Greece - A New Hope

On the plus side, the Germans probably realize that it's important to have a Navy bigger than a fleet of submarines this time, they probably won't attack Russia in winter, and they might clean the Muslim infestation out of France and Britian before America can be assed to tell them to plz schtap.

Haha, yeah right. Go read about Germany's armed forces - they're more likely tobe invadedby Russia this time rather than vice-versa.

For the sake of this silly argument, who is going to stop them if they start militarizing again?

Gavinmad_sl said:

For the sake of this silly argument, who is going to stop them if they start militarizing again?

Click to expand...

Sch?uble and his hard on for the black zero on the budget. Plus even if we were, HKs dont shoot straight anyways

I heard Germany is going to heavily invest in Krupp and Rheinmetal to help Greece by creating tons of new jobs in some large industrial projects. Something about lebensraum for the Greek people or something? Not sure.

Itzena_sl said:

Also Germany wants Greece gone now. The Greek Parliament passed the terms which the Eurozone demanded yesterday, and the response so far has been "Meh. Not good enough". Add to that the fact that it needs to be passed by all other Eurozone countries (i.e. everyone basically has a veto) and at least one country isnevergoing to agree* and it's done.

And then the predators will move their focus to Portugal, and this starts all over again except now with precedent that countriescanleave the Euro, the ECB isnotthe ultimate guarantor, and some countries actually just don't give a fuck about the Eurozone all protestations to the contrary. So it happens quicker.

Germany is going to wake up one day not so long from now and wonder where their pre-made marketplace went and why nobody wants to do business with them any more.

*Not Germany, surprisingly. Ze Krautsmightbe bought off eventually; the problem is Finland. To pass, it needs approval in their parliament and one of their far right parties is currently operating under the manifesto of "Burn the Eurozone to the ground and fuck everyone non-Finnish" so vetoing this shit is actually directly in their (short term) interests.

Click to expand...

Our leaders are gutless sacks of shit that will do what Germany tells them to do. Most likely result of all this bullshit is some retarded compromise that just kicks the can couple years forward when we are wondering again why Greece is even worse off this time.

Gavinmad_sl said:

For the sake of this silly argument, who is going to stop them if they start militarizing again?

Click to expand...

Their own people, Germany already pays like 70% in taxes. Like 15-20% in Social Taxes, and then up to 45% in income taxation (Around 30% ish average), combined with local and municipalities. The only reason they are able to afford such nice social programs is specifically because they keep such a small armed force; it's really one of the big secrets behind all the European safety net success stories, with the exception of Britain really and to a lesser extent France. But Germany goes whole hog on outsourcing its military, they believe they are extremely safe because the U.S. constantly has around 50k troops in country. (Which, obviously, they aren't wrong; it's a huge hub for American armed forces so they can pretty much ride the gravy train for as long we continue to use their territory.)

That's another argument against staying in the Euro. It doesn't look like the 5-year Grexit plan is getting discussed, which means just a few "no" votes can kill the bailout and make it apermanentGrexit instead. But one of the alternatives was that there would be outside EU inspectors permanently stationed in Greece to verify compliance to the Troika's criteria before each tranche of the bailout can be released.

So not only would you take even worse terms than those that the referendum voted against, you'd actually have to sit through German financial gestapo looking through every Greek ledger. That's likely to be accepted too, because the sad fact is those new terms are actually NOT punitive but based on the fact that last week's banking freeze has disrupted Greek business so much that it has flipped Greece's 3.5% surplus forecast into a -3% overall contraction for 2015.

Even before all of this, in fact even before the recession, the proposition of staying in the euro was net loss for Greece anyway. The euro practically made the Athens Olympics backfire on the tourism industry. It made the shipping industry re-flag more of its containerships and use foreign ports. The recent argument against leaving the Euro was that it would destabilize the Greek economy for a few years of utter hell, but you're gonna get that nightmare decade anyway.

Lithose_sl said:

Their own people, Germany already pays like 70% in taxes. Like 15-20% in Social Taxes, and then up to 45% in income taxation (Around 30% ish average), combined with local and municipalities. The only reason they are able to afford such nice social programs is specifically because they keep such a small armed force; it's really one of the big secrets behind all the European safety net success stories, with the exception of Britain really and to a lesser extent France. But Germany goes whole hog on outsourcing its military, they believe they are extremely safe because the U.S. constantly has around 50k troops in country. (Which, obviously, they aren't wrong; it's a huge hub for American armed forces so they can pretty much ride the gravy train for as long we continue to use their territory.)

Click to expand...

this is literally the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read.

Ossoi_sl said:

this is literally the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read.

Click to expand...

Massive evidence you don't proof read your own posts detected.

(Edit: Seriously though, is this controversial at all? Like I know you're just trolling, so you like to make points that are obviously wrong...but they at least have to have a tiny bit of controversy. Germany spends half the GDP allowance of France (Well, slightly less than half), despite having access to some of the best military tech on the planet. They are making a conscious choice to spend less, because why the fuck wouldn't they? If I had to choose between having cradle to the grave protections, while letting some other historically friendly country who has defended my interests for 60 years, continue defending it and having to foot my own bill, and trim some of those protections? I'd choose the cradle to the grave safety nets, Germans aren't suckers.)

Lithose_sl said:

Their own people, Germany already pays like 70% in taxes. Like 15-20% in Social Taxes, and then up to 45% in income taxation (Around 30% ish average), combined with local and municipalities. The only reason they are able to afford such nice social programs is specifically because they keep such a small armed force; it's really one of the big secrets behind all the European safety net success stories, with the exception of Britain really and to a lesser extent France. But Germany goes whole hog on outsourcing its military, they believe they are extremely safe because the U.S. constantly has around 50k troops in country. (Which, obviously, they aren't wrong; it's a huge hub for American armed forces so they can pretty much ride the gravy train for as long we continue to use their territory.)

Click to expand...

Well obviously the only way Germany militarizes would be if the US stops subsidizing the European military and then a charismatic new chancellor gets elected who convinces the people that Germany can provide the protection that the US used to.

Ossoi_sl said:

this is literally the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read.

Click to expand...

You're a fucking retard, why do you even still post here?

WINDFURY

Gavinmad_sl said:

You're a fucking retard, why do you even still post here?

Click to expand...

Every time i see a post made by you, outside of the Hearthstone thread, i think the same. And when i see you post in the Hearthstone thread, i think: Fucking nerd.

GTFO.

Gavinmad_sl said:

Well obviously the only way Germany militarizes would be if the US stops subsidizing the European military and then a charismatic new chancellor gets elected who convinces the people that Germany can provide the protection that the US used to.


You're a fucking retard, why do you even still post here?

Click to expand...

Maybewearm the germans to go fight theturks.

Didn't think of that one, did ya?

Lithose_sl said:

Massive evidence you don't proof read your own posts detected.

Click to expand...

There are plenty of other factors that contribute to German economic strength and are more relevant to the crisis in the Eurozone.

Specifically, that banks in the core EU countries bought loads of sovereign debt from the PIIGS Countries, flooding the PIIGS with cheap money to buy products from the core EU countries. This is why Germany is able to consistently run a trade surplus and why the poorer EU Countries can't compete with the core EU Countries. BMWs and Mercedes became a lot more affordable for the rest of Europe with the introduction of the Euro, so why would anyone try building cars to compete with them - this is what Germany doesn't understand when it tells the PIIGs that they should live frugally.

So why stay in the Euro when that guarantees you will never influence the monetary policies that determine your labor competitiveness? There is zero benefit to Tsipras' (and apparently all of Greece's) determination to stay in the euro when defaulting and a grexit would relieve those debt servicing costs. Actually as of an hour ago, it's gotten WAY WAAAAY worse. They are now being asked to accept shit that would be considered an act of war if it was suggested to an American in the same position:

Broad privatisation of sovereign Greek assets. Up to 50 billion euros of Greek national property to be held in a foreign escrow to be sold off if Greece doesn't fulfill its obligations. That's a fifth of Greek nominal GDP:

The Greek government will have to seek approval before ANY FISCAL legislation, domestic taxing policy or foreign debt related, is passed by parliament.

They will have to renegotiate EVERY existing labour union contract and effect fixed reductions in government union compensation across the board.

The best part? If for whatever reason the Greeks elect a government that fails to live up to the agreed requirements, under this proposalthey get ejected from the EU anyway:

At this point, what reason is there to stay in the euro anyway? It might just be weird to Americans because we went to war over a tax on newspapers and tea, but I'm sure it's perplexing to just about everyone at this point.

Ossoi_sl said:

There are plenty of other factors that contribute to German economic strength and are more relevant to the crisis in the Eurozone.

Specifically, that banks in the core EU countries bought loads of sovereign debt from the PIIGS Countries, flooding the PIIGS with cheap money to buy products from the core EU countries. This is why Germany is able to consistently run a trade surplus and why the poorer EU Countries can't compete with the core EU Countries. BMWs and Mercedes became a lot more affordable for the rest of Europe with the introduction of the Euro, so why would anyone try building cars to compete with them - this is what Germany doesn't understand when it tells the PIIGs that they should live frugally.

Click to expand...

What in the fuck does this have to do with them not wishing to divert funds toward an active military? The topic of conversation was simply what is going to stop Germany if it wanted to militarize. My answer illustrated their own people probably wouldn't want that because their taxation is already extremely high as is; and they value their very advanced social safety net a lot more than a military, when most of their defense needs are met by simple fact that they act as a hub of U.S. European military logistics.

Seriously, do you even read posts?

Wow, holy shit. That's nothing but euphemisms for slavery.