Translation required, into modern Greek

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I have this great idea for a T shirt design, for tourists going to Greece. It consists of a large Union Jack front and rear with a text reading: 'If it had been up to us, we would have cancelled your debt entirely'. The text naturally needs to be in Greek.

[pete_mcfarlane]

You could try Google translate. 

 

https://translate.google.co.uk/

 

For example, it tells me that 'work until you are 65 and pay your taxes' is Εργασία μέχρι να είναι 65 και να πληρώσετε τους φόρους σας.

[colin penfold]

It's a shame for the Greeks, but the sliders on Wonga.com don't slide as far as "£30 trillion" and "for ever"

[Horsetan]

Beware Greeks bearing gifts debts.

[PhilH]

You can cancel my debts if you like.

 

 

Not quite so expensive as the Greek option.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...Not quite so expensive as the Greek option.

True, but fiscal economy is no virtue when it is romantically picaresque appeal of the sort that once got old 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' so engaged in the plight of the Greeks that is required, as here.

 

Unless someone has a better idea, we'll have to persuade Saint Bob out of retirement to wail some catchy number and raise the necessary wonga: working title 'The chains of the Hellenes'.

[Edwin_m]

The translator will want cash up front. 

[Horsetan]

....we'll have to persuade Saint Bob out of retirement to wail some catchy number and raise the necessary wonga: working title 'The chains of the Hellenes'.

 

I take it that "Money For Nothing" wouldn't go down particularly well with the Germans. Or, come to that, the Finns.

[Horsetan]

I have this great idea for a T shirt design, for tourists going to Greece. It consists of a large Union Jack front and rear with a text reading: 'If it had been up to us, we would have cancelled your debt entirely'. The text naturally needs to be in Greek.

I've just thought of an even better idea: why not print a T-shirt showing a Greek pensioner holding a protest placard that reads.....wait for it:

 

The End Is "Nai"

[Dave47549]

It's a shame for the Greeks, but the sliders on Wonga.com don't slide as far as "£30 trillion" and "for ever"

 

The Greeks were ok until they borrowed a fiver off that site for a bottle of retsina to celebrate the new year. Now look at the mess they're in......

[colin penfold]

Yeah,1259% APR might add up on the national debt of a medium sized country!

[trisonic]

Interestingly the Germans themselves had a  debt relief in 1952 by most of the former Allies (some of whom were being bombed by the Luftwaffe less than ten years before) which kick started their post-war economy (um, the War they started).

Almost as strange as finding former Nazi’s there at the same time. Oh, well....

 

Best, Pete.

[jjb1970]

I must admit I am struggle to figure out how, if as most economists agree, their current debt is unsustainable then how giving them another 85 billion Euros of debt is compatible with a refusal to consider debt write off. doesn't seem to add up that. Unless they reschedule it so the debt is repayable in the year 6521 so the lenders can pretend they're not writing it down.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Self inflicted fiscal chaos isn't remotely comparable with the after effects of WW2, even if "they started it" (the German's that is).

 

Lucky for us Brits, that we have enough money churning through the coffers, that we didn't end up in a similar position to the Greeks.

Judging by the votes cast in the recent general election, I don't think the message about how close we were to the brink, really got through to a large number of British voters; who seemingly would have happily had us plunged into a far worst position.

Personally, I consider it a lucky escape.

 

 

 

   

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

... so the lenders can pretend they're not writing it down.

You just got your doctorate in 'new economics'.

 

What is proposed is a palatable fraud. But what else to expect from much the same folks who admitted Grece to the Euro knowing that they were way adrift of the entry conditions. What mattered to those making this policy was to create a currency which would enable the highly developed manufacturing economies in the EU to remain competitive exporters. The simple fact is that Germany and its satellites won themselves a breathing space to move on from their highly developed industrial revolution economies, by inflicting pain on the less developed economies. The only way out is for the gainers to transfer a share of their loot to the losers, but that is impossible to do openly; so it is to be done through the back door, with the hope that the gainer economy electorates don't notice.

 

This will all ultimately end in tears, even if the enabling legislation is passed around the EU to get this current 'fix' enacted.

[John_Hughes]

To avoid this turning into a (locked) political discussion rather than an economic one, it should be pointed out that almost all advanced economies have some mechanism for deliberately transferring wealth from richer areas to poorer ones - what in Canada are called Equalisation Payments; the infamous Barnett Formula - for all its faults - aims to do the same thing in the UK, and there are similar systems elsewhere too.

 

The EZ not only lacks any such mechanism, but the electorate in the better-off areas seem to be adamant that the 'idlers and scroungers' in the poorer areas shouldn't benefit from 'their' wealth. Talk about going to Hell in a handcart!

[The Stationmaster]

To avoid this turning into a (locked) political discussion rather than an economic one, it should be pointed out that almost all advanced economies have some mechanism for deliberately transferring wealth from richer areas to poorer ones - what in Canada are called Equalisation Payments; the infamous Barnett Formula - for all its faults - aims to do the same thing in the UK, and there are similar systems elsewhere too.

 

The EZ not only lacks any such mechanism, but the electorate in the better-off areas seem to be adamant that the 'idlers and scroungers' in the poorer areas shouldn't benefit from 'their' wealth. Talk about going to Hell in a handcart!

Maybe - but one is left with the impression that in the case of Greece that was effectively what was happening on an unofficial basis - all the tax fiddles (or simply ignoring paying it), job fiddles, and early pensions suddenly got even easier because the cost was now being carried by a wider currency rather than a national one; no need to change things if the money will always be there anyway.

 

Easy to say, but absolutely true of course, that Greece's ramshackle economy with more fiddles than the Halle Orchestra should never have been in the Eurozone in the first place.  But once it was there nothing was done by the Greeks to bring it up to the mark and they simply carried on digging an ever deeper hole, serves 'em right.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I would invert that argument. I knew for a fact from business experience that the Greek economy was exactly as you describe before they entered the Euro. And if I knew that, there is no way that the financial experts behind the Euro scheme didn't know it. And the Germans et al needed these weak economies in the Euro to make it the lower value currency which maintained their ability to profitably export. The money earned as a result in the Northern European section of the Eurozone should simply be shovelled into Greece (and PIS) while trying to rearrange their internal financial affairs to a more responsible pattern - some hope - belated it may be, but they need to try. Had the gain, now the pain!

[Fenman]

I've said it before, but probably not here, the Greeks are now having to pay the bill for a lifestyle they knew they couldn't afford. ...

 

Well, yes. And the commercial banks (mostly French and, er, German banks) that loaned them funds also knew that. But they carried on handing over the cash anyway.

 

So, we can either stick with the Dickensian world of metaphorically throwing debtors into the Marshalsea to let them rot, or we can accept that both parties in financial transactions have responsibilities. 

 

If we always insist there can be no debt relief, we introduce moral hazard for the banks that make loans: they can carry on throwing loans to all and sundry because they will never have to take a "haircut". That way does not encourage responsible lending which, I'd guess after the last few years, is something most of us would prefer to see.

 

There is pain here. Inevitably. The important question is how the pain should be shared (and, by implication, you can tell I don't think the Greeks should end up with 100% of it, though they have to take a significant chunk).

 

Paul

[John_Hughes]

I'll certainly grant the argument that the Greek economy and social / political setup (nepotism, corruption and all the rest) have meant that the people have been ill-served by their politicians, and indeed by aspects of their own social mores. But come what may, Greece is never going to be, say, Luxembourg, is it? Mountainous, small population, much of it scattered over innumerable islands, difficult communications, no extractive industry and so on.

 

But then, is anyone here going to hold up Luxembourg as a model of economic and political propriety?

[skipepsi]

But then, is anyone here going to hold up Luxembourg as a model of economic and political propriety?    Er not me gov.,,,

[Rumblestripe]

If I lend money to someone who I should know cannot afford to pay me back is it the fault of the debtor or the lender?

 

I'd say the fault lies with both parties but only one is being made to take all the pain (The Greeks)

 

The only thing I do not really understand is why the Greeks seem to want to stay in the Euro? Perhaps it is a historical thing as the drachma was never the most reliable of currencies?

[Metr0Land]

 

The only thing I do not really understand is why the Greeks seem to want to stay in the Euro? Perhaps it is a historical thing as the drachma was never the most reliable of currencies?

 

I think it's more like a national version of the bank of Mum and Dad.  You'll get a lecture if you don't pay them back but they'll give in in the end, especially as some Mums and Dads in this case are desperate not to have the Euro being shown up as being deeply flawed.  After all, the ERM was deeply flawed so they couldn't possibly have got it wrong again could they? 

[Rumblestripe]

I'm sorry I think this is getting close to political but I refuse to believe that the Greeks are the (sole) guilty party in this, despite the line the UK press are taking. I think it is irresponsible lend money to someone who can't afford to repay it, But then to compound the problem with further loans? What could possibly go wrong with that?

[28XX]

... and the Gold Standard before the ERM.

 

Fiscal Union of countries can only work following political union and a common economic policy. Those preconditions are unacceptable to the electorate, so they tried to put the cart before the horse.