Severity of Greek Austerity Measures

Going Forward · 22-10-2011 12:13am #1

Does anyone else believe that the severity of the austerity measures being imposed on Greece is immoral?

And I'm not interested in the economic justification, I'm talking about the private, personal, individual consequences of the cuts.

Consider the estimated 40% increase in suicides there in 2011 for starters.

Heres a list of some of the measures: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13940431

This treatment of a people is either morally acceptable or it is not.

2,h=343.bild.jpg

Which is it?

oscarBravo · 22-10-2011 1:15am

Going Forward wrote: »

Does anyone else believe that the severity of the austerity measures being imposed on Greece is immoral?

It's an interesting way to frame a discussion. It carefully excludes such trivial considerations as whether or not the austerity measures are necessary, or avoidable.

If there's a question of morality in play here, it should involve the wider question of the morality of a government that allows its country to slide into morass of un-repayable debt in the process of corruptly buying power and influence.

If you choose to frame the discussion in those terms, it becomes a much tougher - but ultimately a much more interesting and rewarding - conversation. If, instead, you want to ignore the immorality that got the country into this position and want to focus solely on the "immorality" of getting it out of it, feel free, but count me out.

View · 22-10-2011 2:35am

Going Forward wrote: »

Does anyone else believe that the severity of the austerity measures being imposed on Greece is immoral?

Budgets are primarily about math and only very distantly about morality.

Either you have the money to pay for your services or you don't. Greece in case you missed it doesn't have the money and - I suspect - if you had to vote to give them your money to cover the shortfall you'd probably vote against doing do.

cyberhog · 22-10-2011 7:07am

I think the severity of the austerity measures is morally unacceptable. The Greek Government is protecting the bondholders; the ECB is protecting the bondholders; the IMF is protecting the bondholders; No one is protecting the people.

View wrote: »

Either you have the money to pay for your services or you don't. Greece in case you missed it doesn't have the money and - I suspect - if you had to vote to give them your money to cover the shortfall you'd probably vote against doing do.

Germany has been in the same situation as Greece in the past and it was only because of the sacrifices of the United States that Germany was able to rebuild its economy.

Ritschl: ... during the 20th century, Germany was responsible for what were the biggest national bankruptcies in recent history. It is only thanks to the United States, which sacrificed vast amounts of money after both World War I and World War II, that Germany is financially stable today and holds the status of Europe's headmaster. That fact, unfortunately, often seems to be forgotten.

...

Ritschl: The anti-Greek sentiment that is widespread in many German media outlets is highly dangerous. And we are sitting in a glass house: Germany's resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims.

...

Ritschl: The German bankruptcies in the last century show that the sensible thing to do now would be to have a real reduction of the debt. Anyone who has lent money to Greece would then have to give up a considerable part of what they were owed. Some banks would not be able to cope with that, so there would have to be new aid programs. For Germany, this could be expensive, but we will have to pay either way. At least Greece would then have the chance to start over.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,769703,00.html

Scofflaw · 22-10-2011 1:57pm

Also, why the picture of the guy setting himself on fire, given that it's a repeat performance?

cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome · 22-10-2011 3:14pm

Am I right in saying the Greek government has failed to collect taxes correctly for years?

aftermn · 22-10-2011 3:38pm

It's the lesser of two evils, i'm afraid. Immoral yes, but less immoral then letting Greece go down the tubes completely.
At least with the 'programme', there is a policeman to come to the aid of your suicide example. After a complete crash, there would be no money to pay the CS and no-one to come to his aid.

catbear · 22-10-2011 3:46pm

Even if they left the Euro, they'd still have the same wealth sharing problems in a new currency and they know it. At the moment there is no real alternative except making their society more accountable to itself and those it trades with.

Every other alternative leaves them poorer again.

Going Forward · 23-10-2011 1:50am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Also, why the picture of the guy setting himself on fire, given that it's a repeat performance?

cordially,
Scofflaw

A performance?

I felt pity for him.

Going Forward · 23-10-2011 1:53am

meglome wrote: »

Am I right in saying the Greek government has failed to collect taxes correctly for years?

Yes, that appears to be the case, along with an admittance in 2004 of previously using imaginative accounting practices to meet the conditions of entry to the Eurozone.

Going Forward · 23-10-2011 1:58am

aftermn wrote: »

It's the lesser of two evils, i'm afraid. Immoral yes, but less immoral then letting Greece go down the tubes completely.
At least with the 'programme', there is a policeman to come to the aid of your suicide example. After a complete crash, there would be no money to pay the CS and no-one to come to his aid.

I accept that.
I am concerned that the level of austerity there will lead to a serious depression scenario with no or very little growth for generations to come.

Mr Trade In · 23-10-2011 2:26am

That is some ruthless measures being brought in there, why have the parliament not resigned. Given the mood of the people what are the chances of war breaking out? If these moves prove successful could we be subject to similar and would the Irish people band together as the Greeks have?

Scofflaw · 23-10-2011 2:47am

Going Forward wrote: »

A performance?

I felt pity for him.

Sure - he's done it before. Also, his point is that he's unable to pay debts contracted by his company, as far as I recall.

cordially,
Scofflaw

jc84 · 23-10-2011 3:04am

I feel bad for Greece those are some excessive and savage measures being brought in, to me they seem way too extreme and will have a negative effect on growth, but I guess they have to if they are to get the next trench of funds

meglome · 23-10-2011 3:14pm

Mr Trade In wrote: »

That is some ruthless measures being brought in there, why have the parliament not resigned. Given the mood of the people what are the chances of war breaking out? If these moves prove successful could we be subject to similar and would the Irish people band together as the Greeks have?

Oh there's a chance anything could happen, the Greeks can be volatile. However I hope they don't lose sight of the fact they repeatedly elected the people who caused the mess. It seems large numbers of people also happily avoided paying their taxes for many years. They really must have had a notion that things were not being run right but now they want to protest as they have to suffer the consequences.

It's never nice to see ordinary people suffer financial hardships but they also made their own bed and now they will have to lie in it.

oscarBravo · 23-10-2011 5:04pm

Mr Trade In wrote: »

...would the Irish people band together as the Greeks have?

To what end?

Scofflaw · 24-10-2011 1:00am

oscarBravo wrote: »

To what end?

To be unrealistic....together!

apologies,
Scofflaw

dsmythy · 24-10-2011 2:41am

The Greeks need some perspective on their standard of living compared to the rest of the world it seems.

View · 25-10-2011 11:35pm

cyberhog wrote: »

I think the severity of the austerity measures is morally unacceptable. The Greek Government is protecting the bondholders; the ECB is protecting the bondholders; the IMF is protecting the bondholders; No one is protecting the people.

Well, the Greeks can quite happily tell the bondholders to get lost when they don't need to borrow to fund their day-to-day government spending. Until that time comes, they have the slight problem that doing so would leave them facing an even bigger set of cut-backs then they currently face.

And, if the current cut-backs are "morally unacceptable" then presumably an even bigger set of cut-backs would be even more "morally unacceptable"...

cyberhog · 26-10-2011 4:56am

The Greek debt fiasco won't be resolved unless the bondholders are forced to take a big cut. Even Junker has said "we can’t let the banks lead us by the nose"

“Private investors, the banks, the private sector, have to participate in quite a substantial way to ensure that Greece’s debt burden becomes bearable in the long term,” Juncker said Oct. 22 on RTL Luxembourg Television. “We said in July that it had to be 21 percent. This will clearly not be enough. It has to be considerably higher. About 50 percent, 60 percent is what’s being talked about.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/juncker-says-greek-psi-talks-focus-on-50-60-bondholder-loss.html

easychair · 26-10-2011 12:21pm

cyberhog wrote: »

The Greek debt fiasco won't be resolved unless the bondholders are forced to take a big cut. Even Junker has said "we can’t let the banks lead us by the nose"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/juncker-says-greek-psi-talks-focus-on-50-60-bondholder-loss.html

That's a bit late as the bankers across the world, and in Ireland, have shown they can run rings around politicians and those meant to be running countries and running the EU.

It's interesting that the only thing which separates run and ruin is one little letter.

Scofflaw · 27-10-2011 1:09am

Ironically, the ability to rein in the actions of multinational banks and markets relies rather a lot on the kind of international pooling of sovereignty you decry.

amused,
Scofflaw

cyberhog · 27-10-2011 5:56am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ironically, the ability to rein in the actions of multinational banks and markets relies rather a lot on the kind of international pooling of sovereignty you decry.

amused,
Scofflaw

Europe doesn't need a fiscal union to rein in banks.

Europe's financial system would be safer if new banking regulation induced banks to move their portfolios toward European Safe Bonds, since this would cut the contagion link.

...

European Safe Bonds are not euro bonds. They do not require one country's taxes to pay for another country's spending, nor do they require changes to the European treaties.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ckHk7mIZsE8J:online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204831304576594353277663720.html+http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204831304576594353277663720.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie

as is advocated by a new international academic working group (www.euro-nomics.com), it is possible to create a European safe bond (or ESBie, for short) through a combination of financial engineering and regulatory reform. A European debt agency could purchase national sovereign bonds (up to a fixed limit) and issue a mix of low-risk senior bonds (ESBies) and higher-risk junior bonds. Through diversification, the tranching of risk between senior and junior bonds and the provision of credit enhancements (by the EFSF, for example), the ESBies would constitute super-safe bonds and provide stability for bank balance sheets.

Importantly, this proposal does not require any cross-guarantees of national sovereign bonds, so it does not require the degree of fiscal integration that is barrier to eurobonds.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0927/1224304799693.html

easychair · 27-10-2011 7:49am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ironically, the ability to rein in the actions of multinational banks and markets relies rather a lot on the kind of international pooling of sovereignty you decry.

amused,
Scofflaw

It is quite possible to rein in the banks, the multinationals, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, without 40 years, or more, of pooling sovereignty on fishing rights, or employment laws, or the CAP and so on.

The real irony is that Ireland had been effectively banned, by the very "partners" with which it has pooled so much sovereignty over the last 40 years or so, from penalising the banks which have caused so much damage to Ireland, and the poor Irish taxpayers are left with picking up the tab, probably for the next 40 years or so.

I'd rather be someone who questions things, rather than, as you appear, to to be so enthusiastic for the concept of ever closer union with our partners that it appears to lead you to be blinded by anything which shows that to be less than desirable, unable to brook any criticism of closer ties of any sort with our "partners", and appearing to see yourself here as a self appointed partisan spokesman for the EU.

Normally I wouldn't make such observations, but your incorrect accusation that I decry any international pooling of sovereignty was cheap, incorrect and an attempt to divert attention from the issue to the person by making personal remarks.

Scofflaw · 27-10-2011 10:09am

easychair wrote: »

It is quite possible to rein in the banks, the multinationals, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, without 40 years, or more, of pooling sovereignty on fishing rights, or employment laws, or the CAP and so on.

The real irony is that Ireland had been effectively banned, by the very "partners" with which it has pooled so much sovereignty over the last 40 years or so, from penalising the banks which have caused so much damage to Ireland, and the poor Irish taxpayers are left with picking up the tab, probably for the next 40 years or so.

I'd rather be someone who questions things, rather than, as you appear, to to be so enthusiastic for the concept of ever closer union with our partners that it appears to lead you to be blinded by anything which shows that to be less than desirable, unable to brook any criticism of closer ties of any sort with our "partners", and appearing to see yourself here as a self appointed partisan spokesman for the EU.

Normally I wouldn't make such observations, but your incorrect accusation that I decry any international pooling of sovereignty was cheap, incorrect and an attempt to divert attention from the issue to the person by making personal remarks.

The only possible conclusions from the fact that the EU Member States are discussing closer union as a way of dealing with the current set of issues is either (a) they feel it's what's necessary; or (b) they're involved in some kind of NWO conspiracy. That's a general pair of options that applies to all the other issues you mention - fishing, employment, etc.

Since I don't go with the latter, I go with the former. You appear to have to go with the latter - and hence my remarks.

regards,
Scofflaw

Going Forward · 27-10-2011 10:46am

Scofflaw wrote: »

The only possible conclusions from the fact that the EU Member States are discussing closer union as a way of dealing with the current set of issues is either (a) they feel it's what's necessary; or (b) they're involved in some kind of NWO conspiracy. That's a general pair of options that applies to all the other issues you mention - fishing, employment, etc.

Since I don't go with the latter, I go with the former. You appear to have to go with the latter - and hence my remarks.

regards,
Scofflaw

You do consistently come across as a cheerleader for the EU.

Scofflaw · 27-10-2011 11:00am

Going Forward wrote: »

You do consistently come across as a cheerleader for the EU.

It's there because it's necessary, and the structures are, to be frank, a lot more democratic, careful, and transparent than our own - and where they fall down on those features tends to be where the national governments take over. The CFP is a good example of the latter.

So, as a framework for joint action by the European countries, I support it very strongly. In terms of the decisions it makes or is used to make, not necessarily. By and large, though, criticism of the EU tends to be of the structures, or more commonly of its existence, rather than of the specific decisions, so I tend to be engaged on one particular side.

cordially,
Scofflaw

easychair · 27-10-2011 12:00pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

The only possible conclusions from the fact that the EU Member States are discussing closer union as a way of dealing with the current set of issues is either (a) they feel it's what's necessary; or (b) they're involved in some kind of NWO conspiracy. That's a general pair of options that applies to all the other issues you mention - fishing, employment, etc.

Since I don't go with the latter, I go with the former. You appear to have to go with the latter - and hence my remarks.

regards,
Scofflaw

You feel they are the only possible conclusions, and from those you yourself extrapolate what I must be thinking?

Quite apart from the fact that I am bemused as to why you want to spend your time working out what I might or might not be thinking, (which has now led you in this thread to two incorrect assumptions in as many days), I’d rather tackle the arguments and not the person.

Scofflaw wrote: »

I tend to be engaged on one particular side.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tend? That implies that you are balanced but occasionally tip to one side.

From observation, I’d say you appear to be much more an uncritical cheerleader for the EU and everything it does. And that stance often seems to blind you into rushing to defend everything about the EU.

Of course, that’s a perfectly respectable position, and if you say you only “tend” to the side of the EU, then I accept that, even if the evidence of observation seems to suggest much more than “tending” to the side of the EU.

Scofflaw · 27-10-2011 12:31pm

easychair wrote: »

You feel they are the only possible conclusions, and from those you yourself extrapolate what I must be thinking?

Quite apart from the fact that I am bemused as to why you want to spend your time working out what I might or might not be thinking, (which has now led you in this thread to two incorrect assumptions in as many days), I’d rather tackle the arguments and not the person.

You're welcome to present another option if you have one you favour.

easychair wrote: »

Tend? That implies that you are balanced but occasionally tip to one side.

From observation, I’d say you appear to be much more an uncritical cheerleader for the EU and everything it does. And that stance often seems to blind you into rushing to defend everything about the EU.

Of course, that’s a perfectly respectable position, and if you say you only “tend” to the side of the EU, then I accept that, even if the evidence of observation seems to suggest much more than “tending” to the side of the EU.

I do only "tend" to be engaged one way in EU discussions, for the reason I gave. EU matters only really seem to generate interest amongst the eurosceptical, so the discussion rapidly gets framed as criticism of the existence of the EU versus defence of it, and as I said, I'm on one side on that one.

I don't think much of the current political mess of the eurozone crisis, nor of the design of the euro itself, but my criticisms there are rather different from most people's. Same goes for the CFP. The EU itself deserves much of the usual criticisms one can level at any bureaucracy, from unintended consequences of legislation to excessive caution and box-checking rather than real action, but those are non-unique features.

Many of the more 'popular' criticisms of the EU I do consider either false or inaccurate - the regular "ooh they haven't had their accounts signed off" or "we can't sell curved bananas" stuff is ridiculous, for example - and many other criticisms tend to display a misunderstanding of constitutional structures.

Most of it, though, simply comes down to the way that strongly worded paeans of praise for the EU that I would probably disagree with are rarer than hen's teeth, while strongly worded attacks are relatively common. Most people just think the EU is kind of OK, which doesn't inspire them to say much about it at all.

cordially,
Scofflaw

easychair · 27-10-2011 1:01pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

You're welcome to present another option if you have one you favour.

I do only "tend" to be engaged one way in EU discussions, for the reason I gave. EU matters only really seem to generate interest amongst the eurosceptical, so the discussion rapidly gets framed as criticism of the existence of the EU versus defence of it, and as I said, I'm on one side on that one.

I don't think much of the current political mess of the eurozone crisis, nor of the design of the euro itself, but my criticisms there are rather different from most people's. Same goes for the CFP. The EU itself deserves much of the usual criticisms one can level at any bureaucracy, from unintended consequences of legislation to excessive caution and box-checking rather than real action, but those are non-unique features.

Many of the more 'popular' criticisms of the EU I do consider either false or inaccurate - the regular "ooh they haven't had their accounts signed off" or "we can't sell curved bananas" stuff is ridiculous, for example - and many other criticisms tend to display a misunderstanding of constitutional structures.

Most of it, though, simply comes down to the way that strongly worded paeans of praise for the EU that I would probably disagree with are rarer than hen's teeth, while strongly worded attacks are relatively common. Most people just think the EU is kind of OK, which doesn't inspire them to say much about it at all.

cordially,
Scofflaw

For me, there seems to be an absence of government at both domestic and EU level. While we can see the results of how appallingly Ireland has been governed by the Irish political system, there is also no debate on how to reform that system to produce better governance.

Similarly, in the EU the quality of governance is dismal, and the results of both of these are where we have been led by the governments we have voted in.

Where to from here?

Voodoo_rasher · 27-10-2011 1:54pm

Going Forward wrote: »

I accept that.
I am concerned that the level of austerity there will lead to a serious depression scenario with no or very little growth for generations to come.

very little quality of life for generations...more like.

there are reported cases of child malnutritions in Athens and other cities, while

Greece is said to top the global list of per capita ownership of Porsche Cayennes

Severity of Greek Austerity Measures

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