There are two sides to this article one is correct and the other is deceitful. I assume that this article was written by a Greek (I infer this from the first person accounting of situation).
The true part of the article is the part about debtors options and possible scenarios.
The deceitful part is the part about "ordinary Greek not understanding the situation and having no part in it". In eastern Europe we have a saying that someone is "indebted as a Greek", meaning that someone is perpetually taking loans to repay old ones while having not a slightest intention of ever paying them off. And this proverb is centuries old AFAIK. So all this protesting going on, pleas of "ordinary Greek people" are an elaborate scheme of shedding guilt. Modern Greeks as a nation are an entitled (an order of magnitude more than attributed to gen-Y) and lazy bunch. Boasting their "heritage", while they have nothing in common with the antic culture.
Any businessman worth his salt will be weary of doing business with Greeks - thats how bad in general their ethics situation is. While I cannot offer any meaningful opinion about how to get out of this mess. I can try to provide some insight into how Germany and France got into this mess. The first would be that greedy coke powered bankers got all optimistic that Greeks will repay their debts this time and went on to issue insane amounts of subprime loans, ok this is not what happened.
What did happen was that western world knew full on from the beginning what would happen - but proceeded anyway, since Greece was too strategically placed in the cold war and could not be lost to Soviet influence. The Greeks being smart, knew that and took full advantage. What happened after the cold war, was basically the subprime mortgage scenario of US played on a national scale - it is fraud committed by German and French bankers over the people of EU. I'm not believing anyone "in the know" telling me with a straight face that they didn't know that Greeks were cooking their books.
So in a sense like US subprime fiasco is fraud committed by US elites over people of US, European sovereign subprime debt crisis is also a fraud committed by European elites over their peoples.
I recommend reading this analysis of Greek[1] and Irish[2] debt crisis. It has to be some of the best journalism I have ever read.
Let the Greek diaspora and leftist lunatic downmodding begin!!
Edit: Indeed it was not written by a Greek. But the part about people of Greece not knowing what is going on is pure bullshit - I am not accusing the author of having an agenda. However I am accusing him of not having balls and bringing it out.
I sincerely hope that folktales and sayings about groups are not the common source of judgement on HN. Nice also that you also have "leftist lunatic" as an explanation for any possibly contrary opinion.
Are you implying that folktales have absolutely no merit?
Also I am not implying that there are no honest Greeks. But from my anecdotal experience their moral standards are quite... flexible.
Edit: Goes the same for people of southern Italy and whole of Balkans. Have you ever been to Balkans? Are you intimately aware of moral and ethical backgrounds of peoples living here? If not - then you might be guilty of "everybody is a good person deep inside" type of thinking yourself.
Disclaimer: I am Slovenian, as you may have noticed discussions that we might be next in line to join PIIGS. And I have to admit that our nation is guilty quite of some of balkanisms ourselves (no matter how some might try to deny it).
From my own business experience and from discussions with various businessmen that have done business on Balkans as a region. I know only of handful of people that made money there (Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosova, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Albania).
Everybody else got shafted one way or the other.
Are accounts of Chinese shafting foreign investors/businessmen whenever they can also prejudicious and xenophobic?
I would be glad to accept your (although anecdotal) experience that proves my point wrong. Is writing by lewis (Beware of the Greeks bearing Bonds) also xenophobic and prejudicious?
What better example of xenophobia/prejudice is there than invoking centuries old sayings about people from other conutries being one way or another !
That people get shafted when doing business outside their network (cultural or national or ethnic) isn't news or specific to any region, although it's certainly worse in some places than others. But that's not what I'm objecting to.
My problem is you could have made this point without saying, essentially, "the greeks are lazy and cannot be trusted, as we have known for centuries". This type of 'harmless' bullshit popular wisdom is the ground level of every extremist pyramid.
I agree with you. And I do have prejudices, but I believe them to be well founded. It is a jungle out here (general Balkans) and one can never take enough precaution.
Thats why I chose to spell it out clearly instead of wrapping it into weasel words.
Your point about Greece losing its strategic position after the collapse of the eastern block is spot on. The inability of greek governments to adapt is in part responsible for this mess. It is also true, though, that most greeks (e.g. me) did not realize in what great peril the country was. Had we known the country was drowning in debt, we would not borrow as much and start businesses here. Unfortunately, even today, nobody has gone on trial over these grave financial crimes.
I might even argue it's also a cultural thing, in greece almost all laws are enforced loosely. Paying taxes is usually considered the dumb thing to do; you won't find many greeks being "proud to pay their taxes". Politics is impenetrable to new ideas, it's considered to be obscure like voodoo, passed on from generation to generation between 3 families (even now, the current prime minister and the opposition leader used to be college roommates).
Not all greeks are the same though, you just hear the loudest voices. Greece has a large, educated (and largely unemployed) youth that could fuel a new wave of growth now that markets are opening here. You might hear of riots, but these were concentrated on a square in Athens. I might be wrong, but there is a growing feeling that we are expecting the impending default as a chance to start over the economy, to actually do some work.
Things are changing, in the eleventh hour, for sure, but one can only be optimistic. The country is about to enter some tectonic shifts and looking to the past has nothing to offer.
It is not something unique to Greece - however it does seem to be a Balkan thing and it will take us all generations to get this train going. Like you said there are young willing educated people all over the place. However - the leeches also got their offspring, who are already being primed to take over and start the cycle anew.
Edit: When I said "people in the know" I meant Greek officials of all degrees, European officials, bankers and officials of economic institutions. The little man, deceived by demagouges could very well be oblivious to the situation.
The true part of the article is the part about debtors options and possible scenarios.
The deceitful part is the part about "ordinary Greek not understanding the situation and having no part in it". In eastern Europe we have a saying that someone is "indebted as a Greek", meaning that someone is perpetually taking loans to repay old ones while having not a slightest intention of ever paying them off. And this proverb is centuries old AFAIK. So all this protesting going on, pleas of "ordinary Greek people" are an elaborate scheme of shedding guilt. Modern Greeks as a nation are an entitled (an order of magnitude more than attributed to gen-Y) and lazy bunch. Boasting their "heritage", while they have nothing in common with the antic culture.
Any businessman worth his salt will be weary of doing business with Greeks - thats how bad in general their ethics situation is. While I cannot offer any meaningful opinion about how to get out of this mess. I can try to provide some insight into how Germany and France got into this mess. The first would be that greedy coke powered bankers got all optimistic that Greeks will repay their debts this time and went on to issue insane amounts of subprime loans, ok this is not what happened.
What did happen was that western world knew full on from the beginning what would happen - but proceeded anyway, since Greece was too strategically placed in the cold war and could not be lost to Soviet influence. The Greeks being smart, knew that and took full advantage. What happened after the cold war, was basically the subprime mortgage scenario of US played on a national scale - it is fraud committed by German and French bankers over the people of EU. I'm not believing anyone "in the know" telling me with a straight face that they didn't know that Greeks were cooking their books.
So in a sense like US subprime fiasco is fraud committed by US elites over people of US, European sovereign subprime debt crisis is also a fraud committed by European elites over their peoples.
I recommend reading this analysis of Greek[1] and Irish[2] debt crisis. It has to be some of the best journalism I have ever read.
[1] http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-b... [2] http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-...
Let the Greek diaspora and leftist lunatic downmodding begin!!
Edit: Indeed it was not written by a Greek. But the part about people of Greece not knowing what is going on is pure bullshit - I am not accusing the author of having an agenda. However I am accusing him of not having balls and bringing it out.