Comments on: The EU Is Reportedly Exploring Making a Loan To Greece

By: jon livesey

jon livesey — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:54:28 +0000

“…Greece has a veto on every important issue…”

Really? Does Greece have a very special kind of EU membership, then?

Or, maybe, wait, here’s an idea; someone else decides which are the important issues. Is that how it works?

By: hix

hix — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:29:47 +0000

Bottom line: Help from the EU where Greece has a veto on every important issue and a vote based on her population sice: Evil power grap.

Help from the IMF where power is solely based on money and Greece has no vote at all: No evil power grap at all!

Lets stick to the narative: EU evil.
Euro, evil. Germany, evil, France evil. US,UK, Singapure etc, libertarian paradise!

By: jon livesey

jon livesey — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:22:01 +0000

I think this is classic EU. You declare that the problem is severe, then you express confidence in the Greek Government to solve it, then you solve it for them with “tight constraints” and voila, you have turned an economic crisis into a mechanism for the EU to exert more control, all the while saying “Nothing to see here, move along”.

Of course, it goes without saying that an IMF loan would come with tight constraints as well, but at least the IMF would go away in due course, when their loan, coupled with disciplines, had put you back on track. I think the Greeks will find that the EU will never go away. If the EU makes a loan to Greece, the EU will still be co-signing the cheques a decade from now.

By: buzz

buzz — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:47:20 +0000

The EU Is Reportedly Exploring Making a Loan To Greece (A Fistful of Euros)…

Whatever the issues of communal pride, simple damage containment considerations suggest the Greek government should be calmly told to go to the IMF, and they should be told to go now….