend you money if you stop paying it back.
Don't like that? Pay your debts...
It goes both ways.
Only in wishful thinking land money printing produces actual value.
But if you don't accept this reality, you can not be helped.
Refusing to print money can destroy real value.
So when in doubt, print more money. If that doesn't solve the problem, print even more money while looking for other ways to solve the problem. The only harm that can do is inflation, which isn't actually harmful at all.
States have always been able to default on their debts, and other states have always been willing to lend to them again afterwards, as other states are the only game in town. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
But if it makes it easier for you to feel self-righteous, I guess it must be worth it.
Nobody is 'punished' here, any more than you are 'punished' when you get wet after walking in the rain. Dont want to gert wet? Don't walk in the rain...
Actions have consequences.
This, Germany will certainly learn in the next few years.
Except apparently not in this case.
Politics is a human construction. The rules can be changed at any moment. (And often are, to suit someone or other.)
The ordinary, lower-income, least powerful citizens are entirely to blame for the corrupt wealthier classes and for the successive governments of different parties - and their guilt is such that they should be punished.
An astounding version of democratic responsibility. The ordinary, lower-income, least powerful citizens are entirely to blame for the corrupt wealthier classes and for the successive governments of different parties - and their guilt is such that they should be punished.
If you can think of anyone in mainstream politics in the UK who actually represents the interests of the voting majority, instead of pretending to in a rather half-hearted way but very serious way, let me know who they are.
I promise to vote them for them next time around, if you can convince me it will make a useful difference.
Satisfy enough of enough people's dark side and you'll get away with a lot.
Run on the basis of people's good side and you tend to not get elected - so even originally well-meaning politicians don't and that's an awful slippery slope. Once you're inside the machine you end up being swallowed by it.
Labour tacked to the right partly because they decided it was the only way to get elected.
But this is neither here nor there: this type of democracy we supposedly have is in fact a mediated system in which the "viable" choices are selected for the people by a series of checks and mechanisms, in which cultural hegemony plays a big role. Not only Greece though. What you say is the same type of fallacy that Al Qaida has employed in the not so distant past: Americans elected Bush, Bush kills Arabs, Arabs have a right to kill all Americans as complicit in Bush's election in a free and fair (well...) way. It doesn't work that way. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
What we after all should not forget is that neoliberalism is a religious movement. The poor are "sinners." They must be punished, when the elites f** up.
Do you really think that is just? Are the people who are being forced to take a huge drop in living standards to blame for corruption or unpaid taxes by the more wealthy? Yes. Elections have consequences. The greek mess is collectively and very firmly the product of the Greek citizens.
Being such a fan of collective punishment, I assume you will be prepared to argue that every surviving Wehrmacht soldier should have been shot at the end of the last world war?
For that matter, you should be a big fan of the Versailles treaty.
Papademos and his merry band of collaborators should take very careful note of what happened to Vidkun Quisling.
Germany received some 1.4 billion US$ over the whole Marshal plan duration; which amounts to slightly more than 10% of its overall size. Germany repaid about 2/3 of that.
On the other hand, the allies took values from Germany, in the form of dismantled industries, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and abducted scientists that exceeded that sum by orders of magnitutde.
And that doesn't even account for all the other willful damage that the allied occupation forces inflicted, especially in the early years of the occupation (when they did not fear a surging Soviet Union).
Go, read some Wikipedia
you might want to read a little about that before making wild claims. Germany received some 1.4 billion US$ over the whole Marshal plan duration; which amounts to slightly more than 10% of its overall size. Germany repaid about 2/3 of that.
Forgetting the Versailles war reparations, are we?
Forgetting the reparations to the victims of war crimes, are we?
Forgetting the reparations to occupied states for the goods and services looted from them during the war, are we?
Oh, you mean they took away war criminals like von Braun and put them to use in their own industries instead of shooting them? How was that burden not self-inflicted, again?
Patents, trademarks and trade secrets were not internationally protected at the time, so no dice there.
Which is the signal for me to call it a day. It probably was time for that hours ago.
Arguing with fanatics is a waste of time.
It really is bizarre. These facts are a matter of public record. Anybody can look up how great a fraction of the Versaille payments Germany actually made, and how many reparations Germany paid to the victims of its various occupations. The numbers are not secret. Just embarrassing to any German who gets on a high moral horse about international debts.
First the allies pillaged Germany: Industrial plans for Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first "level of industry" plan, signed by the Allies on March 29, 1946, stated that German heavy industry was to be lowered to 50% of its 1938 levels by the destruction of 1,500 listed manufacturing plants.[2] In January 1946 the Allied Control Council set the foundation of the future German economy by putting a cap on German steel production capacity: the maximum allowed was set at about 5,800,000 tons of steel a year, equivalent to 25% of the prewar production level.[3] The UK, in whose occupation zone most of the steel production was located, had argued for a higher limited reduction by placing the production ceiling at 12 million tons of steel per year, but had to submit to the will of the US, France and the Soviet Union (which had argued for a 3 million ton limit). Steel plants thus made redundant were to be dismantled. Germany was to be reduced to the standard of life it had known at the height of the Great Depression (1932).[4] Car production was set to 10% of prewar levels, etc.[5]
Destroyed forests: Industrial plans for Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Timber exports from the US occupation zone were particularly heavy. Sources in the US government admitted that the purpose of this was the "ultimate destruction of the war potential of German forests." Extensive deforestation due to clear-felling resulted in a situation which could "be replaced only by long forestry development over perhaps a century.".[7]
And took over patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets: Industrial plans for Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Allies also confiscated large amounts of German intellectual property (patents and copyrights, but also trademarks).[28] Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the US pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the US (and the UK) amounted to close to $10 billion.[29][30][31] The US competitors of German firms were encouraged by the occupation authorities to access all records and facilities.[32] In 1947 the director of the US Commerce Department's Office of Technical Services stated before congress: "The fundamental justification of this activity is that we won the war and the Germans did not. If the Germans had won the war, they would be over here in Schenectady and Chicago and Detroit and Pittsburgh, doing the same things."[32] A German report from May 1, 1949 stated that many entrepreneurs preferred not to do research under the current regulations (Allied Control Council Law No. 25) for fear of the research directly profiting their competitors. The law required detailed reporting to the Allies of all research results.[32] The patents, drawings and physical equipment taken in Germany included such items (or drawings for) as electron microscopes, cosmetics, textile machinery, tape recorders, insecticides, a unique chocolate-wrapping machine, a continuous butter-making machine, a manure spreader, ice skate grinders, paper napkin machines, "and other technologies - almost all of which were either new to American industry or 'far superior' to anything in use in the United States."[33] The British took commercial secrets too, by abducting German scientists and technicians, or simply by interning German businessmen if they refused to reveal trade secrets.[34]
The Allies also confiscated large amounts of German intellectual property (patents and copyrights, but also trademarks).[28] Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the US pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the US (and the UK) amounted to close to $10 billion.[29][30][31] The US competitors of German firms were encouraged by the occupation authorities to access all records and facilities.[32] In 1947 the director of the US Commerce Department's Office of Technical Services stated before congress: "The fundamental justification of this activity is that we won the war and the Germans did not. If the Germans had won the war, they would be over here in Schenectady and Chicago and Detroit and Pittsburgh, doing the same things."[32] A German report from May 1, 1949 stated that many entrepreneurs preferred not to do research under the current regulations (Allied Control Council Law No. 25) for fear of the research directly profiting their competitors. The law required detailed reporting to the Allies of all research results.[32]
The patents, drawings and physical equipment taken in Germany included such items (or drawings for) as electron microscopes, cosmetics, textile machinery, tape recorders, insecticides, a unique chocolate-wrapping machine, a continuous butter-making machine, a manure spreader, ice skate grinders, paper napkin machines, "and other technologies - almost all of which were either new to American industry or 'far superior' to anything in use in the United States."[33]
The British took commercial secrets too, by abducting German scientists and technicians, or simply by interning German businessmen if they refused to reveal trade secrets.[34]
Though I must say that I do not know exactly how that worked. I would imagine that at least they transfered the rights companies held in the western allied countries to allied companies and the rights companies held in Germany to allied companies. If enforced in Germany that should have been quite devastating. I know that the neutral Swedish government did not quite accept these seizures leading to an interesting period. Still does not accept some of them as the copyright of Mein Kampf in Sweden was in the 90ies found by a Swedish court not to belong to the state of Bavaria. Probably would belong to hitlers relatives but they do not enforce their rights.
Anyway, then the Allies changed their policy and instituted the much more well known policies to let West Germany rebuild.
So what Jake should say that in keeping with Cris view on the consequences of going out in the rain, the policy of grabbing everything should have continued. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
You can quibble with the valuation, of course, but one and a half orders of magnitude is a pretty big quibble.
I recall being shown equipment in the Mechanical Engineering Lab at Oklahoma State University that had come from Germany in the early years after WW II. But given Germany's performance during and before WW II, a case could be made for the first policy: "Never Again!" Now, an argument can be made that they are accomplishing through economic means what they could not accomplish through military might. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
I mean, massive amounts of German debt were expunged. In Greece alone, Germany not only had its pre-war debts expunged, but its forced loan for the German occupation was never repaid, it took many billions of gold from the National bank treasury, not to mention all the damage, death and destruction.
Read all about it: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,769703,00.html
In an American context, this is equivalent to $225 billion today.
In a German context relative to GDP, this would be $50 billion.
The total amount Greece has received from Germany so far is $15 billion, but it will all be paid back, and it is being paid back at 5.25% over the last 18 months. Germany actually received the Marshall Plan money. The Greek money however has mainly gone to the creditors.
Wikpedia seems to differ (it gives the total amount as 12.731 bn), but in any case, as mentioned before, the actual subsidy to Germany was about 400m US$, plus another 1bn in repaid loans. The vast majority of Marshal Plan funds went to US allies; and the British received another 40bn on top outside of it.
But this exists in a context of allied powers extracting/looting several 10bns of values from Germany during the same period; and further damage through malicious and/or stupid occupation rules and actions. (like, intentionally starving the population, forbidding food imports etc). Just read the Wikipedia article.
From Deutsche Welle: Als Griechenland deutsche Schulden halbierte. That's what "European solidarity" means. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
You would see Schäuble walking around as Greece's biggest supporter.
But, alas, they can't.
Oh, wait... tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Very early on quite a few European politicians noted that Greek debt in and by itself was not the major problem.
Greece's complete inability to balance its budget even with much reduced debt, though, certainly was. (and is)
The government is the employer of last resort. This implies that the government has to be able to print and spend money at will.
Why is this difficult to understand?
since everybody is going to jump on that:
s/balance/curb to a level appropriate for its growth/
Balanced budgets are bad. Why is this so hard to grasp? Governments need to run deficits - usually quite substantial ones - to ensure full employment and macroeconomic stability. Any deal that does not allow European states to run any deficit required to defend full employment is a totally unacceptable deal and should be rejected and repudiated.
Greece has cut its budget by 19%. It is being asked to cut it another 6%.
No country in history has ever cut its budget that much without an accompanying economic stabilizer (such as currency devaluation).
In other words, Greece has slashed a ton already.
And it did so in a recession. Any further so-called reforms would have only killed the economy even more.
Not single serious economist has ever said this plan would ever work. And now that it hasn't worked, the dunderheads are looking for scapegoats, as though the deregulation of the taxi and pharmacy sector will save Greece.
Even the IMF in its own handbook warns against cutting the budget like this in so short of time without any economic stabilizer whatsoever.
... and to retire to a sinecure at a global corporation. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
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