> The German government, in collusion with the German business establishment, has wrecked Europe, first through its irresponsible lending...
I do agree that this sanctimonious moralizing of the virtues of the German over the Greek is risible. However, with common assumptions in place, what Germans did makes sense. Businesses had high productivity, lots of capital investment, and nowhere to send the excess of the commodities it could produce, the domestic market was satiated. So they lent money to the Greeks etc. and had a place to send these excess commodities for a few years. They kicked the can down the road so that they could figure out what to do with this overproduction and - today is the result.
I see a worldwide self-reinforcing cycle for slow growth, unemployment, recession and depression. Companies have it over employees so money goes to profit more than wages. This happens eveywhere so money goes to capital, not consumption. But the more impoverished workers have no money to buy commodities. So a temporary solution is found - debt. Things go along again and then one day the game of musical chairs ends and you have a situation like now.
Greek youth is not going to put up with a 65% unemployment rate forever, and the election of Syriza points to that. So does the rising number of votes going to Golden Dawn and the KKE. I see news commentators calling Syriza "far left" - they are not far left, they are just socialists. People are so used to soi disant socialist and labour parties performing neoliberal cuts when elected to government, the idea that a socialist politician wants a floor to living standards is a shock to them.
What you say about Greek youth is true, but northern Europeans are also not going to put up with subsidising Greece forever. At some point the current setup will crack in some way or other. You need to look at the rise of Eurosceptic parties like UKIP, FN and AfD. They reduce the amount of wiggle room the northern governments have to drag out Greece's default.
> I see news commentators calling Syriza "far left" - they are not far left, they are just socialists.
They do have a fairly strong far-left faction, which perhaps contributes to some of that perception. However I agree the party as such isn't, particularly the leadership that is actually in control of the party. Tsipras and his allies have fairly effectively sidelined the leftist faction over the past few years, in an attempt to turn the party into an electoral force that could win. The faction around Tsipras is inclined more towards a kind of pragmatic populist socialism, not a more hardline ideological leftism (Varoufakis is de facto in the Tsipras faction too, although I believe he's formally not even a member of Syriza).
I do agree that this sanctimonious moralizing of the virtues of the German over the Greek is risible. However, with common assumptions in place, what Germans did makes sense. Businesses had high productivity, lots of capital investment, and nowhere to send the excess of the commodities it could produce, the domestic market was satiated. So they lent money to the Greeks etc. and had a place to send these excess commodities for a few years. They kicked the can down the road so that they could figure out what to do with this overproduction and - today is the result.
I see a worldwide self-reinforcing cycle for slow growth, unemployment, recession and depression. Companies have it over employees so money goes to profit more than wages. This happens eveywhere so money goes to capital, not consumption. But the more impoverished workers have no money to buy commodities. So a temporary solution is found - debt. Things go along again and then one day the game of musical chairs ends and you have a situation like now.
Greek youth is not going to put up with a 65% unemployment rate forever, and the election of Syriza points to that. So does the rising number of votes going to Golden Dawn and the KKE. I see news commentators calling Syriza "far left" - they are not far left, they are just socialists. People are so used to soi disant socialist and labour parties performing neoliberal cuts when elected to government, the idea that a socialist politician wants a floor to living standards is a shock to them.