LOL, isn't Finns just the same with its territorial ambitions? They want to bail Greece out in exchange for their land mortgage?
The same? The infamous
Finnish thirst for world domination still exists, we're just doing it by economical means now? Ignoring that I was jokingly referring to a German stereotype and how they are trying to grab more power within the EU (not related to Greece), you base this on the fact that we don't want to donate billions without safety to countries that have cheated themselves into the Economic and Monetary Union, and failed their economy, when we in Central and Northern Europe have done things by the books and therefore stayed afloat? Basically, us suffering from their mistakes.
No bank in the world lends money without safety, and neither will we. I'm all for injecting money into Greece as a temporary solution, but doing so without a safety net when you know you yourself is on the knife's edge economically, is damn near suicidal. Also, we can't keep repeating the bail-outs forever. In that case, sooner or later the Greeks will have to leave the EMU.
Germans and others are just doing it right. They were bombed into oblivion after WW2, discriminated against by many bankers. Yet they woke up and overtook UK and France. But, you can't look upon yourself based on your past status. Before 1998 Asian crisis, we were rich people, I can afford to spent a week on US east coast holiday with ease. Now, I am just regular middle class people who can't even afford the west coast, let alone European holidays. Have to live by that fact, once a spoiled rich kid, now a start-up paper pusher.
We understood that it is not our place to bitch out about how unfair that US and other foreign investors controlled our economy and how IMF/World Bank told us to do shit. At that time we and those Asian countries borrowed too much money to develop industries we don't really need while they should have built our direly-needed infrastructures.
However, we and the whole Asia didn't get the same privileged treatment that European PIGGS get from IMF at that time like debt write-off, haircut, and so on in return for austerity measures. They have to repay all creditors 100%.
Yes, no generous write-offs like Greece get, except that 10% Indonesia get from Japan and easy loan from Germany. In addition, we had to relegate many economic controls to IMF, thus killing many strategic industries, giving up several controls over expensive natural resources extraction projects to foreign investors, selling assets to foreign investors. All of these "necessary steps" (according to IMF) to make up for the deficit to pay our installments, including that IMF loan.
In that situation, USA can just print money and refuse to do anything (like reducing their spending), they just keep borrowing money and people still buy that junk Yankee bond. Investors like China can't do anything because they depended on them, if US stop spending, whose going to buy all that junk they produce? Garbage in, garbage out, that easy.
Yet those PIGGS still moan like bitches about it. Racial preference and discrimination is on blatant display here and they still talk trash about Germany and other non-troubled EU countries? Aren't those PIGGS spoiled by their status as European? They need to get right
So, in short: even though Germans got fucked over, they got their economy back on track. Good job. On the other hand, south-east Asians got screwed and no-one was there to help them like the PIGGS (isn't the term PIIGS?) are generously helped today.
Might be seen as unfair, but these countries (PIIGS) have a common currency which of course makes them worth saving, lest we ourselves get dragged with them. Or am I missing something here?
