Greek Referendum Poll

[Valmy]

I wonder when they will sell basing rights to the Russians.

Won't that be fun?

[crazy canuck]

Do you guys think Greece should get the same kind of deal as Germany did in 1953, i.e. having half of its debt written off and the other half being only repaid from export surplus?

I know that "political culture" of Greece is clearly worse than that of Germany in the 1930s/40s but still...

Oh Marti, you of all Languishites should know the answer to that.  No need for the gratuitous reference to Nazi Germany.  Aid to Germany in the 1950s was related to the Cold War.

Raz makes a good point further down the thread.  In the old world both the USSR and NATO nations would have been racing to lend assistance to Greece. 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I wonder when they will sell basing rights to the Russians.

Well, the Russians will need an alternative after ISIS kicks them out of Tartus.

[Josquius]

So far the Greeks have been very resistant to selling their islands. I want to see some rich crazy guy setting up a micro nation...as horrifying as it could be.

I wonder how much as  the Olympics responsible for Greece's situation? Obviously not the main factor but it probably does come into things. 

[Valmy]

It would not surprise me if it played a significant role. People were commenting on how ruinously expensive it was for Greece at the time. But that was a long time ago.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

It would not surprise me if it played a significant role. People were commenting on how ruinously expensive it was for Greece at the time. But that was a long time ago.

wasn't that 2004?

[The Brain]

So far the Greeks have been very resistant to selling their islands. I want to see some rich crazy guy setting up a micro nation...as horrifying as it could be.

I wonder how much as  the Olympics responsible for Greece's situation? Obviously not the main factor but it probably does come into things.

I certainly think Alcibiades having so many chariots was a wee bit over the top.

[Admiral Yi]

Basically, it means that, unsurprisingly, international organizations are rather flexible in the way they work, and that it's not automatic doom and gloom to miss a deadline.

The opposite I would say.  The EU has already suspended interest and principle payments.  The IMF for a long time had a policy of never forgiving loans.  That only changed with the introduction of the Highly Indebted Poor Country initiative a while back, which let countries like Mozambique off the hook.

[jimmy olsen]

Dastardly huns! 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/07/06/thomas_piketty_on_the_greek_crises_the_star_economist_explains_why_germany.html

Thomas Piketty Explains Why the Germans Are Being Massive Hypocrites About Greece's Debt

By Jordan Weissmann

Sure, Thomas Piketty comes up a lot in conversations about income inequality. But the man is good at putting economic issues into world-historical context and has some very strong opinions about the madness currently transpiring in Europe over Greece. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, translated on Medium by Gavin Schalliol, he explains why European Union demands that Greece pay back its debts in full are more than a little hypocritical, especially coming from Germany—the 20th-century poster child for debt forgiveness.

ZEIT: But shouldn't they repay their debts?

Piketty: My book recounts the history of income and wealth, including that of nations. What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.

ZEIT: But surely we can't draw the conclusion that we can do no better today?

Piketty: When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.

Later in the interview, Piketty explains that there are two ways a country can get out from beneath an unbearable debt load. Either it can take the long, slow, painstaking route of paying back what it owes bit by bit, which Britain did after borrowing to battle Napoleon, or it can use a combination of inflation, taxes on private wealth, and a bit of debt relief, like postwar Germany and France.

Piketty: After the war ended in 1945, Germany's debt amounted to over 200% of its GDP. Ten years later, little of that remained: public debt was less than 20% of GDP. Around the same time, France managed a similarly artful turnaround. We never would have managed this unbelievably fast reduction in debt through the fiscal discipline that we today recommend to Greece. Instead, both of our states employed the second method with the three components that I mentioned, including debt relief. Think about the London Debt Agreement of 1953, where 60% of German foreign debt was cancelled and its internal debts were restructured.

The whole interview is worth a read. Piketty argues that all of Europe needs to hold a conference in order to restructure its debts in a sustainable way—not just Greece's, but the entire region's. Fanciful? Maybe. But it'd almost certainly be more productive than what it's doing right now.

[Drakken]

How is it hypocrisy? Germany was smack in the middle of Europe, devastated, and half-occupied by Stalin and his German cronies. The forward line had to be rebuilt ASAP, and not even France wanted Soviet communists knocking on its borders.

Greece... well, is not Germany; its current plight is largely self-inflicted through decades of shoveling problems forward. Nor is it on the frontier of anything threatening to Europe, save through Turkey.

[Monoriu]

Do you guys think Greece should get the same kind of deal as Germany did in 1953, i.e. having half of its debt written off and the other half being only repaid from export surplus?

I know that "political culture" of Greece is clearly worse than that of Germany in the 1930s/40s but still...

Wasn't Germany still under allied occupation in 1953?  The allies had great control over the German government.  If Greece let NATO occupy the country militarily, and the EU dictate its government policy, rewrite its laws, fire civil servants etc, then maybe parts of its debt could be written off

[Drakken]

Wasn't Germany still under allied occupation in 1953?  The allies had great control over the German government.  If Greece let NATO occupy the country militarily, and the EU dictate its government policy, rewrite its laws, fire civil servants etc, then maybe parts of its debt could be written off

West Germany got its sovereignty back in 1949, notwithstanding NATO bases laden throughout its territory.

[Monoriu]

Wasn't Germany still under allied occupation in 1953?  The allies had great control over the German government.  If Greece let NATO occupy the country militarily, and the EU dictate its government policy, rewrite its laws, fire civil servants etc, then maybe parts of its debt could be written off

West Germany got its sovereignty back in 1949, notwithstanding NATO bases laden throughout its territory.

Wiki says 1955. 

Despite the grants of general sovereignty to both German states in 1955, full and unrestricted sovereignty under international law was not enjoyed by any German government until after the reunification of Germany in October 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Germany

[Admiral Yi]

Someone needs to tell Piketty this is not a morality play.

[Monoriu]

So far the Greeks have been very resistant to selling their islands. I want to see some rich crazy guy setting up a micro nation...as horrifying as it could be.

I wonder how much as  the Olympics responsible for Greece's situation? Obviously not the main factor but it probably does come into things.

They seem to be resistant to selling anything.  Perhaps nobody wants to buy.  After all, who wants to pay billions of Euros for assets that will very soon be valued at whatever IOUs that the Greek government will have incentive to print in large quantities?