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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The best use of Greek politicians' time and effort?

As we reported in today’s daily press summary, the Greek government has set up a ‘working group’ to scour historical archives and tally how much Germany could owe the country in outstanding reparations from World War II. Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras is quoted in Kathimerini as saying that:
"The matter remains pending… Greece has never resigned its rights." 
This is obviously quite complicated historical stuff. But given the state Greece is in, it is worth asking whether pursuing this course of action is the best use of Greek ministers’ and officials’ time and effort.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, so let me explain something here. And I hope these GD politicians in Greece will read this. My family are called Volga Germans. Anybody remember them? And the Bolsheviks chased them out of Russia. Now I don't know if they ALL came to America or if some went back to Germany or if they stayed in Russia and got wiped out by the Bolsheviks. Here is my point though..does that mean that I can higher my own Jesse Jackson and blackmail Russia for something that happened that many years ago???? Grow up Greece. As usual Government's are abusive with the supply then look for every edge possible to point the finger at somebody else to try to get out of the shit storm they themselves created. Greece, you like any other country or people in this world do not have a blank check in your hand so you can spend at will. That goes for any country, corporation, government, anybody. So how much is this going to cost in dollars to try to screw Germany out of pennies?

Rik said...

It looks clearly that we are gonna see some cooked report.
But wonder how they will do that.
1. Pushing the deadline dates further as has been done effectively is relatively easy.
2. How to reduce the gap between actual and targetted already becomes more complicated. Nearly all variables are according to eg newspaper and Greek government info (and why would these lie) negative, so the final result can only be very negative.
3. How will the IMF try to sell this to the other shareholders. It looks like a complete joke.
4. Anyway IMF out or more money needs a 3.0 plan with all parliamentary approval for that. Same with more time see below.
5. Anyway 2. The financing gap is the surface between the curve. If you extend the curve the surface will be larger. And if you put the starting position higher (and this equals the deficit at the start) as well. Simple maths.
How will they close that gap without requiring more money?
Maths say it is impossible.
6. Conclusion if you want to avoid a Greek bust and donot want a new 3.0 package you have to cook the report in a way that even a 14 year old can easily see it is cooked. Especially as a lot of people will simply look for that as they know it is not mathematically possible.
How credible is all this to Europe's voters and to the markets?
Only lie when it cannot easily be found out.

Anyway first the Dutch and the Finns have to be convinced.

WW2 might work towards the German government (not in this case btw), but simply with maybe the exception of the jews not towards the German population. They are fed up with it. If you want support from Germany you need support from both at the end and the closer the election comes the more powerful the voters get.

Rollo said...

The unemployment is 26% in Greece, 54% for youth unemployment. You need a common enemy to instigate war, and this is as good a way of getting a common enemy as I could think of.