Greece 2012
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Peter the Lefty
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« Reply #700 on: May 17, 2012, 10:13:04 PM »

Yeah, that meanie doesn't want to give me his money...guess I should hold a gun to his head. Right, Antonio? Wink
More like, I'm starving (and penniless) because all of my money (and food) got thrown away by my drunken partner, as someone with access to my money.  A multi-millionaire landlord is walking down the street and sees me, frail, and begging for food, and he agrees to buy me a single meal as long as I pay for a lot of it by selling all of my clothes and shoes, and whatever bare essentials I have left, on a cold, winter day, to prove my "seriousness" about paying for it. 
So I'm angry that he wouldn't have more sympathy and a desire to help.  But of course, it's mainly because he lives in the same neighborhood and the value of his property (apartment buildings) is lowered by the sight of me, a frail, starving beggar, that he's actually bothering to do anything at all. 

That is a more accurate description of what Greeks are enduring at the hands of the Germans.  And I apologize in advance if I offend you or anyone else, but god, you Germans, why does it seem so hard for you to feel any compassion at all?  I expect much of this paragraph to be edited out, I know, but I mean it seriously.  I know I'm talking generally here, and I know there are plenty of exceptions but even considering the experience of hyper-inflation, why do Germans seem like the second most heartless people in the western world (with only us Americans being worse)?
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Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #701 on: May 18, 2012, 12:41:21 AM »

Yeah, that meanie doesn't want to give me his money...guess I should hold a gun to his head. Right, Antonio? Wink

I guess you know that it has never been about actually giving any money, right ?

If SYRIZA wins, it was a lot of money given.

Well, we wouldn't be there if the German governments didn't bullied neoliberalism on all Europe...

You know, I do think you're rather simplifying this problem. I think several things happened that even made this situation possible, such as forming a common currency in the first place, not to mention the corrupt former Greek governments falsifying their data and so on to get in.



Everybody, even Germany falsified their data to get in. That's common knowledge by now.
The problem is that we continued to do so afterwards. But even then it was Merkel and Baroso who turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of their conservative pal, Karamanlis.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #702 on: May 18, 2012, 05:05:58 AM »

I was just listening to the BBC world news program that NPR has sometimes and there was someone speaking for SYRIZA. He was saying that by threating to default within the Euro  unless their demands were met they were fighting for the 99% of Europeans and that the whole European project couldn't possibly survive without Greece. When the guy saying that the people of Europe were thanking Greece for theatening to default I started yelling at my radio.

Do the Greeks really believe that they are winning friends right now?
Right now? They are, actually. Not a majority, obviously.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #703 on: May 18, 2012, 05:09:21 AM »

the corrupt former Greek governments falsifying their data and so on to get in.


They were effectively told to by the governments of Europe.
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SPQR
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« Reply #704 on: May 18, 2012, 05:18:35 AM »
« Edited: May 18, 2012, 05:23:37 AM by italianboy8 »

Yeah, that meanie doesn't want to give me his money...guess I should hold a gun to his head. Right, Antonio? Wink

I guess you know that it has never been about actually giving any money, right ?

If SYRIZA wins, it was a lot of money given.

Well, we wouldn't be there if the German governments didn't bullied neoliberalism on all Europe...

You know, I do think you're rather simplifying this problem. I think several things happened that even made this situation possible, such as forming a common currency in the first place, not to mention the corrupt former Greek governments falsifying their data and so on to get in.


Or such as SOME governments not giving a crap about other governments falsifying their data,because what was important was respecting the Maastricht criteria on time,so that we could get a common currency in a context that would favour only SOME countries.
Oh,btw,there is an OCSE research that demonstrates how all the European countries falsified their data in order to respect the criteria. That's the same OCSE research that Der Spiegel used a few days ago. Obviously,they used it only to attack Italy...it's clear that Monti's proposal for growth is not liked by someone over there.

Also,how come nobody mentions the fact that the limits imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact were not respected by GERMANY AND FRANCE, and that the European Council of Ministers decided not to sanction them,and that the European Court of Justice afterwards imposed a reform of the pact,otherwise the sanctions had to be applied?
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #705 on: May 18, 2012, 05:40:35 AM »

I was just listening to the BBC world news program that NPR has sometimes and there was someone speaking for SYRIZA. He was saying that by threating to default within the Euro  unless their demands were met they were fighting for the 99% of Europeans and that the whole European project couldn't possibly survive without Greece. When the guy saying that the people of Europe were thanking Greece for theatening to default I started yelling at my radio.

Do the Greeks really believe that they are winning friends right now?
Right now? They are, actually. Not a majority, obviously.

If anything it's Germany that's making itself lose some popularity abroad.
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ingemann
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« Reply #706 on: May 18, 2012, 09:32:41 AM »

I was just listening to the BBC world news program that NPR has sometimes and there was someone speaking for SYRIZA. He was saying that by threating to default within the Euro  unless their demands were met they were fighting for the 99% of Europeans and that the whole European project couldn't possibly survive without Greece. When the guy saying that the people of Europe were thanking Greece for theatening to default I started yelling at my radio.

Do the Greeks really believe that they are winning friends right now?
Right now? They are, actually. Not a majority, obviously.

If anything it's Germany that's making itself lose some popularity abroad.

Maybe down south, but up here, I haven't meet anybody with much sympathy for the Greeks, and no it's not "those lazy South European" kind of thing, there are significant sympathy for the Iberians. And before you ask most people I deal with are working class and lower middle class.
Most people understand why the Germans don't want to send money to the bottomless hole which is Greece, even the people who disagree with the austerity policies.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #707 on: May 18, 2012, 09:44:12 AM »

I was just listening to the BBC world news program that NPR has sometimes and there was someone speaking for SYRIZA. He was saying that by threating to default within the Euro  unless their demands were met they were fighting for the 99% of Europeans and that the whole European project couldn't possibly survive without Greece. When the guy saying that the people of Europe were thanking Greece for theatening to default I started yelling at my radio.

Do the Greeks really believe that they are winning friends right now?
Right now? They are, actually. Not a majority, obviously.

If anything it's Germany that's making itself lose some popularity abroad.

Maybe down south, but up here, I haven't meet anybody with much sympathy for the Greeks, and no it's not "those lazy South European" kind of thing, there are significant sympathy for the Iberians. And before you ask most people I deal with are working class and lower middle class.
Most people understand why the Germans don't want to send money to the bottomless hole which is Greece, even the people who disagree with the austerity policies.

What is happening to Greece is quantitatively, not qualitatively different to what is happening in other South European countries.
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ingemann
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« Reply #708 on: May 18, 2012, 10:13:48 AM »

I was just listening to the BBC world news program that NPR has sometimes and there was someone speaking for SYRIZA. He was saying that by threating to default within the Euro  unless their demands were met they were fighting for the 99% of Europeans and that the whole European project couldn't possibly survive without Greece. When the guy saying that the people of Europe were thanking Greece for theatening to default I started yelling at my radio.

Do the Greeks really believe that they are winning friends right now?
Right now? They are, actually. Not a majority, obviously.

If anything it's Germany that's making itself lose some popularity abroad.

Maybe down south, but up here, I haven't meet anybody with much sympathy for the Greeks, and no it's not "those lazy South European" kind of thing, there are significant sympathy for the Iberians. And before you ask most people I deal with are working class and lower middle class.
Most people understand why the Germans don't want to send money to the bottomless hole which is Greece, even the people who disagree with the austerity policies.

What is happening to Greece is quantitatively, not qualitatively different to what is happening in other South European countries.

I disagree, the reason for the trouble in the different country are quite distinct. If you look at Spain and Portugal, it's too large extent the banks, which has pulled the economy into a recession, while in Greece it's the state. which has pulled the banks down with them. The Greek state has shown a degree of mismanagement which would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. The Greek state has shown it unwilling to collect taxes, something which isn't similar in Spain nor Portugal, which both collect their taxes. Greece also have a degree of clientism almost unheard off in EU15. I find it completely unfair and insulting to the Spaniards and Portugeese to compare their states with Greece.
Why do I not compare Italy with Greece, because Italy have many of the same problems, but at the same time Italy do have the benefit of having a functioning industry and export sector, and the degree of clientism and tax evasion in Italy is significant lower.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #709 on: May 18, 2012, 10:36:14 AM »

Of course, I don't mean all southern countries have the same strural problems Greece has. But at this point, structural issues internal to countries don't matter anymore. Spain is roughly in the situation Greece was one or two years ago, and Italy might be in the situation Greece was two or three years ago. The problem here does not lie in the inefficiency of the Greek State (even though this is also a problem which ought to be solved, it is not the core issue), it lies in the fact that we have a common currency which isn't backed by a common borrowing system, something which just isn't viable. It lies in the unwillingness of Germany and other "virtuous" countries to "pay for" other countries (even though, at the end of the day, the effects would be positive for these countries as well). This system just cannot work. Therefore, the solutions are two : either the Eurozone disbands, or we finally create these goddamned EuroBonds.

And as a side note, I find it extremely unfair to blame the entire Greek people for the corruption and general inefficiency of their institutions, and making it "pay the price for it".
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Iannis
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« Reply #710 on: May 18, 2012, 10:55:29 AM »

Yeah, that meanie doesn't want to give me his money...guess I should hold a gun to his head. Right, Antonio? Wink

I guess you know that it has never been about actually giving any money, right ?

If SYRIZA wins, it was a lot of money given.

Well, we wouldn't be there if the German governments didn't bullied neoliberalism on all Europe...

Neoliberalism? Funny, They canceled 140 billion debt, owed to european banks, so neoliberal.. they are only asking not to do new debt, actually, the consequence is that Greece will have the development that its industry and productivity allow, nothing special. Too bad that the productivty is at balkanic levels, but this is not german fault of course.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #711 on: May 18, 2012, 10:59:34 AM »

No, if that's any foreign power's fault it's British and American. And holidaymakers', so I guess Germany is right back in the boat. Grin
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #712 on: May 18, 2012, 11:17:59 AM »

Antonio,

The Greeks have voted in elections for over 35 years now and been member of EU since early eighties. How on earth are they not responsible for their government, or are there systematic election fraud that I am not aware of.

Even if people do vote for corrupt politicians, and even if a significant share of the population has probably benefitted from or taken part to corruption, it is still absurd to hold people directly responsible for it. These kind of systems, once established (and their establishment itself generally comes from inherent societal factors), create dependences which make them very hard to break up.
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So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!
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« Reply #713 on: May 18, 2012, 11:53:11 AM »

Even if people do vote for corrupt politicians, and even if a significant share of the population has probably benefitted from or taken part to corruption, it is still absurd to hold people directly responsible for it. These kind of systems, once established (and their establishment itself generally comes from inherent societal factors), create dependences which make them very hard to break up.
This is true but irrelevant. It is always the citizens of a country that suffer the consequences of it's incompotence... even places like North Korea. If the North Koreans are to suffer for the incompetence of their horrible regime, I feel no pity for Greeks suffering the consequences of incompotence by their elected government.

Sure innate structural factors that the Greeks did not choose are responsible. You can say the same thing when it comes to individuals... is the serial killer to blame for possessing a neurology or suffering an upbringing that primed to murder people? No, nonetheless we punish him because no quantity of philosophy can overrule the iron law of society: people and groups are responsible for their actions.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #714 on: May 18, 2012, 12:03:48 PM »

Even if people do vote for corrupt politicians, and even if a significant share of the population has probably benefitted from or taken part to corruption, it is still absurd to hold people directly responsible for it. These kind of systems, once established (and their establishment itself generally comes from inherent societal factors), create dependences which make them very hard to break up.
This is true but irrelevant. It is always the citizens of a country that suffer the consequences of it's incompotence... even places like North Korea. If the North Koreans are to suffer for the incompetence of their horrible regime, I feel no pity for Greeks suffering the consequences of incompotence by their elected government.

Sure innate structural factors that the Greeks did not choose are responsible. You can say the same thing when it comes to individuals... is the serial killer to blame for possessing a neurology or suffering an upbringing that primed to murder people? No, nonetheless we punish him because no quantity of philosophy can overrule the iron law of society: people and groups are responsible for their actions.

If we spent less time "punishing" people, and more time trying to fix what's wrong with societies or institutions, human progress would be so much quicker.

And even if the Greeks had deserved a "punishment", I think anybody with a tad of common sense and who isn't an utter hypocrite can agree that they have suffered more than enough for their "sins".
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ingemann
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« Reply #715 on: May 18, 2012, 12:32:09 PM »

Of course, I don't mean all southern countries have the same strural problems Greece has. But at this point, structural issues internal to countries don't matter anymore. Spain is roughly in the situation Greece was one or two years ago, and Italy might be in the situation Greece was two or three years ago. The problem here does not lie in the inefficiency of the Greek State (even though this is also a problem which ought to be solved, it is not the core issue), it lies in the fact that we have a common currency which isn't backed by a common borrowing system, something which just isn't viable. It lies in the unwillingness of Germany and other "virtuous" countries to "pay for" other countries (even though, at the end of the day, the effects would be positive for these countries as well). This system just cannot work. Therefore, the solutions are two : either the Eurozone disbands, or we finally create these goddamned EuroBonds.

And as a side note, I find it extremely unfair to blame the entire Greek people for the corruption and general inefficiency of their institutions, and making it "pay the price for it".

It has nothing to do with virtuous, but everything with being able to explain their voters why they need to support the other countries. It would be a death of kiss for any government which send a fortune to Greece, only for the national media bringing the news that the the Greeks continued their existing dysfunctional behaviour.
In fact I'm going to be pensioned when I'm between 70-72, I pay a marginal tax of 40% (and I'm working class), it's really hard for any government to explain to my kind of people, that we have to pay to Greeks among whom 6 out of 10 don't pay income tax, who is able to go on pension at 55 (50 for women), while at the same time we're pushing internal austerity. It's not a popular issue among the electorate, which is the most important reason the northern countries has pushed austerity on the southern countries, they needed a internal excuse to help. Or at least it were at first, the Greek continued abyssal behaviour, have spiraled it all out of control to the point where we are now, where bailing the Greeks out would be political suicide for Merkel or any other German government.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #716 on: May 18, 2012, 01:19:37 PM »

It has nothing to do with virtuous, but everything with being able to explain their voters why they need to support the other countries. It would be a death of kiss for any government which send a fortune to Greece, only for the national media bringing the news that the the Greeks continued their existing dysfunctional behaviour.

Maybe "either we do this or we are all screwed" might be a decent explanation. Considering European leaders have contributed to spreading the delusion according to which since 2009 they have made enormous sacrifices to help Greece, and by pure generosity (whereas, in fact, they have done almost nothing and the little they have done was to avoid economic disaster in the eurozone as a whole), they bear a lot of responsibility in the state of public opinions.


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So, you're a working class Dane. Tell me, would you trade your economic situation for that of a working class Greek ? Do you think he's better off than you right now ? Do you think he will be better of at the end of his life ? AFAIK, considering the wage cuts, the dismantlement of welfare State Merkel&co have imposed to Greece and the massive recession the country is enduring and will probably endure in the next decade at least, I'm not sure you would gain much from this trade-off.


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Which is pretty damn stupid, considering austerity is part of the problem : it has ruined any chance of economic recovery, pushed Europe back into recession, and the most ridiculous of all is that it actually increases deficits. An excellent idea, really.


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Roll Eyes

Now I really don't get it. How exactly are the Greeks responsible for the evolution of their country since 2009 ? All they have done since has basically been imposed by the Troika/Merkozy, so, if you have to blame someone, don't look at poor Papandreou...

Of course it would be beneficial to all (Greeks comprised) if corruption suddenly ceased and Greece became a perfect country like the scandinavians. We all wish that. However, I can't believe you are naive enough to think all this could be done in a trice. Structural reforms take time. They can take a full generation to produce their effects. And, above all, there is zero chance to see a diminution of corruption and illegality in a situation of economic depression. When people are desperate, there is no chance they will make an effort to pay their taxes or wouldn't try to bribe the local civil servant for an advantage. So, by pushing Grece into destitution, you paladines of austerity not really helping.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #717 on: May 18, 2012, 01:50:05 PM »

OK, I won't respond to any more post which contain "why should we pay". Now I'm sick of this mind-numbed rhetoric.
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Franzl
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« Reply #718 on: May 18, 2012, 01:55:05 PM »

OK, I won't respond to any more post which contain "why should we pay". Now I'm sick of this mind-numbed rhetoric.

Well but it's true. You don't seem to have much respect for what belings to people (including collectively as a country). You can argue and debate what is in the best interest of all participants, but you act like Spain, Greece, whoever else have a right to German, Austrian and Finnish money. Whatever your beliefs on the Euro crisis, we are talking about sovereign countries. What you're suggesting is comparable, in principle, to saying Niger has a right to receive money from Europe because their people live in poverty (which, morally at least, is much more understandable and worthy of support.)
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Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #719 on: May 18, 2012, 01:59:17 PM »

Even if we suppose that Greece deserves all the punishment it gets, why are the Germans imposing the same punishment on countries like Ireland and Spain which were examples of fiscal prudence until 2008?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #720 on: May 18, 2012, 02:01:51 PM »

OK, I won't respond to any more post which contain "why should we pay". Now I'm sick of this mind-numbed rhetoric.

Well but it's true. You don't seem to have much respect for what belings to people (including collectively as a country). You can argue and debate what is in the best interest of all participants, but you act like Spain, Greece, whoever else have a right to German, Austrian and Finnish money. Whatever your beliefs on the Euro crisis, we are talking about sovereign countries. What you're suggesting is comparable, in principle, to saying Niger has a right to receive money from Europe because their people live in poverty (which, morally at least, is much more understandable and worthy of support.)

This is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there are two options : either we accept the idea of a common currency, with everything it entails (including eurobonds), or we definitely settle on the old-fashioned selfish nationalist logic with everything it entails (ie abandoning Euro). Both these choices are absolutely legitimate (even though I think the second would be an economic suicide). All what I want is some consistency in reasoning.
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Franzl
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« Reply #721 on: May 18, 2012, 02:05:08 PM »

Even if we suppose that Greece deserves all the punishment it gets, why are the Germans imposing the same punishment on countries like Ireland and Spain which were examples of fiscal prudence until 2008?

I'm not using the word punishment at all. I don't think the Greek deserve punishment , as if they were children being sent to their rooms for misbehaving.

I think we've gotten ourselves into a project that doesn't work. The financial and economic abilities of the member states are simply too great to overcome, and we can basically say that there are contradictory interests here. It appears to me that policies that would benefit the Southern countries would invariably disadvantage the Northern ones....and the other way around.

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Beet
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« Reply #722 on: May 18, 2012, 02:44:20 PM »

There's a question as to how you measure whether a more economically prosperous entity benefits or not from being in a currency, fiscal, or political union with less prosperous entities. I mean, if you add up the total transfers to and from the US state of New York in it's history, surely transfers out of New York dwarf transfers into New York. So then does it mean New York has not benefitted from being a member of the United States? It's benefitted tremendously because it made Wall Street the nexus of the world's largest economy, and Ellis Island the gateway to a continent. Similarly, there are intangible benefits to Germany of being in the eurozone. Besides helping the competitiveness of German manufactures and the like. It makes Frankfurt the nexus of a potential economic superpower. It puts German institutions at the forefront of a continent of people much larger than Germany. Over time, this could draw power, influence, and capital into Germany itself, more than would occur if Germany was on its own. We're already seeing it. Arguably, Angela Merkel is the most powerful Chancellor in German history.
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ag
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« Reply #723 on: May 18, 2012, 02:52:11 PM »

OK, I won't respond to any more post which contain "why should we pay". Now I'm sick of this mind-numbed rhetoric.

It's not rhetoric: it's the essence of things. And you'd better understand that.
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ag
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« Reply #724 on: May 18, 2012, 02:56:25 PM »

Even if we suppose that Greece deserves all the punishment it gets, why are the Germans imposing the same punishment on countries like Ireland and Spain which were examples of fiscal prudence until 2008?

Germany is not imposing a punishment on anyone - not even on Greece. The issue is not punishment - the issue is, Greece cannot stay in euro (unless of course, everybody else leaves). If you really need a hate figure, it should not be Merkel, but Papademos - wasn't it him, who engineered Greek joining the euro back in the day?
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