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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Can their sovereignty be weakened? As in the French and Germans slowly just taking over Greek institutions. (As in since you can't get the taxes yourself, let the Germans run the police and the tax office?).

There were snide remarks and suggestions a while back of them selling off islands? That might work.

Then I wonder how would the Greeks pay the money back anyway. How much feta-cheese and tourism can they sell? At some point the interest rates are just to high for them to even touch the principle when paying back, even if they start to double their feta cheese production and start actually diligently paying taxes ...

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Re: sovereignity, I still can't believe it, but apparently Euro Group president Jean-Claude Juncker has suggested just that. http://www.independent.ie/business/european/greece-will-pay-...

Nobody in France or Germany will be remotely interested in "taking over" Greece. Its like saying "hey, I got here a bucked of problems, want them?" Well, no, thanks!

The sovereignty of all European countries is "weakened", that's the whole idea of the euro. There is another level of supervision, and that is really good. Not only in Greece, also e.g. Germany constantly gets told from EU institutions or the EU supreme court to change laws and regulations or to watch the deficit, etc. That's a good thing. Of course the politicians don't like it, takes away some of their power.

Greece has vast opportunities, if they would get their stuff together. Solar power alone could be a great industry in Greece. There is a plan called "DeserTec", with several large EU corporation planing to install a hundred billion in solar cells in Northern Africa. If Greece was smart, they would jump on that train. But they are not, apparently. Its easier to borrow money and whine on payback time.

> Nobody in France or Germany will be remotely interested in "taking over" Greece. Its like saying "hey, I got here a bucked of problems, want them?" Well, no, thanks!

Well if they have islands that can be used for military bases, or agricultural lands that French farmers can use and so on. Setting a German company in charge of collecting taxes for example and making a profit. These are all draconian measures that basically are one stop short of invading the country, but I am thinking more if this is what is left as a solution. Lending them more money implies having faith that they will be able to pay it back, if that faith is gone, and they cannot be expected to pay back, the the lenders would probably like to get something else back at least, so have them sell their assets (land, control, power) ?

Half of the farm land in Europe is unused because of over production, dude. And if they wanted to use "Greek islands for farmland" (LOLOLOL) they could just buy it. That's not a matter of sovereignty. "A company in charge of collecting taxes"? Herpderp! This is not the US with private prisons and such stupidities. You are writing a real heap of nonsense here.

Lending them more money is giving them a chance to get their stuff on track. Better checks and balances. A greater awareness of civil responsibility of each individual, etc. Basically, the stuff that made Northern Europe (and the US/Canada) economically strong. Look up "Social Capital" if you are interested in development policy.

That's what happens when poor gov'ts sell of their telecom, energy, postal, gambling, etc. monopolies to foreign investors.

That sounds like a really, really bad idea. No one likes the idea of Germany or France taking over other European countries. We've been there...

Yes, we have. Germany took over Eastern Germany just 2 decades ago and paid huge amounts of money to get the East to a more or less equal level. The result is that the old communists that had destroyed Eastern Germany, today still get over 30% of the votes by people without memory.

Its no use to help people from the outside. People must learn to run their own countries themselves.

In the case of Greece, they have to learn to not cheat to get money from Europe (like they did to get into the Euro Zone) and to pay taxes if they want that the government does stuff. Especially the wealthier people in Greece seem to be extremely selfish in that regard.

As far as I know, Germany did some nasty things while overrunning East Germany: Like, they replaced the staff of East Germany universities with West professors, throwing East professors out. Also, when choosing whether to bankrupt some East factory or refit it, they almost always chose to bankrupt (think Trabant)

And concerning "old communists that had destroyed Eastern Germany" - Eastern Germany was, like, the richest communist state. It wasn't politically free, sure, but it was fine economically.

Now, why would you expect people "without money" who did have the money (and job, and their life) before reunification, not vote for who they vote for?

"Overrunning". WTF dude?

They kicked communists (usually agents of the Stasi, the secret police) out of government jobs, most of those had gotten the job because they were party members. That is hardly "nasty". The other way around would have been nasty.

Would you want Gaddhafi's son to keep his military pay after the regime has been overthrown?

If you deprive reasonably successful people of their jobs (and therefore self-respect, identity and lifestyle) - surely they would be bitter and revisionistic. The fact that you-ve tossed them a bone and they aren't starving won't help much.

Disgruntling teachers and workers would not get you much popularity. People would vote for anyone who is not responsible for that. You insisting that anyone who suffered was a putrid Stasi agent would certainly make matters worse.

If two Koreas one day would unite, this would be their second severe problem after economy.

And by the way I don't understand why you assume I support the invasion of sovereign country that is Libya and installing some puppet government there. Of course I don't.

Replace Libya with Egypt and Gaddafi with Mubarak, if it helps you to get the point.

The factory bankrupted itself. If it was worth something its wares will get bought.

Tell that to the people who vote "wrong". And we'll see what they'll tell you.

Of course when we see an intervention of a country, it's a total and complete responsibility of interventor to preserve any economic and industrial infrastructure. Trabant wasn't bankrupt in East Germany. It was bankrupt in Germany. Who do you think is responsible for that?

Trabant went away because their product had exactly zero chance of competing in the market. A trabant was barely even a car in comparison to, say, a honda or VW. Trabants had more in common with lawnmowers, both in terms of mechanics and in terms of production conditions.

And your assumption that trabant's factories could be refitted in any way is quite a stretch. Would it really be cheaper to modernize a factory that's 30+ years out of date, rather than start over with a new building? And what would be the point anyway? Just jobs? Would not the investment be better targeted at infrastructure, mass transit, job training, etc?

I didn't say that this question has a determined answer.

What I did say: People are rightfully angry because their life was screwed by something not in their control.

It's been twenty years since the Germany reunited; Whatever problems still remaining at the former East Germany, probably aren't caused by communists anymore.

I wouldn't want them to sell their soil to more powerful nations, sounds like a recipe for war.

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