The Greeks must live within their means; they are suffering from years of profligacy, unlike the thrifty German state, or so the mantra goes. Greece is certainly more afflicted by the scandal of tax avoidance and evasion than most nations, and Syriza promises a welcome radical crackdown on both.
But the myths that underpin what is barely veiled collective punishment would be destroyed. As a Bloomberg editorial put it: “Every irresponsible borrower is enabled by an irresponsible lender.” Germany ploughed money into countries such as Greece and Spain – that’s the “magic” of deregulated markets – and in doing so “lent more than they could afford”. German banks and their political champions should have known this would end in disaster. So why didn’t they act? Simple: greed. As Kevin Drum, a US writer, explains: it provided “German savers with a place to invest their money” and, crucially, “provided the periphery with enough cheap capital to act as a thriving market for German exports”. Who were the first EU countries to exceed the budget rules tied to the single currency, but Germany and France? Powerful as they were, they faced no comeback. Does that absolve the Greek elites – note, not the Greek people – of their role in calamity? Of course not. But Merkel should be begging for forgiveness too. full: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/28/syriza-merkel-economic-greece-europe _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
