On 7/5/2015 9:09 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 05.07.2015 um 18:44 schrieb Stephen:
>
>> When I've listened to the Greek politicians being interviewed. They all
>> say that the current situation puts them in the position of loan shark
>> victims. Well, that's what it sounds like to me, paraphrased.
>> I think the Euro zone banks should give Greece loans at a rate that can
>> be paid back without grinding the faces of the proletariat, any further.
>> Whoops!  <gets back down off soap box>
>> I don't see how setting up contracts that cannot be fulfilled is helping
>> anyone.
>
> Well, of course that's what the Greek politicians say in interviews.
> They have a people to please. I was quite optimistic about Tsipras and
> his team, but now it seems to me that he is - and always has been - more
> interested in becoming popular by pointing the finger at the creditors
> and shouting "foul" rathern than really tackling Greece's problems.
>
> You are aware that the money the Greek government wants from the EU has
> ZERO interest for quite a while, and is only due to be paid back several
> decades from now? That's hardly loan shark practice.
>

No I wasn't. I was probably only listening with half an ear. I thought I 
heard that their loans are more expensive because of their credit 
rating. Hardly indeed.


>
> Also, the EU isn't really breaking Greece's fingers. They're just
> demanding from Greece the equivalent of pulling itself together and
> getting a decent job (or at least what the EU thinks is a decent job).
>

I don't think that is a valid analogy, comparing a whole country to one 
individual. As the song goes.
It's the rich that gets the pleasure and the poor what gets the blame.


> So they're not in the position of loan shark victims -

Okay, I was wrong. Write it in your diary. ;-)

>
> And that picture fails to include Greece's threat to pull down the Euro
> with them.
>
>

There is something wrong with the Euro then. If one dodgy member 
removing its dodgyness, brings it down.

> Tsipras' strategy, from the start on, seems to have been to play chicken
> with the EU. Riding a scooter against a pick-up truck, which may or may
> not be carrying some highly flammable load.
>
> Bad idea. Even /if/ the truck is driving on the wrong side of the road.

Well, there are a few countries that are quite successful at that. 
(Pointing to elbows at North Korea.)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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