looks like Tsipras has folded

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As I said in the thread in International Elections: Oh for Christ's sake.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

of course, if Tsipras can't garner "a majority of the majority" of Syriza MPs, they're liable to flush the government there and then before the vote happens -- anything to stop it from going through.

That's what I'm hoping for, assuming Tsipras doesn't just go into coalition with ND and PASOK to stay in power.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And, mind it, I find it extraordinarily lenient that the Greeks have not been forced to sell the Parthenon, the contents of the National Arqueological Museum, or, say, a few islands, instead.

You realize that you're, shall we say, rather exceptional in considering those at all permissible or even plausible options.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm just not getting how these sorts of suggestions are supposed to be less objectionable than just forgiving Greece's debt or something would be.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm just not getting how these sorts of suggestions are supposed to be less objectionable than just forgiving Greece's debt or something would be.

Which suggestions?

Selling the Parthenon, et cetera.

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I really don't understand where the German public is coming from on this, and it's difficult for me to wrap my head around whatever individual or crowd psychology it is that leads to such a relentlessly hardline stance. Maybe I'm just too softhearted.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Selling Parthenon hurts exactly nobody. It is an expensive heirloom, that could fetch a good load of cash. You are out of cash. Why not sell it?

You know, I think this is probably one of those 'if you don't get it, there's no way to explain it to you' sorts of things.

Because you are asking them to pay for it. Either through taxes, or through seignorage. And, like most people out there, they do not want to pay for somebody else.

I understand that. But there should have been some limit, some point beyond which people started to realize that debt forgiveness would help Greece vastly more than it would hurt Germany, some point at which the insistence on taking the harshest imaginable line gave way to, if nothing else, pity. The fact that this didn't even come close to happening puts one in mind more of the attitudes that people have towards enemy Others than towards European partners, and I'm honestly outright repulsed by the nature and tone of political discourse within Germany. Again, maybe I'm too softhearted.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I understand that. But there should have been some limit, some point beyond which people started to realize that debt forgiveness would help Greece vastly more than it would hurt Germany, some point at which the insistence on taking the harshest imaginable line gave way to, if nothing else, pity. The fact that this didn't even come close to happening puts one in mind more of the attitudes that people have towards enemy Others than towards European partners, and I'm honestly outright repulsed by the nature and tone of political discourse within Germany. Again, maybe I'm too softhearted.

In the history of interactions between creditors and debtors, even when forgiving debt would help the debtor far more than it would hurt the creditor (as you say), normally the creditor does not forgive the debt, and in fact normally no one even expects him to. Germany is behaving the same way people have behaved basically since the invention of money.

The sensibility that debt should be forgiven under such circumstances, even if it's historically very atypical, has been common on the non-useless left for a while now, is the thing.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I understand that. But there should have been some limit, some point beyond which people started to realize that debt forgiveness would help Greece vastly more than it would hurt Germany, some point at which the insistence on taking the harshest imaginable line gave way to, if nothing else, pity. The fact that this didn't even come close to happening puts one in mind more of the attitudes that people have towards enemy Others than towards European partners, and I'm honestly outright repulsed by the nature and tone of political discourse within Germany. Again, maybe I'm too softhearted.

In the history of interactions between creditors and debtors, even when forgiving debt would help the debtor far more than it would hurt the creditor (as you say), normally the creditor does not forgive the debt, and in fact normally no one even expects him to. Germany is behaving the same way people have behaved basically since the invention of money.

The sensibility that debt should be forgiven under such circumstances, even if it's historically very atypical, has been common on the non-useless left for a while now, is the thing.

1. Persuade the German voters, and you will get it.

See, that's frustrating, because if the their position is (in the formal sense) rational, and certainly not bad for them, it's hard to see how one would make them care that it's so bad for other people. It's not possible to persuade people whose understanding of what's to be valued and what's at stake is so radically and fundamentally different from one's own understanding. Especially if one believes that their position is gravely morally wrong and would have difficulty maintaining any discourse about it for long without getting very, very angry.

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I know that, but are you willing to claim that it's not a panacea therefore it shouldn't be done? You were making the exact opposite point about the goal of enhancing Greece's 'competitiveness' in the other thread.