Yup. The day is crucial for Greece. Maybe the “most crucial” for the last five years with the sword of “default to the IMF” swinging over our heads. Today, Monday, important meetings are taking place in Brussels, with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to meet the heads of the “Institutions” European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, participate in the Euro Leaders Summit. at the same time, the Eurogroup finance ministers meet to prepare the ground for a deal or not.
In order to prepare a common ground, the Greek government sent additional proposals to the “institutions” in Brussels on Sunday evening.
The team of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker worked till late Sunday night evaluating the Greek proposals. In the middle of the night, Martin Selmayr, Head of Cabinet of Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted:
New Greek proposal received by @JunckerEU, @Lagarde, @ecb. Good basis for progress at tomorrow's EuroSummit. In German: "eine Zangengeburt".
— Martin Selmayr (@MartinSelmayr) June 21, 2015
Twelve hours later, the usual suspects, the common breed of “officials anonymous” pressed the button. The gears of the well-known propaganda machinery started to move with only one aim: to undermine the process, to increase pressure, spread fear and possibly send people to withdraw their money from the banks.
3 sr officials tell me #Greece told institutions they sent wrong document at midnight. Have promised revised version http://t.co/ae5yDfC1U4
— Peter Spiegel (@SpiegelPeter) June 22, 2015
So, the Greeks sent “wrong documents” and the EC evaluated them as “good basis for progress”?
Ah, I don’t know.. It’s either the usual dirty game against Greece, or the usual undermining of Jucker or both.
Brussels’ famous Manneken Pis in Greek traditional dress from Nov 2011 protest.
But, of course, spreading doubts on a possible Greek deal has effect: Athens Stock Exchange reacted sensitive and from +8.15 moved to +6.97% within 45 minutes after the “wrong document” claim.
via capital.gr
Where is that “propaganda machinery”? – Aaah you mean your propaganda! OK now it is clear.
I’m so sorry but why don’t you eat your fuck and piss up a rope, malaka
The discussion has certainly reached a new low 🙁 I am not sure what’s the role of the moderator if such messages make it through…
Well Plamen I see big letters “Propaganda machinery” in the title, but nothing about that propaganda in article itself. Please be so kind and explain me where do you think is substance of that machinery mentioned in title, otherwise the title remains propaganda for me. May be I am just stupid, can you explain it to me?
Haha you did not write about my comment probably, now I see:)))
That’s right. Despite the strong opinions on the opposite sides of the debate I hope we can keep the discussion civil.
I can do it –
KTG was just waiting for you troII guys to make the point come true & you promptIy obliged IoI
I hope you earn more than mini-job salary for your transparent efforts haha
International Solidarity:
In Brussels 3.500 people took to the streets in solidarity with Greece, in Berlin up to 10.000:
http://www.dw.com/en/across-europe-protesters-call-for-solidarity-with-greece/a-18530158
3.500 in Paris:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-21/mass-pro-refugee-protests-fill-streets-of-europe/6561276
So? There are people supporting all kinds of initiatives, this is really nothing spectacular. I mean in total that is like what? 20 000 across Europe? That is literally nothing.
Don’t want to rain on your parade, but really that is noteworthy?
15O,OOO in the UK against Austerity and for Greece
More relevant than some tens of people in historic uniforms and Merkel Schäuble Masquerades
@Franz
The German politicians may win and impose their will to all other Eurpeans, but be sure it’ll be a pyrrhic victory.
And you… as a German, keep in mind that if all those “reforms” which aim to destroy the Greek social state and the Greek society, will be sooner or later implemented in Germany as well. By an Agenda 2020.
Social state already destroyed itself. No reforms needed to destroy socialism. Reforms should help you to stay in Eurozone. (I am not German)
Those who whish Greek pensioners to starve, will soon deman the same from German pensioners.
So beware whom you are listening. Beware whom you are applauding. Beware whom you are following.
lots of German pensioners and other vulnerable society groups would be starving if not HARTZ IV
Yeah but even this is already often not easy to get and the big introduced “minimal wage” excepts not only long-time unemployed and Germoney has a still climbing number of free-lancers and “independent” contractors that will later get into real troubles to get anything at all for making the delivery hero for Amazon.
The people working in the welfare offices get points for not paying, so they do their tricks, same tricks on a different level Brussels and Berlin is playing on Greeks…
Who do you think votes SYRIZA or nobody in Germoney and goes to pro-Greek demonstrations there?
The German retirement system already reformed itself years ago by increasing the retirement age. More generally, the German society has an impressive ability to coalesce around moderate changes that keep their economy competitive and their standards of living sustainable. Labor unions, for example, in many cases accepted salary freezes to keep the companies competitive through the downturn. On the other hand, they often are represented on the companies’ board of directors. There is trust between potentially antagonistic sides.
Having said that, Germany has also been lucky that the high-end automotive and industrial sectors in which they excel have not had to compete hard so far with new entrants in Asia and elsewhere. In fact, the world economy globalization has opened new markets for German exports. The globalization had the opposite effect for some of the poorer EU countries: within the EU they were competitive mainly on price and in industries such as lower-end textiles or tourism. Once there are new economies that can deliver lower prices at the same or better quality their standards of living become unsustainable.
Germans will also not be so lucky forever. For example, the relationships between Lufthansa and its unions are hardly harmonious. It’s no wonder, given the competitive pressure from the Gulf carriers.
And like always the Greek fleet gets forgotten in this fairy competition tale and dogma.
Not to mention that German car production is responsible for 10% of climate chaos and who cares about all this people that won’t get any retirement at all, the same egoistic imperialist beasts?
Palmen,
I am from Düsseldorf, Germany. Our head mayor retired at 55 after 6 working years and gets a pension of 4.000€ – per month of course.
Many companies “get rid of” their older (than 58) staff by the help of government which pays the big part of the pre-pension (Vorruhestand).
That’s the reason that the most pre-pensioners don’t appear in official statistics.
I can tell you many stories which the German media prefers to not to write about….
🙂
Don’t forget the cheap German meat.
Rumanian “slave” workers with almost NO rights make those giant slouterhouse prices so COMPETETIVE….
Now you got it !!! This is the secret that makes Germany so strong. Romanians do not use their cheap workforce at home, but in German slaugterhouse.
–
Tell us more stories like those above, please.
Kraut-friendly Polish too, but in East-Germany only landlords love Polish people because they work so cheap.
If a German unemployed gets a job offered in a slaughterhouse he just says “nope, I’m vegan”
are there plans to reform the greek pension system(and i mean real reform, not just cuts). From the way you and others here describe it, it seems to me that pension should be cut in half while that money gets used to build a real safety net for the poorest.
The pensions are already cut by 40%. What drivel is this from you now?
Im not proposing any further cuts.
Just a shift in the funds. Havent alot of ppl complained that there is no unemployment insurance after 12 month? Or take KTGs
“lots of German pensioners and other vulnerable society groups would be starving if not HARTZ IV”
Compared to other countries/the gdp. greek pension are still high, which they need to be because there is apparently no social safety net.
This is neither efficent nor fair. So take some money out of the higher pensions and use it for unemployment insurance, healthcare subsidies or scholarships for poorer people…
As “the other countries” didn’t had no balls for revolution they didn’t join EU in 1981 and if they would have known earlier that the EU will ask them to please take some refugees they would still be Warsaw Pact.
Your fantastic idea of Greece would mean that every Greek that lives in tourist areas has to relocate away to “cheaper” places.
???
I cant follow you, first of all your pensions or high because you had arevolutionand joined in 1981?????(maybe there is a connection but theres more then one logical step in between), the rest of the sentence is just ranting agianst outher co8untries.
And wtf would this mean that anyone has to relocate? Do you think it is fair for a family of 5 living on grandmas pension to receive the same amount as the neighboring grandma without family?
Obviously there are huge inefficencies and a lot of unfairness in this, so what is your problem with reforming(=/=cutting) it?
Btw. are there any countries outside of greece you like/ is there anyone you dont feel like insulting?
Grandma’s family died in a car accident and sometimes she gives the neighbour kids something, everybody knows but nobody talks about.
Greece is EU-member since 1981, long before AUSTRIA joint and it would have joint even earlier but then came Junta.
So, to listen to all this divide and conquer who is poorer than poorer, we pay for Greeks blabla is just disgusting, disgusting like the new tenants who complain about the old tenants that pay less rent and the landlord wants them out.
Most East Europeans all have a welfare-system and cheap rent and food but they are suffering because they can’t afford a new German car every 2 years or what, to cut pensions and not only pensions down to East European level will force the people to move as tourists area are expensive.
There is no legal mechanism in any democratic polity to take money from one group of pensioners and transfer it to others. In 1997 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Austrian pension rights (of a foreigner) were property rights — and could not be taken away. That remains the law for all of the European Union and the Council of Europe countries.
And don;t talk crap about pensions to GDP ratio when the GDP has collapsed by 25%. Are you off your head? GDP ratios cannot be used in a depression.
If you want to talk economics, try getting some education on the matter first.
A part of that is the depression, but even without that they are pretty high(compared to gdp). Also ofc it matters, did the % of gdp you spend on universities and research also go up because of the depression? If so what other parts went down, gotta finish at 100%+external money.
As for the pension funds, I would imagine most of those are financed (like ours) pay as you go, so of course they can be lowered, if not then what about the 40 cuts till now.
As for Giaourti, you did hear me say that the money saved by this should be spend on a social safety net?
KTG said multiple times that you cant compare the gdp rate with other countries because they have hartz4 or similar programms and thats a valid argument, But why do you get antagonistic when i propose that you could do something similar? Its not the job of the state to indiscriminatly dump money on its population till noone lives in poverty. Assistance for those who need it is important and in my eyes a basic human right. But that assistance should be targeted towards those who actually need it, otherwise it becomes inefficent and unfair.
„It’s class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be.”
Warren Buffet
But so many brainwashed (by Springer and Bertelsmann) Germans think it’ racefare…..
But..
“Hinter der Trommel her
Trotten die Kälber
Das Fell für die Trommel
Liefern sie selber.”
Brecht
“Kälbermarsch” – Music to it by “X-Mal Deutschland”
@ Tucan
Well, that name souns Turkish.
And as far as I remember it was Ecevit who called public transpot means such as trains, “communistic”
LOL
LOL. I assume he is from some former communist country in central europe.
“social state” or “welfare state”
A Slav-speaking former communist state, judging from the omitted definite article. And a Balkan one too, as he is obsessed with the Balkans.
Erbse, I am from former communist state. In my opinion you are comparable to Balkans, because you are in that territory. The main reason why you have higher pensions and GDP comparing you to Bulgaria/Serbia is long term support of EU. Howewer it was not invested sustainably but a social bubble was created – and still financed by EU. This is my view. In my opinion your economic streghth without EU funding would be comparable to let say Serbia or Bulgaria. The same must apply to pensions logically. It is not about making somebody starving, it is real life.
–
If you do not agree, please let me know, why do you think your economy should be much stronger in long term run than Serbia/Bulgaria.
see? I was right “former communist state” they all get allergy shock once a policy is a 0.00001 cm left of neo-liberal. but it’s excusable. it’s psychological. however it’s sad that they find no balance but run from left brain-wash to right brain-wash.
OK KTG, but tell me why do you think you are something more (long term) than Serbia/Bulgaria. Any logical reasons?
Lol
May be from Poland? Do you know who ows the biggest newspaper there?
Yup it’s Springer (Bild, Welt etc)
In Hungary there is the Bertelsmann family with tv stations such as RTL….
of course, German companies flocked to invest in the competitive ex communist states in Central Europe after collapse of Uddssr. Competition, my a&&, cheap labor, big profit. the rest is ..history and hypocrisy.
Hey guys, you were not able to answer my questions.
That is good and bad. Good, becasue you are not Russian trolls (they have always some cover story, sometimes they must wait for headoffice, but they answer), and bad, because you are just lost with your injected mind patterns like Poland in 1939:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact
–
Good luck, and when you will be able to explain why do you think you will remain for long term something more in GDP per capita than Serbia/Bulgaria let me know:)
Otherwise your pension system is just bullshit, and it is not about Bertelsmann, it is about high school math.
Beep.
Unnecessary and useless nazi reference detected…. 😉
Hes right about his question though, ignoring never helps.
Because all this depends on totally wrong numbers, one must count Greece’s “missing fleet” – also their shit counts normally in Dollar only – as its real share in Greek exports is between 50% and 75% strong but gets never mentioned anywhere; if these numbers are not a total hoax when Stournaras and all former BoG-bosses will have to flee onto their fleet:
http://www.socialeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OccPap-8.pdf
But, don’t worry, my friend, Poland will be invited to join the Drachma Zone, may be together with Bulgaria, Turkey and Israel.
Dear Giaourti, how can you beleive such a …? “But most of the sector’s exports remain statistically unrecorded.”
1. You did not persecuted those who made your statistics appear better than reality, but only the one who repaired it. It means – probability, that somebody would hide substantial part of your exports for years is zero. (It is not possible to make it from jail)
2. If you have strong exports and it is just not reported, no problemo, in reality you have strong money inflow, and enough money to pay debts, or at least strong banking sector – you see what a fairy tale the article is?
The sad fact is, that this is 6th bankruptcy in modern history of Greece. Greece was in modern history never able to gain economic sustainability, despite it is second latgest EU funds receiver.
I almost forgot:
3. If it is true, Tsipras and Varoufakis must go to jail asap, because they know how to make Greece strong by simple change in statistics (or law about fleet) and they do not propose this solution.
It would be too nice to be a Russian troll, I could rent myself a small house on Karpathos then and post against Kammenos’ NATO-plans for the island, everybody should visit Karpathos btw before it’s getting a base there.
Do you want to discuss the big deals at the EU level with me?
Siemens, Hochtief etc?
Do you know paid for the German oligarch’s profits? Hm?
I am afraid you have NO idea what’s going on. You just sound like neoliberal parrot.
maybe it’s a paid job what he does so let’s be kind and support him. he may have kids to feed, elderly to take care of etc etc etc
To be fair: Siemens didn’t only sell well in corrupt countries, but once was also successful due to good products. Feeding corruption came at a high price (high penalties, lawsuits, loss of reputation, lower profits, layoffs, banned in Brazil). Now they are back doing big business in Egypt… Same goes for Hochtief.
What are “corrupt” countries as Germoney is world-champ in bribing?
See http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014
You can only offer bribes, if the other side accepts them. In such places you don’t make business if you don’t offer bribes.
Zwei Deppen ein Gedanke 😉
That’s the typical lame German white-collar excuse but in reality it’s not “business” as the bribes are made to sell their shit totally overpriced; the reason why Olympic Games in Greece were 3 times more expensive than in Sydney or Barcelona and were initial for the crisis.
So just don’t make business in “such places” as also Switzerland would buy when bribed with 256 million for a few submarines to play in its lakes.
Hopefully Putin and Obama set an end to this land of hypocritical kz-guards and nuke it, as “German Angst” got replaced by “German Lies”.
http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results#myAnchor1
Sometimes I wonder whether we live on the same planet.
It’s clear that you live in NeoliberalPropagandaLand. The TI reports are PERCEPTIONS by business owners and others. They are not reality. TI does very well making its money out of this dubious “research”.
So: Whom do you trust? World Bank? United Nations? I guess you trust nobody. According to you then there would be no reliable statistics. What to do then? A new statistics body could be founded, but it might soon be infiltrated. Or you just do without statistics – but that won’t work. Everybody needs data for decision-making.
Besides statistics: Have you ever bribed somebody in your life? I haven’t, although that meant discussing and waiting at the Guatemalan border.
This is what the world thinks about corruption in Greece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/world/europe/so-many-bribes-a-greek-official-cant-recall-all.html?_r=0
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/complicit-in-corruption-how-german-companies-bribed-their-way-to-greek-deals-a-693973.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/03/greece-corruption-alive-and-well
What you refer to as the “world” is the same like “men” or “humans”, a close to zero minority’s opinion, the world never heard of these papers.
Btw: The UN are just some squatters in Manhattan, an American Indian island occupied by 194 foreign forces.
So what opinions/statistic/data does count for you?
TI is shitty 3 major global newspapers(that are absolutly not at bild niveau) dont count either. Its nonsense if your discussing countries but perhaps we can go to the personal level, the part of Markuss question you conviniently ignored. Have you ever bribed someone? Were you asked for bribes?
I was once, last year on in trip to onepal. Here at home never and i cant remember any of my friends or collueges telling me of such a thing either. Yet we are the world champions of bribery. Just like everytime you have a slightly racists demonstration here 3-10 times more protesters come up on the other side yet 70% of germans are nazis…
Its a clear case of opinion first, see if facts are benign to that opinion later, if not ignore them…
My own published statistical data on Greece, Italy, Spain and the Middle East are regularly cited by the IMF, World Bank, and the OECD as the definitive ones. Much of my work is paid for and published by the European Commission and UN agencies.
So, I think I know rather better than you do about the need for and compilation of statistical data. And frankly, I couldn’t give a damn what businessmen and politicians think: they are all assholes. Out of respect for the blog owner, I will refrain from commenting on the “standards” of journalism 🙂
Then might i ask what your data says about corruption on the various levels(political corruption, day to day corruption, tax fraud/tax evasion, general level of crime…) of greece in comparison to the rest of the world?
Look whatever else you might think about me, I think it should be clear by now that Im always open for discussion(and it seems to me Markus is too). So dont just tell me you think you know better, show me you know better, thats half the reason Im posting here :-). Either make the argument(instead of just deconstructing parts of mine) or if you got the data even better, just give methe link to your papers, Im nerdy enough to read at least part of it.
Nobody knows what corruption means, therefore there are no data. It requires a definition. There is quite a lot of data on informal economic activity, underground economy etc. But I think you are not asking about that.
So, if you want to know what data exist, then you need to explain what the data should be measuring. Nobody ever has.
No my friend it is clear that you and Giaourti live in your own reality.
If you think germany is the world champ in bribing/corruption and that its only Siemens that brought this nasty corruption to greece, if you tell me like last week that “the vast majority(=70%+x ? of germans today are still nazis, then this is so far from reality that i really wonder where you get these impressions.
And btw if you continue to deny that greece has a corruption problem all on its own, even without Siemens and co, things will never get better.
Regarding a German Greek blog the German companies were bribing Greece with 2 billion Euro, if that’s not world-champ it deserves to Guinness book:
http://www.griechenland-blog.gr/2012/02/anti-deutsches-kaminholz-in-griechenland/6679/
You give me 2 billion, I raise you to 20-30billion each year, the amount of money your state looses because of undeclared revenues.
Let me tell you some of the things i think need to happen in the words of someone far more eloquent then me.
I think you need to adjust to a new culture of paying taxes,
I think you need to make the pension system sustainable by minimising early retirements and eliminating pension fund fraud,
a major Anti-corruption Drive and relevant institutions to support it and finally you need reforms that attack parasitic, rent-seeking behaviour or inefficiencies.
Gotta like the guy who wrote that, I dont always agree but all in all his arguments and logic are very sound.
@che: did you fail to notice how much money was being stolen from EU countries in unpaid taxes by the world’s multinationals — including Amazon, for example? This was put in place with the active collusion of Juncker, then prime minister of Luxembourg, allowing companies to put their fictional headquarters in Luxembourg so that they would pay a very low level of VAT there, for all their sales across the EU. Luxembourg took money that was not theirs, and all of the rest of the EU lost hundreds of millions in tax fraud.
So, the crook who engineered this corruption is now the President of the EU. Got it? Greece had nothing to do with it.
Tax havens are disgusting, they profit by making a % of whats stolen from other countries. But youu know as well as I do that whether or not Juncker is corrupt has no bearing on the question of corruption in greece. Ofc you can compare examples, but in the end the two issues are simply not related.
Btw. obviously tax evasion is a problem for germany too plus i sometimes feel like puking when i see how our politicians follow exactly what some lobby group wants, but that too is unrelated to the original question.
In response to above, how about the definitions i gave in the post before?
political corruption, day to day corruption, tax fraud/tax evasion, general level of crime…
If you want me to be more precise ill gladly clarify. To just say there is no definition therfore there is no data is obviously wrong. Ill agree with your criticism of TI if what they measure is just perception, but while that means a higher uncertainty in such a list it doesnt mean it is all rubbish.
Brecht in English, for those supporting Springer, Bertelsmann & co
Following the drum
The calves trot
The skin for the drum
They deliver themselves.
Apt. I always liked Brecht. The closest in English would be the joke about “The turkeys who vote for Christmas”.
The euro is a common currency but not a singIe currency. It is a disguised exchange rate mechanism soIey benefitting Germany and German reunification. The sooner it is detonated the better.
@Che
I guess your mentioned Antifascists won’t love it how you’re using their resistance as an engine for your nationalism and the world are not some newspapers who may be have 10% articles to proof freedom of speech and cover up that the other 90% is pure propaganda hunt, the world are no stupid white men who can travel round the world, the world are 6 million slaughtered in Congo to produce cell phones, so that the travel-idiots can post their pictures on fartzbook as they are too stupid to wait for the pictures until they’re back home.
I will agree or disagree with newspapers on a case by case basis, but even if you disagree with everything nytimes, guardian and spiegel publish you cant deny their influence on public perception and debate.
Still you keep projecting things onto me, it seems at some point you decided to view me as an enemy in these discussions and that was that.
How am I nationalistic? Ill tell you what I told Xenos up above dont justsay it, show me because if we check our own texts Im pretty sure there is a lot more of that to be found on your side.
So far as I can avoid it I dont judge people anymore, I just judge arguments.
Che, what you call “undeclared revenues” lots of people in Germoney call “Märchensteuer” just because they are forced to work as “independent contractors”, “businessmen” or “free-lancers” and they use every trick to not pay “their” taxes just because they are working class and hate it to be forced into this precarious “independent” bullshit, without insurance and with complicated laws they don’t understand because the laws language is written in antisocial language of power aso.
Same in Greece, long before it went fashion in Germoney, long before the crisis started and now it explodes and just like in Germoney it’s senseless to run after these taxes, one must change the laws that let this working conditions happen.
The one million people that transport the parcels and boxes for the online-markets in Germoney must go on a long and militant strike to change this.