"That (i. e. Merkel's suggestion that Germany is only one among equals)
is a myth, as Mr Tsipras ceaselessly points out. He is turning a crisis
of the Greek economy and the eurozone’s monetary institutions into a
showdown between two nations, pitching his own as a righteous warrior
against Germany’s arrogant Goliath. It is a canny attempt to influence
governments and voters across the continent. Greek pleas for forbearance
are portrayed, not as the ungrateful demand of a nation that has
already been rescued twice, but the last stand of a country victimised
by a mighty Germany that might soon visit its wrath on other nations,
too. To surrender to Ms Merkel, the Greek prime minister suggests, would
be to concede a German victory over all of Europe.
This rhetoric is as powerful as it is preposterous".
Here is the full article in the FT.
Such a pity that I cannot read the full article in the Financial Times: it is a must to have a payed subscription. Too much for my wallet.
ReplyDeleteSearched for an alternative on internet, but cannot find any.
Found another interesting article:
The New York Times:
Greeks Need Their Leader to Be Tough
Published: March 29, 2015
By: Hugo Dixon
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/business/international/greeks-need-their-leader-to-be-tough.html
Via the Hugo Dixon tweet:
https://twitter.com/Hugodixon/status/582133999734284288
Thanks for that Antoinette. I do not have access to FT either. Unfortunately there are some very informative sites which are not for free, at least not all the time. I just ended a free month with macropolis. 50 Euro for one month is just too much.
ReplyDelete"The ungrateful demand of a nation that has already been rescued twice"? Seriously, why would anyone pay one red cent to read articles reflecting the views of the average Bild reader?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking for two days about this article and how to respond. I eventually managed to locate the article (in a truncated form). so I can now comment somewhat reliably.
ReplyDeleteFirst a confession: reading the financial press all these years resulted in the belief that they are unreliable.Their purpose is rarely to tell the objective news. Instead their purpose is to create,among their readership, the beliefs that help the big shots (bosses of Fidelity, Golman Sachs, Nomura, HSBC, the Murdoch press and similar together with their high level political friends).
I admit that such an opinion (almost communist) is difficult for a high level executive to swallow, so I will use the above article as an example.
Remember Sherlock Holmes dictum from the "Hounds of Buskervilles" about the hound that didn't bark.In this article what "is not barking", ie not mentioned, are the concurrent negotiations in Beijing. While in Brussels we have the narcissi, the ignoramusses, the immature and the pretenders negotiating (or maybe "negotiating") with the rest of the Eurozone, the supervising adults (Mr. Dragasakis and retinue) are in Beijing, mainly negotiating about the ports and airports. It is strange that no mention
of the Beijing negotiations exist in the article.Clearly these negotiations are vital and related to the Brussels negotiations. Does anybody believe that Beijing has no serious influence on the Brussels negotiations? If Mr Dragasakis flat out rejects the privatization of the port do you really believe that there will be no serious influence upon the Brussels negotiations? Keep in mind that the results of the Brussels
negotiations are of secondary importance as far as Beijing is concerned. Beijing can finance the Greek debt with ease, both political and financial, something that the Eurozone has difficulties to do.So the writer is either incompetent or has ulterior motives. Most probably some convenient combination of both, where the author is guessing what the editors want to hear and writing it down. It seems to me that the relation between Athens, Beijing and Brussels is like the poem by K. Kavafis The Alexandrian Ambassadors: Rome is Beijing, Athens is Alexandria and Brussels is the Oracle"Στην Ρώμη δόθηκε ο χρησμός, έγιν' εκεί η μοιρασιά¨
Finally sorry about the strong language but I am getting seriously pissed both with my government and some parts of the press.
I agree with most of this comment. The FT publishes bilgewater that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with promoting the interests of powerful business owners. As Murdoch is, in fact.
DeleteWhy people are insisting on reading this garbage is beyond me. I most certainly do not take it seriously, and would not pay one eurocent to smell their offensive stench of pro-big business propaganda.
anybody can read an ft article for free, if the site that they come to the article from is a search engine like google. This is deliberate on the FT's part, as it makes the FT's articles more visible.
ReplyDeleteThe trick is to find the article via google, rather than via a direct link. Generally, I just try and find the title of the article, and append "site:ft.com" to the google search. So in this case it's the search
"Greek morals and German maths must find common ground site:ft.com"
You have to answer a marketing question to view the article, however.