Greece: “We will not suffer any more so that we can make the rich even richer.”

[midnight]

I love this sentiment......



Andreou’s MUST READ piece is also found at Yves Smith’s great nakedcapitalism site. The point he makes right at the start is, ‘THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU NEXT’. Here are three paragraphs:

What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939. The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and thorough. Private wealth interests are dictating policy to a sovereign nation, which is expressly and directly against its national interest. Ignore it at your peril. Say to yourselves, if you wish, that perhaps it will stop there. That perhaps the bailiffs will not go after the Portugal and Ireland next. And then Spain and the UK. But it is already beginning to happen. …

The powers that be have suggested that there is plenty to sell. Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel’s party, recently made the helpful suggestionthat we should sell some of our islands to private buyers in order to pay the interest on these loans, which have been forced on us to stabilise financial institutions and a failed currency experiment. (Of course, it is not a coincidence that recent studies have shown immense reserves of natural gas under the Aegean sea).


I'll only post two. But the most important line is: ‘THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU NEXT’

[fascisthunter]

1. Class Warfare on a Global Scale

[TBF]

26. Absolutely, and that should be the way workers should fight back. nt

[Mist]

2. TPTB are "third-worlding" everyone these days. Wreck the economy, then "helpfully" suggest

selling off assets. Watch out, they're doing it here too--watch your public water supplies.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. A-fucking-men to that!

You listening, America?

[hifiguy]

4. Hey Greece!

:yourock:

[n2doc]

5. link to article

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/alex-andreou-democracy-vs-mythology-–-the-battle-in-syntagma-square.html

[midnight]

10. Thank you.... Also a another link....

http://my.firedoglake.com/fairleft/2011/06/21/greece-we-will-not-suffer-any-more-so-that-we-can-make-the-rich-

[LisaM]

6. I have a friend living in Greece right now and this completely backs up his take on things

He says there are a lot of rich people there, who do just about anything to avoid paying taxes.

[jtown1123]

7. I remember going to a little cafe in Santorini. They didn't provide a check

the waiter just came over and told us how much it was and I paid in cash. No wonder they have problems collecting taxes.

[formernaderite]

20. i'm sure the rich are cheating... but so is everyone over there

I haven't been there in almost 20 years... but sounds like nothings changed. Scams, corruption... under the table deals... and that's just for the tourists lol

[liberation]

55. Yeah, poor people are known for owning hotels and businesses in touristic areas

And you guys had access to their books too be so sure about who was or wasn't paying sales tax.

[PoliticAverse]

25. Excatly, sales tax evasion...

This is one of the issues in Michael Lewis' article on the Greek situation:

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010

"As he rose to leave, he pointed out that the waitress at the swanky tourist hotel failed to provide us
with a receipt for our coffees. “There’s a reason for that,” he said. “Even this hotel doesn’t pay the
sales tax it owes.”

[IndyPragmatist]

39. I've had the exact same experience,

There was a small corner store near the friend I was visiting that I went to every day I was there. Not once did I get charged a sales tax. There are a lot of people in Greece who are causing the problems.

I get so frustrated sometimes on this board. There are some people that no matter what the situation, they will blame the rich. Yes, income inequality is the cause for a lot of problems, but Greece's problems are FAR more complex than what some on here are making it out to be.

But I guess blaming the rich is much easier that doing research and having an accurate assessment of the situation.

[liberation]

54. "But I guess blaming the rich is much easier that doing research and having an accurate assessment"

Obviously your "assessment" based on a personal anecdote which you then used to define a whole country, it is so much "accurate."

Thank goodness you did all that hard intellectual work for us.

[Renew Deal]

8. Link???

:bounce:

[midnight]

11. Link.....

http://my.firedoglake.com/fairleft/2011/06/21/greece-we-will-not-suffer-any-more-so-that-we-can-make-the-rich-

[Renew Deal]

13. That's the repost by FDL

But it did link to the article. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/alex-andreou-democracy-vs-mythology-%e2%80%93-the-battle-in-syntagma-square.html

[midnight]

32. I'm sorry can you let me know what link your referring to. Thanks..

[riderinthestorm]

33. When you provide a quote, you must provide a hyperlink to the article

that's typically embedded within the post.

It helps DUers go to the source and read the entire quote in context, and it helps DU Administrators stay out of trouble for copying text without attribution.

No matter. Other DUers provided links for you but for the future...

[midnight]

36. Thank you for your gentle reminder....

[riderinthestorm]

53. Peace. And a kick for your most excellent OP. nt

[Ikonoklast]

9. Greece was living on a credit card.

They were borrowing to keep their economy afloat, and now they want to skip out on the payments.

Germany has every right to be pissed, their taxpayers will subsidize Greek retirees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sovereign_debt_crisis

Greece was playing some really shady games with their massive debt.

They are not the saints everyone thinks they are, they screwed up big time.

[midnight]

12. I can't help but think that will be the story of America...

[ret5hd]

14. Sounds like you are describing the u.s. and china...

so i guess you will be going silently while social security is dismantled, your pension is raided, and you are asked for a paycut (assuming you have a job) just so the rich won't be inconvenienced.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. You see clearly.

[fascisthunter]

28. maybe those things don't matter to that poster

maybe that poster is in a higher economic bracket than those of us it will harm.

[liberation]

57. I don't think posting on the interwebs pays that well...

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Yes they were living on credit. But why?

GDP was up in the 90's & early 2000's. The government went into debt to provide social services, but they wouldn't have had to do that had their tax policy extracted sufficient revenue from the uber-wealthy. However, that class acted there just like they do everywhere else--they looted the country & dodged out on their social responsibilities, leaving the commoners holding the bag.

[liberation]

58. The tax cuts were due to the neo-liberal government Greece had during a big chunk of the past decade

who were following down to a T the mantra that if you lower taxes, they (businesses) will come. They expected the economy to boom, since supply side approaches have never been "wrong." So they lied to the EU, because they expected the common EU funds to cover up the shortfall in revenues due to the silly tax games the neo-libs were playing. But then the world economy went to shit in the second half of the decade, and they were left with their asses up in the open.

Funny how a lot of people in this forum are "forgetting" the neo-liberal policies and their effect in the Greek crisis, I assume due to Obama's own neo-liberal tendencies. In order to blame the Greek population in general as being some sort of entitled lazy cheats. Does that framing sound familiar?

Oh, and BTW we were conducting the very same policies. Esp. during the Bush "boom" in which we borrowed heavily from China in order to pay for the tax cuts and finance the bubble. So I find it ironic to see so many people here lecturing others about the speck in their eyes, while completely ignoring the industrial size iron beam lodged in ours.

[girl gone mad]

18. Did someone hold a gun to the bankers' heads and force them to lend..

well beyond the time it was clear that the debts were becoming insurmountable?

Why did they buy CDS protection from default if they thought this was a good risk?

[midnight]

29. I think part of this problem was hidden... Something that Elizabeth Warren

has been exposing...

[suffragette]

19. Why should the banks losses be socialized when their profits were privatized?

The banks and financiers gambled on risky investments, raked in the profit and now want citizens of the countries to pay for the risk the bankers took.

There have been, and still are, shady games going on, but a major role in these games has being conducted by the same people who created this situation - the financiers.

And now they want to use the disaster they have created as cover to grab Greece's public land and assets.

Let's take a closer look at some of them, shall we?


German Banks Reported Still to Be Taking Risks
By JACK EWING
Published: November 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/business/global/26buba.html?ref=hyporealestate

FRANKFURT — The Bundesbank, the German central bank, said on Thursday that the country’s banks were better off now than they were a year ago, benefiting from a strong domestic economy. But, the bank said, German institutions continue to engage in risky practices that make them vulnerable to a rise in interest rates.

“Thanks to stable returns and improved capital, German banks have increased their ability to withstand risk,” Andreas Dombret, a member of the central bank’s executive board, said Thursday at a news conference. But “as before the German bank system still displays vulnerabilities and structural weaknesses.”

Despite Germany’s economic growth, its banks are among Europe’s weakest. Moody’s, the ratings agency, ranks the average health of German banks below those of most other Western European countries as well as nations like Brazil, Jordan and Mexico.

In its annual financial stability report, the Bundesbank warned that German banks had increased their dependence on short-term financing, a profitable but risky practice because institutions can be caught short if interest rates rise.



Deutsche Bank profit almost a record
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0428/deutsche-business.html

Deutsche Bank, the biggest German bank, today posted the second best quarterly profit in its history, owing to a combination of strong investment banking activities, retail banking and asset management.

~~~

'We will continue to invest in our franchise and are confident that we will deliver on our ambitious target of income before income tax of 10 billion euros from our business divisions,' Deutsche Bank chairman Josef Ackermann said.



Deutsche Bank’s Chief Casts Long Shadow in Europe
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/business/12bank.html

From this seat at the nexus of money and politics, Mr. Ackermann, for better or worse, is helping to shape Europe’s economic and financial future. He regularly advises politicians and policy makers on the most pressing economic issues of the day: the smoldering debt crises in Greece; the widening gulf between the economically strong nations of Europe, like Germany, and weaker ones like Ireland and Portugal; and the future of Europe’s economic and monetary union and that grand venture’s most manifest expression, the euro.

But it is no secret where Mr. Ackermann’s financial allegiances lie: with the banks. For instance, he has insisted that providing some sort of debt relief for Greece would be a huge mistake. Such a move — a restructuring, in banking parlance — would involve writing down Greece’s debt, which is now more than 140 percent of its gross domestic product, deferring payments and cutting interest rates.

~~~

Mr. Ackermann, like many of his counterparts in the United States, has also argued against tighter regulation of the post-crisis financial industry. His visibility as an industry advocate stems in part from his chairmanship of the Institute of International Finance, an association of the world’s biggest banks, including American ones like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. The group has released studies contending, among other things, that compelling banks to reduce their use of leverage — a move that would almost certainly reduce banks’ profits — would cause a credit crunch. That’s ridiculous, some economists counter.

“Most of the arguments made by the bankers and the I.I.F. in particular are just fallacious,” says Martin Hellwig, an economist and a director of the Bonn branch of the Max Planck Institute.


So, German banks are making record profits, still making risky decisions and a major CEO of one of the largest banks is against regulation and for (other people's) austerity and forcing a nation's citizens to sell off its publicly held assets.
Sound familiar, yet?

[midnight]

31. Your tax dollars going to foreign banks: listen to this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O_lBy6w0Hw

[suffragette]

34. Three of the banks that received AIG bailout $ are the most involved in Greece

Thanks for that video.

Here's a link showing they are 3 of the 4 most "exposed" banks in Greece.

http://www.businessinsider.com/reminder-here-are-the-banks-most-exposed-to-greek-sovereign-debt-2011-4


So first they grabbed what they could from here and now they are actively maneuvering to not only put the Greek citizenry on the hook for the risky practices these banks have been employing (all the while raking in high profit from risk) , but they also want to carve out public land and assets and buy them for fire sale prices.

No wonder they are fighting regulation tooth and nail.

Whatever happened to bringing up racketeers on charges?

[midnight]

70. I'm not familiar with the lists of European Banks taking a Greek hair cut,

but one,UBS, I think I've seen that logo in Wisconsin...

[suffragette]

75. It took a bit of digging to find the above info

I haven't seen that much reported about them, much more reported about the Greek citizens' behavior than about the specific banks and bankers most involved.
Just watched "Inside Job" which made me start thinking more about that since it named names for the U.S. situation.
THink I might do a bit more starting research this weekend and maybe start a thread noting what I find (as above) and asking others what they can find. Together we might be able to get more of a picture and idea of some of the banks behind all this.

[sudopod]

24. Define "they" nt

[femrap]

37. Ever read 'The Economic Hitman?'

Add that to the rich NOT paying taxes (just like here in the US) and all of a sudden THE WORKING PEOPLE are supposed to take the 'hit.' The working people didn't create the mess/debt.

The U.S. is in the same predicament as Greece....the only difference being that the US has a printing machine and can print more $$ where Greece can't print more Euros.

Remember, the Chinese are buying massive amounts of the US...in particular farmland. Google Project 60. The governor of Idaho is welcoming the Chinese to build an entire city there.

The moneyed class is never SAINTLY.

[midnight]

71. Hmmm... Gov. of Idaho is inviting the Chinese to build an

entire city there... Is this more privatization? Selling all our resources off...

[femrap]

76. The Chinese own us....

so I would imagine we will do as they say and get some $8 to $10 jobs out of it.

China has bought up so much of Africa that many call it 'Chafrica' now. They will employ people to work in the fields and then send the food back to China.

The Chinese plan in Generations, not like the US Businessman who thinks in the next 3 months/quarter.

I've seen this coming for years now. I'm glad I'm old.

[fasttense]

38. You seem to think there are only two solutions

default (skip out) or pay up every last dime all original interests and penalties (IMF's preferred method).

But there is a 3rd way. A way that most of our aristocracy uses. Trump is known to have used it several times and is quite proud of it.

It's called restructuring the debt. When the very wealthy get into financial messes, they go back to their bankster friends and say, "Hay, I can't pay you back your billions that I borrowed but if you cut the rate of interest, increase the pay back time, reduce the principal or take off all those fines, I could pay you back in 2 years." Getting something out of the loan is better than getting NOTHING from the loan.

But for some reason, when it comes to sovereign debt, politicians never act like this toward the banks the country owes.

[Buns_of_Fire]

48. Which reminds me of the old saying:

"If you owe the bank ten thousand dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank ten MILLION dollars, THEY have a problem..."

People like T.Rump know this very well.

[arikara]

17. Here is the original blog

With other articles too:

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/

[JCMach1]

21. This time it's German bankers conquering Europe...

[FLPanhandle]

23. Most of the pressure is coming from French bankers

They are the ones who are holding most of the debt. Unfortunately France doesn't have the economy to bailout Greece, so it's left to the Germans.

[FLPanhandle]

22. Euro interests are running smack into individual country politics.

The Germans can't politically lend Greece more money without austerity measures in place.
The Greeks can't politically implement those austerity measures.

If the Greeks get a non-austerity bailout, then Spain & Portugal will expect one too.

The corporations in the EU like the Euro and will add pressure to bailout everyone with EU taxpayer money (read German tax payer money), but that isn't going to be palatable to the German voters.

Either the EU governments side with the banks/corporations and implement austerity and taxpayer funded bailout programs, or they risk letting the Euro go extinct.

[rbixby]

27. So lets say Greece quits the EU

goes back on the drachma, and declares all of its debt null and void? What can banks do to collect on that?

[FLPanhandle]

30. If Greece defaults, the banks can't do much except not lend them any more money

Which would mean some short term severe pain.

[aquart]

73. Guess they shouldn't have let the bankers steal.

if the euro and the dollar tank, what will those executive bonuses be worth?

[amborin]

35. K&R ordinary citizens suffer so banksters get richer

Merkel did not want to protect bankers; our IMF's new temp chief Lipsky pressured her to back down

[WinkyDink]

40. Oh, but the Cassandras crying, "NWO!" decades ago were fools in tin-foil hats, eh?

[malaise]

41. K & FuggingR

for the truth

[davidwparker]

42. kalo kai eucharisto

[davidwparker]

43. "immense reserves of natural gas under the Aegean sea"

Nuff said.

[Moostache]

44. Read "The Shock Doctrine"...its basically word for word what is STILL happening.

The "Chicago Boys" and their fundamentally destructive philosophy should be held responsible for crimes against humanity. In the distant future, people will marvel at how society allowed these miscreants to do all the things that they have and NOT been jailed or stopped....

[Jakes Progress]

46. All the Chicago boys.

And we thought only Texas leaked toxic politicians and theories.

[blindpig]

45. k&r

[Jakes Progress]

47. Fat Cats. Wake up.

Your party is over. You didn't want to invite everyone in the class to your party, so now the rest of the class is gonna beat the shit out of you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[fascisthunter]

49. Thank You!!!!

[rwsanders]

50. Once again Greece defends the west in a modern Thermopylae!

Go Greece!!

[NorthCarolina]

51. Very un-American attitude they have there.

:sarcasm:

[jwirr]

52. They are on the right track. Our economists - disaster capitalists -

are trying to privatize everything - sell your islands indeed - and they need to tell them to take a flying leap off the cliff. Once again it is the banksters who borrowed money when they should not have until the borrower is in so deep they have to default. It is the banks that have to take the fall so that people can start over again. The economic philosophy since 1980 is the problem not the people or the governments.

[amborin]

56. Labor Unions Call for Gen Strike June 28-2

Greece Tensions Escalate As Labor Unions Call For Two Day General Strike On June 28-29 To Celebrate Austerity VoteSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 06/23/2011 11:01 -0400

GreeceGross Domestic ProductInternational Monetary FundUnemployment



The last time Greece had a full day strike was a week ago on June 15, when labor unions decided to cut another 0.15% from Greek GDP by doing absolutely nothing, and events on Syntagma square reached the highest level of violence so far in 2011. And unfortunately for the Troica, Greece seems to have realized that the best way to make sure the bailout program craters is by continuing to miss all IMF output and production targets. As a result, as Athens News reports, "according to the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE) and the civil servants' umbrella federation Adedy, the 48-hour strike is an escalation of their recent industrial action comprising 24-hour nationwide strikes in protest of the medium-term programme. A main demonstration will be held on Tuesday, June 28, at the Pedion tou Areos park in central Athens at 11am, while on Wednesday another demonstration will be held in downtown Klafthmonos Square." As a reminder June 28, is the far more critical Greece austerity vote, which unlike the vote of confidence in G-Pap, already has several PASOK members saying they will vote against it.

[bossy22]

59. what don't people understand

greece borrowed money- now they can't pay it back. It wasnt evil banksters which did this too them- they did it to themselves. Just like debtors, creditors have rights as well. Kudos to Merkel for standing up- why should the avg german citizen have to pay for the mistakes of the greek government?

[riderinthestorm]

62. Because they're all connected as part of the EU.

And are pledged to help one another.

That's why the Germans are supposed to help them. Unfortunately, the EU is demanding a virtually impossible austerity plan to bail the Greeks out.

The 'evil" banksters dumped that money into Greece knowing that their financial house wasn't in order. But they continued. They gambled and lost, but in losing they assumed the EU would bail THEM out by pressuring Greece. That's the way things have always been right? Too big to fail and all that?

Greece is now saying, "not so fast". They may just default. And like gamblers everywhere the German (mostly the French but whose quibbling) banksters may lose.

Greece may be put on an impossible debt repayment schedule much like third world African nations. That's what the IMF and World Bank want. And Greece will be stuck in a vicious cycle of debt service for, well, forever with no light at the end of the tunnel. The big banksters are terrified Greece will simply say fuck off, "we're not playing by supply side economics anymore. We're going to default and re-structure our debt outside the EU, monetize the drachma again and go our own way".

Either way, Greece has a world of short term hurt but by leaving the EU, they actually have light at the end of the tunnel where they can get themselves clear. By sticking with the IMF and World Bank banksters, they are fucked forever.

[white_wolf]

74. Why do people constantly defend the rich?

The banksters gambled with people's lives and they lost. Let them pay the price instead of forcing the working class to.

[blindpig]

77. Fuck the banks. Besides that there's this:

'Germany Was Biggest Debt Transgressor of 20th Century'

Think Greece's current economic malaise is the worst ever experienced in Europe? Think again. Germany, economic historian Albrecht Ritschl argues in a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, has been the worst debtor nation of the past century. He warns the country should take a more chaste approach in the euro crisis or it could face renewed demands for World War II reparations.


SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Ritschl, Germany is coming across like a know-it-all in the debate over aid for Greece. Berlin is intransigent and is demanding obedience from Athens. Is this attitude justified?

Ritschl: No, there is no basis for it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Most Germans would likely disagree.

Ritschl: That may be, but during the 20th century, Germany was responsible for what were the biggest national bankruptcies in recent history. It is only thanks to the United States, which sacrificed vast amounts of money after both World War I and World War II, that Germany is financially stable today and holds the status of Europe's headmaster. That fact, unfortunately, often seems to be forgotten.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What happened back then exactly?

Ritschl: From 1924 to 1929, the Weimar Republic lived on credit and even borrowed the money it needed for its World War I reparations payments from America. This credit pyramid collapsed during the economic crisis of 1931. The money was gone, the damage to the United States enormous, the effect on the global economy devastating.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The situation after World War II was similar.

Ritschl: But right afterwards, America immediately took steps to ensure there wouldn't be a repeat of high reparations demands made on Germany. With only a few exceptions, all such demands were put on the backburner until Germany's future reunification. For Germany, that was a life-saving gesture, and it was the actual financial basis of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle (that began in the 1950s). But it also meant that the victims of the German occupation in Europe also had to forgo reparations, including the Greeks.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the current crisis, Greece was initially pledged €110 billion from the euro-zone and the International Monetary Fund. Now a further rescue package of similar dimensions has become necessary. How big were Germany's previous defaults?

Ritschl: Measured in each case against the economic performance of the USA, the German debt default in the 1930s alone was as significant as the costs of the 2008 financial crisis. Compared to that default, today's Greek payment problems are actually insignificant.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If there was a list of the worst global bankruptcies in history, where would Germany rank?

Ritschl: Germany is king when it comes to debt. Calculated based on the amount of losses compared to economic performance, Germany was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Greece can't compare?

Ritschl: No, the country has played a minor role. It is only the contagion danger for other euro-zone countries that is the problem.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Germany of today is considered the embodiment of stability. How many times has Germany become insolvent in the past?

Ritschl: That depends on how you do the math. During the past century alone, though, at least three times. After the first default during the 1930s, the US gave Germany a "haircut" in 1953, reducing its debt problem to practically nothing. Germany has been in a very good position ever since, even as other Europeans were forced to endure the burdens of World War II and the consequences of the German occupation. Germany even had a period of non-payment in 1990.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Really? A default?

Ritschl: Yes, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl refused at the time to implement changes to the London Agreement on German External Debts of 1953. Under the terms of the agreement, in the event of a reunification, the issue of German reparations payments from World War II would be newly regulated. The only demand made was that a small remaining sum be paid, but we're talking about minimal sums here. With the exception of compensation paid out to forced laborers, Germany did not pay any reparations after 1990 -- and neither did it pay off the loans and occupation costs it pressed out of the countries it had occupied during World War II. Not to the Greeks, either.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Unlike in 1953, the current debate in Germany over the rescue of Greece is concerned not so much with a "haircut", but rather an extension of the maturities of government bonds, i.e. a "soft debt restructuring." Can one therefore even speak of an impending bankruptcy?

Ritschl: Absolutely. Even if a country is not 100 percent out of money, it could still be broke. Just like in the case of Germany in the 1950s, it is illusory to think that Greeks would ever pay off their debts alone. Those who are unable to do that are considered to be flat broke. It is now necessary to determine how high the failure rate of government bonds is, and how much money the country's creditors must sacrifice. It's above all a matter of finding the paymaster.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The biggest paymaster would surely be Germany.

Ritschl: That's what it looks like, but we were also extremely reckless -- and our export industry has thrived on orders. The anti-Greek sentiment that is widespread in many German media outlets is highly dangerous. And we are sitting in a glass house: Germany's resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You're saying that Germany should back down?

Ritschl: In the 20th century, Germany started two world wars, the second of which was conducted as a war of annihilation and extermination, and subsequently its enemies waived its reparations payments completely or to a considerable extent. No one in Greece has forgotten that Germany owes its economic prosperity to the grace of other nations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you mean by that?

Ritschl: The Greeks are very well aware of the antagonistic articles in the German media. If the mood in the country turns, old claims for reparations could be raised, from other European nations as well. And if Germany ever had to honor them, we would all be taken the cleaners. Compared with that, we can be grateful that Greece is being indulgently reorganized at our expense. If we follow public opinion here with its cheap propaganda and not wanting to pay, then eventually the old bills will be presented again.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Looking at history, what would be the best solution for Greece -- and for Germany?

Ritschl: The German bankruptcies in the last century show that the sensible thing to do now would be to have a real reduction of the debt. Anyone who has lent money to Greece would then have to give up a considerable part of what they were owed. Some banks would not be able to cope with that, so there would have to be new aid programs. For Germany, this could be expensive, but we will have to pay either way. At least Greece would then have the chance to start over.

Interview conducted by Yasmin El-Sharif

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...769703,00.html

bolding added

[robcon]

60. Seems like the Greeks are drenched in self-pity... as if somone did this to them

They did it to themselves. The idiots who lent them the money will end up paying for their foolishness in believing they could sustain the idiocy.

Tjhe Greek story is not 'just desserts' for some fat cats. It's the story of a society/government built on never taking control of their finances.

[Jakes Progress]

61. grover thanks you for your efforts.

[socialist_n_TN]

63. That caused a big LOL here.........

:rofl: Maybe we can call them the "Norquist Patrol"?

[Jakes Progress]

66. norqs instead of narcs.

[socialist_n_TN]

72. OOOOOO! That's good too!

:)

[hifiguy]

64. +1 and

:spray::rofl:

[girl gone mad]

68. Just as we were lied into war (against popular will)..

Greece was lied into joining the EMU locked into a really poor exchange rate and then piling on debts to sustain trade.

[malaise]

65. They are correct

Rec

[sabrina 1]

67. "What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion"

It's a very well written article, thanks for posting.

I wish the people of the world could join forces against them. Because they are the same people who are invading every coungry, and this one.

There has to be a way to stop them.

They did this in Argentina, the selling off of a country's institutions, privatizing everything. They will OWN the world and that appears to be their goal.

Wish we could help the Greek people somehow.

[socialist_n_TN]

69. Well, I think a start would be to have a worldwide

class consciousness so that we could KNOW who our enemies really are. You and I have more in common with the Greek working class than with an American capitalist. That international class solidarity needs to be INGRAINED into our bones.

IF the Greeks succeed in throwing off the yoke of capitalist oppression by the finance capitalists, we probably will have to support them in the streets of this country. There will be pressure for NATO to go in and overthrow any SERIOUS worker's government.