Maybe it's time Germany paid back its debts and war reparations?

[BlasterBates]

Crisis overdone. Italy is not insolvent it has a liquidity crisis, easily solved by the ECB buying Italian bonds which will be done as soon the Italians pass the necessary reforms.

Good time to buy Euros and Italian bonds at the moment.

Amazing watching the panic in the UK. This isn't even headline news in Germany.

[sasguru]

Amazing watching the panic in the UK. This isn't even headline news in Germany.

Panic in the UK? Why is the German stoock market falling then?
You really are a complete thicko, aren't you?

[BlasterBates]

Panic in the UK? Why is the German stoock market falling then?
You really are a complete thicko, aren't you?

It fell a few weeks ago, it rose up again, it's fallen again, that's what stock markets do.

Once the Greek and Italian austerity packages are through that's more or less the end of the crisis. There will be a Portugese default, but no worse than Greece. Greece and Portugal are insolvent but Italy isn't. Most of Italy's debt arose pre 1990's it's hardly risen since then, which makes a mockery of the "it has to leave the Eurozone" camp.

The main thing are the reforms to make Italy and Greece competitive, which given their current situation should be easy to push through.

[sasguru]

Once the Greek and Italian austerity packages are through that's more or less the end of the crisis. .

I'll hold you to that.

[scooterscot]

Maybe it's time for a vast global debt write off?

Fine. But it would change nothing and change is the nature of the game right now.

How can pressing the reset button to only give the protagonists more fuel for a failed capitalist system be in the interests of humanity?

[Doggy Styles]

It's about time we squeezed the Italians for the Battle of Watling Street. What a bloody travesty.

To be fair they did build it for us.

[gingerjedi]

Panic in the UK? Why is the German stoock market falling then?
You really are a complete thicko, aren't you?

Exactly, I think the position of most people in the UK is:

[Mich the Tester]

No wonder the fookers are well off now, the US gave them tuliploads of cash, they didn't have to pay off their debts after the war like other countries

"After the first default during the 1930s, the US gave Germany a "haircut" in 1953, reducing its debt problem to practically nothing. Germany has been in a very good position ever since, even as other Europeans were forced to endure the burdens of World War II and the consequences of the German occupation....

With the exception of compensation paid out to forced laborers, Germany did not pay any reparations after 1990 -- and neither did it pay off the loans and occupation costs it pressed out of the countries it had occupied during World War II. Not to the Greeks, either....

Germany's export industry has thrived on orders. The anti-Greek sentiment that is widespread in many German media outlets is highly dangerous. And we are sitting in a glass house: Germany's resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims."



Economic Historian: 'Germany Was Biggest Debt Transgressor of 20th Century' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

On the other hand, Soviet occupied Germany's industrial infrastructure was practically dismantled and just about anything useful was taken to the USSR and Yugoslavia and captured soldiers were put into forced labour. A lot of Allied occupied Germany's intellectual property was taken away, including scientists, scientific documents, patents, trademarks and so on. The economic value of all this was already tens of billions in the 1940s, and would be quite a lot more now, given inflation.

Not a plea for sympathy for 1940s Germany, but I think there was a balance struck between grabbing what was useful in terms of reparations, but without making the mistake of leaving Germany in the same mess as 1918, with all the consequences that followed.

[scooterscot]

Consultancy group McKinsey said

Oh that lot. They're like the rating agencies pay them enough money and they'll publish a report saying black is really white.

The scary part is people will believe it because it's been nicely bound with protective covers.

[scooterscot]

Amazing watching the panic in the UK. This isn't even headline news in Germany.

WHS +

I've yet to hear any colleagues utter a syllable about the so called debacle.

From here it sounds like the fear from the UK is 'sort out this mess Europe before the spot light falls on us cause we don't have a plan B either'