From my perspective in Germany, Greece got absolutely massacred. Never mind what the actual problems are that the country has, when the largest media outlets in Germany decide that you're an acceptable target for derision, you're toast. That's not meant to absolve Merkel and Schäuble et al from their responsibility for this mess, but it is my firm belief that the situation in Greece would never have escalated as much as it did if the german media as well as our own euroskeptics hadn't decided that the greek are all a bunch of wasteful corrupt good-for-nothings.
This is touching in a very special problem: eurocrats and their fans
cannot be annoyed at the level of xenophobia and general inter-european racism that was seen in the whole #Brexit brouhaha when
they have been a central source of this problem in the fist place regarding what they called the "PIIGS" countries and, the worst of the worst "kind" of people, with an "atrocious anti-tax culture" that are the Greeks. I still see this pigeonholing today. I still see this scapegoating today. The reason why most people do it is that it is far easier and comforting to believe in this nonsense (and thus, **** those lazy greeks amirite) than to realise the real truth: that the institutions in power were
deliberately incompetent and malicious to
millions of people who are now starving, with schools reporting starvation
in their children at alarming rates.
This truth just seems unbelievable. And so people willfully choose to not believe it, as this thread clearly demonstrates. And yet, it's the bare truth. Why was this possible? Well, for one, the very architecture of the Euro makes it almost inevitable, especially when you have a country that has in all effects been bankrupted but was
forbidden to either default or to restructure its unpayable debts. As Schauble stated in the eurogroup in 2015,
elections cannot be allowed to change the economic policies applied to Greece. So irrationality remained merely for political reasons. And if no one in Europe
cares about the Greeks, because
**** those lazy greeks amirite, then
nothing will change.
Even when other countries were dragged into the mud, this racist meme continued and is still strong, even amongst otherwise "leftists", which still amazes me to no end.
Until I remember that I'm a mysanthrope at heart, and so everything checks out. Again.
Those aren't "socialist" policies, they are the state giving money around to keep the electorate happy, I'm not exactly a "libertarian" but Greece was essentially living on borrowed money which is fine until a crisis hits and the creditors knock at the door.
Wrong. They borrowed money because it was quite cheap to do so. Private institutions did the same for the exact same reason. They may have behaved "populistically" but they were always being rational. The rates only shot up when Merkel reminded Europe of the Maastricht treaty that there would be no european pool of risk between national banks. Something that was to the letter, but everything against its spirit. The reason why the treaty was written this way was because it was as far as they could have risked it at the 90s. They were with the firm belief, however, that if a crisis came to be, germans and french would come together and change these laws. Alas, they didn't because Merkel saw the risk would rise in the periphery but would
lower in the center, which meant a capital flight
towards Berlin.
IOW, Merkel played with "Europe" and basically won two major things: A currency which was amazingly cheap for Germans (thus giving them an amazing advantage) and all the capital that fled from the periphery. With all of this new found wealth, she then berated the peripherical economies for not being as successful as Germany. You probably can guess where I thought she could stick her success.
Italy has been largely in the same situation, only since **** hit the fan already in the 90s we were in a less dangerous position when the crisis hit us in 2008 but even then they had to put a few patsies like Monti to do the dirty job and find someone to blame for the unpopular decisions that had to be made.
Not to say that "unpopular" decisions had to be made, but bear in mind that all of this crisis was mostly manufactured so that Berlin could dictate to many countries what kinds of reforms they should enact in their own countries. Bear in mind also that much of this was completely ideological, not "pragmatic" nor "rational".
And no, I'm not blaming socialist policies, I blame the people who try to exploit them as much as they can, Italy didn't have many deterrents in that regard before the 90s and Greece had much of the same problem until recently, and guess what when that happens deficit becomes a problem.
Not much really. Unless you cannot devalue your currency and you don't have any say with the central banks of the currency. The worst that could happen pre-euro was a devaluation, that was always harmful, but in terms of quantity, it's probably one or two orders of magnitude less of pain. In terms of inequality, it was waaaay better. I could go on exactly
why, but it's the ****ing internet, go educate yourself already.