Is it reasonable to expect Greece to live within their means as a condition of the bailout?
or do harsh Austerity measures merely worsen the prospect of economic recovery?
Is it reasonable to expect Greece to live within their means as a condition of the bailout?
Well, no, of course it's not reasonable. Greece just told the world that it refuses to do so.
or do harsh Austerity measures merely worsen the prospect of economic recovery?
Not as much as Greece getting kicked out of the European Union would.
Getting kicked out of the EU is probably better for greece in the medium term. The bailout deal was truely awful and the greek economy would go through a minimum of a decade of hell.
Is it reasonable to expect Greece to live within their means as a condition of the bailout?
What bailout?
Just taking a look at this. It looks as though most of the money has just gone round in a very big circle. With the ECB sending money to Greece, for them to send most of it straight back to the Foreign banks that helped get them in the mess in the first place.
Whilst there needs to be some blame put on Greece for running up massive debts there is a lot of truth behind the old adage it takes Two to Tango. Greece would not be in this situation if the foreign banks had not been so reckless in lending that vast quantity of money to Greece.
But now the whole heap of cards is in danger of collapsing it appears the banks have managed to sidestep their risks and palm it off to someone else, namely the European Tax payer. And the only only remedy offered to Greece has been to kick them until they fall down and now they have fallen down, hold them there and keep on kicking them.
To quote a comment I read on an article earlier the choice that the Greek people have been given is an immeadiate kick in the balls (yes vote), or sticking 2 fingers up at the ECB and IMF followed by a kick in the balls. After getting kicked for 5 years I can understand the urge to say no more even if it is just a symbolic gesture.
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Whilst there needs to be some blame put on Greece for running up massive debts there is a lot of truth behind the old adage it takes Two to Tango. Greece would not be in this situation if the foreign banks had not been so reckless in lending that vast quantity of money to Greece.
I have never understood this sentiment or the point it's trying to convey. If I go into thousands of dollars of debt buying Magic cards, is it as much Wizards' fault for selling me the cards as it is my fault for buying them?
Of course, in the strict literal sense one can't incur debt without a willing lender. But that does not mean the lender is responsible for the debtor's decisions.
Whilst there needs to be some blame put on Greece for running up massive debts there is a lot of truth behind the old adage it takes Two to Tango. Greece would not be in this situation if the foreign banks had not been so reckless in lending that vast quantity of money to Greece.
I have never understood this sentiment or the point it's trying to convey. If I go into thousands of dollars of debt buying Magic cards, is it as much Wizards' fault for selling me the cards as it is my fault for buying them?
Of course, in the strict literal sense one can't incur debt without a willing lender. But that does not mean the lender is responsible for the debtor's decisions.
Banks lend out in hopes of making a profit. It is their job to evaluate the credit worthiness and risk of the parties they are lending to. If they do a bad job, they should theoretically run the risk of not getting paid back.
If banks loan to Greece, they should run the risk of not getting paid back by the Greek government.
The banks probably loaned money to Greece because they knew they were going to get paid back no matter what. Even if Greece couldn't pay them back, they reasoned, someone would loan money to Greece (i.e. bailout) so that Greece could pay back its original debtor. That in fact happened. On several occasions in fact. That's the problem with bailouts. They create a moral hazard.
In this manner reckless lending by foreign banks can exacerbate the problem. Reckless lending basically increases the size of the hole bad debtors can get themselves into.
Let's be honest and frank. We are here because we (third parties) care about Greece. We care about them leaving the euro and the financial shock to the rest of the world this could cause, not to mention the political consequences to the stability of the eurozone. We don't know the long term fall out this could have. It could be little, it could be a lot.
Once a third party starts caring about Greece and their financial stability because their own economic stability depends on Greece indirectly, then indeed the size of the hole Greece gets themselves into matters.
Is this not the natural consequences of socialism?
Not, it's a natural consequence of consolidating your currency with both strong and weak countries in terms of economy.
The natural consequence of socialism is a steady and slow shift towards commmunism.
What I like about Greece's actions is that it sets a precedent and regardless of how the imf handles it, it will end up in either all the small countries leaving first or the big countries leaving first. Regardless, the EU will be exposed as the big sham it is. If the banks forgive the debt, all other countries will be outraged their debts still exist and leave. If they do not forgive their debts, the richer countries will simply leave as they have nothing to gain but squabbles with the poorer countries.
Greece will most likely leave the EU and make its own currency which will allow it to control its own economy outside of EU influence and also be able to regulate its population and influx of migrants.
The way the EU worked with countries in debt is simply stupid. You cannot solve their debt and their economical difficulty by putting them more in debt. Rather than to consolidate all the european nations' debts together and working towards a stronger economy, they banks decided their own interests were superior to that of the whole and now they are in this mess.
Good for Greece. They handled it the best way possible.
Is this not the natural consequences of socialism?
I am certainly no economic expert but from some things I have read you may have it backwards. It is the natural consequence of unrestrained capitalism.
You can't have a country that has very few taxes. Everyone in Europe knew 15 years ago that somehow the bubble will burst and Greece will have problems.
The only thing we need to hope for is that it doesn't drag us down too.
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Is this not the natural consequences of socialism?
I am certainly no economic expert but from some things I have read you may have it backwards. It is the natural consequence of unrestrained capitalism.
I'm pretty sure Greece has never had anything approaching "unrestrained capitalism."
Is this not the natural consequences of socialism?
I am certainly no economic expert but from some things I have read you may have it backwards. It is the natural consequence of unrestrained capitalism.
I'm pretty sure Greece has never had anything approaching "unrestrained capitalism."
Not being an economist, I googled 'Greece capitalism'. I discovered that according to most of the links on the first page, the problems in Greece are due to capitalism, but according to the remaining links, the problems are due to insufficient capitalism.
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I'm pretty sure Greece has never had anything approaching "unrestrained capitalism."
Perhaps not, but the banks which agreed to loan them all the money, which control the greek currency (the euro), and who created the global financial crisis of the past decade, are most certainly capitalist.
Blaming capitalism for the current Greek economic crisis is like blaming Newton's laws when someone is killed by a drunk driver. Sure, physics was the proximate cause -- but the drunk guy at the wheel and his poor decision making were the ultimate cause.
I would suggest focusing on the ultimate causes -- the moral decisions made by human beings that led to the accumulation of more debt than could conceivably be repaid.
TomCat mentioned one of them -- lending that would be irresponsible but for the reliance of lenders on the fact that "bailouts" have now been enshrined as standard practice. If it wasn't clear why those crazy right-wingers were shouting about how that was a bad idea, well, I hope the picture is getting less fuzzy now.
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Blaming capitalism for the current Greek economic crisis is like blaming Newton's laws when someone is killed by a drunk driver. Sure, physics was the proximate cause -- but the drunk guy at the wheel and his poor decision making were the ultimate cause.
And yet, these "ultimate causes" result directly from capitalism's modus operandi: use your position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital. To narrow down the blame for the crisis to those who are acting within capitalism, rather than looking at the conditions that make their poor decisions rational (from the perspective of the lender) or seemingly necessary (from the perspective of the borrower), is to miss the forest for the trees.
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Playing with proxied cards at sanctioned events is good, actually.
And yet, these "ultimate causes" result directly from capitalism's modus operandi: use your position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital.
The reason I suggested talking about the actual human decisions behind the crisis was to encourage rational discussion that can be conducted on the basis of facts as opposed to things like this. This is just an empty Marxist slogan.
To narrow down the blame for the crisis to those who are acting within capitalism, rather than looking at the conditions that make their poor decisions rational (from the perspective of the lender) or seemingly necessary (from the perspective of the borrower), is to miss the forest for the trees.
In Western liberal society, we all act within capitalism, and blame attaches only to moral agents. Therefore any blame that we do or can assign will be assigned to those acting within capitalism. To blame capitalism is to blame the forest when someone chops down some of the trees.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Blaming capitalism for the current Greek economic crisis is like blaming Newton's laws when someone is killed by a drunk driver. Sure, physics was the proximate cause -- but the drunk guy at the wheel and his poor decision making were the ultimate cause.
And yet, these "ultimate causes" result directly from capitalism's modus operandi: use your position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital. To narrow down the blame for the crisis to those who are acting within capitalism, rather than looking at the conditions that make their poor decisions rational (from the perspective of the lender) or seemingly necessary (from the perspective of the borrower), is to miss the forest for the trees.
I think the reason why people, including myself, would fight you on this one is that even given what you're saying, it's just not a useful classification.
First of all the link is attenuated. Your reasoning is a vast generalization of what occurred. Notice I didn't say wrong, I just said its a generalization. But if I took your generalization one step further to generalize even more, I would claim that "the use of a position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital" is merely abuse of power. Abuse of power is not specific to capitalism.
So now let me claim that the reason why Greece is in the position it's in is because of an abuse of power. Now that answer isn't wrong, I'm sure someone somewhere along the way abused their power in this fiasco. Its just so far removed from the specifics of the situation it's not very helpful.
Let's go back to your capitalism concept as the ultimate cause. Are we going to outlaw capitalism if capitalism is the reason? I'm going to boldly claim that the ship has already sailed on that one. Capitalism is here to stay. Therefore, the more productive endeavor is indeed to focus on those who are acting within capitalism.
Which bank did what, how can we prevent this from happening again. Are bailouts a good policy. And if they are, how then can we limit the damage of banks who enable parties with poor credit to dig themselves into a bigger hole.
It is difficult to enforce demands against an entire sovereign nation like Greece. But it might be easier to make rules against banks. Right now I see the banks' incentives as completely skewed.
If I were a bank and had 1 billion in capital, what's the easier way to make money?
1. Loan a billion to Greece at a high interest rate, with likely bailout protection from other Eurozone nations.
2. Loan a billion to thousands if not millions of people, requiring diligent risk analysis for each party, with ZERO chance of any bailout protection should any default.
Clearly right now, the incentives for #1 vastly outweigh #2.
The reason I suggested talking about the actual human decisions behind the crisis was to encourage rational discussion that can be conducted on the basis of facts as opposed to things like this. This is just an empty Marxist slogan.
It is not a slogan. It is the way that capital is accumulated and the way its exchange is negotiated. That is to say, is fundamental to capitalism. It is as much a "fact" as is the actions of those operating within capitalism.
In Western liberal society, we all act within capitalism...
Yes, unfortunately.
...and blame attaches only to moral agents.
This is just semantics. You can't (or at least I hope you wouldn't) seriously suggest that our evaluation of what *caused* a crisis should not consider the workings of things other than "moral agents" (like institutions, economic systems, etc.). Institutions wield power, and influence the world just as much as "moral agents."
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Playing with proxied cards at sanctioned events is good, actually.
I think the reason why people, including myself, would fight you on this one is that even given what you're saying, it's just not a useful classification.
First of all the link is attenuated. Your reasoning is a vast generalization of what occurred. Notice I didn't say wrong, I just said its a generalization. But if I took your generalization one step further to generalize even more, I would claim that "the use of a position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital" is merely abuse of power. Abuse of power is not specific to capitalism.
You're right. Abuse of power is not specific to capitalism. But abuse of power is enabled (and encouraged) by capitalism, which is why it is worth examining in the first place.
So now let me claim that the reason why Greece is in the position it's in is because of an abuse of power. Now that answer isn't wrong, I'm sure someone somewhere along the way abused their power in this fiasco. Its just so far removed from the specifics of the situation it's not very helpful.
Its helpfulness depends on your goals. If you want to develop conditions that aren't continually ripe for economic disaster, then it is indeed helpful to examine the systems in which we operate. If you're looking to take someone to the gallows, then it becomes less helpful.
Let's go back to your capitalism concept as the ultimate cause. Are we going to outlaw capitalism if capitalism is the reason? I'm going to boldly claim that the ship has already sailed on that one. Capitalism is here to stay. Therefore, the more productive endeavor is indeed to focus on those who are acting within capitalism.
Uh, what? Political and economic organization changes all the time.
Which bank did what, how can we prevent this from happening again.
How can you even pose this question without a willingness to examine the systems that govern exchange?
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Playing with proxied cards at sanctioned events is good, actually.
they banks decided their own interests were superior to that of the whole and now they are in this mess.
Depressing but not that surprising. I feel like big unions like this are best for humankind as a whole (especially because a lot of problems we face are on such a global scale like climate change) but they need to be somewhat selfless in nature, which is a lot to ask for a company who's only goal is to make as much money as possible.
My cousin works on Wallstreet making money hand over fist. He's a very smart guy, and really understands capitalism. Recently, his firm found out that some people within it were taking loans. These people wanted to spend more money than they currently had, but didn't want to tell their own company. To combat this -and to provide for their employees- the company he worked for was discreetly calling employees and asking them if they wanted a loan. My cousin -who as far as I know isn't living outside his means- was called by his company and told this story. He was then asked if he wanted to discreetly take out a loan to pay old loans or other expenses. To which he responded:
"What's the rate?"
The women on the other end said she didn't know, but said it was probably close to 0%. He said:
"If it's under 1%, then I'll take a billion dollars."
When telling me this story he said he felt -at the time- like maybe this was a IQ test from his company or something. From the women's response he told me it was clear he was going off script, but he didn't understand -when he realize it wasn't a test- why his company thought calling people who's job it was to make money with such a deal was a good idea. He explained if you can get money cheep, any good capitalist would take all he can get. It's practically your responsibility to do so.
Was Greece irresponsible when suddenly they where offered an unheard of -for them- low rate? Probably. Were they acting like good capitalists? Probably?
Quick question: Why is anyone trying to bail out Greece? Specifically, why does anyone think loaning Greece even more money will result in anything different than what has been happening?
I'm not saying they're wrong for thinking this, because I know pretty much nothing about the situation. I'm asking why they would think this.
Quick question: Why is anyone trying to bail out Greece? Specifically, why does anyone think loaning Greece even more money will result in anything different than what has been happening?
I don't think the entities who want to bail out Greece are doing so because they expect to profit directly from further loans to Greece. In fact, the bailout proposals have all involved the lenders taking huge writedowns on the existing loans.
It seems that the incentive to bail out Greece has a fair bit to do with the potential negative consequences to some parties if Greece leaves the EU.
First and probably foremost, there's the matter of the global markets. I don't pay much attention to the foreign markets, but I can tell you the Dow has been on quite a rollercoaster ride as Greece vacillates between deal and no deal. Keep in mind that, sadly, Greece isn't worth that much money. Their GDP is only a little higher than Apple's annual revenue. It may simply be that the hit to the markets from a Grexit is more painful to the financial organizations involved than the writedowns on the loans.
Second, 40% of the Grecian voters find remaining in the EU to be in their interest even with fairly severe austerity riders attached, based on the results of the referendum. True, they're in the minority, but that's still a lot of people.
Third, there are people with a vested interest in the concept of the Eurozone, whether it be because of advantageous monetary power (poorer countries like Greece get the short end of the stick from centralized monetary policy) or political ideology. (the EU is a small scale experiment in globalized top-down monetary policy and if it fails, so does that idea) These people are worried about the precedent a Grexit would set. If a country can simply turn its back and go its own way when the externally imposed monetary policy is no longer appealing, then globalizing the policy starts to seem like a futile exercise. To the ideologues, paying Greece off in the form of a writedown on its loans is a small price to pay to avoid this precedent being set. Germany could buy Greece a hundred times over. (Without having to borrow any money.)
Whilst there needs to be some blame put on Greece for running up massive debts there is a lot of truth behind the old adage it takes Two to Tango. Greece would not be in this situation if the foreign banks had not been so reckless in lending that vast quantity of money to Greece.
I have never understood this sentiment or the point it's trying to convey. If I go into thousands of dollars of debt buying Magic cards, is it as much Wizards' fault for selling me the cards as it is my fault for buying them?
Of course, in the strict literal sense one can't incur debt without a willing lender. But that does not mean the lender is responsible for the debtor's decisions.
Banks lend out in hopes of making a profit. It is their job to evaluate the credit worthiness and risk of the parties they are lending to. If they do a bad job, they should theoretically run the risk of not getting paid back.
If banks loan to Greece, they should run the risk of not getting paid back by the Greek government.
The banks probably loaned money to Greece because they knew they were going to get paid back no matter what. Even if Greece couldn't pay them back, they reasoned, someone would loan money to Greece (i.e. bailout) so that Greece could pay back its original debtor. That in fact happened. On several occasions in fact. That's the problem with bailouts. They create a moral hazard.
In this manner reckless lending by foreign banks can exacerbate the problem. Reckless lending basically increases the size of the hole bad debtors can get themselves into.
Let's be honest and frank. We are here because we (third parties) care about Greece. We care about them leaving the euro and the financial shock to the rest of the world this could cause, not to mention the political consequences to the stability of the eurozone. We don't know the long term fall out this could have. It could be little, it could be a lot.
Once a third party starts caring about Greece and their financial stability because their own economic stability depends on Greece indirectly, then indeed the size of the hole Greece gets themselves into matters.
This is total non-sense.
The existance of risk not a justification for breaking a contract. We all take food poisoning risk when we eat on a restaurant, it doesnt change the fact the restaurant is owning us if we get poisoned for eating there.
The risk banks take on landing money is akin to the risk you take when you buy something online or when you employ someone new. It's NOT like the risk you take on lotery, on poker or on spory bets. The difference between the two kinds of risks is, one is the risk of a stabilished legal contract failing, the other is a risk stabilished by a legal contract.
My cousin works on Wallstreet making money hand over fist. He's a very smart guy, and really understands capitalism. Recently, his firm found out that some people within it were taking loans. These people wanted to spend more money than they currently had, but didn't want to tell their own company. To combat this -and to provide for their employees- the company he worked for was discreetly calling employees and asking them if they wanted a loan. My cousin -who as far as I know isn't living outside his means- was called by his company and told this story. He was then asked if he wanted to discreetly take out a loan to pay old loans or other expenses. To which he responded:
"What's the rate?"
The women on the other end said she didn't know, but said it was probably close to 0%. He said:
"If it's under 1%, then I'll take a billion dollars."
When telling me this story he said he felt -at the time- like maybe this was a IQ test from his company or something. From the women's response he told me it was clear he was going off script, but he didn't understand -when he realize it wasn't a test- why his company thought calling people who's job it was to make money with such a deal was a good idea. He explained if you can get money cheep, any good capitalist would take all he can get. It's practically your responsibility to do so.
Was Greece irresponsible when suddenly they where offered an unheard of -for them- low rate? Probably. Were they acting like good capitalists? Probably?
You know what the word capital stabds for right ?
Your friend is getting any amount of near 0% interest rate credit because he is using that money to invest and occasionally pay back his debt. What he is doing is being a capitalist.
Greece do not got debt in order to invest and pay it back later. The money was used to sustain cosuption or paying interest of other loans. Greece is not being a capitalist.
Unless, of course, you assume they were thinking welfare is a investment. In that vase they were capitalists, but aweful capitalists.
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Is it reasonable to expect Greece to live within their means as a condition of the bailout?
or do harsh Austerity measures merely worsen the prospect of economic recovery?
Not as much as Greece getting kicked out of the European Union would.
Getting kicked out of the EU is probably better for greece in the medium term. The bailout deal was truely awful and the greek economy would go through a minimum of a decade of hell.
What bailout?
Just taking a look at this. It looks as though most of the money has just gone round in a very big circle. With the ECB sending money to Greece, for them to send most of it straight back to the Foreign banks that helped get them in the mess in the first place.
Whilst there needs to be some blame put on Greece for running up massive debts there is a lot of truth behind the old adage it takes Two to Tango. Greece would not be in this situation if the foreign banks had not been so reckless in lending that vast quantity of money to Greece.
But now the whole heap of cards is in danger of collapsing it appears the banks have managed to sidestep their risks and palm it off to someone else, namely the European Tax payer. And the only only remedy offered to Greece has been to kick them until they fall down and now they have fallen down, hold them there and keep on kicking them.
To quote a comment I read on an article earlier the choice that the Greek people have been given is an immeadiate kick in the balls (yes vote), or sticking 2 fingers up at the ECB and IMF followed by a kick in the balls. After getting kicked for 5 years I can understand the urge to say no more even if it is just a symbolic gesture.
- H.L Mencken
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All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
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I have never understood this sentiment or the point it's trying to convey. If I go into thousands of dollars of debt buying Magic cards, is it as much Wizards' fault for selling me the cards as it is my fault for buying them?
Of course, in the strict literal sense one can't incur debt without a willing lender. But that does not mean the lender is responsible for the debtor's decisions.
Banks lend out in hopes of making a profit. It is their job to evaluate the credit worthiness and risk of the parties they are lending to. If they do a bad job, they should theoretically run the risk of not getting paid back.
If banks loan to Greece, they should run the risk of not getting paid back by the Greek government.
The banks probably loaned money to Greece because they knew they were going to get paid back no matter what. Even if Greece couldn't pay them back, they reasoned, someone would loan money to Greece (i.e. bailout) so that Greece could pay back its original debtor. That in fact happened. On several occasions in fact. That's the problem with bailouts. They create a moral hazard.
In this manner reckless lending by foreign banks can exacerbate the problem. Reckless lending basically increases the size of the hole bad debtors can get themselves into.
Let's be honest and frank. We are here because we (third parties) care about Greece. We care about them leaving the euro and the financial shock to the rest of the world this could cause, not to mention the political consequences to the stability of the eurozone. We don't know the long term fall out this could have. It could be little, it could be a lot.
Once a third party starts caring about Greece and their financial stability because their own economic stability depends on Greece indirectly, then indeed the size of the hole Greece gets themselves into matters.
Not, it's a natural consequence of consolidating your currency with both strong and weak countries in terms of economy.
The natural consequence of socialism is a steady and slow shift towards commmunism.
What I like about Greece's actions is that it sets a precedent and regardless of how the imf handles it, it will end up in either all the small countries leaving first or the big countries leaving first. Regardless, the EU will be exposed as the big sham it is. If the banks forgive the debt, all other countries will be outraged their debts still exist and leave. If they do not forgive their debts, the richer countries will simply leave as they have nothing to gain but squabbles with the poorer countries.
Greece will most likely leave the EU and make its own currency which will allow it to control its own economy outside of EU influence and also be able to regulate its population and influx of migrants.
The way the EU worked with countries in debt is simply stupid. You cannot solve their debt and their economical difficulty by putting them more in debt. Rather than to consolidate all the european nations' debts together and working towards a stronger economy, they banks decided their own interests were superior to that of the whole and now they are in this mess.
Good for Greece. They handled it the best way possible.
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This shorthand list is pretty solid too: http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/06/in-defence-of-greece-6-myths-busted/
I am certainly no economic expert but from some things I have read you may have it backwards. It is the natural consequence of unrestrained capitalism.
You can't have a country that has very few taxes. Everyone in Europe knew 15 years ago that somehow the bubble will burst and Greece will have problems.
The only thing we need to hope for is that it doesn't drag us down too.
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I'm pretty sure Greece has never had anything approaching "unrestrained capitalism."
Not being an economist, I googled 'Greece capitalism'. I discovered that according to most of the links on the first page, the problems in Greece are due to capitalism, but according to the remaining links, the problems are due to insufficient capitalism.
Perhaps not, but the banks which agreed to loan them all the money, which control the greek currency (the euro), and who created the global financial crisis of the past decade, are most certainly capitalist.
I would suggest focusing on the ultimate causes -- the moral decisions made by human beings that led to the accumulation of more debt than could conceivably be repaid.
TomCat mentioned one of them -- lending that would be irresponsible but for the reliance of lenders on the fact that "bailouts" have now been enshrined as standard practice. If it wasn't clear why those crazy right-wingers were shouting about how that was a bad idea, well, I hope the picture is getting less fuzzy now.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
And yet, these "ultimate causes" result directly from capitalism's modus operandi: use your position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital. To narrow down the blame for the crisis to those who are acting within capitalism, rather than looking at the conditions that make their poor decisions rational (from the perspective of the lender) or seemingly necessary (from the perspective of the borrower), is to miss the forest for the trees.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
The reason I suggested talking about the actual human decisions behind the crisis was to encourage rational discussion that can be conducted on the basis of facts as opposed to things like this. This is just an empty Marxist slogan.
In Western liberal society, we all act within capitalism, and blame attaches only to moral agents. Therefore any blame that we do or can assign will be assigned to those acting within capitalism. To blame capitalism is to blame the forest when someone chops down some of the trees.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I think the reason why people, including myself, would fight you on this one is that even given what you're saying, it's just not a useful classification.
First of all the link is attenuated. Your reasoning is a vast generalization of what occurred. Notice I didn't say wrong, I just said its a generalization. But if I took your generalization one step further to generalize even more, I would claim that "the use of a position of power to dispossess those with less power of their capital" is merely abuse of power. Abuse of power is not specific to capitalism.
So now let me claim that the reason why Greece is in the position it's in is because of an abuse of power. Now that answer isn't wrong, I'm sure someone somewhere along the way abused their power in this fiasco. Its just so far removed from the specifics of the situation it's not very helpful.
Let's go back to your capitalism concept as the ultimate cause. Are we going to outlaw capitalism if capitalism is the reason? I'm going to boldly claim that the ship has already sailed on that one. Capitalism is here to stay. Therefore, the more productive endeavor is indeed to focus on those who are acting within capitalism.
Which bank did what, how can we prevent this from happening again. Are bailouts a good policy. And if they are, how then can we limit the damage of banks who enable parties with poor credit to dig themselves into a bigger hole.
It is difficult to enforce demands against an entire sovereign nation like Greece. But it might be easier to make rules against banks. Right now I see the banks' incentives as completely skewed.
If I were a bank and had 1 billion in capital, what's the easier way to make money?
1. Loan a billion to Greece at a high interest rate, with likely bailout protection from other Eurozone nations.
2. Loan a billion to thousands if not millions of people, requiring diligent risk analysis for each party, with ZERO chance of any bailout protection should any default.
Clearly right now, the incentives for #1 vastly outweigh #2.
It is not a slogan. It is the way that capital is accumulated and the way its exchange is negotiated. That is to say, is fundamental to capitalism. It is as much a "fact" as is the actions of those operating within capitalism.
Yes, unfortunately.
This is just semantics. You can't (or at least I hope you wouldn't) seriously suggest that our evaluation of what *caused* a crisis should not consider the workings of things other than "moral agents" (like institutions, economic systems, etc.). Institutions wield power, and influence the world just as much as "moral agents."
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
You're right. Abuse of power is not specific to capitalism. But abuse of power is enabled (and encouraged) by capitalism, which is why it is worth examining in the first place.
Its helpfulness depends on your goals. If you want to develop conditions that aren't continually ripe for economic disaster, then it is indeed helpful to examine the systems in which we operate. If you're looking to take someone to the gallows, then it becomes less helpful.
Uh, what? Political and economic organization changes all the time.
How can you even pose this question without a willingness to examine the systems that govern exchange?
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
Depressing but not that surprising. I feel like big unions like this are best for humankind as a whole (especially because a lot of problems we face are on such a global scale like climate change) but they need to be somewhat selfless in nature, which is a lot to ask for a company who's only goal is to make as much money as possible.
"What's the rate?"
The women on the other end said she didn't know, but said it was probably close to 0%. He said:
"If it's under 1%, then I'll take a billion dollars."
When telling me this story he said he felt -at the time- like maybe this was a IQ test from his company or something. From the women's response he told me it was clear he was going off script, but he didn't understand -when he realize it wasn't a test- why his company thought calling people who's job it was to make money with such a deal was a good idea. He explained if you can get money cheep, any good capitalist would take all he can get. It's practically your responsibility to do so.
Was Greece irresponsible when suddenly they where offered an unheard of -for them- low rate? Probably. Were they acting like good capitalists?
I'm not saying they're wrong for thinking this, because I know pretty much nothing about the situation. I'm asking why they would think this.
I don't think the entities who want to bail out Greece are doing so because they expect to profit directly from further loans to Greece. In fact, the bailout proposals have all involved the lenders taking huge writedowns on the existing loans.
It seems that the incentive to bail out Greece has a fair bit to do with the potential negative consequences to some parties if Greece leaves the EU.
First and probably foremost, there's the matter of the global markets. I don't pay much attention to the foreign markets, but I can tell you the Dow has been on quite a rollercoaster ride as Greece vacillates between deal and no deal. Keep in mind that, sadly, Greece isn't worth that much money. Their GDP is only a little higher than Apple's annual revenue. It may simply be that the hit to the markets from a Grexit is more painful to the financial organizations involved than the writedowns on the loans.
Second, 40% of the Grecian voters find remaining in the EU to be in their interest even with fairly severe austerity riders attached, based on the results of the referendum. True, they're in the minority, but that's still a lot of people.
Third, there are people with a vested interest in the concept of the Eurozone, whether it be because of advantageous monetary power (poorer countries like Greece get the short end of the stick from centralized monetary policy) or political ideology. (the EU is a small scale experiment in globalized top-down monetary policy and if it fails, so does that idea) These people are worried about the precedent a Grexit would set. If a country can simply turn its back and go its own way when the externally imposed monetary policy is no longer appealing, then globalizing the policy starts to seem like a futile exercise. To the ideologues, paying Greece off in the form of a writedown on its loans is a small price to pay to avoid this precedent being set. Germany could buy Greece a hundred times over. (Without having to borrow any money.)
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
This is total non-sense.
The existance of risk not a justification for breaking a contract. We all take food poisoning risk when we eat on a restaurant, it doesnt change the fact the restaurant is owning us if we get poisoned for eating there.
The risk banks take on landing money is akin to the risk you take when you buy something online or when you employ someone new. It's NOT like the risk you take on lotery, on poker or on spory bets. The difference between the two kinds of risks is, one is the risk of a stabilished legal contract failing, the other is a risk stabilished by a legal contract.
You know what the word capital stabds for right ?
Your friend is getting any amount of near 0% interest rate credit because he is using that money to invest and occasionally pay back his debt. What he is doing is being a capitalist.
Greece do not got debt in order to invest and pay it back later. The money was used to sustain cosuption or paying interest of other loans. Greece is not being a capitalist.
Unless, of course, you assume they were thinking welfare is a investment. In that vase they were capitalists, but aweful capitalists.
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