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Greek student confronts Eurogroup head Dijsselbloem (video)

There Greeks are everywhere. And they ‘bother’ Eurogroup head Jeroed Dijsselbloem wherever they see him. So was the case at the Delft University in the Netherlands, where Dijsselbloem held a speech

The dialogue between a Greek student and the Eurogroup head in short:

“You continue to give loans to Greece to pay other loans. You know the situation very well. For the last five years you promote austerity here and in Holland. […] And at the same time, you allow the press to claim that every Dutchman has given 700 euros directly to the Greeks through the bailout packages, ” said the student

Dijsselbloem replied that “Brussels is not responsible for the problems of Greece, the responsibility is up to the society and the Greek government. Europe is trying to help,” and added:

“You blame us. In Greece there was a corruption problem before the crisis. If the new government wants to fight tax evasion I will support it.”

At the end of the dialogue, the two men shook hands, with Dijsselbloem to imitate the famous handshake he had with finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis after the first Eurogroup.

Video: in English

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17 comments

  1. Eurogroup head, Dashing Dasterdly Dijoun Mustard Bloem has his very own SECURITY TEAM.
    This man is totally & absolutely PROTECTED at all times.
    Look at him & realize – dosen’t he look like the weazel that he is.
    That this man has DEATH THREATS from all manner of powerful people in Europe that would knock him off in a heart beat.
    SO –
    How did this young Greek man get so close to him without being wrestled to the ground & given a sound beating ?
    Sorry – but this is a publicity stunt & the young man was hired to perform.
    Why ?
    So as to give Eurogroup head Dashing Dasterdly Dijon Mustard Bloem a chance to DENEGRATE GREECE to the world.
    This kind of publicity stunt happens all the time.
    They fooled no one man !

  2. Diesel-boom is what precisely his name indicates: a pro forma idiot with not even the elementary education to deal with the subject matter.

    He is a Berlin stooge, that’s all.

  3. Please kick the greeks out of the EU. I am sick of their constant moaning and complaining.

    Funny thing is, the greeks living here in Germany wouldn’t send a single Cent to greece because they know how fucked up and corrupt this country is.

    See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGp0ErGptPI

    • keeptalkinggreece

      hahaha, Focus & HuffPost satire

    • … which is exactly what the new government is fighting, is it not? The corruption and tax evasion. Why would Greeks living here in the Vaterland not want to support their families and friends? We certainly do!!

  4. every Dutchman has given 700 euros directly to the Greeks
    this wrong.
    the right amount is 154E, and it is not given, it is lent to the Greeks.
    the rest, 546E is garanteed by the Dutch Goverment, so there is no cash flown.
    then the comments about Jeroen Dijselbloem.
    it is on a very low Level to make comments on sombodys look, that realy does not help.
    that are no arguments.
    he is choosen for this Job because he proved that he qualyfied for it.

  5. how nice you are. You don’t even know the man, these ugly words. And he was the person who helped the Greek in Brussel.
    An idot? Who are the idiots here, read your own comments.

    Normally: the Greek student was allowed to meet Dijsselbloem in person. We, the dutch citzens, are checked for guns etc when we enter parliaments buildings but we can speak with the parliamentsmembers and ministers. For IS security is tight, not for citzens. So don’t judge situations when you aren’t familiar with them.

    • Are you kidding me?

      The idiot claimed he had a business degree from an obscure university.”Dijsselbloem did research in business economics at the University College Cork (1991) in Ireland,[1] but he did not receive a degree from this university.”

      What part of his education relates to Finance?

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

      • Dijsselbloem studied agriculturale economics at the university of Wageningen. He got his master degree there.
        And what education of your minister of Finance relates to finance? His economic study?

        • keeptalkinggreece

          are you sure he got his master degree? I remember to have read, he did some trick so something. Not that I personally care.

        • Are you suggesting that a Dutch degree in argiculture economics qualifies someone to be the head of Finance Ministers in the EU?

          What are you smoking?

          After training in mathematics and statistics, Varoufakis received received his PhD in economics in 1987 at the University of Essex. Before that he had already begun teaching economics and econometrics at the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia. In 1988, he spent a year as a Fellow at the University of Cambridge. From 1989 until 2000 he taught as Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Sydney. In 2000, he moved back to his native Greece where he became Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens. In 2002, Varoufakis established The University of Athens Doctoral Program in Economics (UADPhilEcon), which he directed until 2008. From January 2013 he taught at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2013 he was appointed the Athens desk editor of the online magazine WDW Review, in which he contributed until January 2015.

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

        • This is a lie. Here is the official description from his cv posted at the Dutch Ministry of Finance:

          Education
          • Secondaryschool, Eindhoven (completed, 1985)
          • Degree in agricultural economics, Wageningen University
          (majors: business economics, agricultural policy and social
          and economic history) (1985-1991)
          • Business economics research towards a master’s degree,
          University College Cork, Ireland (1991)

          He has never completed a master’s degree. BTW, University College Cork is kind of a joke in educational rankings.

          • But Dean, you completely overlook his governmental preparation to be a major player in Finance and Economics. Again, from his CV:

            He was the party’s spokesperson on youth care, appropriate education and special education, policy on teachers, and the Education Inspectorate. From 25 April 2007 to 22 December 2008 he chaired the parliamentary investigation committee on educational reform.

            Is that not sufficient credentials to tell a lowly, accredited Economist what is right and what is wrong?

  6. Pity they cannot locate Schauble

  7. Diesel-Boom’s CV reinforces what a grad school mate, and now retired Professor of Political Economy, Univ of TX, said about the bailout: It was grossly amateurish. Let me address just two areas of the austerity policies that he and I discussed that were imposed, based on a gross lack of understanding of Greece’s economy.

    House Tax: For the majority of Greeks, their residence and associated land are not “wealth” but generational security. Greeks have the highest rate of unmortgaged, owner occupied residential units in Europe. Approximately 65+% of Greek live in such residential units. Rental occupancy is a minor fraction of that elsewhere. EU research papers address this unusual aspect of Greek housing as far back as the 1990s. Greece does not have government subsidized housing of any sort, as Greeks have been, for centuries, providing housing security for themselves, through unencumbered home ownership that is generational. Anyone who say “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” would have seen a hint at this. Lose your job, and you still have a roof over your head. Yes, for the rest of the world, grasping that land and housing do not function as “wealth” is a hard thing to grasp, but that is the reality, and several EU research papers nibbled at the edges of it.

    Greece does not have a “land registry” because land was not taxed, for very legitimate reasons. Failure to pay land or property tax can only be enforced by a tax lien and seizure. To seize a residence, in a country where housing security is self financed, and not have adequate rental property and/or rent assistance would be a humanitarian disaster. In short, by the very nature of the culture, Greece does not need an ad valorum property tax, as the social cost avoidance of the unique Greek housing market saves more money in housing subsidies than taxation would raise.

    Yet the Austerians (we don’t use the “T-word” any more) pressed Greece to impose a socially unenforcable house tax as a quick and dirty means to increase tax revenue, in accordance with the First Commandment of Austerianism. Why do I say unenforceable? Because if the roughly 10% of the population that could not really pay the tax had their homes seized, where would they go? How would they pay for where they went? You think the current human situation is a mess? Try adding these people to the ranks of the homeless. Thus, the “corrupt” or “ineffective” government took no action against those with tax arrears. Of course they didn’t.

    Second amateurish action. The Greek workforce is over 50% self employed. Two to five times the self employment rate in all other EU countries. Again, no secret, as numerous EU publications have profiled this. Contraction of an economy has a faster negative impact on the self employed than larger employers. For example, US Airlines ran at a loss for years before declaring bankruptcy. They had cash and access to credit. The typical self employed person does not have the liquid assets, nor the credit line to carry him through significantly lowered income for very long. Soon he loses the ability to purchase what he needs to perform work. Thus, as the economy shrunk, a disproportionate number of self employed businesses failed, accelerating the economic implosion and unemployment rates.

    It’s not that no one knew that these two factors of the Greek economy, for example, were radically different from the situation in other nations where austerity was imposed. It’s just that they were too amateurish to think that the textbook application of Austerian policies would not function differently in an economy with such radical, yet commonly known differences. They were too amateurish to pause to see how the Greek socio-economic system was really structured and thus really worked, and I am not sure that, after five years of their program causing far more devastation than anticipated, they have even the slightest clue as to why. But then, with a CV like Diesel-Boom’s, or the lawyer/accountant running the German show, how could they?

    Greece and the Greek people may have their faults, but they surely aren’t going to be rescued nor enlightened by rank amateurs such as those running the bailout.

  8. I really have to admire Mr Varoufakis for his level of restraint in dealing with such amateurism. When he correctly pointed out that unlike the other countries requiring bailouts, Greece’s problem was solvency, not liquidity, the blank stares he received were as if he was speaking in Aramaic. If I were in his shoes at this point, I’m afraid I would have expanded on the “student tax inspectors” in a far greater detail that could strike a familiar note to some of Greece’s overseers. Something like:-

    Yes, we must develop a Final Solution to the Tax Collection Problem. It is the youth that are the future of a new Austerian Greece. The older generation will be too resistant to enlightenment. We need to educate our youth in the sacred principles of Austerity, so they grow up to be dedicated Austerians. School curriculum should stress the tenets of Austerianism. Service as voluntary tax police will build character in our children. We can reinforce this by giving them neat looking uniforms and organizing them into an elite youth corps with a name such as “Austerian Youth” (or Strangejugend, if you wish). Reporting merchants who fail to issue a proper receipt would be rewarded with medals, advancement in rank and social status. Equally important would be instilling in them the duty to report their parents if they fail to issue a receipt, and reward this with even greater recognition, so they recognize that the State is, indeed, more important than family. Students who do really well can, upon graduation, be rewarded with appointments to uniformed jobs as guards and first level supervisors at tax evader prisons. Soon, the population will know that resistance is futile, and a greater, Austerian Greece will prevail.

    There is oh so much potential black humor that can be derived from the amateurism going on, but alas, when I witness the suffering of the good, hard working Greek people around me (and I don’t mean in Astoria, NY or Southern CA) , it is very difficult to make light of the situation. The suffering is real and at a depth and breadth that was totally unnecessary and totally avoidable had the authors of the bailout had just a slight idea of what they were doing.