exactly. Europe, in particular Germany should have a clawback on assets. In the same way Greece granted asset sales to Russians and Chinese I fail to understand why Hitler is brought up even in conservative news casts when Germans postulate asset sales in the event of a failure to repay debt. This is the problem that Europe has with Greece: A country of people that love to privatize gains but socialize losses and not just socialize losses within their own economy but tax the rest of Europe. This is not solidarity and not even social.
Fair, then leave the EU, simple as that. But also accept all that comes with it, exclusion from Schengen (ouch), exclusion from transfer payments (Greece has forever been a net recipient, ouch), exclusion from tax preferential treatment within the EU for trade (ouch), exclusion from free trade (ouch). Let's see where that leads to. But what Tsipras is doing is lying to his own people. He basically promises things that he has no power of fulfilling. Not that other politicians don't do it, but he makes bogus claims to such extent that even dumb people should see through it. Yet an uneducated blogger has been elected to lead the country to reforms and eventually a higher standard of living via better work efficiencies, higher employment, GDP growth? Are you kidding me? Germany is lead by a Physics scholar, France by equally educated and trained bureaucrats (despite the fact that they sit more to the left than where Germany's leader sit. How can anyone right in his mind have faith that this man (Tsipras) can even fulfill a small fraction of what he promised? It was a pure boycott election and the outcome is much worse than anything else that might have happened. P.S.: And hey, let's see where Greece will source their defense arsenal from if they leave the EU. They already heavily lean into Russia's thighs so you think any defense corporation in the EU will be granted export licenses to Greece if Greeks are in bed with Putin? Of course they can always buy used Kalashnikovs in Uganda and from various African tribes. They might need them once the Turks realize the weakened state of affairs of their Greek neighbor. After all there are still a lot of axes to grind between those two great nations. But getting back to reality, their gamble to embrace Russia especially right now is a very dangerous game.
Lol, cheap holiday deals? You clearly have zero idea what you are talking about, have you ever been to Greece? If you had travelled to any of the islands and attempted to savor a seafood meal at any of the local restaurants you would know that they charge 2-3 times more for local fish than you would pay at a 5 star resort in the Caribbean. Guess why: Because the locals have zero idea how Econ 101 works. For them the logic goes like this: Less tourists -> Raise prices to make up for lost revenue. Lol. Good luck with that. Certainly German tourists will avoid.
And so are tons of Germans who live below the poverty line. Yet they only open their hands to receive from German welfare pots, they won't knock on Italy's or Holland's front doors. You can't justify arrogant and outlandish demands with living standards.
You are cute. Maybe you wanna take a look at the base which makes much more sense. GDP per capita should be looked at because it is a reflection of productivity of its citizens. And in that respect Greece looks very poorly, on par with countries like Barbados, Antigua, Cyprus, Gabon, Malta. Proves the point exactly. Greece had a productivity on par with countries that have never entered the history books for broad human inventions, advances, or innovation. Yet Greece is the opposite, they have a very rich culture, history, have participated in a lot of the world's innovations and advances yet their productivity prior to joining the EU has been incredibly low. Same goes for Spain. Think about it. Those two countries were selling tomatoes and other fruits and produce prior to joining. Few years later, it was hard to find more outlandish parties in anywhere in Europe than in Barcelona or Madrid (of course aside Bunga Bunga parties in small parts of Italy). Does that tell you nothing? PS.: Greeks were happy with the way it was? Then why did they join the EU? And more importantly, you are claiming they were happy with how things were run? May I remind you of the "Greek Genocide", Coup d'etats, followed by dictatorial regimes, after WWII a civil war between communist and anticommunist forces, another Coup d'etat, then a counter-coup which brought to power yet another dictator resulting in a much later democratization than most other Western and Southern European countries. So much to peace and "life that went on for millennia", lol. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/countries?page=5
Indeed western Russia is geographically Europe. However culturally 90% of Russia can't really be considered European. You go to Russia expecting dishonesty, you don't have that expectation in EU countries generally.
This is the real reason why Greece refers to nazi's. Godwin's law (or Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]— that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Nah, I think the refer to Nazi coz they look for excuses (moral and financial) not to repay their debts. Very very low imo. Besides have you noticed the greek pilot who crashed when training in Spain a few days ago ? Killed 9 or 10 french soldiers and a couple more europeans along himself. Friggin' assets to Europe those greeks... http://www.ibtimes.co.in/spain-figh...lled-f-16-nosedives-explodes-nato-base-621596
Volpunter, Franco the spanish dictator died in 1975, he passed power to the King of Spain who then introduced democracy. It seems Greece got free elections at least 1 year earlier. From memory Spain enjoyed the faster growth rate of european countries for a while, I'd say the country benefited tremendously from entering europe, which makes me feel aghast at spanish locals on the same wavelenght as Tspiras ( I have much deeper ties with Spain than Greece though, and still like the country) edit : it seems Portugal also started to enjoy free elections a little after Greece, actually those 3 countries reached "western democracy" status around the same time
You are actually right, if I said Greece was the last country to introduce democratic principles in Western Europe then I stand corrected, thank you. Yes, both Greece and Spain (well, also Portugal and a number other Southern European countries) benefited from their joining the EU tremendously. Saying Germany benefited the most or even equally because of an artificially cheap Euro is a slap in the face; its outright preposterous given the fact what hardships the average German consumers had to endure when the euro was introduced and many items were in that conversion priced 20-30, sometimes 50 percent higher. Also, at the exchange rates we have witnessed between Deutsche Mark crosses and Euro crosses one can hardly speak of the Euro as being artificially cheap. All of Europe has shopped German products for decades before the introduction of the Euro and that also did not drive the Mark into astronomical spheres. Suggesting that Germany greatly benefited from a "cheap" Euro are hence without factual basis and rational.