My understanding of the situation is that German and French banks flooded Greece with easy credit. And as it always happens under such circumstances people/corporations/governments borrowed heavily and when the crisis hit in 2009 they couldn’t repay. All of the so called bailouts have been aimed at making sure French and German banks didn’t suffer and the ones who did suffer have been the Greek people with the exception of the ruling class.

Loans are a two party relationship and people tend to view the borrower more harshly than the lender. Lenders tend to get bailed out and somehow aren’t viewed negatively for their profligate lending. Why is it only the borrowers that suffer?

Varoufakis also mentions in his books that German reparation payments to Greece after WW2 were conveniently cancelled by the Western allies when they needed (West) Germany onside to face the Soviets.

https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/10/greece-to-renew-call-for...

Pretty much any and all reparations were cancelled for Western Germany and today's Germany by continuation. It was a mix of "we need Germany now" and the less than stellar experiences with reparations after WW I.

Outside the reparations question, Germany forced Greece to provide loans during the '40s occupation.

Those loans are not reparations, were never cancelled and, due to continuity of government, are still owed by Germany to Greece.

Debts must be paid after all.

That's an extremely one-sided point-of-view.

The net effect of the whole saga was Greece getting to spend a lot of money in the 90s and 2000s, and the stronger countries of the Eurogroup ending up paying for (at least part) of that.

Focussing on these countries' motivation is somewhat useless speculation, and arguably unfair if you manage to twist it so far around the people paying end up as the bad guys, and the people spending as the victims.

In any case: French and German banks could have absorbed a Greek default, although it would have been painful. Because these banks held only part of the debt[0], it would have always been cheaper to make them whole again and tell Greece to take a hike.

Considering a decade has passed and some things happen, one might also want to reevaluate the motivations ascribed to, for example, Angela Merkel. Does she still strike people as incapable of aiming higher than just immediate parochial needs?

[0]: around 30% IIRC, can't be bothered to look this stuff up again ten years later)

My intention was to point out that lending is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities. The tendency in my experience in these discussions is to put too much blame on the borrower and too often put very little blame on the lender.

The motivation of the German and French governments was that German and French banks not suffer. And of course the leaders of those countries cared more about their people than the people of Greece. This is natural and part of the psychology of being part of a nation. We ended up with things like:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece-warships-...

At any rate, both parties are at fault and both parties ought to have suffered. From my perspective only one party suffered.

> My intention was to point out that lending is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities.

Greek lenders were forced to pardon half it's debt, which ultimately caused some banks to bankrupt. Enough with this tale of how Greek governments are victims for repeatedly requesting loans, and then falsify their accounting to keep requesting loans, and then hiring professional accounting teams to optimize their accounting forgery to keep receiving loans.

Yes, Greek lenders were so forced but not German and French lenders. German and French banks were knowledgeable about the deplorable state of Greek accounting and the stupidity/corruption of the Greek government. They had responsibilities. It's a two party interaction and both the lender and borrower need to be held responsible.

Enough with this tale of how German and French banks are victims for repeatedly giving loans and looking the other way at the bad accounting!

> Yes, Greek lenders were so forced but not German and French lenders.

Somehow you misread what I said. "Greek lenders" means those who lent money to the Greek state. Those were European private banks, including French and German. Those banks were forced to bear the loss of half of Greece's sovereign debt in Greece's famous 2011 debt hair cut.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-banks/europes-bank...

> Enough with this tale of how German and French banks are victims for repeatedly giving loans and looking the other way at the bad accounting!

It's too late to act that ignorant, sykick. The truth is out for almost a decade, and you simply cannot turn a blind eye to the facts. Go browse Wikipedia's article on the subject to get an idea of how Greek governments created their whole mess and how Europe's economy and the EU were forced to bear the brunt of the economic and financial and political problem Greece's ruling regime created for their country.

I think you have misread what I’ve written. I keep mentioning that lending is a two party relationship and that both parties are responsible and should both suffer. I’ve agreed that the Greek government was corrupt and had shady accounting practices. But the lenders knew this and still lent money. The so called bailouts of Greece were nothing more than a means of propping up the German and French banking sector [1]. The only people that genuinely suffered were the Greek people. The bankers didn’t suffer. The taxpayers in Germany and France suffered a small amount since some of their taxes went to pay to prop up their banking sectors. However, given the nature of the single currency market and how it greatly benefits Germany this should be considered a minor cost of business and doing this occasionally is worthwhile for Germany.

Why do you ignore the fact that lenders knew the sorry state of standards in Greece and still lent massive amounts of money to Greece? Why did they continue to lend money? Isn’t the most likely reason being that the people involved in making the loans do so for short term gain knowing they won’t go to jail and they personally won’t go bankrupt? You keep neglecting to hold the lender accountable. I’ve repeatedly mentioned that borrower should suffer and is responsible. All I’ve done is mention that the lender should be held responsible too. Isn’t it obvious that the lender should be held responsible? And by lender I mean the people making the decisions not just the corporate entity.

I think clearly we won’t agree. As I mentioned before in these discussions too often people neglect to realize that lending is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities. My sole aim has been to point out that the lender ought to have suffered too.

[1] https://shadowproof.com/2012/05/30/greek-bailout-is-a-bank-b...

What success story. The structural effects of the austerity which everyone including IMF admits was much too hard on GDP will be felt, and Greece will be screwed for many years to come. See for example wiki article, e.g. section "Effects of applied programmes on the severity of the debt crisis and the IMF's apology": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#E...

Retirement age in Greece is today and was in 2011 higher than in Germany. Using some anecdotes and guess for aggregate data is bad induction.

"privatize" means that today all the Greek airports are owned by German companies. Is it legit to suppose there was a slight conflict of interest between the "doctor" and the "patient"?

I mean, would you trust your doctor if he gains on your death?

Really?

"Like many EU countries, the general retirement age in Greece is 65, although the actual average is about 61. However, the deeply fragmented system also provides for early retirement – as early as 55 for men and 50 for women – in many professions classified as unhealthy."

55 and 50!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-to-ca...

Average in 2011 was 61,9 yo for Greece and 61,5 yo for Germany. This is an average between all the jobs, classified unhealthy and not.

But although it was less than Germany, let's say 60 or 59 or even 55:

1) lenders knew it, so it's also their fault on not weighting the risk well or not asking for an higher interest rate or avoiding giving them money at all. To check is their responsibility.

2) IMF decisions brought an increase in suicide rate and children mortality rate. Are the lenders allowed to bring death to the borrowers? Is this illegal for the mafia but allowed for IMF/ECB/EC?

> 2) IMF decisions brought an increase in suicide rate and children mortality rate. Are the lenders allowed to bring death to the borrowers? Is this illegal for the mafia but allowed for IMF/ECB/EC?

How does one make this claim? What would the alternative have looked like? It's not like the IMF just decided to tank a healthy economy.

Conveniently, Greece is just below Germany in the table, making for easy comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age#Retirement_age_...

Regarding early retirement, I'm sure this is the case in many "industrious" countries too. You probably don't want 65 year olds running around in combat boots with a machine gun and 20kg of supplies on their back.

But Germany would afford a low retirement age, while Greece could not. It is an unfair comparison, as not all other facts are equal.

A low retirement age is a good thing; it is a symbol that society does not prize labour just as much as it appears to. It is an affirmation that we work to live, not live to work.

Greek GDP is still 40% below 2008. Almost no serious reforms were passed. Greece did the largest default in history and somehow still ended up with 181% dept/gdp with absolutely nothing to show for it, the Troika just continued funding the kleptocracy.

do you live in greece by chance? I don't, but the friends I have there don't consider it a success story. Maybe it is nice they got a surplus now (after 10 years!) but during those 10 years a lot of suffering and pain to their population. Even the IMF has admitted it was a bad prescription (1)

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-22791248

> It's a success story.

Haha! That was a good one.

Hey man, it was a success story. For Germany. First their banks are salvaged. Then they get infusion of cheap Greek labor.

It's a win-win.

Na malaka

That's very mature of you.

Like your positive characterization of millions of peoples' economic misfortune wasnt cheap and childish? Reading your insensitive comment probably ruined a few Greeks' day. I think you can handle a little Hellenic criticism.

Or a dog who doesn't understand why the vet tortures him!

So now we are implying the the population of a country are less than human, because of economics. Cool!

That's just an insult.

No, that's Hanlon's Razor. Either the population was ignorant of living beyond their means and adopting bad economic policies -- or they are deadbeats who willfully took out credit they had no intention of repaying.

The population is not the one who adopts the economic policies. The government is.

Governments are elected by the population. Are they then not responsible for their choices?

The elected party in Greece only got 40% of the votes and they can pass any law and take any decision at will. In addition to that pretty much every party that was elected in the past had been caught lying regarding most things that they said regarding the economy (and not only). People should certainly be responsible for their choices, but this was not one of them.

No it's an analogy for a population who didn't see fit to pay their taxes, have a functioning state, who thought it was a good idea to adopt a foreign currency when it didn't make sense economically, and doesn't understand why they are forced to make economic sacrifices to correct the situation.

I think the accusation of ignorance is kinder than the alternative ("let's not pay our taxes, the germans will pay for us").

> who didn't see fit to pay their taxes

With all the corruption going around I would not blame them. (even without it I would not blame them regardless. There are many people all over the world -including me- who consider taxes thievery)

Anyway, please do correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't it only the rich/rich companies that did that? Similarly to how Amazon, Google, or Apple for example pay almost no tax.

> who thought it was a good idea to adopt a foreign currency when it didn't make sense economically

Do you have a citation for this? As far as I know the Greek population was not asked about it.

As far as I am aware, tax fraud was (and probably still is) endemic in Greece. If you like to think it is just Amazon not paying its taxes, believe what you want. If you go see a doctor in Greece he will ask for cash.

What do you mean the population wasn't asked? It's a democracy. The population elects polititians that vote laws and make decisions. Like in almost every country and for almost every topic. If the greeks didn't care about what their polititians did, good for them. But they aren't children. They are a sovereign democracy. They own the consequences.

> If you go see a doctor in Greece he will ask for cash.

Yes? Cash is the standard method of payment, what is the issue exactly? Regardless of that, employees (who are the majority of the workforce in pretty much every country) can't tax-evade.

> What do you mean the population wasn't asked?

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22385367

And at the end of the day, even if there was true democracy it would still not make sense to blame all the population for the choice of the majority. In the same way that you can't blame every American for the killer drones, or every German for the election of the NSDAP.

Amputating a limb or surviving chemotherapy is hardly a success story, especially when the operation is hardly over yet.

What happened to greece was a disaster. Of course it required to be handled by adults, and they did what was necessary. But the whole thing is hardly "a success story".