barnacs a day ago

I happen to live in the EU so I may have a slight clue what I'm talking about.

But if you want an authority on the subject, look up Yanis Varoufakis and how sovereignty and democracy worked out for Greece when shit hit the fan.

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  • MadDemon a day ago

    Greece took on more debt than they could serve. Do you expect the tax payers from other countries to just pay for that without significant changes to how Greece operates? If you can't pay your debts and you can't print your own currency, you lose some sovereignty. But I feel like Greece would have been worse off if they still had the drachma and tried to print their way out of the crisis.

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    • barnacs a day ago

      Pretty much every single country in the world has taken on more debt than they can serve. And the 2008 crisis wasn't triggered by Greece either. The private creditors should have taken the loss. And that holds true for the rest of the world.

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      • MadDemon 6 hours ago

        If a debtor can't pay their debt, you don't just get to wipe out the bond holders. There is some kind of negotiation to try to restructure the debt and see how much the bond holders can still get. Simply wiping out the debt would create a terrible precedent with terrible consequences for the credibility of the whole eurozone. Who would want to lend money to an EU country if they just get wiped out when things get bad? It would've also had bad consequences for the financial system and potentially caused some institutions to go belly up. The way that countries typically get rid of their debt is by printing money to serve it and thereby inflating it away. But that is obviously not popular among the remaining EU countries. It was always clear that the Euro comes with this constraint that you can't just inflate away your debt.

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  • sbergot a day ago

    Europe was able to impose policies to Greece because Greece was requesting loans from Europe. Those loans were required because other investors were unhappy that Greece had hidden the real state of its finance in its reports.

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blell a day ago

Educate us, tell us when did we vote for the commission and the likes of von der Leyen. (If your answer is "you didn't vote for it, but you voted for someone who voted for someone who voted for it in a secret ballot" I am going to chuckle)

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  • casper14 a day ago

    Do Americans vote for the supreme court or the chair of the fed?

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  • raincole a day ago

    And when did Americans vote for the director of FBI? Chair of the Fed? The local judge who can sign a warrant permitting the police to rummage your house?

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  • sekai a day ago

    > Educate us, tell us when did we vote for the commission and the likes of von der Leyen. (If your answer is "you didn't vote for it, but you voted for someone who voted for someone who voted for it in a secret ballot" I am going to chuckle)

    Voters place their trust in representatives who then act on their behalf during the EP voting process and other legislative matters, such as electing the President of the European Commission

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  • smallnix a day ago

    Even that would be wrong. Von der Leyen was strong armed into her position by Merkel and the other heads of states, overruling Timmermans nomination.

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  • SkiFire13 a day ago

    By that logic the president of the USA is also "not elected"

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