A Little More Clarity on Germany vs. Greece

Looks like Germany's plan all along has been to kick it's irresponsible little brother out of the party all along.

In an article in Bloomberg today, two politicians from Germany announced that they have no problem if Greece leaves the EU now.

“The whole reason why we jumped into action wasn’t necessarily out of sympathy with Greece, but rather because we said that there could be a shockwave to the financial system,” Michael Meister, deputy parliamentary caucus leader for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said in a phone interview today. “I think the scale of the threat from Greece has diminished.”

So after 2 years of forcing their people to make incredible sacrifices all in the name of bowing to the mercy of the EU, all the Greeks have to show for it is a complete loss of interest from the leader of the union.  As a matter of fact, what the Germans are saying is that nobody wants to deal with Greece anyways.   As long as we keep the other more wealthier members of the EU intact all is good.

For Greece, “the problem is not whether they are capable of paying their loans -- they will not, not at all, never,” Fuchs said by phone from his Berlin office. Greece is still a “special case” and the other 16 euro members will resolve their debt problems and retain the currency, he said. 

and

Fuchs dismissed the prospect that letting Greece go would trigger speculative attacks against indebted countries such as Spain or Italy. Italy is a “rich” country and banks would be able to withstand any contagion effect, said Fuchs, who also coordinates economic policy for the CDU caucus in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag. Talk of contagion from Greece would be “right if we’re talking about two years ago.”

I can't place the blame for this completely on the Germans.  Greece took their acceptance into the EU, along with the subsequent low interest rates that came along with it, as a license to spend other peoples money.  They spent it to build some roads, and to fund some worthy social programs but most of it was spent blindly by politicians first in starting social programs which would help them buy elections and secondly by lining their pockets.  No real investment in infrastructure, no real investment in manufacturing, no real investment on anything that would actually provide some sort of return on investment.  A complete disaster for which the average citizen is now paying the price for.  

In spite of all this, what type of signal is Germany sending by telling Greece to fuck off in their time of need.  To sit there and turn their backs on Greece implies that Germany has never messed up before and that they are immune to economic cycles. 

Greece made the sacrifice of forfeiting it's currency when it entered the EU all for the sake of unity.  Many benefits came along with this forfeiture, however there was a huge sacrifice that was made as well.  By giving up it's currency, Greece lost control over prices within it's borders and implicitly signed over it's fate to the big powers of the EU such as Germany under the assumption that there would be aid if there were problems.  After two years of half-assed solutions that every economist worth his weight had stated would not work, the Germans are now starting to say this is not our problem anymore. 

The next question that should be asked is who will be next if this precedent is set?