Greece, what the fuck?

[dismal]

Recall the current dispute is over whether Greece continues with fauxsterity or goes back to big budget blowouts. It's been in all the headlines. It's going to take new money to fund the fauxsterity, since there is no surplus that actually shows up as cash, and even more new money to fund the return to big budget blowouts.

Greece is being destroyed by anti-Keynesian idiots who don't have a clue how to turn around a failing economy.

It needs massive Keynesian spending after years of "austerity".

It is situation created by all involved but we are talking about millions of lives, not garbage.

Some care more about their anti-Keynesian economic delusions than these people.

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

 

[untermensche]

Greece is being destroyed by anti-Keynesian idiots who don't have a clue how to turn around a failing economy.

It needs massive Keynesian spending after years of "austerity".

It is situation created by all involved but we are talking about millions of lives, not garbage.

Some care more about their anti-Keynesian economic delusions than these people.

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Your ignorance of Keynes and his work is clear.

But go ahead flaunt your ignorance some more.

 

[coloradoatheist]

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Your ignorance of Keynes and his work is clear.

But go ahead flaunt your ignorance some more.

So I am curious. Prior to the EU asking for austerity measures, was Greece already doing austerity type things? We're they running a budget surplus? Were their tax rates artificially low in order to stimulate the economy? Did they not spend on any infrastructure?

 

[dismal]

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Your ignorance of Keynes and his work is clear.

But go ahead flaunt your ignorance some more.

Your inability to tailor your rhetoric to reality is what's clear.

Well, not to you I imagine.

 

[ksen]

Your ignorance of Keynes and his work is clear.

But go ahead flaunt your ignorance some more.

So I am curious. Prior to the EU asking for austerity measures, was Greece already doing austerity type things? We're they running a budget surplus? Were their tax rates artificially low in order to stimulate the economy? Did they not spend on any infrastructure?

Your answer is here.

https://www.google.com/

 

[coloradoatheist]

So I am curious. Prior to the EU asking for austerity measures, was Greece already doing austerity type things? We're they running a budget surplus? Were their tax rates artificially low in order to stimulate the economy? Did they not spend on any infrastructure?

Your answer is here.

https://www.google.com/

You didn't want to answer? Is that because Greece was following Keynes and running deficits and it didn't lead the economic growth it needed to pay its bills?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Greece is being destroyed by anti-Keynesian idiots who don't have a clue how to turn around a failing economy.

It needs massive Keynesian spending after years of "austerity".

It is situation created by all involved but we are talking about millions of lives, not garbage.

Some care more about their anti-Keynesian economic delusions than these people.

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Keynes is context dependent. Keynsian reforms are only useful in a market where there is lots of money that people aren´t spending out of insecurity. But if the money is spent foolishly, then we´d all be better without it. History has shown that most Keynsian market stimuluses have been a failure. But there are some spectacular successes. Right now trust in the Greek government is at an all time low. Not that it ever has been high. I´d say that a Keynsian market stimulus of Greece is the wrong thing to do. I think the Greeks will just piss the money away no matter what we do. They have a tradition of doing that. Better to not do it. And just leave it alone. Let the market sort itself out and meddle minimally. Normally I´d be all for market stimulus.. but not here. I don´t think Greece can take it.

 

[Togo]

Meh, the new money is to pay off the interest on the old money. The creditors are sitting around discussing whether to lend more money to Greece to pay back the money they already owe. It's not like they actually hand over anything, since they're just paying the money to themselves on Greece's behalf.

Recall the current dispute is over whether Greece continues with fauxsterity or goes back to big budget blowouts. It's been in all the headlines. It's going to take new money to fund the fauxsterity, since there is no surplus that actually shows up as cash, and even more new money to fund the return to big budget blowouts.

I'll need a source for these intended 'big budget blowouts' since I believe they're invented. Greece has imposed the measures to bring it into surplus, but the result has been a shrinking economy. Meanwhile all the surplus is going to interest rate repayments. This isn't sustainable.

In any case, this is not so much about money for the Europeans, it is about precedent and domestic politics. If they concede to the Greeks they risk countries that they actually give a shit about asking for concessions as well, and empowering the opposition in those countries, as well as pissing off voters at home.

If they don't, they risk a different precedent - that the Euro economies are not acting a guarantors for each other as promised, and that there is an upper limit on how much protection they receive. Which makes Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland more vulnerable, and permanently weakens the Euro as a currency.

The Euro was never a license for one country to drain the coffers of others.

Sure it was. That's why the Germans have enjoyed cheaper exports courtesy of sharing a currency with Greece, while the Greeks have enjoyed higher prices for the same goods courtesy of sharing a currency with Germany. The idea was that this negative effect would be more than offset by the additional growth caused by joining the Euro, and that Greece's additional ability to borrow would cover the gap until the additional growth made up the difference. This is why the debt, both private and public, in countries with formally cheap currencies, like Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece, has gown so much. The Financial Crisis put paid to both the higher borrowing and the over optimistic predictions of growth.

More to the point, perhaps, the idea that the Euro is a shared currency, with shared responsibilities, is exactly and precisely a license to drain the coffers of others. The EU has benefited from the implied strength of that license, but the flip side of that benefit is the need to bail out member countries who get into trouble. No one has worked out what is supposed to happen in this situation, and it's a question that the EU desperately doesn't want to answer, because the chances of EU member states agreeing on a solution are remote.

[ There are responsibilities to joining the Euro as well, and Greece has flouted them since before it even joined. Having a rule-flouting Greece in the currency weakens the currency far more than kicking them to the curb.

Maybe so, but it's the EU as well as Greece that flouted the rules. Having actively helped Greece to flout the rules, it's harder to turn around and criticise Greece for doing so. And why, exactly, was Greece not allowed to default? Was it a rule? No. Was it a political ambition to see the Euro as strong by bailing out private investors and transferring the debt to taxpayers? Absolutely. If you're complaining about draining the coffers of other countries, that was the EU and happened a while back.

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Keynes is context dependent. Keynsian reforms are only useful in a market where there is lots of money that people aren´t spending out of insecurity. But if the money is spent foolishly, then we´d all be better without it. History has shown that most Keynsian market stimuluses have been a failure. But there are some spectacular successes. Right now trust in the Greek government is at an all time low. Not that it ever has been high. I´d say that a Keynsian market stimulus of Greece is the wrong thing to do. I think the Greeks will just piss the money away no matter what we do. They have a tradition of doing that. Better to not do it. And just leave it alone. Let the market sort itself out and meddle minimally. Normally I´d be all for market stimulus.. but not here. I don´t think Greece can take it.

Agreed. The infrastructure just isn't there.

The basic problem is that what the EU is demanding, austerity measures, don't act to improve the economy. What they do is increase confidence in the power of the state to impose low spending and high taxes, which gives bond-holders confidence that they will get their money back some day. The aim of austerity isn't to improve the economy. It damages the economy. The aim is to make the existing debt easier for bond-holders to sell.

 

[untermensche]

Your ignorance of Keynes and his work is clear.

But go ahead flaunt your ignorance some more.

Your inability to tailor your rhetoric to reality is what's clear.

Well, not to you I imagine.

You have little understanding of reality.

But prove me wrong.

Give me an example of Keynesian spending.

 

[untermensche]

....History has shown that most Keynsian market stimuluses have been a failure....

What history?

Give me an example where explicit Keynesian policies failed.

What is clearly a failure is "austerity".

What is clearly a failure are the economic policies of the right we have been following for the most part since the Reagan administration.

A failure in the sense that they make most people poorer.

A success in that they make a few richer.

 

[ksen]

Your answer is here.

https://www.google.com/

You didn't want to answer? Is that because Greece was following Keynes and running deficits and it didn't lead the economic growth it needed to pay its bills?

 

[dismal]

You're going to have to show me where Keynes said the secret to prosperity was to take your citizens money and piss it away bailing out corrupt foreign governments before I accept the EU are being "anti-Keynesian".

Keynes is context dependent. Keynsian reforms are only useful in a market where there is lots of money that people aren´t spending out of insecurity. But if the money is spent foolishly, then we´d all be better without it. History has shown that most Keynsian market stimuluses have been a failure. But there are some spectacular successes. Right now trust in the Greek government is at an all time low. Not that it ever has been high. I´d say that a Keynsian market stimulus of Greece is the wrong thing to do. I think the Greeks will just piss the money away no matter what we do. They have a tradition of doing that. Better to not do it. And just leave it alone. Let the market sort itself out and meddle minimally. Normally I´d be all for market stimulus.. but not here. I don´t think Greece can take it.

Keynes said you can manufacture prosperity by paying people to dig holes and fill them up again. But that's not the salient point here.

He did not say the German economy would be improved by sending the German's money to Greece to pay Greeks to dig up holes and fill them in again.

 

[coloradoatheist]

....History has shown that most Keynsian market stimuluses have been a failure....

What history?

Give me an example where explicit Keynesian policies failed.

What is clearly a failure is "austerity".

What is clearly a failure are the economic policies of the right we have been following for the most part since the Reagan administration.

A failure in the sense that they make most people poorer.

A success in that they make a few richer.

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

What history?

Give me an example where explicit Keynesian policies failed.

What is clearly a failure is "austerity".

What is clearly a failure are the economic policies of the right we have been following for the most part since the Reagan administration.

A failure in the sense that they make most people poorer.

A success in that they make a few richer.

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

What did Keynes say about debt structure and foreign obligations?

 

[dismal]

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

What did Keynes say about debt structure and foreign obligations?

Borrow from foreigners like a mothafucka because in the long run we are all dead?

Greece's problem is it lived past the point where foreigners would stop lending it money.

 

[coloradoatheist]

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

What did Keynes say about debt structure and foreign obligations?

And what did he say?

Was the stimulus project of the 2004 Olympics in line with what Keynes would recommend for a government?

 

[ksen]

What history?

Give me an example where explicit Keynesian policies failed.

What is clearly a failure is "austerity".

What is clearly a failure are the economic policies of the right we have been following for the most part since the Reagan administration.

A failure in the sense that they make most people poorer.

A success in that they make a few richer.

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

The country was being pulled up.

But then the financial crisis hit and things started going to shit.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp

 

[untermensche]

What history?

Give me an example where explicit Keynesian policies failed.

What is clearly a failure is "austerity".

What is clearly a failure are the economic policies of the right we have been following for the most part since the Reagan administration.

A failure in the sense that they make most people poorer.

A success in that they make a few richer.

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

What are you talking about?

The policies of austerity are anti-Keynesian.

Keynesian spending is productive spending that puts people to work and increases the amount of money in workers hands.

Something like the Interstate Highway spending that began under Eisenhower.

You end up with something productive, and if we spent what we should on infrastructure upkeep, many permanent jobs.

Spending on something like the Olympics puts some money into workers hands but it is too little all you end up with are a bunch of stadiums nobody uses.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

What did Keynes say about debt structure and foreign obligations?

And what did he say?

Was the stimulus project of the 2004 Olympics in line with what Keynes would recommend for a government?

I don't know. I am asking you.

 

[coloradoatheist]

We're talking about Greece here, which would be a failure in Keynesian policy. If it could pull a country up, the 2004 Olympics and all the spending that it provided the country should have lead to a prosperous country, but it didn't.

What are you talking about?

The policies of austerity are anti-Keynesian.

Keynesian spending is productive spending that puts people to work and increases the amount of money in workers hands.

Something like the Interstate Highway spending that began under Eisenhower.

You end up with something productive, and if we spent what we should on infrastructure upkeep, many permanent jobs.

Spending on something like the Olympics puts some money into workers hands but it is too little all you end up with are a bunch of stadiums nobody uses.

Except the building of all the infrastructure for the Olympics should have stimulated the economy and put money in workers hands, but you are saying it didn't. Krugman thought it would be good to hire people just to prepare for an alien invasion.

- - - Updated - - -

And what did he say?

Was the stimulus project of the 2004 Olympics in line with what Keynes would recommend for a government?

I don't know. I am asking you.

The answer would be yes, that the stimulus created by both the projects to build the infrastructure for the games along with the spending that came to Greece should have been enough to create sustainability. So the Olympics in Greece would be a failed Keynesian policy.