Jesus you two... I made a joke about Star Trek because I had to 'bail out' of what, a plea for everyone to agree and get along? I don't think it's a horrible thing for people to disagree, at least if they have genuinely differing viewpoints and respect each other enough to argue about it.

There is an actual conversation here, and some points are getting resolved and others will be more entrenched when it's all over - one star trek joke one way or the other doesn't change that.

Which points did you want to actually adress? "Instead of agreeing that certain things are wrong and need to be changed, we argue about who got it worst"? It helps to figure out which large groups of people are getting the worst treatment, because if we want to improve society we need to start with the ones who get it worst.

Every single person on earth has shitty things happen to them at some point, and every society will always fail someone at some point - but if we are going to change those societies we need to start figuring out where we're failing the worst, and start adressing that. It will probably take some arguments to agree on those things, but once we do we can slowly move forward.

Being dismissive and pretending that everybody who disagrees with you is angry or 'bailing out' will not get us closer to agreements. I don't think.

Because admitting (or even addressing) your points means admitting that you have points, and that they are relevant and mebbe even right. /shock horror

Bailing out with a wannabe funny/realistically nothing comeback is far easier than an actual reply, which might even start a conversation.

And we obviously can't have that.

While im at it, i think it would be much better to have the search option on the top header of ALL pages and not buried in a menu. Ive said it before whenever i go to other video sites, search is something i want to access immediately. Having to try and figure out where it is, if it exist, is an instance bail out of the site.

OMFG. How have republicans thoroughly forgotten bailing out the banks was under Bush?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008
BUSH bailed out first the airlines, for nothing in return, then the banks, for nothing in return. Obama sadly continued that flawed policy, but did at least get partial ownership and concessions for our money, and got our money back. Bush simply gave it away with a smile and a nod.

I've been hearing that BS since 3 years into his first term. It's just that, BS. A quick google search, ignoring political sites and sticking with non-partisan factual numbers, and not blindly putting the entire cost of the Iraq war on Obama because Bush kept it's costs 'off the books', will show you quite clearly you're wrong. He's not been good on debt, but a large part of the deficit he did run in his early years are due to the tanked Bush economy, and WAY less taxes coming in without spending cuts. I'll remind you again, republicans turned down a budget that had $10 in cuts for every $1 in new taxes, a budget that would have erased the deficit....but you still blame Obama?

Heard that before too...that Democrats forced lowering banking standards for home loans and securities through the republican held congress and against the wishes of the republicans and Bush...absolute BS not worth refuting, they simply didn't have the majority to 'force' anything.

How many people died of exposure, drowning long after the storm, starvation, lack of water, unsanitary conditions at shelters in NJ? As for rebuilding, Jersey insisted they would do it without FEMA, and even though they had the money, they haven't rebuilt a lot of what's damaged, but still probably a larger percentage than New Orleans.

Clinton absolutely did not have intelligence that Bin Laden was planning an imminent attack on American soil, Bush did. Clinton did not allow Bin Laden's relatives to leave the country after an attack, it's reported Bush did. Clinton had an opportunity to kill Bin Laden, with unknown amounts of collateral damage in a country we weren't allowed into (so an act of war), and decided to not start a war on flimsy 'intelligence'...a good plan now that we know how that goes.

I'm pretty sure you have sand up your ass, and a sever case of cranial rectosis.

Who bailed out the banks - Obama

To make things worse Obama increased the debt 10 Trillion more than ALL fucking presidents combined. Talk about ruining the economy Its a noose on the necks of Americans for generations

The root cause was Democrats wanting home ownership for more people, which happen to be those who could not afford a house. Dodd/Frank led the way . Republicans tried a few time to curb/ change it but failed. Banks complied and wrote bad loans and sold them to larger banks and they packaged these bad loans to look attractive and the house of cards tumbled.

Katrina -- You seriously want to go there--- New Orleans and the storm that hit Jersey shore and Long Island ... Fucking disaster years later --- Yep your boy really hit it out of the park with the help didn't he?

9/11 waning completely ignored. Bullshit.. Clinton had Bin Laden had full intelligence to get him and did nothing.

I don't know if you have you head in the sand or up your ass.

You are so stupid. George 43 spent like a Democrat but was a far better leader. At least he Led. Obama leads from behind, buried us with another 10 Trillion in debt, failed miserably on foreign policy and is a total loser domestically.
The only positive of his presidency is bring out the gays and bailed out GM ( well its unions).

His 6 budgets that he presented got less than 10 votes total. TOTAL. How fucking off base with America to only get 10 votes out of 600 total for all the years. In 2014 Senate rejects Obama budget in 99-0 vote. That's dismal

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

@RedSky

Ah, we've been down this road... I totally forgot, sorry.

Just briefly then: Greece fucked up prior to the crisis. Fudged numbers, corruption, banks run by the worst of the worst, economy exposed to exterior shocks, the works. They were hit hard when the crisis began, and it magnified the pre-existing conditions to a point where the entire thing became unstable.

When their banks finally admitted to being completely screwed, Greece was "motivated" to socialize the problem by bailing out the banks. If the Greek banks had gone bust, the German and French banks would have had to crawl back to Merkel and Sarkozy and beg for a bailout, only a year or so after they were bailed out the first time. Both governments would have been thrown out of office if they had bailed out the banks again, after swearing not to do it. So it was left to Greece to deal with the mess in a way that kept German and French banks out of it.

They did the same in Ireland, just like Bill Black testified before their parliamentary committee three weeks ago.

But the real mess, the social devastation, was primarily a result of "The Program". Some say it was the Greek government who enforced the measures, nobody told them to cut pensions in half. Well, the IMF still provides access to the Memorandum of Understanding, which clearly outlines just that. It was mandated by the troika and the Greek government went along all too willingly. As a result of the first troika program, GDP went down the toilet.

Anyway, the establishment in Greece is to blame for most of this, but the German/French banks (and their governments) are also to blame. Yet somehow, it is the lower/middle class in Greece who receive the punishment, and the lower/working class in Germany/Finland/Netherlands/etc who are expected to foot the bill this punishment causes for the entirety of Europe. Pisses me off to no end.

@radx

I think the problem with say a 20 year time frame for Greece, is that same lack of trust and political inability to essentially prop up these governments with cash, year on year, for a period of that kind of time frame. I don't see Merkel being able to support this and not get pushed out of government. Functionally money has a time value so in essence, a long time frame is just more money. Rumour is Merkel is considering extending time frames on Greek loans (because most people don't understand that last point) but that will only come with a greater commitment to reform.

As far as collective punishment, it's more an issue that none of the other EU countries are responsible. I wouldn't characterise anything as being forced upon Greece, although I'm sure many feel that way. If they were to leave and reject aid they would be far worse though. The majority of Greece rightly wants to stay in. The Syriza win was about 'dignity' and basically getting better terms. But they won't get it because it would lead to parties in Portugal/Spain emerging and demanding the same thing. Morality doesn't really come in to it, I'm just looking at what's likely and/or possible.

As you mentioned, Germany went through its own period of austerity. It certainly constrained wage growth (which contributed to making its exports particularly competitive and put it in a good position to weather a downturn in the eurozone, when it can export to foreign markets) but I don't believe its inflation rate was vastly off. It was 1-2%, not vastly different to France for example. Either way politically, I don't see the German people being willing to pay these countries out of their troubles in effect.

I certainly agree though that eurozone rules were broken before the euro crisis, e.g. both Germany & France ran budget deficits in excess of agreed terms. Really it came down to the structural weakness of the eurozone's design. You can't have a monetary union (shared currency and central bank policy) without a fiscal union. What they had at best were fiscal guidelines and those weren't followed.

I don't see the eurozone collapsing though. Parties that want to leave are generally still fringe parties (excluding in the UK but it is the least integrated). France doesn't need bailouts, it just lacks growth (due to lack of the reforms Germany went through). The ECB's QE and the loose banking union for bailing out banks that they've developed will mean if Greece collapses these is unlikely to be any serious bank collapses or Lehman moments (or so the theory goes).

I don't really agree at the end with your characterization of a high German savings rate being culpability for inflating bubbles. That fault falls on the lack of domestic bank regulation within the respective countries, the lack of regulation to curb bad lending. In the same way I wouldn't blame China's saving rate for encouraging sub-prime US loans. Cash/liquidity is globally mobile and fungible. It's the responsible of the borrowers and their regulators to ensure they don't dig themselves into a hole. The lenders already stand to lose their investment if the loan goes bad.

^
Hand out, not bail out.
Wow, that's some completely wrong, paranoid right wing insanity after your first mistaken sentence. All of it, every word.

@bobknight33,
What color is the sky in your universe?
I ask you because your angry statements are actually diametrically opposed to reality.
The republicans are grasping control with both hands and a net, while the democrats are failing miserably at their attempts to stop the power grab....

Examples from just this week, the republicans just added to the budget (which, BTW, is simply not how they system works, and is simply a way to blackmail the government into capitulating to their plans or they'll just 'shut down the government' again, wasting billions more...again)....
1)an increase in the amount corporations can donate to them by 10 times, because republicans think corporations don't have enough say in our government and want to give them 10 times more voice (but not citizens)
2)a removal of the protections against wall street frauds and cheating that were hard won in the last few years, apparently attempting to ensure we have another avoidable 'recession' as soon as possible, and ensure that those responsible are not ever prosecuted for their frauds, but are 'bailed out' instead...again...
3)removal of minimum standards for public school lunches, because they believe poor children don't need vegetables, vitamins, protein, or micro nutrients, carbs and sugars are just fine for them.
EDIT: 4) and just to prove they don't really want smaller, localized government and don't want more power for the states and less for the fed, the republicans have also 'countermanded' the local people's vote in DC on legalized marijuana, making it illegal again there (contrary to the actual vote that was over 60% PRO legalized recreational marijuana).
If only Obama would use the line item veto, it wouldn't be an issue, but he won't (because he's not a power hungry dictator, contrary to Faux News 'reporting').

America is sliding away from socialism, and into corporatism. At least socialism is designed to benefit the populace, what we are getting from the republicans is designed to benefit their pocket books and corporate America, not the people.

As has been mentioned above, you must simply have no idea what socialism is if you think America is even headed in that direction, we're headed the other way buddy.

Gm was the largest selling automaker in june, in america..just fyi, bush bailed out gm, and the banks.

Stay on the defensive and let's explore this bail-out a bit more please-You chime-in as you are want to do for at least an hour of two a day, you obviously love drama when it's not directed at yourself, and love to stir-up and/or foment self-satisfying discord...HEY, I find your roll somewhat familiar and otherwise stinky and generally foul-tasting on the pallet...Care to defend your manner and comfort-zone??

No protests from a cadre of familiars yet??...Give em a few ticks. We're sure to witness them they'll jump right aboard the boat to Stroke-and-Polish island, where all such balls are caressed and cared-for with covetous enthusiasm...

On the other hand, apparently the US Government lost $11.2 billion on bailing out GM. They *spent* 50 billion bailing them out, the 11.2 billion is just how much dried up and blew away entirely.

Maybe if we'd have just let some of those corporate juggernauts fail, as should happen in a REAL free market, we'd actually have seen more progress. I'm thinking of, say, Tesla -- that got a $465 million loan from the gov. and paid it off in full 9 years early.

Not so long ago -- within my lifespan -- the government actually *broke up* giant corporate monopolies like Bell telecom. Now we can't throw money at them fast enough. I guess lobbying "works".

I'd like to point out that the American system of Capitalism doesn't follow it's own doctrine because we bail out the corporations and fund their projects. The rich control the society and make sure that they don't have to keep to the Capitalist system, but that the poor do.