Frustration over the economy

[elhombresinnombre]

Please explain?

The crisis in Greece is still ongoing: it's only from a perspective of looking back from far enough on an episode of history you can say with any degree of certainty that something was a success or failure. Unpleasant for Greece? Certainly. Tragic for many, many individuals? Definitely. A failure? Who can tell - yet.

The Greek government of the day misrepresented the strength of their economy and their preparedness to enter the Euro and as a consequence the country was very badly burned. Roughly speaking that left them with three choices: abandon Europe, abandon the Euro or accept external aid and controls. One may speculate about whether Greece was right to reject the first two choices but what happened is what happened and they chose option three. What started then and is still going on now is not an attempt to put Greece back where it was before the EU/Euro but to make it's decisions to enter and stay in both work. Success or failure? Ask again in twenty years time. Don't forget that Britain went, in desperation, to the IMF in 1976. They gave the UK what was at the time the largest loan ever and imposed savage restrictions. It worked. Greece is however a completely different scenario.

 

[Joglide]

The crisis in Greece is still ongoing: it's only from a perspective of looking back from far enough on an episode of history you can say with any degree of certainty that something was a success or failure. Unpleasant for Greece? Certainly. Tragic for many, many individuals? Definitely. A failure? Who can tell - yet.

The Greek government of the day misrepresented the strength of their economy and their preparedness to enter the Euro and as a consequence the country was very badly burned. Roughly speaking that left them with three choices: abandon Europe, abandon the Euro or accept external aid and controls. One may speculate about whether Greece was right to reject the first two choices but what happened is what happened and they chose option three. What started then and is still going on now is not an attempt to put Greece back where it was before the EU/Euro but to make it's decisions to enter and stay in both work. Success or failure? Ask again in twenty years time. Don't forget that Britain went, in desperation, to the IMF in 1976. They gave the UK what was at the time the largest loan ever and imposed savage restrictions. It worked. Greece is however a completely different scenario.

-------------
Fair point though IMF loan to UK 'worked' for one model (labour-social democrat) for a while, and then the Thatcher conservatives scrapped that model and turned to monetarism, mass unemployment and anti-labour legislation which "worked" to make them the most unpopular government in living memory with riots in the streets until Thatcher was rescued by two South Ameircans - General Galtieri and Augusto Pinochet. That certainly worked. She won a landslide election and then prepared to break the trade unions.