He maybe felt alone at the Eurorogroup meeting on Monday and remained silent in a rare move to not spoil the fun. But he could not keep himself under control for long time. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday evening that he sees no reason for a real haircut for Greece.
The country has been already free from the debt burden for 10 years, he said adding that “Should the debt sustainability in the medium term not be made, we’ll look at this topic. But now there was no need. He was confident that there would be an agreement with the Greek government in two weeks, but “Then there will be no haircut.” (source)
What is very interesting is that while Greece, the International Monetary Fund and other eurozone players like Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem speak of “Debt Relief” and not “haircut” or Debt Restructuring as Germany and German media do. Under Debt Relief, Greece understands “extension of debt repayment and lower interest rates”.
Do I miss a point here?
Is it a matter of language translation (German: hairtcut = Schuldenschnitt) or a matter of easier perception for Schaeuble’s German voters?
Excuse me, what was the word?
What a liar for hire, “no burden” was Samaras’ reason to quit, means pay-back 17.5 bln in 2015 and some 50 bln since 2010, on the other hand it’s funny to see that media and its costumers are too stupid to never ask: “Sir, what exactly are they paying back? It was in the news every 4 weeks…”
If the world hadn’t forgiven Germany 50% of its WWII debt back in 1953 then there would not have been a German Wirtschaftswunder.
Right so but now you can never booze against “The Invasion” with any of your German xenophobic buddies.
But if you try tell’em Mitterand got the Euro for his O.K. to Kohl’s reunification that in fact was never named as such, as in the ’53 treaties is also written that it’s generously allowed Germoney to wait with paying back Greece’s share of the other 50% until reunification. Two years later the treaty was already forgotten, they thought reunification impossible, banned the communist party, founded their army and joint NATO; may be they already thought the reunification impossible in 53, so signing it was already a big fraud.
With your Ad Hominem is really is no point in arguing with you. But what the heck, I will join you in it. I guess you think that banning the communist party was a bad idea. Cause communism has given some many good things to humanity like killing and persecuting everybody that disagrees with it; oppressing people and keep them in a perpetual state of fear; faltering economic systems that keep people in a perpetual state of want and need; etc. Fascism is a pretty bad idea but communism has killed far more people than fascism did. But remember, without Stalin there would not have been a Hitler (from that respect the Germans can be blamed for sending Lenin as their agent to Russia in order to destabilize that country in WWI). Both ‘ideologies’ have a few things in common: they are both collectivist systems (a trait also shared by religious systems) with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and nothing good ever comes out of that. But for good form I will agree to the war reparations that Germany still needs to pay to Greece and the Balkan countries.
Hi Joe.
I was amused and suggest updating thus : Fiat currency and neolib Market ideology of crony capitalism tied to Full Spectrum Dominance gives many things to humanity like killing and persecuting everybody that disagrees with it; oppressing people and keep[ing] them in a perpetual state of fear; faltering economic systems that keep people in a perpetual state of want and need; etc.” I add widening inequality, bailins, externally imposed ‘haircuts’ of state monies and asset fire sales for the domestic audience and destroyed states for those who try to live outside this “system”.
Just up-dating your historical musings.
I agree to that. The current crony capitalist system ranks there also. I never argued otherwise. Even the grand daddy of Liberalism (as in the true sense of the word, not the interpretation that is given to it today in the US) and other ‘founding fathers’ of the US warned against monopolies and fiat currencies. But there is nothing wrong with the market or capital itself. It is the love for money that leads to greed. People have met and traded with each other for thousands of years. Any manipulation and intervention whether that comes from central banks (crony capitalism) or central planners (communism) is wrong. Any form of monopoly is wrong. It is the task of government to keep the playing field level and to prevent monopolies and manipulation.
To the defense of capitalism we can say it led to computers and internet (as a result of the cold war) and a whole range of other things that made our lives longer, healthier and happier. The tools that supporters of communism (that never would have been able to invent these things) so gratefully like to use to bash capitalism and anybody else who doesn’t agree with them. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to use these things then? So switch off your computer, phone, don’t drive a car or train, fly a plane, take an aspirin, take an x-ray. All these things could not have been possible without industrialization and capitalism (and the sacrifices our ancestors made).
The hypocrisy is exactly the other way round as this take it or leave it attitude is just a cheap excuse for keeping on exploiting the planet and the huge majority of the humans on it, it’s like telling every dissident to jump over the Berlin wall or telling (antagonistic) unemployed that can’t find no more jobs due to “market” aka greed to never take any allowance, in fact some anarchists act this way and rob banks instead but in the real consequence you must prefer it better they make suicide bombs. As long as you can defend a parasitic culture that wouldn’t exist without 500 years of mass-murder, plundering and exploitation of the “not so progressive” – plus having, just by chance, better climate conditions – all these wars in Africa come from, there were not any Hutu and not any Tutsi before Germans and Belgians came to divide and conquer but “the world” and “the human” is not this European minority that occupies half of the planet, it is also not the planet of the apes but of the fish and whales.
Also the development of computers in Germany was in GDR much earlier than in GER, btw and your version of internet invention is just another conspiracy theory as the first such attempts were created outside of army or NATO, just by some volunteers who were looking for a better way to count votes on election day.
If Europe and Europeans and Americans and their systems are so bad and everything, why don’t you move to a utopian agrarian socialist country or to North Korea or something?
Oh yes, Europeans have done many bad things but not that never existed before the rise of Europe. Arabs have been involved in the African slave trade much longer and on a much larger scale than Europeans. Ottoman Empire nice? Not so much. Africans have been enslaving each other for ages and still do. And you think that Europeans has a picnic during the industrialization age? I understand why communism rose as a response to the terrible conditions people lived in during the 19th century. But communism was not much better.
The fact is, the whole world is starting to benefit from inventions from the West leading hopefully to a time where people will be truly free from labor. Again, trashing the West and at the same time using their inventions is nothing less than hypocrisy.
Why should I move somewhere else, to convince Korea to bomb all this “civilization” back to where it belongs, into hell? There will be no freedom without total destruction of the capitalist-communist-nationalist-statal-money system, it’s very easy I want this whole 1st world go die and all the rest who drive terrorist vehicles to gas mother earth, it has enjoyed its decadent existence long enough, every day it’s killing thousands innocent and dances to starvation although their mummy is too stupid to give breast to their new overpopulation, leave America to the real Americans, take back your hundreds of millions stinking European invaderscum, Indian Nations Rise: Free America!
ah expired beet that’s it!
Oh dear.
Well, I agree with the gas part. Our dependence on oil also drives up debt. But remember, falling gas prices also affect poor countries that produce oil economies. But let the petrodollar die. The sooner we switch to renewables, hydrogen fuel and nuclear fusion power the faster we will see a new sort economy arise where countries and people are not dependent on their labor anymore. This however will come about with a lot of conflict. And remember, it will be “1st world” technology that will bring this about, not “3rd world” cow dung.
And I will leave it at this to spare KTG.
much appreciated
The decadence of the jerks that settle in too hot areas and think they have a right for air-condition, after the 1st known genocide due to climate terrorism (Hurricane Mitch) instead of stopping the bastards still allowed for the next 20 years the temperatures to rise. Back then and still now the only solution is the total ban for all cars, ships and air-planes and not any by capitalism dictated lame reformism plus cannibalizing animals for the sodo-pleasure of a creature that must be a mistake of nature; all city strays would live five years longer and wouldn’t die painful from cancer, tortured and killed by human exhausts.
Without communist partisans in France, Italy and Greece there would be now Berlin called ” Reichshauptstadt Germania” with the “Euro-Guilders” as single currency and their “Europabank” in Vienna, also the anti-fascist resistance in Germany was widely communist, banned was the KPD of Rosa Luxembourg that Lenin hated so much that he wrote “Left Communism, an Infantile Disorder.”
Also the history goes totally different as after Brest-Litowsk and Lenin’s sell-out of Ukraine to the German-Austrians there started the “Unknown Revolution” (Volin), it was the anarchist uprising between 1919 and 1922, wiped out by Czarists, “democrats” and “communists”, the anarchist black army was needed by these “communists” until Trotzki had build up his Red Army to destroy it, also Lenin was not a communist but a power-crazed social democrat, instead of destroying the state creating state-capitalism and pathing way for Stalinism. The problem of today is that “communists”, capitalists and nationalists 100 years on still work together perfectly in hiding history as if it would be possible to find Nestor Machno in the history books of Ukraine 10.000 people weren’t killed the last years as there would have been no war, a war btw, that only stopped before Marianopolis after some people took notice that there are 100.000 (Crimean) Greeks building up barricades in their boroughs against both sides as they (were) endangered by Ukrainian and Russian nazionalists.
Donald Trump will dissolve NATO and then you can drink Vodka and have Putin bring you flowers and chocolate as the USA feeding trough is coming to an end my Euro friends
What a blessed thought!!
But first he will stop the utterly nastiness of mistakenly putting the independent days of Greece and the US onto the same level, as the US are like the Ottomans that will have to leave after 400 years or just imagine the founding of the Ottoman Empire celebrated as the independence day.
We’ll see as Cyprus was divided because of being in the cross-hair of NATO, the reunification is planned for the next years but it surely depends on who is talking into the ears of Erdogun, the even more nationalist factions around Davutoglu or the Turkish army to sabotage it.
Holy shit, it already started by closing the Idomeni borders, forcing ships away from Pirea to the Slowenian hub of Austria-Hungary’s import/export
Wow. Not just arrogance but breathtaking naivety. Do you really imagine that America is paying for Europe’s defence? America has never done anything that does not benefit America. NATO is not Europe’s defensive shield, it’s is America’s defensive shield. We in Europe are your front line, we are your front door. If NATO falls and Putin’s tanks roll into Europe it will not be Americans fighting and dying, it will be Europeans, it will not be Americans being dispossessed and turned into refugees, it will be Europeans. And when Europe is subjugated do you really think America will be safe? Who will you trade with for a start? The Atlantic Ocean is a mere puddle given today’s armaments, if Europe falls then America is next. We’re not getting some sort of free ride here, and America is not paying to keep us safe. You are simply helping us to defend you, here in Europe, where the next war will be fought.
Tony, why will there be a war? You can just surrender to Putin and it will be like old days of Eastern block days. Food lines and press restrictions.: a few years of Putin and you would wish you had Trump back to protect you. Ask Polland or other eastern block countries how great it was under USSR