

It’s Time for Greece to Leave the Euro - juanplusjuan
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/opinion/jochen-bittner-its-time-for-greece-to-leave-the-euro.html

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antman
> A big part of the blame for this mess rests on the shoulders of the
> chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel herself. Her statement that “if the
> euro fails, Europe fails” was understood by Athens as a carte blanche

Not really, they know she is lying. She had promised the German taxpayer that
there would be no costs bailing out Greece. She falsely claimed the debt was
sustainable. She promoted a bail out program that virtually destroyed the
Greek economy and refuses to take responsibility for it. Talks about Greek
claims and democratic vote and how it is against European peoples pretty much
ignoring the humanitarian crisis. She sheds crocodile tears for elderly
waiting for 60€ daily at the ATMs while monthly assistance for 400euro
pensions was erased with a red pen. Knows exactly what austerity measures she
wants and when she was presented with any program that does not include those
measures "it is not clear enough bring another one". And when Greeks can't
there is a "breach of trust" The journalist from Die Zeit simply promotes the
usual rhetoric.

But politically she is right. I have noticed a constant attack against her in
German recently but for all the wrong reasons.

------
anigbrowl
_over the past five months Europe has heard way too much from his government
about the impossibility of further cuts and way too little about possible
sources of new income._

This is wildly untruthful. The last set of Syriza proposals included things
like a one-off tax of 12% on business incomes over €500,000 (not unreasonable
in either amount or in the context of a culture of corrupt tax evasion), as
well as a small rise in corporate tax from 26 to 29%. Creditors rejected these
proposals as being 'anti growth'. Now I don't think one can ta one's way to
prosperity, but the last 5 years of austerity in Greece strongly suggest that
you can't cut your way there either, and it's facile to pretend that taxes
should only be considered for their pure macroeconomic effects considering the
lamentable history of tax evasion in Greece (which has deep cultural roots in
centuries under the Ottoman Empire.

Greece still has to undertake massive reforms, and Syriza's governance has
been marked by brinksmanship and overheated rhetoric - but that's what happens
when you put people's backs against the wall. It's a generational-scale
problem that calls for a long-term rather than the nonsensical series of
bandaids that have been thrown at it. I certainly felt that some austerity and
fiscal adjustment was warranted, and indeed applying that approach has allowed
countries like Ireland to to re-balance the books and regain access to capital
markets. But this approach has plainly ceased to work in the case of Greece.

More detail on the specifics of said proposals here:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/06/greek-
ba...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/06/greek-bail-out-
negotiations)

 _Neither the eurozone nor Europe is best served by holding on to Greece.
Instead, the European Union needs to come up with a smooth way out of its
dilemma, namely an orderly exit by Greece from the euro._

This is about as sensible as adopting a continental currency called the Mark
and then trying to kick Germany out of it, or seeking to cure the pain of bad
hangover by amputating one's own head. The very word _Europe_ is of Hellenic
origin, along with the concepts of democracy, a republic, and the bulk of our
philosophical worldview. A Euro without Greece may make short-term fiscal
sense but it makes absolutely zero political sense.

------
nakedrobot2
Thanks for the obvious!

My question is, HOW did they get INTO the euro in the first place? Obviously
that's the insane part, and once the fraud that was perpetrated on Brussels
became clear, why weren't they kicked out immediately?

~~~
Lazare
> once the fraud that was perpetrated on Brussels became clear, why weren't
> they kicked out immediately?

It was clear from before the Euro ever started. Everyone (by which I mean, the
elites, analysts, the press, politicians, et al) knew that countries like
Greece and Portugal had no business joining the Euro, and were lying through
their teeth to get in. Then again, everyone knew that the entire project was
founded on lies, cooked books, and ignored rules, sacrificed towards the
overriding goal of ever closer union.

After letting Greece in with a wink and a nod, why in the world would they
have then kicked them out? The fraud, if you want to call it that, was on the
voters and taxpayers, not on the people running the EU. And if they kicked
them out, how could they justify not kicking out all the other countries who
had engaged in blatant trickery, which would be, well, all of them?

France engaged in some elaborate budget trickery to get their deficit under
the line (swapping future pension obligations for one off payments to make
their deficit look low enough)[1], Germany waffled a bit but the moves were
accepted. How could they not be? France at least lied to make their deficit
pass muster; Germany was in blatant violation from the start (which was meant
to preclude their entry, or at least trigger massive fines. Naturally it did
neither.)

Or in short: It's the old glass houses rule. France, Germany, Italy, etc, were
in _NO_ place to demand a strict adherence to the rules in the case of Greece,
since by a strict reading of the rules they shouldn't have been in the Euro
zone either. The Euro project was inherently political from the start, and
_politically_ it needed as many countries to join as possible. Even if that
was economic disaster.

Edit: A better link[2] about how by the terms of the governing treaties, most
Eurozone members did not qualify for entry, including (hilariously) Germany
which had too much debt.

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/20/news/20iht-
euro.t.html](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/20/news/20iht-euro.t.html)

[2]: [http://www.voxeu.org/article/politics-maastricht-
convergence...](http://www.voxeu.org/article/politics-maastricht-convergence-
criteria)

