Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Greece, for all its issues, is a much richer country than China w.r.t its population, you cannot compare those countries. For greece, devaluation would mean that imports would become much more expensive, a state almost unable to borrow any money, etc... It would be even worse than it is now. China does not need to borrow much money on foreign markets, and it is not democratic (the Chinese gvt would never tolerate the strikes in Greece, most likely would have sent the army).

Default is the only realistic option, but Germany and France refuse it for political reasons. The other reason is that a lot of Greek debt is owned by banks from those countries: selling banks bail-out in France or Germany is not that much more popular than in the US nowadays.



Germany is also doing well with a devalued currency. If Germany still had the Mark, instead of the Euro (which is being devalued by all these crisies) it would be higher than the Swiss Franc right now.


By which measure is Germany doing well ? Its gdp increase has been anemic for years, and is for example not significantly different from France, which is rarely given as an example of growth rate those days: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=ny_gdp_... (the numbers stop around 2009 unfortunately, but the effectively devaluation policy of Germany started with Schroeder coming in power long before the crisis).

What is true is that Germany has put in place a devaluation strategy (by reducing wages instead of devaluating its money), but this has been a catastrophy for Europe as a whole. "Real" gdp growth comes from increase of productivity: devaluation helps hiding this for some time, but not that long.


The unemployment level in Germany is the lowest it has been since Germany was unified. That is definitely a sign of doing something well.


It's only a good sign if the government is not a big employer (directly or indirectly though subsidies, trade barriers, etc). I don't know enough about the German economy to know if that's the case here.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: