Greek elections 2015’s version.

[Guest]

I'm pretty heartbroken that no one had anything to say about my Yanis photograph.

But anyhow, did this really happen?

Greece will unleash a “wave of millions of economic migrants” and jihadists on Europe unless the eurozone backs down on austerity demands, the country's defence and foreign ministers have threatened.

The threat comes as Greece struggles to convince the eurozone and International Monetery Fund to continue payments on a £172billion bailout of Greek finances.

Without the funding, Greece will go bust later this month forcing the recession-ravaged and highly indebted country out of the EU’s single currency.

Greece’s border with Turkey is the EU’s frontline against illegal immigration and European measures to stop extremists travelling to and from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) bases in Syria and Iraq.

Panos Kammenos, the Greek defence minister, warned that if the eurozone allowed Greece to go bust it would give EU travel papers to illegal immigrants crossing its borders or to the 10,000 currently held in detention centres.

"If they deal a blow to Greece, then they should know the the migrants will get papers to go to Berlin,” he said.

"If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with migrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave of millions of economic migrants there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State too.”

Tyler Cowen wrote this on his blog yesterday:

Even though the Greek electorate has elected left-wing leaders, the “the Greek government” hasn’t actually changed all that much. It is still dysfunctional, corrupt, and very protective of special interests in nationally harmful ways. Yet I find that if I criticize the Greek government on Twitter I receive many angry, self-righteous comebacks, often but not always from Greeks and usually with a left-wing slant.

One reason the Greek government is so popular with “the Left” has to do, I think, with theories of social change. I often read or hear it suggested that, if only the truth is spoken in forthright, galvanizing terms, beneficial social change will follow. This was a common meme in Krugman’s columns for instance over the years. The claim was that Obama needed to be more like FDR and mobilize a coalition around a commonly articulated series of truths. I don’t think it was ever promised this would succeed right away, due to Republican intransigience, but it has been portrayed as a good long-run investment in political change through the education of the citizenry.

The new Greek government of course has done this and more. They have rather flamboyantly staked out extreme positions, insulted their opponents, and warned of the doom that will follow if renegotiations were to run along the lines of EU law rather than the New Old Keynesian economics. They told their citizenry how much they were standing up for them, and how much this was a moral clash of progressive good vs. austerity evil, with the values of democracy and national sovereignty (supposedly) on the side of good.

The thing is, it’s turned out to be a total catastrophe. As I had suggested early on, there is, in the ruling Greek coalition, no Plan B. Germany and especially Spain just held tight on the negotiations and the Greek government more or less had to fold, not even wanting to vote on the negotiated plan. That plan then failed to receive European approval, nor has Greece drummed up much general support from the other peripheral countries, and now no one knows what to do next. The ECB, IMF, and others still have Greece “by the balls,” to cite one colloquial expression. They’re still trying to spin that “the institutions” are not the Troika, but they don’t talk much about liberating the economy as a means of increasing exports. It seems Emergency Liquidity Assistance may be up for review. Oops.

The Greek government also riled up its citizens and now doesn’t know how to deliver anything satisfactory to them, to the detriment of political stability. The latest irresponsible plan is to threaten a referendum on a new government, a new economic plan, or in one case even a referendum on euro membership was mentioned. Message discipline is scarcely to be seen.

All of that is simply painting the Greek government into a corner all the more, since a referendum will simply heighten the demands for mutually inconsistent outcomes. Signs of broader eurozone recovery, and the relative success of QE in talking down the value of the euro, have almost completely removed the bargaining power of Syrizas, or so it seems as of early March.

As I’ve said before, these people ruling Greece are The Not Very Serious People, and they are increasingly acquiring a reputation as such within the rest of the EU and eurozone.

All of this reminds me of the wisdom of Dani Rodrik and his propositions about the incompatibility of democracy, national sovereignty, and global economic integration. Angry words won’t undo those constraints and they are not something you will hear the Greek government mention very often.

Krugman a few times has praised Syrizas for renegotiating the required primary surplus figures, but it seems this is hardly mattering. Due to plummeting tax collection, the primary surplus is gone in any case, and the agreement with “the institutions” [read: Troika] is not even the main driver of the action here. Greece needs to take steps to reestablish a higher [read: positive] primary surplus in any case.

The broader lesson is this: if politicians are not “speaking the truth to power,” there are usually some pretty good reasons for that. As a political strategy, it doesn’t typically work and it is worse than irrelevant as it very often backfires.

[Shryke]

Tyler Cowen wrote this on his blog yesterday:

Seems a pretty stupid entry overall. He's trying to extreme-yoga the Greek situation into supporting the position he actually wants to write about, despite the fact that even he identifies what the real problem is:

The ECB, IMF, and others still have Greece “by the balls,” to cite one colloquial expression.

He wants to blame his own personal dislikes for the situation but even then can't help but point out that ultimately it doesn't matter what Greece says.

[Biglose]

@Triskan

But anyhow, did this really happen?

So? What so "shocking" about it? It won't really do anything, outside maybe crash germanys extremly liberal policy towards refugees. But this is something which has a high chance of crashing anyway. Mostly due to the fact that a lot of people like to go on about responsibility towards refugees and humanity jadajada, but when push comes to shove the lack the backbone to actually do what needs to be done. (Enable better integration and think about plans except dumping them in poor neighboorhoods and small towns in the middle of nowhere)

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Do't forget about Greece threatening to seize private property of Germans in Greece over unsubstantiated "reparations", breaking a couple international laws doing so, of course all depending on the current "negotiations".

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

BBE,

Really? Is there a link? I heard about "reparations" claims but not that they would seize private property to collect.

[Dinsdale!]

BBE,

Really? Is there a link? I heard about "reparations" claims but not that they would seize private property to collect.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2989746/Greece-threatens-seize-property-land-businesses-belonging-Germany-Angela-Merkel-does-not-agree-pay-compensation-WWII-occupation.html

But Greek politicians upped the ante with justice minister Nikos Paraskevoloulos saying he was ready to back a High Court ruling from 2000 allowing Athens to seize German-owned property to compensate the victims of a Nazi massacre of 218 Greek civilians in the village of Distomo.

Edit: So to separate the two issues.

1. There is an unenforced Greek court ruling calling for seizure of 30 million euros of private German assets to be given to victims of the family of the Distomo massacre.

2. Tspiras is calling for reparations more generally.

[Horza]

Based on the state of negotiations these threats clearly have Lagarde, Schäuble and Djisselbloem clinging together in sheer, pants-wetting terror.

[Jon AS]

Edit: So to separate the two issues.

1. There is an unenforced Greek court ruling calling for seizure of 30 million euros of private German assets to be given to victims of the family of the Distomo massacre.

2. Tspiras is calling for reparations more generally.

And when there's talk about seizing German property, they are talking about things like the Goethe Institute, the German School in Athens and the German Archaeological Society in Athens, not seizing the luggage of random tourists.

Interestingly the Greek government apparently threatened to do this before, in 2000. After the German government voted in favour of Greece joining the Euro they dropped the issue.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Jon,

70 years after the fact and being enforced against groups of individuals that couldn't have participated in the wrong. Unjust.

[The Iceman of the North]

Jon,

70 years after the fact and being enforced against groups of individuals that couldn't have participated in the wrong. Unjust.

What individuals, as for your assertions about the groups, on what basis is your claim that they didn't participate in 'the wrong'?

ETA: Compare it to some random individual owning a piece of art stolen from Jews during the Nazi regime. The individuals participation is irrelevant.

ETA2: I'm not claiming that these Greeks claims have merit, but Scot's arguments doesn't hold water.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Iceman,

You are changing the fact pattern. Returning a stolen item is different from taking property from people, owned legitimately, where those individuals could not have participated in the wrong for which they are being punished. In your stolen item example the property was never properly the property of the new purchaseor, because the seller can sell what they don't properly own.

Greece is threating to take legitimately owned property, unless the property held by these groups was taken by the Nazi German government during its occupation of Greece, to punish people who couldn't have participated in the wrong Greece is claiming compensation for, your point doesn't apply.

My point is that punishing people for something they could not have done is fundamentally unjust in my opinion.

[Biglose]

Iceman,

You are changing the fact pattern. Returning a stolen item is different from taking property from people, owned legitimately, where those individuals could not have participated in the wrong for which they are being punished. In your stolen item example the property was never properly the property of the new purchaseor, because the seller can sell what they don't properly own.

Greece is threating to take legitimately owned property, unless the property held by these groups was taken by the Nazi German government during its occupation of Greece, to punish people who couldn't have participated in the wrong Greece is claiming compensation for, your point doesn't apply.

My point is that punishing people for something they could not have done is fundamentally unjust in my opinion.

You are factual right, but it does not reallly matter. In reality the goods sized will come probably mostly from state owned entities. So tax-payer money. If one likes, one could see a connection and responsibility there.

The core isse is, that it won't do much, outside isolating greece.

Even if the german government would back down, this would make one government out of quite many.

[The Iceman of the North]

Iceman,

You are changing the fact pattern. Returning a stolen item is different from taking property from people, owned legitimately, where those individuals could not have participated in the wrong for which they are being punished. In your stolen item example the property was never properly the property of the new purchaseor, because the seller can sell what they don't properly own.

Greece is threating to take legitimately owned property, unless the property held by these groups was taken by the Nazi German government during its occupation of Greece, to punish people who couldn't have participated in the wrong Greece is claiming compensation for, your point doesn't apply.

My point is that punishing people for something they could not have done is fundamentally unjust in my opinion.

My point was that that's not the case. These are institutions, not random people.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

BBE,

Really? Is there a link? I heard about "reparations" claims but not that they would seize private property to collect.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/griechenland-darf-athen-fuer-ns-entschaedigung-pfaenden-a-1022920.html

Unfortunately it's in German, but got a bit more background than Dinsdale's link.

Synopsis:

Nikos Paraskevopoulos threatens to seize German assets in Greece to pay off the victims of the massacre in Distomo 1944, 28 million €, furthermore he demand 8500 antiquities back.

Whether he'd do that depends on the "complexity of the case" and "far-reaching national questions". *hinthint*

Greece already did exactly the same in 2000 - and relented only after Germany voted to let Greece into the Euro.

Furthermore, the scheme is clearly illegal, since it would run against two principles of international law, as ruled by the International Court of Justice in 2012. If Greece would try to make it legal, they'd have to bring the case to the International Court of Justice. Where the case would be thrown out because international law doesn't cover personal stuff like that

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Iceman,

Yes, but those institutions are made up of random people who could not have participated in the wrong being remedied.

[The Iceman of the North]

Iceman,

Yes, but those institutions are made up of random people who could not have participated in the wrong being remedied.

Scot, I thought you were a lawyer. An institution is not made up of 'random people', it is a legal subject on its own.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Iceman,

A corporate entity is fictionally a legally imortal person. But you and I both know that is still a fiction. I maintain that jt is unjust to punish people (who necessarlily make up a corporate entity) for actions those indivuduals couldn't have taken or prevented. That's part of the reason "Statutes of Limitations and Statutes of repose" exist.

[Arakan]

Iceman,

A corporate entity is fictionally a legally imortal person. But you and I both know that is still a fiction. I maintain that jt is unjust to punish people (who necessarlily make up a corporate entity) for actions those indivuduals couldn't have taken or prevented. That's part of the reason "Statutes of Limitations and Statutes of repose" exist.

Basically we have 3 different issues here

• legality: can the Greek government legally confiscate German-owned property? BBE answered that fairly well I would think. It seems they cannot.
• morality: has Germany in a substantial and adequate manner paid reparations for the crimes and damages done to the Greeks by the Germans in WW2? Of course this question has to be answered in relation to reparations paid to other countries.Honestly, I cannot answer this question. Something has been paid but if it was substantial and relatively adequate I dont know.
• madness: no matter the point 1+2, that the Greek government is bringing up this point at all instead of focusing on how to clean Greece from corruption and an inefficient economic system is absolute madness. The only thing they will achieve with such a behavior is piss of all those Germans who are still symphatetic to the Greeks, and pressumably many other people in Europe will be pissed of, too. The Greek government and media seem to like focusing on Germany but Germany has many allies in the EU who even would push for a harder stance towards the Greeks

[Galactus]

What individuals, as for your assertions about the groups, on what basis is your claim that they didn't participate in 'the wrong'?

ETA: Compare it to some random individual owning a piece of art stolen from Jews during the Nazi regime. The individuals participation is irrelevant.

ETA2: I'm not claiming that these Greeks claims have merit, but Scot's arguments doesn't hold water.

There are two problems with the greek claims.

A) They already relinquished said claims.

B) Even in the case the subject liable would be the german state, not the various foundations they're actually threatening.

C) Reparations are fundamentally different from repatriating stolen property. If I steal your car the court can order me to return it. They can also order me to pay reparations for damage caused by the theft. But those are different things. The greek claim is for reparations for damage incurred during the german occupation, not the return of specific properties seized.

Scot, I thought you were a lawyer. An institution is not made up of 'random people', it is a legal subject on its own.

That depends entirely on the type of institution.

[kiko]

I really don't see the problem with this demand for reparations. as as token of good will and without acknowledging liability just send them back some of their bonds. Win win!