Monday, October 31, 2011
Response to Greece Articles
Wow. Where to start in on this heavy material? A good place is how bad the euro was and still is. I personally didn't know how the situation in Europe had gotten. Greece seems to be one of the worse off countries currently. I took away from the articles that Greece feels like they have been slighted by other nations and government around them. The prime example is Germany against Greece. Many diehard Greeks have claimed they have felt these German/Nazi effects since World War II and even before then. Even the Greek president has gotten negative remarks from citizens who call him a "traitor" for even trying to work with the Germans on different agreement procedures. This conversation of improvement of the Greek economy and the entire European economy as a whole can be identified with the Recession the United States has suffered from in the last several years. The Recession had some of the same causes as this European crisis has. When looking at a recessionary period from another point of view, Americans analyzing Europeans, there can be similar aspects that present themselves, but there can also be interesting contrasts. Americans never put blame on anyone but themselves as a government and nation. We fell into debt, and never recovered and it reached a peaking point late in 2008. The Greeks and other European nations have different opinions on who has created their economic crisis. This brings up an interesting economic question: Could the American Recession have been formed by another nation's relationship with the United States?
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I think you're right about the difference of perception between Greeks and Americans. It seems that Americans blame the government for our debt, while Greeks put the fault on foreign banks responsible for implementing austerity. Greeks feel that they are being taken advantage of economically by foreign banks, but the financial package that was recently offered proves this to be an invalid argument. Though austerity has been painful, the Greeks they must consider that the voluntary reduction German bankers have agree to shouldn't characterize them as an enemy. I believe their decision to forgive 50% of Greece's debt shows they support the best interest of both Greece and the EU.
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