Well said Nigel Farage

Mikechappers said:
Naive question, what would happen if every country had its debt cancelled, what would change ?
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Another naive question: With so many countries owing money, who do they owe it to and what would happen if they all said they're not paying it back? (o.k. two questions).

Cobra said:
Just call it compensation for all the s*** they went through in the war
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I saw something a couple of days ago about Greece writing of a German debt in 1953. Perhaps it's time to return the favour.

Cobra said:
At least we haven't had the "What's a greek urn?" gag
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No, but there is a pub near me which puts up jokes on boards outside (I think they made it into some of the national papers last week). A new one has recently appeared: What's the capital of Greece?... About £10.



Steve.
 
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I say, I say, I say,

Whats a Greek urn?

Even less then now if they want any more help for us!
 
Steve Smith said:
I saw something a couple of days ago about Greece writing of a German debt in 1953. Perhaps it's time to return the favour.


Steve.
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Greece didn't write off German debt in the '50s, Berlin paid 115m Deutschmarks to Athens in 1960 in compensation. It was made as a final settlement of the Greek demand (which was for more) but was made with the mutual agreement there would be no more claims, they are now trying it on and demanding additional war reparations saying that Germany had stolen or destroyed much more and also demanded compensation for war deaths during WW2 and decided to make a new demand for additional reparations.

It doesn't seem any other nation is interested in supporting the idea as it would lead to a precedent which would turn and bite other countries on the behind (think of India suddenly deciding that the 1947 negotiations were no longer suitable and in fact the UK owed India another £500 billion for the time they controlled India).
 
Look at a global colour coded map of the world circa 1900.
I'd hazard a guess that we should probably make some kind of reparation to anything coloured pink.
 
It still confuses me as to who has all this money to lend all the countries in the first place.
 
drounding said:
It still confuses me as to who has all this money to lend all the countries in the first place.
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No one. The figures are purely electronic, as are most financial matters globally.
 
An ex of mine is an economist. She's the only one I've ever met so it's difficult for me to judge how good she is but she's good enough for people to commission reports and fly her around the world so she must be reasonably good :D Anyway, she told me years ago that the Euro will and must fail but I didn't believe her as I thought that the political will of the Germans and French would make it work but as financial woes mount and economic strength shifts from west to east maybe what she predicted will happen and the Euro will one day fail. Maybe what we are seeing now is the beginning of a long death for it? Who knows, maybe my ex.
 
woof woof said:
An ex of mine is an economist. She's the only one I've ever met so it's difficult for me to judge how good she is but she's good enough for people to commission reports and fly her around the world so she must be reasonably good :D Anyway, she told me years ago that the Euro will and must fail but I didn't believe her as I thought that the political will of the Germans and French would make it work but as financial woes mount and economic strength shifts from west to east maybe what she predicted will happen and the Euro will one day fail. Maybe what we are seeing now is the beginning of a long death for it? Who knows, maybe my ex.
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The reason of any failure will be political, not economic. The US federal bank have had to bail out states previously, and there was never any question of it not doing so as the US political desire for the union collapsing was nill. That is not the case in EU.
 
Keith W said:
Angela Merkel and her dreams of a federal Europe and beyond will get flushed down the sh!tter
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From what I have read the reverse is true: the cancelling (or significant restructuring) of the debt will lessen the chance of Greece leaving. And if Greece leaves, that then leaves Portugal in a precarious position, and so the dominos may fall.
 
Rapscallion said:
The reason of any failure will be political, not economic. The US federal bank have had to bail out states previously, and there was never any question of it not doing so as the US political desire for the union collapsing was nill. That is not the case in EU.
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I did think that political will was enough but I'm not an economist with an international reputation and no one flies me from Hong Kong to London for a half day meeting. I could see the EC and the Euro if not actually collapsing and disappearing morphing into something they aren't now as the states that are very pro EC and pro Euro also have electorates who may not be willing to take the hit that supporting failing states may in term longer term cause. Time will tell. I predict a fudge and that the issue will be put off for another day.

What amazes me is the gravy train attitude that seems so pervasive and widespread these days. In the case of Greece we have large numbers of people who have colluded in systems which have brought the country to the state it is now in and they show no sign of wanting to change their ways and in fact they seem to think that even suggesting that they do is fascist in the extreme and if I was a German tax payer and voter I'd be wondering why I should fund their lifestyles any longer. We see this eagerness to cling to the gravy train in the UK too and I find myself wondering why I should fund the lifestyles of others who frankly don't seem to be trying hard enough to fund their own.
 
woof woof said:
I did think that political will was enough but I'm not an economist with an international reputation and no one flies me from Hong Kong to London for a half day meeting. I could see the EC and the Euro if not actually collapsing and disappearing morphing into something they aren't now as the states that are very pro EC and pro Euro also have electorates who may not be willing to take the hit that supporting failing states may in term longer term cause. Time will tell. I predict a fudge and that the issue will be put off for another day.

What amazes me is the gravy train attitude that seems so pervasive and widespread these days. In the case of Greece we have large numbers of people who have colluded in systems which have brought the country to the state it is now in and they show no sign of wanting to change their ways and in fact they seem to think that even suggesting that they do is fascist in the extreme and if I was a German tax payer and voter I'd be wondering why I should fund their lifestyles any longer. We see this eagerness to cling to the gravy train in the UK too and I find myself wondering why I should fund the lifestyles of others who frankly don't seem to be trying hard enough to fund their own.
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To be fair the Greeks have made massive cuts to their deficit (from a peak of 15% to around 1% - link). And a reasonable person would argue that the most efficient way of enabling repayment would be to put the 25% of people currently unemployed back to work. Severe austerity doesn't allow this.

On a side note it could be argued that the following quote be as equally applied to the banks as to Greece.

woof woof said:
....What amazes me is the gravy train attitude that seems so pervasive and widespread these days. In the case of Greece we have large numbers of people who have colluded in systems which have brought the country to the state it is now in and they show no sign of wanting to change their ways and in fact they seem to think that even suggesting that they do is fascist in the extreme.....
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Rapscallion said:
To be fair the Greeks have made massive cuts to their deficit (from a peak of 15% to around 1% - link). And a reasonable person would argue that the most efficient way of enabling repayment would be to put the 25% of people currently unemployed back to work. Severe austerity doesn't allow this.

On a side note it could be argued that the following quote be as equally applied to the banks as to Greece.
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You can't say that. It's the opposite of the 'truth' the banks are sponsoring the media to propogate.

Of course, the fact that it's more believable and has statistics to back it up shouldn't be ignored. In exactly the same way as our debt is growing despite massive austerity measures ostensibly designed to do the opposite.
 
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