Quote from d08:
There's literally no point of you posting articles in French to an English forum, topics like these can't be easily machine translated.
Greece.org isn't a viable website, the opinion of one French economist doesn't make it valid either. Eastern Europe suffered much more under both occupations, it isn't even comparable.
It's of course funny that Greeks need to go as far back as the 1940s to justify their out of control spending.
Dont be naive, of course no one really thinks that this debt owed to Greece from Germany is the solution to the problems. However, some facts were questioned and this is minimal proof (among other links provided) that, indeed, there is an obligation pending. The meaning of it is more idealistic than financial. This is common sense!
The problem is fundamental of course, and if you scratch the surface and read the common news...of course you will think that the "people of Greece stole the money", and they lived happily while taking advantage of European funds etc etc. I would like to believe that people in this forum are a little smarter than that and the purpose of this topic would be to dig a little more for what truth could be hidden behind the headlines that we watch on TV such as CNN etc.
I have been watching a lot of news channels who throw the blame on avg Joe for taking a position as a civil servant in exchange for her vote, or not printing a receipt when making a sale (tax evasion) etc etc. And OF COURSE these are wrong actions and part of the problem that brought Greece to today's situation. But the weight of it is so SMALL that it is graphic and questionable to even talk about it today. The big fish have cost the government's balance to be in such a deficit, and only a few families including those of politicians have been benefiting for this situation for the past 10 years (actually it is more than that but lets talk about the time that Greece has joined the EUR currency).
Olympic Games, Siemens, other German scandals, etc etc
If we want to add value to a thread like this I think that we should stop blaming the people and start looking for the reasons. Meanwhile, everyone can position themselves in the stock market as they choose. This does not change the reality
Yes, Germany WANTED Greece to get into the eurozone even with cooked books. They knew all along and it was fine by them!
Yes, they bribed all kinds of key people in order to make the German sales!
Yes, the people of Greece should have known better, united, and over-thrown previous governments. But they didn't! And now they will pay the price.
But lets spare the pity for the Germans as Greeks was the best thing that happened to them!
