Former German finance minister Wolfang Schaeuble has died at the age of 81 due to cancer, his family announced on Wednesday. Majority of Greeks do not write “Rest in Peace” or shed a tear for the self-righteous, cynical and amoralist, Mr Austerity, who drove millions of Greeks to despair just to create an “example” for wisely state expenditure, when in fact all he cared about was to just to save German banks and his country interests.
Why shed a tear for the man who pushed Greeks (and other European folks) to the abyss of a 10-year-long debt crisis and its impact is still felt in each sector of public life like in Health, Education, Infrastructure etc?
With his austerity policies, Schaeuble will be remembered also for ruining East Germans after the reunification, for the plight of Spanish and Portuguese people as well as for the rise of far-right across Europe.
Portuguese and Spanish friends also wrote that they will not shed a tear.
As a Greek wrote on social media: There is no hell but he will forever be remembered as the man that drove so many Greeks to death and suicide and at least there is that.
Schaeuble loved to forget that it was a financial scandal that hindered him from becoming German chancellor.
But carma is a bitch: Schaueble dies as Germany is struggling with a serious debt and is considering austerity measures.
Α widely spread folks wisdom claims: “never speak ill of the dead”.
But it surely depends what a kind of human being the dead was and what offered to other human beings while he was alive.
Schaeuble offered pain and despair to millions of people.
End of story.
Many times I can agree with KTG but this is quite a harsh comment on Mr. Schaeuble. As we say in the Netherlands: gentle healers make stinky wounds. Without the imposed measures, Greece would be far not where it is now.
It was spending way too much and wages and pensions could never be paid at the old levels. It where the Greek selves that made it a mess. And they can be proud they made a change!
I don’t know where is Greece now but i know where millions of Greeks are: they cannot afford to pay their bills, if they do they run out of money by mid of the month. They cannot properly heat their homes, rents skyrocketed while salaries remained the same. Not to mention the constant price increases for food & other essentials.
That is the case in many countries these days and has nothing to do with Mr. Schaeuble.
Yes, the Greek governments overspent, but this was well known in Frankfurt, Brussels and in the cities where the banks that loaned the Greeks all that money reside. Yet, they kept on loaning Greece money. Because they knew all too well that they, the banks, would be bailed out and not the Greek people. The bailouts went straight to the banks that made bad investments in Greece. Tax payers should not bail out banks that made bad investments. That is bad capitalism If these banks are TBTF, then they should be broken up.
I agree with Schauble, though, that Greece should have gone back to the Drachma. But after it had defaulted on its debt. After a while, Greece would have returned to the credit markets but debt free. It would have been hard but Greece would not be debt slaves. But of course, that is not how bank-run rogue capitalism works. Because the banks always (need to) win.
He was also corrupt in my opinion.
He was personally involved in the CDU Donations Scandal and had to resign from the Bundestag so that is factually established corruption. It is unbelievable that someone accepting illegal party donations would subsequently become finance minister.
During the Greek crisis the Germans, i.e. Schäuble, were pressing for €50bn worth of Greek government owned assets to be deposited with an obscure Luxemburg based fund with the aim of the fund privatising them. It turned out that the fund was backed by a German bank, KfW, and that Schäuble was the chairman of that bank’s supervisory board. That deal never went ahead but, if it had, I suspect that the assets would have been sold off at way below market value with Schäuble trousering a lot of the profits.
” It is unbelievable that someone accepting illegal party donations would subsequently become finance minister.
Well it to the likes of us – globally, corruption is the true pandemic.
I shed no tears for this man nor for any other demonically possessed creatures – thankfully HK has also gone but too many are still out there.
Good damned riddance.