Really? I’m not hearing that Greece is totally unwilling to enact any sort of domestic reform. And I am hearing them rightly blaming the bulk of the current crisis on external financial piracy. At any rate, as Piketty said in the interview linked above,
We cannot demand that new generations must pay for decades for the mistakes of their parents. The Greeks have, without a doubt, made big mistakes. Until 2009, the government in Athens forged its books. But despite this, the younger generation of Greeks carries no more responsibility for the mistakes of its elders than the younger generation of Germans did in the 1950s and 1960s. We need to look ahead. Europe was founded on debt forgiveness and investment in the future. Not on the idea of endless penance. We need to remember this.
Yeah actions speak louder than words. The greek government had a few years to deal with their problems. What did they do? A little bit of window dressing reforms, always at the last minute - shows a decent lack of problem awareness.
Germany did their homework years ago - social/welfare reforms, raising retirement age, one of lowest wage increase in europe etc.
All of which is much easier to do when so much of your debt has been forgiven.
If I were Greek, I’d listen to pompous German bootstraperism more sincerely if Germany were as willing to forgive crippling debt (much of which, again, in the case of Greece has been the result of external financial piracy) as others (including Greece!) were to Germany when it was on its knees.
I love how issues like this turn whole nations of individuals into indistinguishable aggregates making decisions and forming opinions via hive mind.
I’ve seen so many comments like this today: “Those lazy Greeks! They’re just trying to run up the bill on Germany’s credit card and then ducking out when the bill comes due! And they’re probably lounging on France’s divan and bogarting Holland’s marijuana!”
When you start to consider the fact that individual Greeks might have individual minds, goals, dreams, aspirations, etc. the situation starts to look a little less simplistic. The corrupt politicians rewrite tax law to benefit their rich cronies in private industry. The next guy down the totem pole isn’t so well-connected, but he still has a CPA and tax attorney who can use some of the same loopholes, and from that guy’s perspective, why should he do more to support Greece’s finances than those who are wealthier than him (and therefore would seem to benefit more from Greece’s finances being in good shape than he would). And so-on down the pole.
When you get to the bottom, you get a bunch of people who don’t have CPAs and tax attorneys and who probably pay a larger share of their earnings in taxes than the people above them – to little effect since they have so little taxable income to begin with. From their perspective, early retirement might seem like a pretty appropriate award for people who are working their asses off to make ends meet only to find that they are also responsible for propping up the Greek government’s revenue. I’m pretty sure these people would be happy to badmouth the tax evasion and corrupt politicians.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure the wealthy tax evaders mentioned above would be thrilled to blame the whole thing on early retirement, entitlement spending, and the public sector in general.
I can see why people want to frame this as “Greece vs. Germany”. But like every other political crisis, I can’t help seeing it as more like, “people who just want to put their heads down, make themselves useful, maybe raise a family, and mostly be left alone” vs. “people with a lot of power and money who would like even more (or at worst, keep what they already have)”.
Notice how when the former group makes even a fairly minor victory, the media crows about how lazy and corrupt the “Greek people” are.
Problem is not to forgive the debts but the lack of problem awareness in the greek public and government and the unwillingness to enact structural reforms.
The creditors don’t want to forgive the debt because Greece is gonna rack up another horrendous debt if they don’t (want to) get their economy, welfare and tax system in order first - or at least start trying to do so. The greek governments squandered all trust in that regard … and that’s exactly why they don’t get any debt forgiveness.
That’s exactly what I mean by ‘internalising’. It’s one of the funny quirks of nationalism, which still persists in Germany. Speaking from personal experience as a half-German. Germans were born under a political system that worked for them - they didn’t earn it. Not sure what the work of your political administration has to do with you “doing your own homework”. Being born in a rich country doesn’t make you an authority on economics or a hard worker. I’m pretty sure the obnoxious Germans I meet had nothing to do with the Wirtschaftswunder.
I have to add that a lot of Germans have a much healthier perspective than that.
Having to live under a corrupt and oligarchic political system and thriving through merit alone is tough as shit, to say the least. Greeks weren’t personally managing their public debt. Not sure what that has to do with “doing your own homework”. Again, speaking from personal experience.
Yeah, this is the flip side of the point I was making. It’s politically expedient to paint all Greeks as lazy moochers. It’s politically expedient to paint all Germans as virtuous wealth-creators. And so we get this bizarre narrative where “Germany” is doing homework while “Greece” goes to the mall with her credit card.
Do people “arguing” like this realize they sound like children?
I find it easier to stop listening to them when I realize they probably talk in the same patronizing, context-free way about “the blacks” and “the gays.”
Can haz English translation linkeh plz? Or is that your own work? I only did German for one term & it made me sad, so I did Latin instead (n.b.: I cannot remember any Latin [except nota bene ])
Aw!! I see that the English translation in the link I provided above has been removed! Something-something about copyright law.
What I quoted is from the English translation that was still there a couple of hours ago. Sorry! I hope an English version appears again somewhere soon, it is a very clear, quick, and inspiring interview.
Wait, economic reforms aren’t simple abstractions that don’t involve pushback and need for consensus and reason because they might affect actual humans?
])
