Yes, the previous Greek govt was in cahoots with the EU. It never should have been allowed into the eurozone and the books were fudged with both sides in full knowledge. The new govt wanted to take a different path, but was not allowed to do so. They wanted exactly what you say should happen, “providing jobs via investment in infrastructure to kick-start the economy”, but instead got “US-style structural reform which means cuts to benefits etc”. Though to be fair to the US, they have been against this austerity approach from the start and argued the EU should not impose it on Greece.

The Greeks lied about their economy to get into the EU in the first place, although the EU knew they were lying and ignored it because they wanted Greece in the EU so much.

I agree my analogy went too far, but you cannot doubt that the Greek economy needs structural reform. I’m not talking about US-style structural reform which means cuts to benefits etc, but the style that means providing jobs via investment in infrastructure to kick-start the economy.

I’m sorry, Heather, but too much of that is just myth that the neoliberal troika wants us to believe. Yes, Greece was and is in need of reform, and that was never denied by Syriza when they became the govt. What they objected to were plans that would ensure there was no growth possible, which therefore amounted to asset stripping, and which in a few years will require yet more loans. Your analogy of NJ/WY and Germany/Greece is completely wrong. NJ sends real money to WY, which then get spent locally on infrastructure and also unemployment benefits, health benefits, etc, while well over 90% of the latest loan to Greece went to pay off older loans. This money never left the German and French banks that loaned it and has not benefited the Greek economy at all. The German people are funding the banks previous bad loans. It is a game played to pretend that Greece is solvent when it is not, so that the banks don’t have to write off their bad loans.

Greece also needs some major structural reform in its economy. They’ve been promising to do that ever since they started receiving loans from the EU, and they haven’t done it. Some of their economic practices are pretty outrageous. While they’re portraying Merkel as Hitler, the German people are funding Greece in the same way New Jersey does Wyoming. And the main reason Germany has so much available to lend is Germans are much better savers than Greeks. The Greeks live well beyond their means.

Great article!

The US is in need of some serious electoral reform. I think this is where Sanders and Warren should be focusing their efforts.

And me.

Amazing isn’t it, yet the beneficiaries are the ones who complain about socialism. If it weren’t for the continuance of slavery I sometimes think we’d be better off if the South had won the war just to be rid of them.

By the way, and it’s another topic entirely, but this is a demonstration of exactly why the euro is in crisis. The US works economically overall despite the large difference in states’ performance, because there is political union as well as monetary union. Monetary union on it’s own only works in good times, because the lower performing jurisdictions can attract investment by raising interest rates. But in bad times, this doesn’t work. What is needed then is a political agreement that sends the investment where it’s needed anyway. That’s the main reason why Mississippi isn’t bankrupt, but Greece is.

You’ll love this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/opinion/sunday/why-blue-states-are-the-real-tea-party.html

Sigh.

nicky, the EC hasn’t failed in it’s task yet, though it almost certainly will on 19 Dec when it votes. It hasn’t been in a position to do it’s job of preventing a Trump since around 200 years ago when States started selecting electors based on their allegiance to candidates. At about the same time, a few states started the winner take all system to give their state’s own candidate an edge. Like a sort of evolutionary game theory, this practice spread to nearly all the other states so that the advantage gained by the early adopters was neutralised. Really the only reason for the EC now is to preserve the advantage it gives the smaller states. And this advantage has grown during the last hundred some years since the number of representatives in the House was frozen at 538. If the original population per rep had been preserved instead, it would be interesting to see how different the outcome of this election would be.

“My point is that, although the EC system is inherently unfair (and Trump would obviously have lost if it had been), it would *still* not have gone Trumps way, if not for plain fraud.”

That’s how it looks to me, too.