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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian living in Singapore I have no skin in this game, but here's a counterpoint: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-27/germany-des...

The kind of summary (though the article is short and worth reading, if only to get some balance):

There is a not-so-subtle difference between voluntarily taking on debts made by previous, rogue governments at a currency rate favorable to the creditors -- and heedlessly accumulating debts of one's own while concealing the true size of budget deficits. In the first case, the implication is harsh self-imposed discipline and penitence. In the second case, profligacy.

For those inclined to dig in and do deeper research, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/10137.pdf and in particular http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=493802 give lots of great details on what happened back in 1953 with Germany.

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This piece is titled "Germany Deserved Debt Relief, Greece Doesn't".

> It might still be argued that if Germany deserved a second chance after all it did to Europe, then surely Greece should also be granted one [... but ...] "under the rules of the international financial system, the people of the country are still responsible for the debt [...]"

In other words, while a war killing maybe 60 million can be forgiven, it is unthinkable to forgive debt accumulated by previous governments.

> There is, however, a stronger reason why it would be wrong to write off Greek debt while the country is run by Syriza. [... blah blah ...] anti-Communist and anti-Marxist. [...] Now, far-left Syriza wants to be on the inside [...] It will use the debt relief to provide free electricity to households, subsidize rents, restore Christmas bonuses to pensioners, raise minimum salaries [...] It is an extreme case of moral hazard.

A moral hazard, no less! In any case, SYRIZA has no plans like that. I would like to see a source, since these claims are completely new to me.

The fact is, that Greece has structural problems. Those problems were mostly caused or accepted by central/conservative/socialdemocratic governments over decades. SYRIZA is the first government that may be willing to change the situation. In addition to those structural problems, there is currently a depression that needs to be solved first. This was primarily caused by the EU/ECB/IMF and at least the IMF accepts that now (and has been accepting it since 2013). SYRIZA also recognises this.

SYRIZA are also convinced democrats, as they have repeatedly shown, something that the Marxists never were. Therefore those comparisons are not helpful at all.

i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state. i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce. i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example)

but what i have read is, that tax evasion is wide spread as well as the exploitation of social services- there was a news coverage where a considerable part of the inhabitants of an island received pensions for people without eyesight...

edit: fixed spelling mistakes

> i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to collect the taxes people were owing the state

They do. They have stated this clearly ("Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.", "Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.", "Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.", [0]), over and over again. However, you can't change a country that quickly. It will take many years.

> i have read nowhere that syriza wanted to cut state spending by reducing the unneeded government employed workforce.

First, just because jobs are performed by the government and not by private companies does not imply that they are not needed. There likely is greater inefficiency, I agree. But 'public sector jobs = unneeded jobs' is wrong. Second, cutting those jobs is often impossible (for example in Germany it would be, because government jobs are guaranteed for a lifetime.) and even if they can be cut, they will drive up unemployment which already stands at 25% and 60% for young people.

> i have read nowhere that syriza wants to tax the rich greeks that pay virtually to really no taxes (reeders for example)

They do [1]. They proposed it, but the IMF did not go along, as far as I know. Reeders are also probably harder to tax, because they can probably simply fly the flag of a country that doesn't tax them. [1]

[0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/syrizas-original-40... ; I have some doubts about the reliability of the source. There are other sources, but I can't be bothered to search right now.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/greek-ship-owners-fear-syriza-ta...

thanks for your input.

just to correct a misinterpretation: I did not want to imply, that public sector jobs are unneeded jobs. I just called to cut the jobs not needed to run the country because i red a hand ful of articles stating that it is somewhat common that one can have a public job and a "real" second job because supervision is so lax)

And here's an economical analysis of Greece's finances and what happened to the bailout money: "The Greek Tragedy", https://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/publications/docbase/...

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