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...