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A comment on Greece. Parent comment

Re:Greece by tormeh on Saturday July 04, 2015 @09:49PM (#9832236)
Just a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period. If you don't pay them back you're a morally deficient scoundrel. If you're ever bankrupt then the legal system will permanently brand you. German economics is a mix of Austrian school economics and strict morals.

It doesn't excuse the largely international banks a la Deutsche, but it does explain the Germanic outrage.

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Re:Greece by throwaway2048 on Saturday July 04, 2015 @10:58PM (#9832349)
just like germany paid off its debts post ww1 and ww2?
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Re:Greece by oldmanjay on Sunday July 05, 2015 @01:01AM (#9832531)
Half of the country got to suffer under the yoke of the USSR for half a century. The debt is paid.
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Re:Greece by peterfirefly on Sunday July 05, 2015 @08:47AM (#9833356)
There shouldn't have been /any/ debt after WWI (except to Belgium, who didn't ask to be a battle field in the self defense of Germany).

Russia, France, Britain, and the US should have paid reparations to Germany, not the other way around.

Why? Because Germany /didn't/ start the war. It just ended up as one of the losers.

Germany had huge territorial losses after both wars, parts of Germany were under forceful occupation for a long time afterwards, and they paid heavily in terms of manufacturing equipment and money afterwards. I'd say they paid.

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Re:Greece by r0naa on Sunday July 05, 2015 @12:03PM (#9833922)
Germany declared war on Russia and France, on August 1st and 3rd respectively. Not sure what you mean by:

> Why? Because Germany /didn't/ start the war. It just ended up as one of the losers.

It also didn't blame Germany for starting the war but for the damage caused by German troops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_231_of_the_Treaty_of_V...

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Re:Greece by crdoconnor on Sunday July 05, 2015 @02:15AM (#9832680)
>Just a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period.

It's neither Anglo-Saxon nor German. It's a creditor perspective.

The same perspective that brought us debtor's prisons, and even (in Roman times), the notion of bankruptcy meaning "selling yourself into slavery".

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