The populist German press – led by the BILD-Zeitung – has fueled the resentment of many Germans against their EU partners to the south. Why should hard-working Germans, who have done everything right, bail out those lazy Greeks. who retire early and go on extended vacations? The anger was further stoked recently by Angela Merkel, who had harsh criticism for the people of those countries Germany bailed out again and again by Germany. She basically accused Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks of being lazy. “We can't have a common currency where some get lots of vacation time and others very little,” she said, according to the news magazine Spiegel. “That won't work in the long term.” She cited early retirement ages as further evidence Southerners just don’t pull their weight.
Never mind the fact that Merkel was mistaken: people in those countries do not retire any earlier than Germans and have the same amount of vacation. According to economist Joerg Bibow, the chancellor should look in the mirror to find the root cause of the crisis in the Eurozone:
Germany likes to see its international competitiveness as the fruit of hard work and productivity. Yet, German productivity growth since 1999 does not stand out. What stands out is wage stagnation. Germany’s improved competitiveness was derived from reducing German wages relative to its European partners; the equivalent of a beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation in pre-euro times. The consequences of this strategy have proved disastrous: domestic demand stagnation in Germany, housing bubbles in partner countries with higher inflation, given that the ECB sets one rate that has to fit all. One way or another, the country that runs up trade surpluses must either lend or grant transfers to the deficit countries that make its own surpluses possible. Today, German policymakers refuse to do either. Fooled into believing that beggar-thy-neighbor was the right thing to do, popular demands appear to be just that. One cannot fail to see that insane austerity in the periphery serves to keep the euro low enough so that Germany can now grow on external exports.
Can there be any surpise that people in Greece are taking to the streets to express their anger at German-imposed austerity measures?
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The Greek should make a revolution, kill all the bankers and corrupt politicians and reset their society again at zero. Including the currency.
This should force Sarkozy to invade Greece in order to protect French banks and even the last village idiot in Europe would finally understand what the currency union is all about.
I believe the most realistic event (should the Greeks keep up their resistance) would be to send EU civil servants to Athens and run the country from Brussels as a precondition for further payments.
And in case the ordinary Greeks don’t accept their authority, we should all be happy that the Treaty of Lisbon got passed in the end. This way, the “Greek” government can then call for other EU members’ armies to restore public order.
Greeks taking it to the streets? Let’s see how rebellious they are once a curfew is proclaimed 🙂
Or maybe greeks will make a generous discount to the german debts from WW2 and sue the EU members who caused that situation for fraud along with their “greek government”.
why not taking it to court? 😀
….keep your armies “zymed” for the ww3, the economic war. Just take a look who exactly stopped the 2nd one. 🙂