And no matter how many lazy op-eds are written saying it, this isn't simply a matter of Greece and Germany. A dept write-off would have huge knock-on effects in the rest of Europe, with Ireland, Portugal, Spain also then looking for similar write-offs.
Not to mention the crippling Italy, France and Germany's banks. The money has to come from somewhere.
Everybody own everybody money lots of money. How about swapping all this debt and writing it off? See this 3 min. video by two English comedians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNA2VG_piUo
I thought there was only one debt devaluation (50-odd percent in 2010), but it was combined with austerity measures that destroyed any potential of growth.
In that case, we should discuss helping the people, and not discuss helping the Greek government. In fact, Europe is already helping hundreds of thousands of Greeks by offering them good jobs in other countries.
very true, in fact any greek person worth a dime on job market can easily pack & go. i am very surprised that very few actually leave their homeland, despite constant complaints how hellish place greece became thanks to budget cuts and reforms. either that's a blatant lie, or they are just lazy.
yeah, it's not the best solution overall if all worthy people leave the place, but that's how current world works. and loss for one country is a net gain for another too (maybe germany? :))
from what I have read and seen lots of young Greeks are leaving the country.
German language education has soared during the beginning of the crisis- not sure if the anti-german press coverage of the Greek press has changed that...
And why try to distinguish in every discussion? A government acting on behalf of the people doesn't necessarily act for the people. You can't act for all the people. The people aren't a homogeneous group either.
And the government is split into several branches (sub-systems) too.
This isn't a sad world. It's just not very romantic.
If a government does something, then that doesn't mean that the people do something.
"Germans", "Jews" and "Muslims" are always a generalization (as opposed to "Most/Some/A Few Germans/Jews/Muslims")
However, in this case the actor is clearly the government and it is a much more specific "subgroup" than "Germans".
(Otherwise, we could as well write "Humans", "Mammals" or "Living beings" forget postwar ...).
The Nazis did not act on behalf of the German people in the sense that the German people mostly did not want to exterminate the Jewish race along with several other demographic categories. However, limiting the scope to antisemitism itself, the Nazis were definitely representative of the German people of the time, and indeed most of Europe.
There is a slight difference between a country defeated twice with millions dead an bomb to ashes and a country in debt because of "cheap" loans. thats the tl;dr explaination.
if you read the article, you'd see that it's not just postwar Germany, but many other countries who only recover after a massive devaluation of their debt.
Besides, austerity has proven countless times not to work, so why would Germany keep on insisting on it?
It's part of their (and our Dutch) culture. Protestant / Calvinist. 'We were born in to sin and must work hard to reach paradise'. This is why the Greek bashing in the papers has been so effective. They were 'lazy, bureaucrats, and what not. (Southern country's are more laid back. Catholic faith has forgiveness and starting over as main themes.
Greek bashing? The Greek airforce has [1] 156 F-16s, an airplane that's $165 million a piece new. Why on earth does Greece, a NATO country need 156 F-16s? Could they easily be sold for a couple of billions on the second hard market? Nah perish the tought! Greece needs
to be the largest importer of conventional weapons in Europe and its military spending must be the highest in the European Union (relative to G.D.P) [2]. Greece must be “by far” the country with the largest share of military personnel to population in the EU.
What are you talking about? Neither the German or the French airforce operate or did operate F-16s [1] to the best of my knowledge. The article [2] makes it sound like the planes were directly acquired from General Dynamics, the manufacturer.
Basically Spain and Greece are in a different category from the rest of the EU (at least w.r.t. unemployment). Spain is recovering like Greece is, though Greece is suffering more from the precarity of their initial situation. But Spain is still at 22% unemployment
Spain is also seeing negative GDP growth since the start of the recession, and isn't expected to hit positive GDP growth until 2018 at the earliest.
The kind of summary (though the article is short and worth reading, if only to get some balance):
There is a not-so-subtle difference between voluntarily taking on debts made by previous, rogue governments at a currency rate favorable to the creditors -- and heedlessly accumulating debts of one's own while concealing the true size of budget deficits. In the first case, the implication is harsh self-imposed discipline and penitence. In the second case, profligacy.
From the article:
"There are ruins at the center of Athens, too, but they are rather more ancient."
This insults us. Germans left Greece literally in ruins. The author of the article obviously don't know shit about history. I'm not surprised, even Germans chose to neglect their atrocities.
Please people, become a little more informed about what Germany did to my country during the war. It might be irrelevant to the current situation but for us Greeks it is all about justice. In our five thousands years of history no other invading nation inflicted as much damage as Germany. Germans are the most ungrateful fuckers there are.
I think that's an unfair characterization. We're talking about a country that requires its schoolchildren to tour the remnants of a genocide committed only 70 years ago.
To say that Germany "neglects their atrocities" is, IMO, out of line.
Unfair? It took the Germans 70 years to apologize for the Distomo genocide. Just last year the German president officially visited Distomo to apologize to survivors. And yet, even to this day they refuse to pay the mere 28 million to individuals as war reparations.
Yes, absolutely unfair. To cherry-pick select ignominies from WWII while ignoring the larger efforts in Germany to recognize the horrors committed by the Nazi regime is intellectually dishonest.
WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing.
I'm not Greek, I'm not German. My only connection to any of that atrocity is the tales my grandfather told me about his service in the war. But after seven decades you have to forgive and move on. Scratching that wound isn't going to help anyone (just look at the howls across Asia every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni shrine).
WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing.
I beg to differ. I think that “repeatedly bringing this up” is going to accomplish something. Because for the last fifty years every time we brought this issue up everyone was telling us it’s not the right time. Well you know what, we’re sick of waiting. At the very least they should pay us the loan Hitler took by force from our central bank. That’s not war reparations, it’s a fucking state loan.
I find it interest that in the last few days many of the negative comments about Greece come from accounts with very low karma. Are you guys on a crusade of ridicule or something?
I'm sure most HN users can empathize with how strongly you naturally feel about this, but please follow the site rules. Everyone needs to remain civil when commenting on HN, especially when emotions run high. It's the only way to preserve the community.
Glad Italy is much better in confessing to colonial and war crimes committed by Italians, like
"Of more than 1,200 Italians sought for war crimes in Africa and the Balkans, not one has faced justice." (2001)
"When Japanese or Austrians try to gloss over their shame there is an outcry, but the Italians get away with it. [...] Ken Kirby's 1989 BBC Timewatch documentary, Fascist Legacy, detailing Italian crimes in Africa and the Balkans and the allies' involvement in the cover-up, provoked furious complaints from Italy's ambassador in London."
"'All efforts on Ethiopia's side to convince Italy to live up to its responsibilities have failed,' lamented the government."
It's interesting to read that, and then have those same people turn around and say 'well, that is in the past' and downvote the Greek guy above. It's easy to sit and cry about the terrible things that happened. It's much harder to actually do something about them - such as protesting the Nazis back then, or helping Greece now.
I downvoted and flagged his comment not just for the sentiment but for the tone and disrespectful language. I realize that poster is pissed off and that's understandable given what his country is going through but I felt that specific post was inappropriate.
How about you help us recover and we pay all of the debt? If we could sustain a 4% grow for a decade the debt could become sustainable. But with all this massacre of austerity measures it's impossible to repay while the economy tanks. How come every US economist can see that simple truth but Germans can not.
I understand this is very personal to you, but it's important to move forward. Hundreds (thousands?) of nations/people probably have all sorts of historical grievances against hundreds of other nations/people - just look to Rwanda and the Hutus/Tutsi's for the most recent example. Also - it's important to understand the difference between a regime was has thoroughly been expiated - If you can't let go of your past, you can never have a future.
The point that was being made, is that debt forgiveness after a war makes a lot more sense than debt forgiveness after a country has gone out and splurged on all sorts of luxuries. Even after austerity, greek pensions are greater than what some other countries can afford to give their people - prior to austerity they were way beyond the means of Greece to pay, and the politicians elected by the people refused to own up to this - and the result was a foregone conclusions that could have been avoided.
Dude, we have moved forward. Millions of Germans visit Greece for vacations for decades and we treat them as we treat every other visitor to our country. Some of them even retire here. It’s not about the money, it’s about gratitude and the feeling of justice. We feel like the world doesn’t acknowledge the extend of the suffering we endured during the war. We talk about the Holocaust, and rightly so, but how many of you know the atrocities that happened to Greece during the war?
I don’t expect Germany to pay us 300bn euros for war reparations. This is hilarious. And chances are with our corruption most of those money if they were to paid they’d end up in the pockets of the elites and the politicians. I just want some fucking remorse. It’s not that we remembered reparations when our state failed and our economy tanked. We’ve been constantly asking them for decades and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue. It just surfaced now because we’re in the spotlight.
Please Greece become a little more informed WHO actually did fucked you country during WWII, it wasn't the Germans, it was the Nazi. The majority of the population living in Germany now are the ones who are born after the war, so hating them is plain stupid, and the rest part are the ones who wanted him dead, and the rest have no power whatsoever. So before invoking WWII again just to find an excuse for your poor administration think about it. Who is the actual idiot for the crisis?
This piece is titled "Germany Deserved Debt Relief, Greece Doesn't".
> It might still be argued that if Germany deserved a second chance after all it did to Europe, then surely Greece should also be granted one [... but ...] "under the rules of the international financial system, the people of the country are still responsible for the debt [...]"
In other words, while a war killing maybe 60 million can be forgiven, it is unthinkable to forgive debt accumulated by previous governments.
> There is, however, a stronger reason why it would be wrong to write off Greek debt while the country is run by Syriza. [... blah blah ...] anti-Communist and anti-Marxist. [...] Now, far-left Syriza wants to be on the inside [...] It will use the debt relief to provide free electricity to households, subsidize rents, restore Christmas bonuses to pensioners, raise minimum salaries [...] It is an extreme case of moral hazard.
A moral hazard, no less! In any case, SYRIZA has no plans like that. I would like to see a source, since these claims are completely new to me.
The fact is, that Greece has structural problems. Those problems were mostly caused or accepted by central/conservative/socialdemocratic governments over decades. SYRIZA is the first government that may be willing to change the situation. In addition to those structural problems, there is currently a depression that needs to be solved first. This was primarily caused by the EU/ECB/IMF and at least the IMF accepts that now (and has been accepting it since 2013). SYRIZA also recognises this.
SYRIZA are also convinced democrats, as they have repeatedly shown, something that the Marxists never were. Therefore those comparisons are not helpful at all.
i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state.
i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce.
i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example)
but what i have read is, that tax evasion is wide spread as well as the exploitation of social services- there was a news coverage where a considerable part of the inhabitants of an island received pensions for people without eyesight...
> i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state
They do. They have stated this clearly ("Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.", "Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.", "Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.", [0]), over and over again. However, you can't change a country that quickly. It will take many years.
> i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce.
First, just because jobs are performed by the government and not by private companies does not imply that they are not needed. There likely is greater inefficiency, I agree. But 'public sector jobs = unneeded jobs' is wrong. Second, cutting those jobs is often impossible (for example in Germany it would be, because government jobs are guaranteed for a lifetime.) and even if they can be cut, they will drive up unemployment which already stands at 25% and 60% for young people.
> i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example)
They do [1]. They proposed it, but the IMF did not go along, as far as I know. Reeders are also probably harder to tax, because they can probably simply fly the flag of a country that doesn't tax them. [1]
just to correct a misinterpretation: I did not want to imply, that public sector jobs are unneeded jobs. I just called to cut the jobs not needed to run the country because i red a hand ful of articles stating that it is somewhat common that one can have a public job and a "real" second job because supervision is so lax)
I don't think you can compare the post war scene with today's Greece. At least the author doesn't provide any data to justify why the debt should be written of except that people are unemployed and pensioners are suffering. Now that is not to say that let people suffer. But i think the broader issue is Tsipras has no plan. They just want the debt to be written off and expect that the economy will recover through some magic.
Thomas Piketty is arguing along the similar lines but it think from the perspective that the creditors austerity policy has failed.
The creditors are saying keep taking a haircut till you recover, and the debtor is saying, Sir that what we've been doing and we are getting into deeper trouble.
Are we running out of economic imaginations? Maybe we need more of startup thinking in the space of economy.
Writing off the debt is the magic when the debt is as huge as it is for Greece.
Extending maturity and / or reducing interest rates do not help much if you know that whatever improvements you make to your economy will be swallowed by the financial markets in the future (since the debt still exists). You are a slave country (all countries are dependent on the financial markets in more or less measure, but Greece has completely lost its freedom)
Would you work to pay for your student loans if you realized that you will never be able to pay it back, in your whole work life, and that you will be subject to the dictate of your creditors forever? If default was not an option (you can not default on student debt in the US?), I would just leave the country.
"Greece has done little to address its endemic economic mismanagement. But it has few incentives to do so if the fruits of economic improvements will flow to its creditors."
"Germany vs. Greece" is a compelling and intriguing narrative, but there 17 more Eurozone members.
And some of them take a much tougher stand towards Greece than Germany does. Ask Lithuania how happy they are to pump money towards a country that is richer than they are themselves.
Of course, Germany has a lot of influence. But everytime I see articles riffing off this Germany vs. Greece theme, I tend to discount them as shallow.
As this is basically a repeat of the Picketty article recently posted here I'll repost my comment from there to help in the understanding that it is not only Germany that have contributed into the Greek bailout fund.
1. Meet Portugal (my country). Some may know us derisively as the P in PIGS because of our financial problems (much similar to the Greek one in nature and extent).
In 2010 and 2011 as one of the 14 member states of the EU that were part of the Greek loan facility Portugal contributed with 1102 million euros into the 52.9 billion loan that greece received [1].
Yes, that's correct, not all of the debt that people are so eager to expect that German forgives is from their coffers, it was actually pooled from the following countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain.
2. As you may know, about the same time we had our own problems and also had to be bailed out. As part of the measures put in place to reduce our deficit a massive tax hike was implemented in the end of 2012 [2]
I'll draw attention to single one of those measures: the 3.5% extraordinary tax on the income paid by every single person with income above minimum wage (485€/month) including pensioners.
Now, for the money quote [3]: "Minister of Finance Vitor Gaspar said the tax would bring in 1025 million euros".
Less than what Portugal contributed to the Greek bailout fund. 3.5% of the income of every citizen in this country.
In conclusion, that's one of the reasons for the nationalistic outrage against Greece defaulting the loan. It is not only the money of the richest bankers of Europe that won't be repaid, it is the taxpayer money of each of those countries that contributed to their rescue.
To put in perspective, 1102 million euros means that default would cost every inhabitant in this country 110 euros (about 330€ per household) and not only hypothetically but in practice too as demonstrated above.
P.S. As one of the most common responses to was that the money didn't went to Greece but to its creditors (without improving the Greek situation) I must add that I agree it is a valid point.
But is not related to the fact that the European fund raised to Greece was not money coming from an abstract concept of Europe or from the coffers of the Germans alone but directly from the taxpayers of each of the countries mentioned above.
That is the point being made, not that the bailout shouldn't have happened but that it happened and an eventual default won't be on Germany alone.
And your PS is what needs explaining to the European taxpayers so that they do not get mad with the Greek: the Greek were not bailed out, the banks were!
The Portuguese (and the rest) have not been suffering because of the Greek, but because some banks were rescued.
Now the Greeks are asking to be bailed out, for good. So, yes, now they are asking for the rest of the Europeans to help them.
It is not mainly about pumping money now: it is about writing off (bad) debt, and punishing investors for doing bad investments, thereby making sure that investors understand that they need to be more alert, and not jump into high yielding investments assuming that governments will bail them out whenever things go south.
No yield without risk. It comes a bit late now, because most banks have already recovered their investments, and only the governments will be affected (and the IMF, ...)
Regarding pumping money: the now defenestrated Varoufakis has argued that Greece was not requesting money from the EU, but that the EU should have an investment program (much bigger than the ones currently in place), financed basically with Eurobonds, and implement by funneling those funds into both the private and public economy via banks. The program was intended to invest in poor European regions. The involvement of banks will use the profit motive to make sure that the investments are sound, and the fact that the funds will be nearly free (for the banks) will incentive the banks to really invest the money.
Not only Greece would benefit, but Lithuania too. And not all regions on those countries, only the ones in need.
>It comes a bit late now, because most banks have already recovered their investments
How do you mean recovered? Banks have already taken a 50% haircut on their Greek debt. The 2011 round of Greek debt relief, in which only private creditors were participating, was worth 100bn. That doesn't sound like risk free yield to me.
Anyhow, having lost a part of their investment, and taking the deserved loss without being unnecessarily shielded by the institutions are different things: it does not matter if they lost 50bn, if the European institutions saved them from losing another 50bn by piling up the risk on the European taxpayer.
There were probably sound reasons why we helped the banks back then (contagion risk, instability of financial markets, ...). What is being argued now is that there are equally (even more valid, since they involve human suffering) reasons to help the Greek now.
>What is being argued now is that there are equally (even more valid, since they involve human suffering) reasons to help the Greek now.
Absolutely! The question is not whether help is necessary, the question is what kind of structural reforms should be demanded in exchange for debt relief so they don't simply run up new debt.
So I guess we are in the same camp here: the Greeks need to implement some reforms, and the financial markets need to take a hit. The exact details need to be worked out.
As far as I know, the Troika has been refusing to accept a haircut on the Greek debt as a part of the negotiations, which is one of the factors that has escalated the problem.
I don't think there is any German who hasn't heard about the debts of WWI, and the debt relief that came after WWII.
The reason Germans are opposed to debt relief for Greece is that they have read about Greek nepotism in the public sector, tax avoidance, and other corruption while Greek reforms have not been forthcoming. To the average German voter money for Greece without reforms is pouring water into a broken bucket.
Children suffer when their parents are forced to pay their debts or go into bankruptcy, and certainly nobody lends these families any more money with which to continue their lifestyle. How is a Greek citizen any different than a child with financially-stressed parents? Why can't we write off their debts? Seems unfair to me.
It is true that Greeks introduced crazy socialistic ideas like having written down in the constitution the law that civil servant cannot be made redundant. It ended up with huge number of employed officials doing nothing.
It is also true that Greeks made cheating on taxes a pure art (and I am speaking this as a Polish, and people in Poland are not exactly rushing to pay taxes). Covering pools with a military masking net to avoid tax or things like hiding relatives death for many years to get their pension are kind of unusual practices. This pathologies are partly caused by absurd tax regulations, though, so I wouldn't attribute it to "Greek nature", as some people do.
But it is also true that Greeks were tricked into joining Eurozone. They had rather weak economy without well developed modern industry. As long as they had drahma, Greek products were cheap, Greece was also cheap as a touristic destination. It has all changed, when they joined Eurozone, this hasn't improved their economy, but made their often low quality products expensive.
Who was main beneficiary of this? Obviously Germany, before Euro Deutsch Mark was becoming a very strong currency, so German products were expensive (similarly to Swiss Franc).
Introducing Euro changed that. Right now German economy is blooming, they are about to have zero debt budget next year and the rest of Eurozone is kind of in trouble.
The other thing, Greeks were actively encouraged to take credits (I can't believe that banks and governments were so stupid that they couldn't analyze situation). Greeks spent those money on products bought abroad (with Germany as a big seller). Greeks bought a lot of military equipment in Germany, for instance. So, Greeks made others rich in that way. Now they are left with top quality war ships, but they cannot payback their debts.
> But it is also true that Greeks were tricked into joining Eurozone.
The contrary is true. Greece faked its statistics in order to join.
> I can't believe that banks and governments were so stupid that they couldn't analyze situation
Of course they could, and the banks should have participated in a debt cut - they recklessly lent money to Greece in an extend & pretend scheme, cashing in on a high-risk interest rate, without actually risking a default "because bailout".
i agree to the statements in the beginning, but i can't see why germany benefited from the € the way you write. i thought that germany is booming because the have stagnant salaries for several years now...
and i read in another place that the german export to greece is a nearly negligible share of german exports and that the biggest lenders were french and uk banks...
Germany is booming because of stagnant salaries for a decade, cutting of social costs and benefits and cutting of subsidies to coal, lowering taxes, privatizing trains, postal service and telecommunications etc.
"Who was main beneficiary of this? Obviously Germany, before Euro Deutsch Mark was becoming a very strong currency, so German products were expensive (similarly to Swiss Franc)."
I know this is contested, but the other narrative is that Germany was forced into the EUR by Paris in exchange for unification. Greece forced itself into the EUR by blackmailing Germany for WWII atrocities.
the difference being that the whole "monetary union without fiscal union" experiment is madness and obviously doomed from the start. It's got all the downsides of the gold standard, combined with all the downsides of a fiat currency, with the advantages of neither.
A big advantage of having a fiat currency is that through manipulating the money supply, a country can essentially give everyone paid in that currency a pay cut (or a raise) relative to other countries. This situation where Greece is dramatically less productive than the rest of Europe is a textbook example of when currency devaluation is appropriate... but they can't do it, because they are using the same currency as Germany and other countries that have very high productivity levels.
Greece is way better off outside of the euro; loaning them more money at this point would be delaying necessary pain; and certainly, getting off the euro and bootstrapping their own currency will be painful, but... it's something they are going to have to do.
> I wonder why in the US states can go bankrupt, states much larger than Greece:
Is this true? Has any US state gone bankrupt? Can you share a link? The closest I know was California having some financial trouble, but no bankrupt was declared, afaik.
> Without any impact on the US $
The $ is no normal currency: it is the world currency. Most international contracts are done in $. By chance (if you are charitable) or by design (if you tend to conspiracy theories, like me), the $ gives the US a huge financial advantage.
State governments cannot enter bankruptcy. It's prohibited by both the federal bankruptcy code and the Constitution (states can't repudiate their debt under the contracts clause).
They can't. State agencies, and subdivisions of States, can enter into bankruptcy under federal municipal bankruptcy provisions, but States as such cannot.
There have been some very loose discussions about the desirability of adding State bankruptcy provisions to the federal bankruptcy code over the last several years, but nothing that I am aware of even approaching a serious effort to do so.
Most european countries can't keep up with the currency, that's the real issue. Of course the tax payers are highly entertained with the bigoted argument of which country deserves what. It's too easy to go that route and influence the public.
The Germans argued, in short, that "we've changed, and because of the change the leniency will really help". The change was clear: The Bundestag didn't look like either the Weimar Reichstag or the Nazi regime.
It'll be difficult for the Greek to put forward the same argument, so long as their pension scheme remains severely underfinanced, etc. Syriza's argument is basically "we suffer", which is undoubtedly true, but it's a very different argument, not one that can be supported by the German experience.
The German change was a politic change, and was inevitable because they lost the war, and the political ideology which started it all was bankrupt, defeated and exterminated. From this politic change, they extracted a debt relief which helped them to recover. Without that, they would have languished economically, just as the Greek are doing now.
The Greece change can not come because the main reason that is keeping them in crisis (the debt burden) will not disappear.
That is why they are asking for debt relief: they want to bankrupt the old system.
"Yet there was a crucial hole in the reforms: they largely sheltered older workers, so that they could retire on broadly the same terms as before. As an example, Platon Tinios, a pensions expert at Piraeus University, highlights the reform limiting the list of arduous occupations. This no longer included new hairdressers from 2012 but all those with more than ten years’ experience retained their previous right to retire five years early. The new accrual rates applied to years worked from 2011; previous years worked still benefited from the earlier more generous formula (although the resulting benefits are then subjected to the cuts applied to pensions in payment). According to Professor Tinios, “the vast majority of those planning to retire this decade are grandfathered” (shielded) from the reforms."
> although the resulting benefits are then subjected to the cuts applied to pensions in payment
So, the cuts still apply, partially, even to the people who are retiring early.
And anyway: you are a worker, having compromised to work for a meager salary because you know that at least you are going to retire early. You work 30 years and have nothing to show for it, but the promise of an early retirement. That is the deal you have signed, the deal you have been promised: "you will work for free (nearly), in exchange of retiring early".
And now, they are supposed to accept a retroactive contract change? I would also not accept it.
If you are going to break deals, why not break the debt deal? Restructure the debt, and start from zero. Maybe that means you need to leave the Euro, and maybe that is good for you.
It's always possible to renege on a loan. The next problem then is that if you want to borrow again later, you have to find a persuasive argument that you won't default again. "We've changed, really we have" and so on. Worked for the Germans, who had changed, and I think it would work for the Greek if they were able to cut pension costs enough, reduce corruption, clean up taxation and generally pull off reforms.
I believe the whole argument with the german postwar debt is a bit weak, the conditions are much more different now. I don't particularly like how it is being repeated over and over again, especially here (greece), as it misses the whole point. It should never be "us" vs "them" and the german debt issue it's clearly polarising towards that direction.
I don't want to start analysing what has gone wrong with greece. Lots of ink has been spilled and most people have formed their opinions by now anyway. Let's just say it's a mix of reckless mid-90s to late-00s borrowing/spending and a bit of short-sightedness (or over-confidence maybe) of foreign investors.
What troubles me most are two things however
First, the last 5 year reforms have afflicted low/middle class households the most. Even moderate (800-900 e/mo) pensions and wages have been slashed, collective bargaining abolished, lots of small/medium businesses have gone belly up along with their employees. It was supposed to help, and I would even be OK with it. But apparently it didn't. GDP plummeted, unemployment is all-europe high, you have probably already read about it. Every 18 months there are new reforms of the same kind only to roll-over the previous bail-outs to new ones. Assuming we keep the euro and the government signs a new 2-4-year funding programme. If in 2017 the situation is the same what would be the next step? Another bail-out? When will this end? Will it end at all? Let's say that through another set of cuts and budget adjustments there is a 3% primary surplus (wildly optimistic) by the end of 2017. How good will that be with 200% debt/GDP? These are probably naive questions for someone more learned in economics but in my eyes it seems like the trial of Sisyphus[1]; the same thing over and over again. I believe that there must be a way to manage the greek debt, not write it off maybe, but ease part of its repayment.
On a side-note some proposed or already implemented reforms are on good track. Ridiculously early pensions should be abolished, as they are an insult to those working hard for 40+, years and tax evasion should be tackled hard. But these things don't happen within a year, especially managing tax evasion. It's getting better but it will need time. The current government has vowed to address both, I wish they do, but I'm cautious.
Second, I am totally disheartened by the way the greeks are depicted by the media. For example there was this utterly disgusting sketch[2] by a dutch newspaper. I can find more, but this is one of the more recent ones. Is this what people think of greeks? Is this how we treat people that are definitely through some hard times, even if it is partially of their own wrong-doings? Don't get me wrong, there has been also in greece some relevant comments and sketches. I disagree with them, but all of them were targeted at politicians not people. Although there are harsh feeling about Mrs. Merkel, and Mr. Schäuble, and several other high profile politicians I have heard noone to say bad things of the germans, or dutch, or whatever. On the other hand I have read some totally disgusting things for the greeks as a nation over the last few months. I'm sad and disappointed.
It is worth pointing out that Syrizia didn't ask for a debt relief (reduction) in the last round of negotiations, upon which the referendum was based.
They asked for a restructuring. The same amount of debt was to be owed but over a longer period of time and at a lower interest rate.
The reasoning was quite simply that at the current rate and loan period, they are unable to take any advantage of the quantative easing currently being undertaken by the ECB.
Varoufakis explains it quite nicely onnhis blog. The debt as it stands is unsustainable. Restructuring would help tremendously. They haven't asked for a reduction.
94 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] threadNot to mention the crippling Italy, France and Germany's banks. The money has to come from somewhere.
I imagine that would have more impact than making the victims pay.
Most people these days are unable to distinguish between people and their government.
They assume that governments act on behalf of the people, yet, somehow they always claim they don't feel represented by their government.
A sad world.
EDIT: "changed government and its people" to "people and their government", added title
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/31/greece.taxes/
http://boingboing.net/2010/05/04/satellite-photos-cat.html
Have they fixed the early retirement issue?
http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-germany-pensions-2010-...
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...
"Proportion of wages as pension; Greece: 80% Germany: 46%"
Almost everything you read has Greeks living in a welfare state that they couldn't afford. You just can't kick the can down the road forever: http://www.npr.org/2015/07/07/420913926/despite-large-cuts-t...
yeah, it's not the best solution overall if all worthy people leave the place, but that's how current world works. and loss for one country is a net gain for another too (maybe germany? :))
Yeah, brilliant idea, let's move 10 million people out of the Greece, because moving investments into the Greece is so difficult these days..
This isn't a sad world. It's just not very romantic.
However, in this case the actor is clearly the government and it is a much more specific "subgroup" than "Germans". (Otherwise, we could as well write "Humans", "Mammals" or "Living beings" forget postwar ...).
Besides, austerity has proven countless times not to work, so why would Germany keep on insisting on it?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_of_the_Hellen...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Greece#Conscriptio...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
(1) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military... (2) The Submarine Deals That Helped Sink Greecehttp://www.lepointinternational.com/it/politica/europa/550-t...
https://www.google.co.jp/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa...
Basically Spain and Greece are in a different category from the rest of the EU (at least w.r.t. unemployment). Spain is recovering like Greece is, though Greece is suffering more from the precarity of their initial situation. But Spain is still at 22% unemployment
Spain is also seeing negative GDP growth since the start of the recession, and isn't expected to hit positive GDP growth until 2018 at the earliest.
http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/24456-the-math-of-mas...
I would urge everyone here to spend a little time and read the above article. I'm pretty sure you'll learn things you couldn't even imagine.
The Greeks are like people who bought more home than they could afford because a bank offered them a predatory loan.
But unlike the USA, Greece can't print money to make it go away. So they're morally deficient.
The kind of summary (though the article is short and worth reading, if only to get some balance):
There is a not-so-subtle difference between voluntarily taking on debts made by previous, rogue governments at a currency rate favorable to the creditors -- and heedlessly accumulating debts of one's own while concealing the true size of budget deficits. In the first case, the implication is harsh self-imposed discipline and penitence. In the second case, profligacy.
For those inclined to dig in and do deeper research, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/10137.pdf and in particular http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=493802 give lots of great details on what happened back in 1953 with Germany.
This insults us. Germans left Greece literally in ruins. The author of the article obviously don't know shit about history. I'm not surprised, even Germans chose to neglect their atrocities.
Please people, become a little more informed about what Germany did to my country during the war. It might be irrelevant to the current situation but for us Greeks it is all about justice. In our five thousands years of history no other invading nation inflicted as much damage as Germany. Germans are the most ungrateful fuckers there are.
To say that Germany "neglects their atrocities" is, IMO, out of line.
http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-for-people-growing-up-i...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre
WWII was a tragedy. You're pissed and your country is going through hell. We get that. But repeatedly bringing this up is going to accomplish precisely nothing.
I'm not Greek, I'm not German. My only connection to any of that atrocity is the tales my grandfather told me about his service in the war. But after seven decades you have to forgive and move on. Scratching that wound isn't going to help anyone (just look at the howls across Asia every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni shrine).
I beg to differ. I think that “repeatedly bringing this up” is going to accomplish something. Because for the last fifty years every time we brought this issue up everyone was telling us it’s not the right time. Well you know what, we’re sick of waiting. At the very least they should pay us the loan Hitler took by force from our central bank. That’s not war reparations, it’s a fucking state loan.
"Of more than 1,200 Italians sought for war crimes in Africa and the Balkans, not one has faced justice." (2001)
"When Japanese or Austrians try to gloss over their shame there is an outcry, but the Italians get away with it. [...] Ken Kirby's 1989 BBC Timewatch documentary, Fascist Legacy, detailing Italian crimes in Africa and the Balkans and the allies' involvement in the cover-up, provoked furious complaints from Italy's ambassador in London."
"'All efforts on Ethiopia's side to convince Italy to live up to its responsibilities have failed,' lamented the government."
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/25/artsandhuma...
Also good reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Libya (Acknowledged by Italy only in 2008)
EDIT: He has even been flagged. Depressing.
The point that was being made, is that debt forgiveness after a war makes a lot more sense than debt forgiveness after a country has gone out and splurged on all sorts of luxuries. Even after austerity, greek pensions are greater than what some other countries can afford to give their people - prior to austerity they were way beyond the means of Greece to pay, and the politicians elected by the people refused to own up to this - and the result was a foregone conclusions that could have been avoided.
I don’t expect Germany to pay us 300bn euros for war reparations. This is hilarious. And chances are with our corruption most of those money if they were to paid they’d end up in the pockets of the elites and the politicians. I just want some fucking remorse. It’s not that we remembered reparations when our state failed and our economy tanked. We’ve been constantly asking them for decades and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue. It just surfaced now because we’re in the spotlight.
> It might still be argued that if Germany deserved a second chance after all it did to Europe, then surely Greece should also be granted one [... but ...] "under the rules of the international financial system, the people of the country are still responsible for the debt [...]"
In other words, while a war killing maybe 60 million can be forgiven, it is unthinkable to forgive debt accumulated by previous governments.
> There is, however, a stronger reason why it would be wrong to write off Greek debt while the country is run by Syriza. [... blah blah ...] anti-Communist and anti-Marxist. [...] Now, far-left Syriza wants to be on the inside [...] It will use the debt relief to provide free electricity to households, subsidize rents, restore Christmas bonuses to pensioners, raise minimum salaries [...] It is an extreme case of moral hazard.
A moral hazard, no less! In any case, SYRIZA has no plans like that. I would like to see a source, since these claims are completely new to me.
The fact is, that Greece has structural problems. Those problems were mostly caused or accepted by central/conservative/socialdemocratic governments over decades. SYRIZA is the first government that may be willing to change the situation. In addition to those structural problems, there is currently a depression that needs to be solved first. This was primarily caused by the EU/ECB/IMF and at least the IMF accepts that now (and has been accepting it since 2013). SYRIZA also recognises this.
SYRIZA are also convinced democrats, as they have repeatedly shown, something that the Marxists never were. Therefore those comparisons are not helpful at all.
but what i have read is, that tax evasion is wide spread as well as the exploitation of social services- there was a news coverage where a considerable part of the inhabitants of an island received pensions for people without eyesight...
edit: fixed spelling mistakes
They do. They have stated this clearly ("Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.", "Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.", "Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.", [0]), over and over again. However, you can't change a country that quickly. It will take many years.
> i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce.
First, just because jobs are performed by the government and not by private companies does not imply that they are not needed. There likely is greater inefficiency, I agree. But 'public sector jobs = unneeded jobs' is wrong. Second, cutting those jobs is often impossible (for example in Germany it would be, because government jobs are guaranteed for a lifetime.) and even if they can be cut, they will drive up unemployment which already stands at 25% and 60% for young people.
> i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example)
They do [1]. They proposed it, but the IMF did not go along, as far as I know. Reeders are also probably harder to tax, because they can probably simply fly the flag of a country that doesn't tax them. [1]
[0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40... ; I have some doubts about the reliability of the source. There are other sources, but I can't be bothered to search right now.
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-ta...
just to correct a misinterpretation: I did not want to imply, that public sector jobs are unneeded jobs. I just called to cut the jobs not needed to run the country because i red a hand ful of articles stating that it is somewhat common that one can have a public job and a "real" second job because supervision is so lax)
Thomas Piketty is arguing along the similar lines but it think from the perspective that the creditors austerity policy has failed.
http://www.thenation.com/article/austerity-has-failed-an-ope...
The creditors are saying keep taking a haircut till you recover, and the debtor is saying, Sir that what we've been doing and we are getting into deeper trouble.
Are we running out of economic imaginations? Maybe we need more of startup thinking in the space of economy.
Extending maturity and / or reducing interest rates do not help much if you know that whatever improvements you make to your economy will be swallowed by the financial markets in the future (since the debt still exists). You are a slave country (all countries are dependent on the financial markets in more or less measure, but Greece has completely lost its freedom)
Would you work to pay for your student loans if you realized that you will never be able to pay it back, in your whole work life, and that you will be subject to the dictate of your creditors forever? If default was not an option (you can not default on student debt in the US?), I would just leave the country.
Ah, the good ol' Nirvana fallacy.
And some of them take a much tougher stand towards Greece than Germany does. Ask Lithuania how happy they are to pump money towards a country that is richer than they are themselves.
Of course, Germany has a lot of influence. But everytime I see articles riffing off this Germany vs. Greece theme, I tend to discount them as shallow.
1. Meet Portugal (my country). Some may know us derisively as the P in PIGS because of our financial problems (much similar to the Greek one in nature and extent).
In 2010 and 2011 as one of the 14 member states of the EU that were part of the Greek loan facility Portugal contributed with 1102 million euros into the 52.9 billion loan that greece received [1].
Yes, that's correct, not all of the debt that people are so eager to expect that German forgives is from their coffers, it was actually pooled from the following countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain.
2. As you may know, about the same time we had our own problems and also had to be bailed out. As part of the measures put in place to reduce our deficit a massive tax hike was implemented in the end of 2012 [2]
I'll draw attention to single one of those measures: the 3.5% extraordinary tax on the income paid by every single person with income above minimum wage (485€/month) including pensioners.
Now, for the money quote [3]: "Minister of Finance Vitor Gaspar said the tax would bring in 1025 million euros". Less than what Portugal contributed to the Greek bailout fund. 3.5% of the income of every citizen in this country.
In conclusion, that's one of the reasons for the nationalistic outrage against Greece defaulting the loan. It is not only the money of the richest bankers of Europe that won't be repaid, it is the taxpayer money of each of those countries that contributed to their rescue.
To put in perspective, 1102 million euros means that default would cost every inhabitant in this country 110 euros (about 330€ per household) and not only hypothetically but in practice too as demonstrated above.
[1] http://www.rekenkamer.nl/english/Publications/Topics/EU_gove...
[2] http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/31/business/portugal-fiscal-t...
[3] http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/article...
P.S. As one of the most common responses to was that the money didn't went to Greece but to its creditors (without improving the Greek situation) I must add that I agree it is a valid point.
But is not related to the fact that the European fund raised to Greece was not money coming from an abstract concept of Europe or from the coffers of the Germans alone but directly from the taxpayers of each of the countries mentioned above.
That is the point being made, not that the bailout shouldn't have happened but that it happened and an eventual default won't be on Germany alone.
Top of the list: Slovakia, Malta, Slovenia, Estonia.
The Portuguese (and the rest) have not been suffering because of the Greek, but because some banks were rescued.
Now the Greeks are asking to be bailed out, for good. So, yes, now they are asking for the rest of the Europeans to help them.
No yield without risk. It comes a bit late now, because most banks have already recovered their investments, and only the governments will be affected (and the IMF, ...)
Regarding pumping money: the now defenestrated Varoufakis has argued that Greece was not requesting money from the EU, but that the EU should have an investment program (much bigger than the ones currently in place), financed basically with Eurobonds, and implement by funneling those funds into both the private and public economy via banks. The program was intended to invest in poor European regions. The involvement of banks will use the profit motive to make sure that the investments are sound, and the fact that the funds will be nearly free (for the banks) will incentive the banks to really invest the money.
Not only Greece would benefit, but Lithuania too. And not all regions on those countries, only the ones in need.
How do you mean recovered? Banks have already taken a 50% haircut on their Greek debt. The 2011 round of Greek debt relief, in which only private creditors were participating, was worth 100bn. That doesn't sound like risk free yield to me.
Anyhow, having lost a part of their investment, and taking the deserved loss without being unnecessarily shielded by the institutions are different things: it does not matter if they lost 50bn, if the European institutions saved them from losing another 50bn by piling up the risk on the European taxpayer.
There were probably sound reasons why we helped the banks back then (contagion risk, instability of financial markets, ...). What is being argued now is that there are equally (even more valid, since they involve human suffering) reasons to help the Greek now.
Eurozone crisis: banks agree 50% reduction on Greece's debt http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/27/eurozone-crisis...
>What is being argued now is that there are equally (even more valid, since they involve human suffering) reasons to help the Greek now.
Absolutely! The question is not whether help is necessary, the question is what kind of structural reforms should be demanded in exchange for debt relief so they don't simply run up new debt.
As far as I know, the Troika has been refusing to accept a haircut on the Greek debt as a part of the negotiations, which is one of the factors that has escalated the problem.
The reason Germans are opposed to debt relief for Greece is that they have read about Greek nepotism in the public sector, tax avoidance, and other corruption while Greek reforms have not been forthcoming. To the average German voter money for Greece without reforms is pouring water into a broken bucket.
Anyway if debt relieve, why Greece? It is well developed country with good infrastructure. Lets send those money to countries which need it more.
It is true that Greeks introduced crazy socialistic ideas like having written down in the constitution the law that civil servant cannot be made redundant. It ended up with huge number of employed officials doing nothing.
It is also true that Greeks made cheating on taxes a pure art (and I am speaking this as a Polish, and people in Poland are not exactly rushing to pay taxes). Covering pools with a military masking net to avoid tax or things like hiding relatives death for many years to get their pension are kind of unusual practices. This pathologies are partly caused by absurd tax regulations, though, so I wouldn't attribute it to "Greek nature", as some people do.
But it is also true that Greeks were tricked into joining Eurozone. They had rather weak economy without well developed modern industry. As long as they had drahma, Greek products were cheap, Greece was also cheap as a touristic destination. It has all changed, when they joined Eurozone, this hasn't improved their economy, but made their often low quality products expensive.
Who was main beneficiary of this? Obviously Germany, before Euro Deutsch Mark was becoming a very strong currency, so German products were expensive (similarly to Swiss Franc).
Introducing Euro changed that. Right now German economy is blooming, they are about to have zero debt budget next year and the rest of Eurozone is kind of in trouble.
The other thing, Greeks were actively encouraged to take credits (I can't believe that banks and governments were so stupid that they couldn't analyze situation). Greeks spent those money on products bought abroad (with Germany as a big seller). Greeks bought a lot of military equipment in Germany, for instance. So, Greeks made others rich in that way. Now they are left with top quality war ships, but they cannot payback their debts.
The contrary is true. Greece faked its statistics in order to join.
> I can't believe that banks and governments were so stupid that they couldn't analyze situation
Of course they could, and the banks should have participated in a debt cut - they recklessly lent money to Greece in an extend & pretend scheme, cashing in on a high-risk interest rate, without actually risking a default "because bailout".
and i read in another place that the german export to greece is a nearly negligible share of german exports and that the biggest lenders were french and uk banks...
I know this is contested, but the other narrative is that Germany was forced into the EUR by Paris in exchange for unification. Greece forced itself into the EUR by blackmailing Germany for WWII atrocities.
A big advantage of having a fiat currency is that through manipulating the money supply, a country can essentially give everyone paid in that currency a pay cut (or a raise) relative to other countries. This situation where Greece is dramatically less productive than the rest of Europe is a textbook example of when currency devaluation is appropriate... but they can't do it, because they are using the same currency as Germany and other countries that have very high productivity levels.
Greece is way better off outside of the euro; loaning them more money at this point would be delaying necessary pain; and certainly, getting off the euro and bootstrapping their own currency will be painful, but... it's something they are going to have to do.
* Without any impact on the US $ * Without any foreign country noticing * Without pictures of suffering people
What does the EU need to change? Is there cross financing in the US to states, e.g. California, which the EU does not want to do for Greece?
Is this true? Has any US state gone bankrupt? Can you share a link? The closest I know was California having some financial trouble, but no bankrupt was declared, afaik.
> Without any impact on the US $
The $ is no normal currency: it is the world currency. Most international contracts are done in $. By chance (if you are charitable) or by design (if you tend to conspiracy theories, like me), the $ gives the US a huge financial advantage.
The markets are rigged in favor of the $.
They can't. State agencies, and subdivisions of States, can enter into bankruptcy under federal municipal bankruptcy provisions, but States as such cannot.
There have been some very loose discussions about the desirability of adding State bankruptcy provisions to the federal bankruptcy code over the last several years, but nothing that I am aware of even approaching a serious effort to do so.
The Germans argued, in short, that "we've changed, and because of the change the leniency will really help". The change was clear: The Bundestag didn't look like either the Weimar Reichstag or the Nazi regime.
It'll be difficult for the Greek to put forward the same argument, so long as their pension scheme remains severely underfinanced, etc. Syriza's argument is basically "we suffer", which is undoubtedly true, but it's a very different argument, not one that can be supported by the German experience.
The Greece change can not come because the main reason that is keeping them in crisis (the debt burden) will not disappear.
That is why they are asking for debt relief: they want to bankrupt the old system.
"Yet there was a crucial hole in the reforms: they largely sheltered older workers, so that they could retire on broadly the same terms as before. As an example, Platon Tinios, a pensions expert at Piraeus University, highlights the reform limiting the list of arduous occupations. This no longer included new hairdressers from 2012 but all those with more than ten years’ experience retained their previous right to retire five years early. The new accrual rates applied to years worked from 2011; previous years worked still benefited from the earlier more generous formula (although the resulting benefits are then subjected to the cuts applied to pensions in payment). According to Professor Tinios, “the vast majority of those planning to retire this decade are grandfathered” (shielded) from the reforms."
So, the cuts still apply, partially, even to the people who are retiring early.
And anyway: you are a worker, having compromised to work for a meager salary because you know that at least you are going to retire early. You work 30 years and have nothing to show for it, but the promise of an early retirement. That is the deal you have signed, the deal you have been promised: "you will work for free (nearly), in exchange of retiring early".
And now, they are supposed to accept a retroactive contract change? I would also not accept it.
If you are going to break deals, why not break the debt deal? Restructure the debt, and start from zero. Maybe that means you need to leave the Euro, and maybe that is good for you.
I don't want to start analysing what has gone wrong with greece. Lots of ink has been spilled and most people have formed their opinions by now anyway. Let's just say it's a mix of reckless mid-90s to late-00s borrowing/spending and a bit of short-sightedness (or over-confidence maybe) of foreign investors.
What troubles me most are two things however
First, the last 5 year reforms have afflicted low/middle class households the most. Even moderate (800-900 e/mo) pensions and wages have been slashed, collective bargaining abolished, lots of small/medium businesses have gone belly up along with their employees. It was supposed to help, and I would even be OK with it. But apparently it didn't. GDP plummeted, unemployment is all-europe high, you have probably already read about it. Every 18 months there are new reforms of the same kind only to roll-over the previous bail-outs to new ones. Assuming we keep the euro and the government signs a new 2-4-year funding programme. If in 2017 the situation is the same what would be the next step? Another bail-out? When will this end? Will it end at all? Let's say that through another set of cuts and budget adjustments there is a 3% primary surplus (wildly optimistic) by the end of 2017. How good will that be with 200% debt/GDP? These are probably naive questions for someone more learned in economics but in my eyes it seems like the trial of Sisyphus[1]; the same thing over and over again. I believe that there must be a way to manage the greek debt, not write it off maybe, but ease part of its repayment.
On a side-note some proposed or already implemented reforms are on good track. Ridiculously early pensions should be abolished, as they are an insult to those working hard for 40+, years and tax evasion should be tackled hard. But these things don't happen within a year, especially managing tax evasion. It's getting better but it will need time. The current government has vowed to address both, I wish they do, but I'm cautious.
Second, I am totally disheartened by the way the greeks are depicted by the media. For example there was this utterly disgusting sketch[2] by a dutch newspaper. I can find more, but this is one of the more recent ones. Is this what people think of greeks? Is this how we treat people that are definitely through some hard times, even if it is partially of their own wrong-doings? Don't get me wrong, there has been also in greece some relevant comments and sketches. I disagree with them, but all of them were targeted at politicians not people. Although there are harsh feeling about Mrs. Merkel, and Mr. Schäuble, and several other high profile politicians I have heard noone to say bad things of the germans, or dutch, or whatever. On the other hand I have read some totally disgusting things for the greeks as a nation over the last few months. I'm sad and disappointed.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus
[2]: http://www.volkskrant.nl/foto/de-cartoons-van-jos-collignon~...
They asked for a restructuring. The same amount of debt was to be owed but over a longer period of time and at a lower interest rate.
The reasoning was quite simply that at the current rate and loan period, they are unable to take any advantage of the quantative easing currently being undertaken by the ECB.
Varoufakis explains it quite nicely onnhis blog. The debt as it stands is unsustainable. Restructuring would help tremendously. They haven't asked for a reduction.