"Yeah ok" - Eurozone reaches agreement on Greek bailout and reforms - Polidicks

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;48199099]The Euro not only ties them into unplayable debts, unreasonably low levels of inflation and brutal, destructive austerity, but also leads to their goods being uncompetitive due to the high value of the Euro. Best to take the plunge rather than slave away with this. And although Varoufakis wasn't blameless, he at least tried to argue economically and didn't keep everything shadily behind closed doors. [editline]14th July 2015[/editline] Yeah maybe it wouldn't be like that if the Germans weren't trying to make an example out of them and actually offered debt relief and stopped imposing harmful austerity to squeeze blood out of a stone[/QUOTE] What? The eurozone offered them incredibly generous terms on the loans they received. Greek bonds run in the 10+%, the lease was at only around 3.5

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48201683]I hope you're not implying "Germany turned to Hitler after WWI" because they didn't, they rejected him on all accounts and had a half decent Republic for over a decade. What gave the Nazis their power grab was the Great Depression. Fuck, Hitler even [I]lost[/I] the [I]only[/I] election he ran for.[/QUOTE] What I'm saying is, the radicalization of Germany gave the Nazis the opportunity to have a power base and go for it. Reds failed in the Spartacist uprising. Then Nazis came, and managed to pull it off. I'm not saying they were democratically chosen because everyone went nuts and voted for them. Even if people had voted for Nazis in a clean election, I don't think they would have known what it meant....(shown by the switch in the general attitude after the allied bombardment of their cities). If we go by what Ian Kershaw says in his "Hitler: The Myth" book, during the first chapters which shows the rise to power, everyone was totally skeptical of hitler. Every party mocked him and nobody liked his antics...for a few years until suddenly they gained relevance in all the social classes and movements.

Jesus Christ, Godwin really WAS right.

[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;48199099]The Euro not only ties them into unplayable debts, unreasonably low levels of inflation and brutal, destructive austerity, but also leads to their goods being uncompetitive due to the high value of the Euro. Best to take the plunge rather than slave away with this. And although Varoufakis wasn't blameless, he at least tried to argue economically and didn't keep everything shadily behind closed doors. [editline]14th July 2015[/editline] Yeah maybe it wouldn't be like that if the Germans weren't trying to make an example out of them and actually offered debt relief and stopped imposing harmful austerity to squeeze blood out of a stone[/QUOTE] The last times europe gave them the opportunity to make these economical reforms themselves, they just ended up not doing it under "Alexis Tsipras" and various other parties "NO MORE CUTS" political campaigns. The reforms/conditions are there to make sure they don't go bankrupt, which should be their priority as well. Also the Euro has been artificially inflated over for almost a year in an effort to increase export, and currency is only one part of how competitive your good are on an international market. You can still have an lower cost of living then other european countries even though you share the same currency and bank on export because of it.

How will they stop them going bankrupt? Austerity will stop them going bankrupt!!! Super smart dude it's not like continually shrinking an economy makes debt even more unpayable as a % of GDP. In regards to your last point, the Euro has been 'artificially inflated' (QE isn't artificial though unless you're an idiot) over recent times. However inflation is still far too low, sometimes dipping into harmful deflation where the value of debt increases, and well below both the 2% target and the much higher inflation needed in indebted countries like Greece of 5+%. Your last point is just straight up economic ignorance. Currency is vitally important for exports. That's why China has fiddled with its currency to undervalue it so much.

There are plenty of aspects too the reforms/conditions that directly contribute to economical growth. Such as the increase in retirement age from 57 (lowest in the world) to 67 (median in europe) and tax reforms that aren't directly aimed at austerity but rather to actually have people actually pay their taxes. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_Greece[/url] Even the changes that qualify as austerity are by no means unfair, in a lot of ways they are just getting on the same level as the rest of europe sits. Just like the retirement ages various Currency is important to export but if you actually read my post, you would have noticed that i merely pointed out it is only "one" aspect, of your exporting power and your position on an international market. You could be outside of europe have worse import/export regulations with your neighbors because of it. You can read the 2014 program here, [url]http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/csr2014/nrp2014_greece_en.pdf[/url] Please do it and tell me how the whole thing is just aimed at austerity

[QUOTE=Cmx;48199039][img]http://i.imgur.com/Sn0nzHl.gif[/img] Greece receiving their latest bailout money[/QUOTE] Only because of how the EU are treating the situation, Keynes says you have to spend your way out of a slump and Greece are in one hell of a slump. Austerity is only going to cut more jobs, tax more businesses and make everything harder for everyone which really won't help their economy recover. They need to cut the fat: pensions and (maybe) energy while stimulating growth to start recovering. They need people buying stuff, businesses selling stuff otherwise their economy is in a perpetual state of fucked.

They NEED public services not to be sold

[QUOTE=SIRIUS;48213517]They NEED public services not to be sold[/QUOTE] I said in another post that selling their public services would be good in the short term because shit like that gives the EU's conservative governments (so most of them) a boner and it would cut costs a little, but it would be shitty in the long term for everyone. Privatization is supposed to improve services, prices and efficiency but in reality the companies just cheapen the service and jack up the price. But when your economy is like Greece's there's no value in conservative fiscal policy.