bonzobanana said:
I don't see why Germany, France, UK etc should be criticised for this. Greek politicians just kept spending money they never had and now they are basically saying to those who lent them money its their fault. It's all a bit wierd. Greece lived beyond their means basically although I'm not saying the euro didn't have a massive negative effect on Greece. However it was Greece that chose to join the Euro so again their decision. I feel sorry for the french and german tax payers who basically will have to pay for Greece defaulting. I'm sure it won't be great for Greece either in the short term but at least they wipe the slate clean. What is more worrying is how this is handled. It's not in Europe's interest to see Greece do well out of defaulting because then other countries may do the same. It needs to be seen that defaulting was the wrong decision so I wonder how Europe will achieve this. Maybe make exports from Greece difficult, push to make their currency as low value as possible. So that both imports are expensive and exports are more complicated. I can see the standard of living in Greece dropping like a stone. |
So you don't know. They did to make money. Which is what banks do. Since the economy from those countries isn't as healthy as Germany's (and BCE couldn't buy public debt, now it kinda can, but guess who opposed to it initially? Germany.) they pay way higher interests. Of course it's risky, but since countries cannot let banks fall, why not? They have been making huge profits so far, profits that will outwaight the losses the may suffer if Greece end up not paying all its debt.
PASOK and New Democracy spent what they didn't have because corruption. Was that targeted by the troika? Nope. Just take more money from citizens. And the priorities... oh god. Buy new military aircraft from USA? Ok, that's important. People not being able to pay their electric bill or gas? No big deal. Raise taxes even more.
