Rising Hegemon
...the IMF is understood to be insisting that Greece's eurozone creditors and the European Central Bank write off another €30bn (£24bn) to close the latest funding gap in the Greek rescue plan. For many Germans, letting Greece off the hook is a moral issue. After years of self-imposed austerity, Europe's biggest exporter is upset that when others are asked to go through the same pain they opt out. For the average Christian Democratic Union supporting German, the shopaholic is to blame.Considering the full length of the history between Greece and Germany one might think this hostility of the Merkel government is just a bit inappropriate -- not to mention this period of relative German austerity as claimed didn't exactly involve the economy being shrunk massively followed by 25% unemployment (comparatively at its worst German unemployment was well under 8 percent).
That is the austerity imposed upon the Greek people primarily by the Germans already. And yet having bled the Greek economy of any ability to generate revenue the proposed German solution is to bleed it more. The last thing the world, and especially Greece, needs is Teutonic Grover Norquists.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
4 comments:
what happened to try something else.
what happened to try something else.
Greece needs a good Heinrich Brüning (with a sternly applied umlaut and a ball gag). After all, unemployment at its very worst in the Weimar Republic was about 33%. There’s room for a lot more austerity.
I know, it is easy to talk smack about them, after all they are Germans. But to compare them to Norquist is a bit unfair. Germans have seen their retirement age rise, their welfare net cut, etc. while simultaneously being asked to foot the bill for other countries' troubles that they had nothing to do with.
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