Talk Elections

Seen today in Athens:

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I have no problem with them burning German flags, but conflating today's Germany with Nazi Germany? My opinion of Greece on a scale of 1 to 10 just dropped from 3 to -5.

Burn the EU flag instead - they're the real enemy of the Greek people.

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LOL @ the glasses guy on the right...

Where do you get Nazi flags from in Greece anyway?

Didn't even see that. Protesting Germany and wearing a BMW jacket ... ;D

Well it's nice to see they still have some fight in them at least, as they are worn down and enslaved by the "markets."

The usual left-wing idiots and their far-right brethren, united in their anti-EU hatred and nationalistic fervor.
The crisis has made some strange bedfellows indeed.

Not fair, but understandable.

Hey - at least they're not waving the Nazi flag. With all the kooky ideas floating around recently, it wouldn't be such a shock.

Not much else is. Their attitude to Germany, the hand that feeds them, is unfair, but even greater is the utter pitiableness. Look at faces of the man and woman on the lower right hand side, taking a momentary satisfaction in the transferance of their degraded state to a misguided hatred.

The level of screwedness that is Greece just boggles the mind.

One thing that occurred to me last week is that Germany in a 'just' world would probably be the EU state with the largest debt. We've never seen all that many repair payments from WWII. (Let alone the gold the Nazi's stole from various national banks to pay their Swiss and Swedish trade partners. Though by 1997 France and Belgium at least had received their gold fully back. Don't know about other countries.)

Here's a chart of net payers and net recipients within the EU:

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Every year, Greece gets about 6-7 billion € more from the EU than they have to pay for them.

This accounts for about 3-4% of the country's GDP.

Germany is the biggest net payer as you can see.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you - indeed ... ;)

Can I interpret this to mean they don't want any more money from us?

So, you trick them into a ponzi scheme, they get ed up, complain, and they are the bad ones, pointing their fingers to your faces, the angelic beings that were feeding them with money that didn't exist. Poor Germany.

This is so similar to what had been done to us in the 70's, that I get sick. Poor IMF.
At least, this time, the interest rates weren't stratospherically raised, in order to destroy their economy for the next 30 years.

I am certainly able to relate to it.

First of all the current German government has been completly oblivious to the hardships Greece is going trough. By repeating prejudices for political gain Merkel, Kauder and others have certainly shown a complete disregard for hte Greek challenges.

Furthermore German economic policy has been in during the last to decades very much export orientated. Which of course meant large trade surpluses for Germany but also trade deficits for other European countries. I'm not sure how much this is a conscious reason for the protests but it is certainly a reason for the current state of the Greek economy. 

And in the end it's quite possible that the current reforms will not even work and thrust the Greek economy even more into crisis.

I've read somewhere that Greece has too high minimum wages anyway. Much higher than for example in Spain/Portugal, which also have more productive economies than Greece (900€ a month compared with 500/600 or so in Spain/Portugal).

I love the idea of some Greek guy desperately stitching together a Nazi flag specifically for the purpose of burning it.

Given Germany's laws against displaying Nazi memorabilia, can they even show photos of this event?  The swastika-ban always puzzled me.

I totally agree with burning the current German flag, it's a crime against aesthetics.  Bring back the Black-White-Red Imperial flag.

Yes.  Five people in Greece during a VERY stressful time burn a Nazi flag so therefor everybody in the country is a scumbag.  Very level headed.

Why is Tender playing the part of the neoliberal a-hole here ? ???

yikes.

Sure, because it's news.

Section 86a, subsection (3) of the German criminal code states:
"Subsection (1) shall not be applicable if the means of propaganda or the act serves to further civil enlightenment, to avert unconstitutional aims, to promote art or science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes."

That's also the reason why Inglourious Basterds isn't banned in Germany. It's "art".

Well that and the fact they probably wouldn't dare to interpret the law in a way that would hurt the commercial interests of Universal Pictures or any other major Hollywood studio. :P

Because you can be left-wing and care about fiscal responsibility, as he's always appeared to be to me.

It's the German (or Austrian) blood, perhaps... ;)

That ain't the Imperial flag. This is:
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Personally, I wish West Germany had adopted this proposed design in 1948:
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Tricolors are boring no matter if they are Black-White-Red or Black-Red-Gold.

This is correct.

This is one of the biggest own goals I've ever seen on this Forum.

I still can't believe that the coalition would so passively accept stark minimum wage cuts that would do nothing to reduce the deficit and only satisfy the disgusting desire of the troika to implement neo-liberal reforms everywhere without rhyme or reason.

This is political suicide.

I would imagine they can, given that ANTIFA logos showing swastikas being struck out or thrown in dumpsters were declared legal not that long ago. Germany isn't as completely indifferent to context as some people think here. As for your second point, I agree. It's very unfortunate that neo-Nazis and Anarchists (or both (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National-Anarchism)) have such a monopoly on aesthetically pleasing symbols.

Germany, of all countries, should understand that punishing people with economic disaster doesn't work out well for anyone.

Does the EU have the situation that the US does where the susidizees whine about how they're subsidizing the subsidizers, and talk about how self-reliant they are?

The E.U. has the situation where people who need help and are being denied it actually protest until they get something.

On a side note, it wouldn't be at all a bad idea for the Federal Government to reduce welfare spending and leave more of it to the states.  man, think what our states could do without having to subsidize the fat/uneducated/corn-growing states.

I'm hardly neo-liberal, I just want Greece to get more productive and arrive in the 21st century world of economic competition, which is very important these days. If you are a part of a highly productive Union, you should at least try and show the others that you still want to be productive in the future and not give up and complain. But I also recognize that the EU alltogether made a mistake in accepting countries like Greece or Portugal to be members so soon. A country should need at least 90% of the productivity/debt/deficit of the whole EU to join. If this would have been the case, a lot of these problems wouldn't take place right now. Greece would just go bankrupt like many other failed countries before and start from zero.

As for Franzl: Yeah, it's probably got to do with mentality. Austrians/Germans have grandparents who tell their grandchildren of how difficult it was after WW2, when they built our 2 countries back up out of the ashes and made them one of the most well managed and productive countries in the World. And it's passed along the generations. If you are told that you must work hard and don't whine around you also expect something like this from the people of Greece. That could also be a reason why there are almost no strikes here.

That's also the reason why the swastika is featured prominently on the homepage of the German Green Party.

I really don't get this logic. How do you expect Greece to develop, modernize and become productive through savage austerity measures no civilized country could ever accept ? Don't you see how cutting the Welfare State, cutting social protections basically leads to economic and social regression ? How can you consider yourself a social-democrat and advocate such policies ?!? All these measures are doing is pushing Greece into recession. Recession means less tax revenues, less tax revenues mean an even bigger deficit. So what do you do, another austerity plan ? Great ! When will this stop ? When there is no deficit, because there's no government anymore. And there will be no civilization anymore, as mass unemployment and poverty would have led to the breakup of social contract.

People, grow up. THINK, for God's sake. Deficit isn't good, especially in times of economic prosperity. It's better to have a surplus than to have a deficit, of course. But since Keynes, everybody with half 1/100th of a brain understands that a deficit might be necessary to avoid economic collaps in times of recession. It has been proven thousands of times that making deficit reduction a higher priority than restoring growth equals economic suicide. Someone who thinks Greek people deserve this because their past (right-wing) government let the deficit grow to excessive level could, IMO, reasonably be called an asshole. I hope it's not your case.

The Greek government has its fair share of responsibility for the current situation with its unwillingness to push through the necessary reforms and reduce the size of our elephantine administration and state utility companies. Sadly, taxi drivers and workers at our state TV channels proved to be more powerful than the troika. And our national victimization complex and navel-gazing mentality make it easy to believe that there are sinister motives behind every Brussels/Berlin ultimatum.

But that doesn't mean that EU's prescription of austerity, austerity, and some more austerity, isn't an abject failure. Portugal and Ireland, which supposedly followed EU's instructions much more faithfully than us, and were complimented for that, are also in the midst of a severe recession and will soon need a second bailout, just like us.
Like Krugman said, when all EU states (even the prosperous ones) decide to apply austerity policies then unless we find some aliens to trade with, recession is inevitable.

The imperial flag is disgusting and Mikado should be ashamed. The red-black-gold flag is the flag of the (bourgeois at least) revolution and is great.

Greek minimum wage is probably holding them. Holding an even worse fall.

And Tender, please. This rich works more, poor works less speech - added with a hardworking grandparents that passed me values - is so petty-bourgeois. My family history would fit on this, yet there were no wasteland here (and the preferred excuse thus being the immigrant ethos) but I know a lot of families with the same, or even higher, income levels that doesn't fit at all. And a lot of poor people that works a lot.
Actually, I've known few poors that don't stand up at 5AM, keep standing inside the bus for at least 1 hour, works all day through, hold their heads down when their employers or chiefs humiliate them, then more bus, a lame meal and sleep. Yet, I can tell you, a rich, well educated, but lazy and slightly obnoxious kid will usually do a more effective job.
It's a matter of culture, yes, but not based on effort. It's based on the time and the approach that community had on the industrial society's issues. This creates behaviors and postures that leads to a better relation with the economical-technological environment they are immerse.
Look at how easily East Asia absorbed the industrial society culture. Their merchant/proto-industrial leanings were strong enough, over agricultural organizations, to make an easy and fast transition. On China, I dare state this was a result of Mao's crazy 'go to the country' policies. It wasn't madness; just plain pragmatism.
Now, here in Latin America (and I guess the Southern Asian case would be very similar) our almost medieval agricultural societies, thrown suddenly at the new social-economical organisation, evolved to a situation in what urban populations got easily onto modern world, but rural populations kept living on ancient mentality. When the stupid economical policies of the 70's provoked a heavy rural flight, and sudden disappeared with the opportunities, we got stuck with a population whose culture didn't fit that environment.
This is only being solved now, after the second or third generation of inland immigrants is getting on productive age. And It's most because Lula's policies provided them better opportunities than being janitors.

So, the problem with southern Europe is way more complicated. Because It mixes this civilizational gaps (yet in a extremely minor level) with geopolitics and economical international relations. Is it fair to blame Greek, Portuguese, Irish and Spanish governments? Yes, it is. They accepted the EU arrangements blindly, didn't made any effort to use this to improve their societies, lacked any kind of national project; just followed their richer neighbours bovinely.
Is it fair to western Europe to complain about their southern neighbours? No, it isn't. The whole plan was elaborated by the EEU, those countries did nothing that wasn't approved and stimulated by the Paris-London-Berlin axis.

I think it all depends how these austerity measures are put together. Of course I would favor austerity measures that are not impacting the middle class by a great deal. As I have posted in the Austrian election topic, the government here unveils a spending cuts/tax increase package that the Standard newspaper here calls "moderate, but not bold". This package is worth about 30 billion € for the next 5 years and involves almost exclusively areas that won't impact the solid economy and it's future growth (read more in the Austrian election thread about this). So, if Austrian politicians can find areas that won't impact the economy, the Greeks I suppose can do so as well and weed out areas that are bloated (like their mega-million-civil servants sector) or deeply flawed (pensions, billions of pension payments each year to dead people ?) or deeply flawed² (tax system, tax evading is a hobby in Greece, most people have not heard about the word "bill" when a customer buys something, fakelaki or what it is called is the easier solution) or flawed³ (a megalomaniac military industrial complex that has spending that is 5 times higher than Austrian military spending). Then there's also the problem with the pledged privatisations by the Greek government worth of about 50 billion €, pledged about 2 years ago, and the government hasn't privatized almost anything of this sum in these 2 years to pay down debt. And of course, the minimum wage decrease might be not the best way, but I have read somewhere that it might be better to decrease it now, so that the employers can hire more and more people are paying taxes again.

Oh really ? Austria's austerity plan doesn't hurt middle classes as much as Greece's ? Maybe it has to do with the fact Austria's debt is less than half of Greece's... or that the Austrian welfare is more protective to begin with. Of course there are solutions to end the structural deficits in southern economies, but these are long-term solutions : fighting against tax evasions, ending undue loopholes and exemptions or cutting spending in improductive government sectors. But these are long-term solutions, it's not something you can fix from one budget law to the next one. And instead, what Europe and the Great and Virtuous Countries are pushing for, are short-term plans to cut the deficit. Except that nothing work mechanically when we talks about economics. You won't diminish the deficit by 1 bilion by defunding for 1 bilion of programs which sustained the economy. If this it were the case, Greece would be in surplus right now. Instead, the only thing you people have achieved is sending people into utter misery while Greek finances are worse off than they were 2 years ago. Great job.

So...the austerity thing passed.

Sht just got real.

Germany's Carthaginian terms for Greece (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9077586/Germanys-Carthaginian-terms-for-Greece.html)

Not going to post a snippet because the whole thing really is worth a read.

What should be negotiated, of course, is the plan for getting Greece (and, likely, some other countries) out of the euro with minimal pain and suffering. Of course, it is impossible to do this in the open: any hint of such negotiations would destroy whatever is left of the Greek financial system in a second. The problem, though, is, that, in fact, Greece has effectively committed to not negotiating it even in secret, by installing a "technocratic" PM. Even if we forget that Papademos was the one who engineered Greek entry into the eurozone (and is unlikely to give up his major achievement without a fight), he cannot, really, make such a fundamentally political decision.

Here's the plan.

3-4 Weeks Ahead: Decision is made at the highest political and financial levels. Greek government begins to secretly stockpile food and fuel, ala Thatcher stockpiling coal in the 1980's.
2-3 Weeks Ahead: The military is apprised, as are the heads of the major political parties. A succession plan is drawn up for the resignation of Lucas Papdemos or current PM and his replacement with a willing leader.
1-2 Weeks Ahead: Some top police officials are apprised. Plans are drawn up to maintain enough order on the main thoroughfares to ensure that the trucks can keep the supermarkets stocked.
Friday Morning: Design of new drachma sent to printing presses.
Friday Afternoon 4 PM: Private bankers are called to a meeting in which they are told to prepare imposition of capital controls.
Friday Afternoon 5:30 PM Capital controls announced. At the same time, it is announced Greece is quitting the EU. Transfer of funds outside the country is forbidden. Banks are closed and online transfers are frozen. From this point forward, no paper euros are to be disbursed in Greece.
Saturday night: Bank of Greece formally exits the Eurosystem of Central Banks. It is announced Greece is quitting the EZ. Papademos resigns and is replaced by successor.
Sunday night: Drachma declared legal tender. All electronic euros are electronically converted to drachmas.
Monday morning: Paper new drachmas begin to be disbursed in selected cities.

All that's well and good, but wouldn't the value of the new Drachma go down to zero instantaneously?  It wouldn't really matter if it were allowed to float or not.

No way Greece goes out of the Euro Zone.

Polls keep showing a large majority of Greeks don't want it, the govt doesn't want it, and if I believe reporters from there, those big demonstrations and the violent things that go with, which are, as always, mainly the result of some extremist violent groups, would only be 'the tree that hides the forest' as we way in French, most Greeks would be more resigned even if quite bitter about what's happening to them, than ready for a revolution.

And, on the other hand, we have the Euro Zone, which gonna do everything to avoid it too, losing a member of the Euro Zone, and moreover the smallest one, not succeeding to save it, would be a total blow up psychologically, and would lead to a big lack of credibility in the financial world.

If nobody effectively wants it, then not going to happen.

I can't wait next elections though, so that we know what Greeks actually want. Which is what matters in the end. Just heard some polls gave about 40% to all the leftist parties that called for the end of Euro in Greece, then who knows, but I'd be surprised it happens. If so, it would be an acceleration toward the worse for this economical system, at the global scale.


That's very right Mr Papademos, then if those took place, maybe it just means there is like a problem of democracy...

Ironical that the country that saw the 1st monetary system and the 1st democratic one, would be the 1st one to be touched by the fail of those both. Still ironical that the 2 other countries which gave the most important updates to those realms in History too, would be the most crippled too, US and UK.

Demos will have to find new ways to find some Kratos...

There's nothing democratic about the way Papademos was inserted into power.

Why the hate on Papademos? He's only the head of Greece's for-show-only Mock Government. It's not as if he has any power...

Letting the bankers or the military know anything in advance would be a disaster. The parliament should be called into a closed session no earlier than at 8 PM on a Saturday (once the agreement between Papandreu and Samaras is reached). Hopefully, by early morning all the necessary legislation could be adopted. It's only then, once drachma is the sole legal tender, that anybody should be notified. In any case, bankers can only be informed simultaneously with the announcement of a bank holiday. It is, probably, impossible to print the drachma in secret: don't do it in advance. For a few days, until a provisional currency may be circulated, I'd suggest allowing only domestic electronic transactions (in drachma). To help the poorest, the staples should be available from the government.

And, of course, quitting EU is out of the question. Temporary border controls may be imposed, but only briefly. It is indispensible that Greece stays in the EU and is helped out  by the other members. That's why, Merkel would have to agree to this first.

No hate. Though, of course, he does deserve some: he was actually the one, who engineered Greek entry into the eurozone. It's his mess, to a large extent.

I thought, he was approved by the Parliament.

I don't think that's what he meant.

And that's exactly what I meant :)))

EU rules prohibit capital controls. If Greece attempted to exit the EZ without capital controls, there would be no way to introduce a drachma-based banking system without having the existing one wiped out. There goes the entire Greek money supply and savings of the Greek people. Think you've seen riots now? Also, Brussels has vowed to kick Greece out of the EU if it exits the EZ. I thought the decision was shortsighted (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=143272.0) at the time.

There's really no reason to devaluation-default anyway - it has all the negatives of a normal default and more.

Thinking through this scenario, it doesn't work. The best path for now is that Greece will continue to go bankrupt but remain in the euro zone. Germany will not kick Greece out, and Greece is not yet ready to leave. But they can continue to write down their debt, if at this point it triggers the CDS event, this can be contained better than an exit of the EZ.

That's why Greek exit from the EZ should be negotiated w/ EU partners. Leaving EU would be a disaster.

The consequence of this could be either some sort of a Communist revolution or a military coup. And then the exit from the EZ will be managed by some sort of a Revolutionary Council of National Unity. You REALLY want that?

The alternative is Greece deflating into competitiveness. Will they manage it?

Are you able to just wave a wand and turn all your euros into drachmas?

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MF_gkldBN4&feature=player_embedded

The ones in the bank - sure. Cash - well, it will stay stuffed in matrasses till the judgement day, I guess.

Well it'd certainly make drawing a distinction between Greece and Spain/Italy/Portugal easier. "They had a revolution/coup and we haven't, so we aren't them!"

I'm imagining some Greek quickly stitching a Nazi flag for the purpose of burning it at some protest...

Mental illness is quite a large of cross to bear. That being said, maybe Greeks need to take more personal responsibility for their lives if they want to be considered a civilized society but this anger, even at this level, is not at all beyond the reach of being understood.

i agree with you

LONG LIVE ETHNIC ALBANIA AND GREATER GERMAN REICH

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I don't get it.  Why does the troll want the Italians running Albania again like they did during WW II?

What were the Italians goal in WWII in SE Europe and where was it before the Soviets "liberated" the region in 1944? I heard that when the Soviets cut off the Greeks from the Nazis, the Greeks were able to liberate themselves before the Soviets came.

Albania is smaller in Map 2 compared to Map 1 anyway.

You'd love this. (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=262774)

wow, that actually looks pretty awesome. bookmarking.

Nazis moved away from Greece when the Soviet invasion of Romania and Bulgaria threatened their communications with Germany. The Greek resistance was divided between communist and monarchic; when the Germans went away both factions started a civil war that lasted several years.
Italian goals in Albania weren't very different from those who motivated the invassion of Ethiopia in 1936. Imperialism, 'vital space', satisfaction for the Duce's ego... The 'wretched' Greek army gave a lesson to the Italian at the end of 1940, btw. The Germans invaded the Balkans in the spring of 1941, delaying the offensive against the USSR, which turned out to be fatal for their plans of concluding it before the winter. Finally, the Nazi's failure at the gates of Moscow was the beggining of the end for the German Reich.

Might someone occupy of the 'Albanian' troll?

The Albanian troll is Mr. Twister/The Professor.

LOLno