Nothing exciting happening with Greece

For as long as I can remember,  the Greek government has been spending other people’s money.

For as long as I can remember, there has been a financial crisis in which those reluctantly funding the Greek government announce this is now going to stop.

In the latest crisis, the German government meets with the Greek government and with great firmness tells them to stop spending German money.

But, short of Germany leaving the Euro, the German government has no power to stop other people from spending German money.  The European Central Bank has, through a variety of moves, some of them immoral but arguably legal, some of them flat out illegal, gathered the power to spend unlimited amounts of the money of the more solvent countries of the European Union on its clients and cronies.

Only the unelected and permanent European Central Bank has the power to stop funding Greece.  When the Greek government starts negotiating with the European Central Bank, then negotiations might matter.

13 Responses to “Nothing exciting happening with Greece”

  1. Zimriel says:

    So no matter who gets elected in Germany, the bankers get their vig and the money goes to welfare cases? Almost sounds like democracy im Deutschland is a sham.

  2. Thrasymachus says:

    Germany must consider this to their advantage, or they would not do it. Southern Europe is being crucified on a cross of gold.

    • Dave says:

      Consider three options for the German government (BMW = anything made in Germany):

      #1: Keep “loaning” money to the PIIGS with no hope of repayment, just so they can keep buying BMWs. (I call this the W. T. Grant strategy.)

      #2: Let the PIIGS go broke, buy all the unsold BMWs, and dump them in the North Sea.

      #3: Let the PIIGS go broke, and tell BMW to sell their cars to someone else.

      #2 costs less than #1 while maintaining the same level of German employment. But I doubt that even the most fanatical Keynesian could argue with a straight face that #2 is better than #3.

    • jim says:

      Greece keeps borrowing money and not repaying, is not able to repay it. Germany keeps demanding that it be repaid. If repaid, indeed Greece would be crucified on a cross of gold, but Germany has no power to demand repayment. It is all just show.

      • peppermint says:

        Germany could force repayment by marching in an army and setting up ordnung, but, they already lost the war with Communists and Jews. And here we are thinking we can reverse the decisions of 70 years ago.

  3. Greece = very slow motion train wreck. It needs to fail for once and for all

  4. Contaminated NEET says:

    Nothing’s happening with Greece? We’ll see. You agree that the Euro is unsustainable and that Europe’s financial order is built on quicksand, right? Eventually the whole diseased temple is going to come crashing down, and when it does, it’s going to crack first at its weakest point, namely Greece. Nothing’s really happened yet, and it seems like business as usual, but that’s exactly how things will seem until they don’t anymore.

    Trees don’t grow to the sky. Someday it’s going to collapse; if only I knew when I’d be a very wealthy NEET.

    • jim says:

      There is a lot ruin in a nation. Trees do not grow to the sky, but markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

      Someday it will collapse, but not looking at my stopwatch just yet.

    • peppermint says:

      » if only I knew when I’d be a very wealthy NEET

      you and every other right-wing spectator from the very most mainstream. One reason the market doesn’t collapse is to let the other team eat your shorts.

      Besides, the recession is over.

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