hellalt: I always like your analyses of Greek politics. Don't you think, though, that these slave governments of yours worsened Greece's economic situation with their dishonesty?

yes of course they did and they carry their own responsibility for that but I view them more as money fed puppets of international banking :P

hellalt: Ha ha, OK.

Europe needs to either unite fully or become a glorified free trade zone with national currencies and no lawmaking in Brussels. This dithering will wreck the entire European project.

"Greece's suffering could be eliminated or severely reduced if they would leave the euro and inflate away the unpayable debt they've accrued."

You know a self-described libertarian has truly gone over to the Dark Side when he advocates runaway inflation as a solution to any problem.

"Paying taxes just encourages them to be corrupt and ineffecient."

Amen! Truer words have not been spoken.

Runaway inflation is better than the euro straight-jacket. The alternative to a return to a national currency is a federal Europe, which is even less libertarian since the people have time and time again shown they do not support it.

@Invictus: TY. Putin33 is a troll. A highly functional troll, but a troll no less.

"Typical of the Greek: they're never to blame. It's either the government, Germany, or the foreigners in their land that are to blame, but never themselves. I'd be happy to hear hellalt's opinion as well, but I fear the worst."

-redhouse

"Don't try to have wannabe economical analysis about whos fault the economical crisis is. It's capitalism's fault."

-hellalt

So hellalt, in your infinite wisdom tell me, how did capitalism work so well for the northern countries? Ow that's right, because it's not at all capitalism's fault. It's Greece's own fault. FYI: "Capitalism" in northern Europe comes with a thing we call "taxation". It's when you give some of your income to the government so they can protect the country and regulate the markets. Be sure to give that stuff a try somewhere in the coming 500 years and you'll find it to do magic for your country.

Fact: Greece has 10 million inhabitants and 300 members in its parliament. The Netherlands has 17 million inhabitants and 150 members in its parliament. That's a funny statistic...

Libertarian Europe --> (shudders at thought)

I don't consider myself Greek therefore I'm not going to waste my time defending the fucken country. I'm just currently here exploiting the system (the tax one included) to make some cash. I'm a citizen of the world :-).
Nevertheless I'm pretty sure you know it yourself that the only examples of healthy capitalism are the Scandinavian countries. I consider myself an anarchocommunist and I believe that capitalism will not exist in maximum 20 years.
Greece has never lived true capitalism just a poor stupid image of it. Example? I'm a lawyer and just by a blog site I have managed to do the most divorces in Greece only because the rest of the lawyers are just too morons to try the same.

Is anyone else not surprised that hellalt is a divorce attorney?

I already knew he was. He has never hidden it.

I never said he did, I just never knew what sort of lawyer he was.

Oh. Yeah, he mentioned that a long time ago as well, but it may have just been in a PM or in game message to me.

And as far as his personality here on the forums, I write some of that off as language. After all, English is a second language for him.

"But Greece isn't even in the top ten in terms of external debt to GDP ratio. The UK has twice the level Greece has. It has everything to do with larger countries being able to borrow in the international market."

You disregard the private portion of external debt. The UK is a financial powerhouse, it and its companies owe money to other countries but other countries also owe to the UK, that's why its net international investment position is only slightly negative. As far as I see, all the countries with higher external debt/GDP than Greece has positive NIIP or only slightly negative, which means they (and their residents) own assets that might be easily liquidated to pay for the debt. The only exception is Portugal, which, just like Greece, has huge public debt, high external debt and pitiful NIIP. In fact, abysmal NIIP is what is common across PIGS. In Portugal, Greece and Ireland because of their public debt owed to foreign investors, in Spain because of foreign liabilities of its banks. That's also why the discussions of Spanish need of foreign help has little to do with actual public debt and everything to do with its ballooning in case they would have to bail out the banks. Spanish numbers are far from worst as a whole but it is the concentration of the bad numbers in a systemically crucial sector like banking that causes problems - it is also something you cannot discern by simply looking at a table.

hey what do you mean Draugnar? I'm just writing English from the heart not getting help from a translate tool or anything and trying to speak freely. You think I have some personality issues? :P

@hellalt - I didn't mean you were using a tool. I meant it isn't your native tongue and, as such, sometimes things sound a little different, even bruck or rude. It isn't your intent it's just the way you speak/write English. I didn't mean to offend.

And actually, you haven't had one of your infamous "hellalt" moments in quite a while. :-)

Ha actually there is something rude / offensive in the way I think even before I speak or write. That's just who I am. Some consider me cynical or a nihilist. I just think I'm merely a realist :P

' I mean, slavery was eradicated in 70 years. That's a fundamental change in the economic system. I would think the economy today is fundamentally different than it was in 1930.'

i would disagree, the end of slavery means that wages are used to control the poor rather than the threat of violence (and the law which applies it)

finding a way to make money without working for a wage still violates the law and thus illicits that response. Or means may have changed but we still treat each other similarily.

Perhaps communism could have been a dramatic change, but in russia and china the authoritarian nature of those societies continued unphased by the 'political ideologies' - just as freed colonies created a new native class of rulers who continued to exploit their poor (and that is one of the main reasons those nations mostly failed to develop) - Culture takes a longer time to change.

Even if the means by which we do these same things, like religion or money or democracy, happens to change it's name.

ulytau: So the problem in Spain is that the more minor banks did what, exactly? Santander and BBVA , the two big ones, are perfectly fine.

"As far as I see, all the countries with higher external debt/GDP than Greece has positive NIIP or only slightly negative, which means they (and their residents) own assets that might be easily liquidated to pay for the debt. The only exception is Portugal"

Uh, the UK has a worse NIIP than Greece...

As for the others:

France has a worse NIIP than Greece. Sweden has a negative NIIP. Portugal's NIIP is negative, but better than Greece's. I'm doubting that Guinea-Bissau & Burundi have better NIIPs than Greece.

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/leslie-cuadra/2011/08/31/list-of-worlds-largest-creditor-and-debtor-nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

Don't know much about economics but I don't think Greece 2012 is comparable to Germany 1929. The extremism between left and right may be the same but Greece will never be the powerhouse that Germany was before, during and after the Nazi's.

Thereby, will the other nations of Europe only watch if Greece turns into a totalitarian state? I think not.

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