OK, fine. Y’all aren’t entirely racist. (I do think the northern European politics is pretty explicitly using racism and national slurs, though.)
Some of you are just anti-socialist, anti-public-sector, etc.
I am stipulating that the governments before 2008 screwed up. But those agreements were bad risks by the foreign (largely German) banks. A bad loan takes a lender as well as a borrower, and the loans really went bad because of a financial crisis started outside the despised “GIPSI’s” like Greece and Spain.
This demonization of Greek pensions and their supposed awful work ethic only really became a major thing after a crash started in the extremely right-wing USA.
Eh… they’re white, I’m white, ergo I can talk shit about the Greeks all I fucking well please.
Not that I am, but saying it’s racist is a bit of a stretch, unless we’re talking about non-white people doing it.
Personally, I don’t feel particularly sorry for a nation who is having economic and financial troubles who also has a culture or habit of non-payment of taxes. That’s about as foolish and idiotic as bitching about your crushing, terrible money problems when you’re only cashing every other paycheck, and burning the rest.
You’re totally missing the entire point of the OP.
“Race” does not mean “color” in this case. It refers to national stereotyping. And it’s hypocritical coming from Americans, who have actually designed their political system to be incapable of raising taxes and to constantly borrow money.
So all of that is irrelevant, but the Greek race, or “people,” or “culture” is slammed for doing the same thing. Except of course that they committed the unforgivable sins of having a large public sector and not disenfranchising or exiling all their communists decades ago.
Now, the Germans (or rather, the power structure; not the Deutscher in the street so much) still think they’re superior, but that’s another thing. They were happy to invest in Greece when times were good. Now things are bad, and Germany is blaming everyone else, while Germany’s internal anti-inflation policies are apparently responsible for creating depression and deflation in the Eurozone. (At least, if you believe the likes of Paul Krugman, who’s been harping on this for years. But of course he writes in English, and is a dirty pro-inflation American, and other unGerman things, so they happily ignore him.)
Except, and here’s thing thing. The US does not default on it’s debt. Greece is about to. You may not like that simple fact, but it is true. People who invested in Greece are going to lose money.
Besides, what the hell, foolsguinea? You are guilty of the worst kind of American exceptionalism. You live in the U.S. , born and raised in the heartland, and you think your politics will work over there? It’s not even the same game.
Im all for a limited public sector. However, im very much against a socialist top heavy public sector that is unaffordable. This describes Greece perfectly. It’s finances were nowhere near sound enough to justify it’s level of public sector spending.
Yes, European banks took a risk on lending to Greece. Im kinda sympathetic to Grece defaulting. But let’s not pretend this won’t have consequences for both the Greek economy and European pension funds. European banks/govts should accept a haircut or default. The Greeks then have to accept the consequences on most defaulters. These consequences include a reputation as a bad risk and borrowing rates at eye watering levels.
The Czech lady I sometimes run into at work has made denigrating comments about the lazy Greeks not working hard enough to pull their weight. I had to correct her with the kind of info Camille cited- actually, the Greeks work more hours per person per year than just about any other nationality.
Racist? Well kinda, but probably closer to a kind of nasty nationalism. I’m not going to wade into the structure of Greek society or the particulars of the thread in question, I just want to point out that in my experience, yes, people do denigrate the Greek people generally, and that does strike me as wrong- if nothing else, it amounts to barking up the wrong tree.
It’s true that the UK (and Sweden and Denmark) made bilateral loans to Ireland and not to Greece. My point was that the amounts (although badly needed at a time when nobody else would lend to us) were relatively small in comparison to the size of the Greek bailout.
In addition, Irish banks do not have parent banks based in London. Their losses were borne by the Irish taxpayer. (With the exception of Ulster Bank, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland.)
