Opinion of Alexis Tsipras

[SATW]

massive HP

[Hnv1]

FF and a terrible poker player

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I think this chart is relevant here.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

From another place

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[Phony Moderate]

What's with these pointless soft left/centre parties popping up recently? If SYRIZA their vote won't drift to them. Are they fragments of PASOK?

[Velasco]

FF and a terrible poker player

Maybe, but in fairness his cards are all marked since the beginning of the game and there's no real choice in terms of strategy. Perhaps the tactics have not been always the best, but in any case better tactics in negotiation wouldn't have changed the very fact of the extreme disproportion in power relations. The ECB can destroy Greece whenever it wants.

Actually the bargaining is a big farce. The alleged intransigence or unwillingness to undertake reforms attributed to the Greek government are not the real motivations to permit a Grexit. EU governments are unwilling to make (even minimal) concessions because they would raise internal opposition in their countries. The negative to give in showed by the IMF seems irrational and incomprehensible, taking into account the institution advocated for a default back in 2010 and Mrs Lagarde admitted the failure of austerity policies a couple of years ago. What happens if the strength of the single currency is being overestimated? Quoting Wolfgang Munchau's Twitter, Germany seems "giddy with excitement about looming Grexit, like a turkey voting for Christmas".

[Gustaf]

I don't like charlatans. For once I find myself agreeing with px on something.

Greece should have left the euro long ago. Things will now be painful for the Greek population (even more so than it already is) but that's unavoidable by now I think.

[jaichind]

http://www.obj.ca/Canada---World/2015-06-23/article-4192364/Greeces-governing-party-lawmakers-chafe-at-proposed-reforms%2C-government-says-had-no-choice/1

Now Syriza left faction is threatening to vote against a deal.  Now Tsipras might need ND votes which might not materialize as ND would have objections to this deal (if it were to take place) as well.  This is an entire mess.  Tsipras should just call a referendum and a general election at the same time.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

[Hydera]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

You mean greedy greeks.

Nobody forced greece to take loans they couldn't afford.

[Landslide Lyndon]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

Obviously you don't know dipsh**t about the Greek crisis. It's our state that went bankrupt and threatens to take the banks with it, not the other way around like Ireland.

[Silent Hunter]

First rule of international diplomacy is that the sausages are supposed to be made in private.

Venting your spleen on Twitter about the peeps you're trying to reach a deal with isn't a smart move

[Tetro Kornbluth]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

You mean greedy greeks.

Nobody forced greece to take loans they couldn't afford.

and Nobody forced the various financial institutions to give them loans they can't get back.

Why can't everyone see there are two sides to this and it is not a morality play?

[Hydera]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

You mean greedy greeks.

Nobody forced greece to take loans they couldn't afford.

and Nobody forced the various financial institutions to give them loans they can't get back.

Why can't everyone see there are two sides to this and it is not a morality play?

First nobody assumed that Greece wouldn't payback. Greece willingly signed contracts that they would borrow X money and pay back in 10 years and just kept piling on debt after debt because they wanted to use the borrowed money for votes.


One person owes the other not the otherway around.

If we subscribe to this rubbish that somebody could borrow tons and money and get away with it because "otherwise it would be unfair to have to payback". Then people would stop lending to eachother at all.

                                                            

[ingemann]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

You mean greedy greeks.

Nobody forced greece to take loans they couldn't afford.

and Nobody forced the various financial institutions to give them loans they can't get back.

Why can't everyone see there are two sides to this and it is not a morality play?

The bankers are never innocent, but in this case most of the banks who borrowed Greece money did it at low interests and in good faith, and the ones who didn't ensured that they wouldn't lose money on Greece. Of course by now the debt have mostly been bought out by the rest of EU (mostly the Euro zone countries with BOP surplus), and the Greek interest payment are lower than Italy's and Spain's in percent of the GDP. So yes this are not a morality play, but Greece are in a lousy negotiation position and Tsipras government really don't give the rest of EU much interest in giving the Greeks anything.

[Silent Hunter]

You know, this whole thing started because a batch of people who shouldn't have had loans asked for them and the banks decided to lend them money anyway.

[Hydera]

You know, this whole thing started because a batch of people who shouldn't have had loans asked for them and the banks decided to lend them money anyway.

And if they denied loans to Greece?

Imagine the outrage amongst the ultra-left that "bankers are unfair to greece!!!" and "they hate the poor because they don't want to give them money!!!"

[ag]

"The original and fatal error <...> was the notion that huge, interest-bearing loans made in emergency conditions for emergency purposes could ever ber repaid by one government to another. It simply could not be done, politically".

From "On Active Service in Peace and War", 1948,  by Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy

(Stimson was, among other things, Hoover's Secretary of State).

M. Tsipras and his men are in a bind. Politically.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Tsipras put himself in a bind willfully by toppling the previous government and promising everything to everyone during the campaign.
He knew all too well our situation, yet he preferred to tell sweet lies to the voters and stoke the flames of nationalism and populism. If it wasn't my country on the stake, I would shed no tears for his miserable failure.

[Velasco]

The bankers are never innocent, but in this case most of the banks who borrowed Greece money did it at low interests and in good faith (...)

lol ingemann, that's terribly ingenuous. In addition, that's not true. When a bank lends a certain amount of money, is seeking to obtain a profit in return. Morality and "good faith" are not involved at all in the banking business. We are talking about financial transactions and that is all. Sadly and regrettably, because in my opinion concepts like "ethics" and "moral responsibility" should be more present in the business world. The counterparty is that when you lend money you are assuming a certain amount of risk. It's naive to think that bankers were ignorant about the real state of Greek finances, they have enough tools at their disposal to know how creditworthy is a loan seeker. In fact, the makeup of the Greek public accounts would have been impossible without a bit of outside help. In conclusion, bankers loaned at their own peril and they have no right to demand anything under a moral point of view.

However and as you said: "Of course by now the debt have mostly been bought out by the rest of EU". Of course? It's funny how naturally you accept that EU taxpayers pay what is in good part the result of the irresponsibility of bankers. Some people call it "socialisation of losses". 

[jaichind]

The drama never ends.  French President Francois Hollande held out hope of a deal for Greece even as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said negotiations looked to be going backward.  EU's Tusk predicts 'happy end' to Greece debt talks.  Greece's Tsipras 'confident we'll reach a compromise' in debt deal.  While the Euro-area finance ministers now have two competing proposals (one from the Greeks and one from Greece’s three creditor institutions.)

[Silent Hunter]

You know, this whole thing started because a batch of people who shouldn't have had loans asked for them and the banks decided to lend them money anyway.

And if they denied loans to Greece?

If they'd denied them back in the 1980s, we wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, a lot of the mess in the developing world is due to loans being given during the Cold War to military juntas so they could buy weapons... and it became so impossible for them to pay back as well as preventing governments from looking after their people properly, a lot of it (after pressure for campaign groups) was forgiven. Look up the Jubilee 2000 campaign to see what I mean.

[ingemann]

You know, this whole thing started because a batch of people who shouldn't have had loans asked for them and the banks decided to lend them money anyway.

And if they denied loans to Greece?

If they'd denied them back in the 1980s, we wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, a lot of the mess in the developing world is due to loans being given during the Cold War to military juntas so they could buy weapons... and it became so impossible for them to pay back as well as preventing governments from looking after their people properly, a lot of it (after pressure for campaign groups) was forgiven. Look up the Jubilee 2000 campaign to see what I mean.

But you can rest easily, the Greek debt was not build up under the Junta (which ran a budget surplus). In fact as the Greek had a quite low debt in the early 80ties, so why shouldn't you borrow money to a country with low debt?

[Hydera]

You know, this whole thing started because a batch of people who shouldn't have had loans asked for them and the banks decided to lend them money anyway.

And if they denied loans to Greece?

If they'd denied them back in the 1980s, we wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, a lot of the mess in the developing world is due to loans being given during the Cold War to military juntas so they could buy weapons... and it became so impossible for them to pay back as well as preventing governments from looking after their people properly, a lot of it (after pressure for campaign groups) was forgiven. Look up the Jubilee 2000 campaign to see what I mean.

But you can rest easily, the Greek debt was not build up under the Junta (which ran a budget surplus). In fact as the Greek had a quite low debt in the early 80ties, so why shouldn't you borrow money to a country with low debt?

It was low in 1980 and then exploded post-1981 after the election of Andreas Papandreou who created the unsustainable welfare state.



The Junta had nothing to do with greece's debt problems today, they kept it low and actually ran surpluses.

Also in hindsight if people knew that greece would use those loans to built an unsustainable welfare state they would of denied. People here who think that banks are at fault for giving greece loans would be upset just as much that "the banks are being greedy by not letting greece borrow so they could create a welfare state".

[Velasco]

People here who think that banks are at fault for giving greece loans would be upset just as much that "the banks are being greedy by not letting greece borrow so they could create a welfare state".

This sentence is so absurd that I'm speechless.