Valin Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Via Meadia: 4/14/13 Germany owes Greece €162 billion in World War II reparations, according to a leaked top-secret report commissioned by Greece’s Finance Ministry. That amounts to roughly 80 percent of Greece’s GDP, and could go a long way towards helping the country right its finances. Der Spiegel reports: (Snip) Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble responded defiantly, saying “I deem that such statements are irresponsible. Instead of misleading the people in Greece it would be better to show them the road to reform…The issue was settled a long time ago. Paying reparations is out of the question.” The Greek foreign minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, fired back, saying that the subject of reparations would be decided by international law. A problem for both governments: Greek public opinion has fastened on stories about the report, adding to the bitterness among many Greeks about the economic catastrophe that the “bailout” has been. Greek politicians seen as not pushing the claim aggressively enough will face trouble from their constituents. It’s one thing to commission a report on unpaid debts; it’s quite another to collect........(Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clearvision Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 So the report is generated by Greece. I'm sure no bias there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 So the report is generated by Greece. I'm sure no bias there. Now i could be wrong but I'm detecting just a hint of sarcasm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 On a related not The New Old Fascism? Stephen Green 4/15/13 Now that Europe’s decades-long experiment with socialism is unraveling, what keeps me up at night is when the people will get upset enough that they’ll start demanding (and getting) a little nationalism to go with their socialism. It’s kind of the national sport over there, once they eventually run out of other people’s money. Not that EU governments have given up looking under the sofa cushions, which they apparently also hope to use as floatation devices: (Snip) How much is it going to cost mittelklasse Germans to bring up 47 million Spaniards, when 20-plus years of subsidies still haven’t brought up 17 million Ossies? That’s a good question. Another good question is: What the hell is Merkel thinking? This kind of proposal doesn’t just give pause to German taxpayers. It also gives a leg up to German nationalist groups. So far, the skinheads and whatnot have been mostly confined to frustrated young men in the former East. What happens when similar (and more reasonable) grievances become commonplace among middle-aged Germans along the Rhine? (Snip) Then the German fringes would become less fringey, which didn’t exactly work out very well for the Continent the last time around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted April 25, 2013 Author Share Posted April 25, 2013 The Euro Is Ripping Europe Apart 4/24/13 Greece is dredging up some ugly memories in Europe with a new push for German war reparations from World War II. Two weeks ago, a “top-secret” report from the Greek Finance Ministry was leaked that claimed that Germany still owes Greece €162 billion in reparations. The report made waves, but it wasn’t clear whether the Greek government was serious about pressing ahead with the claims or was planning on burying them in the interest of smoothing over its relations with Germany. (Snip) This is bad news for Europe. It will make it harder for German politicians to support bailouts and additional relief for Greece, and it will further embitter discussions in European institutions. (Oh, and we doubt Greece will be seeing any reparations from Germany anytime soon.) *The monetary union and the European project as a whole were supposed to help the continent pull together and put its troubled past behind it. Instead, its failures of design are kindling old grudges from a war that ended nearly 70 years ago and tearing the union apart. * When this whole (hole?) thing started I (and others) predicted it failure. I said, this was predicated on the idea that Danes and Greeks had anything in common other than living on the same continent. Heck you just at one country...Italy. Northern and Southern Italy are two different countries. I used to work with a guy from Italy, and he said someone from Milan had trouble understanding someone from Naples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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