Of course he is biased, which one of us isn't? As for not being satisfied, that's pretty understandable when you think that the austerity imposed by the EU has left Greece's economy in ruins and many of its people impoverished.Originally Posted by Gambatte
Successive Greek Governments must take their share of the blame for the reckless public spending and the culture of tax evasion that put the country in the state it was in the first place. But the action taken afterwards did not follow the typical IMF recovery plan. Normally the defaulting country has to undergo some austerity, but receives debt relief and its economy is helped by a depreciating currency.
Obviously the latter point is not as option for a country in the euro. The EU acted to save the euro and German and French banks that stood to lose the most from a Greek default. We can talk about reckless spending but what about the reckless lending of the German and French banks? Surely they should have been made to bear their own losses from their commercial decisions.
We often talk about austerity in Britain over the last seven years but it has been nothing compared to Greece. In the latter it has been so swingeing that GDP fell by more than 25%. By comparison the UK's economy is 10% bigger than it was before the financial crisis.
Inevitably Greece's debt to GDP ratio increased to astronomical proportions. They can never pay it back and its creditors (mainly EU taxpayers) will never see their money. Varoufakis was trying to renegotiate a sensible debt restructuring plan that involved some debt relief. This would mean that Greece's economy could start to grow again, once unshackled from harsh austerity and the creditors would eventually see some repayment.
But this would mean the EU's politicians would have to admit the truth about their previous "bailouts" and they were never going to do that. So Varoufakis was met by the array of negotiating tactics that he described in the article.
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