Greek threat to take assets from Germans .Holiday Homes included

[Frederick]

They seem determined to upset Germany to a point of being thown out of the EU.. No wonder their banks are seeing more and more people getting their cash out over the past few days .

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21646748-references-reparations-and-threats-seize-german-assets-will-not-solve-greeces-economic

Link may request " subscribe " to open for some people . below taken from article .

Just now the Greek government seems to prefer lobbing incendiary political gibes instead. The defence minister has threatened to flood Europe with migrants, including jihadists. The justice minister has demanded that Germany pay €160 billion ($170 billion) in war reparations and warned Greece might seize the buildings of the Goethe Institute and even German holiday homes if the money is not handed over (see article). And Mr Tsipras has brought forward to early April a trip to Moscow to see Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. His hoped-for message is as clear as it is crude: Mr Putin might be only too happy to help a fellow Orthodox country that dislikes sanctions on Russia.

[Quillan]

He is a desperate man clinging at straws. He made a load of promises when he stood for election without knowing what the real problems of Greece were. Bit like when the Tories won the election and set foot in the treasury only to find a note saying that if they were looking for all the money there wasn't any. They didn't know this till they got there. This guy didn't know how bad it was till he won and then he realised he couldn't make the changes he said he would make. Now pride goes before a fall and he needs to make good on his promises.

I admit I don't understand the minute details about the forced loans to Germany from Greece when it was occupied BUT the way I have read it they were paid back as agreed by the allied reparations committee (in Paris) after the war. There is loads of stuff on the internet about this from the Economist, Forbes and Fortune to name but three sources. Greece approved the payment back then so how can they go back half a century or more later and claim more money. The fault lays with those Greeks at the time that accepted the payment. I Mean America and the UK got $25bn but our share went to America to pay for war material etc and even after that we still carried on paying America back well into the 21st century (I used to know the year but have forgotten it now). Perhaps we could go back and ask for more?

Corruption in Greece has been rife for years and to be honest it took the three attempts to 'cook the books' so they could join the EU and even then everyone knew they had lied. What was just as bad was that the EU knew and still allowed them to join. So in my book the fault is on both sides.

The bottom line is Greece is bankrupt and has no way of paying the money back. This guy needs money, desperately, and he does not care where he gets it from, Russia, Germany, the EU, he does not care. Russia wants to base it's navy in Greece (it has emergency repair workshops there already) which the mediterranean countries and NATO would see as a direct threat and thats his real blackmail tool to get money. Would he really do it, well desperate people do desperate things.

[mint]

In the run-up to the election, anyone with half an ounze of sense could see that Tsipras was the original snake oil seller.

It was only the desperate Greek people that believed him and, incredibly to everyone else, even believed that austerity could be done away with with a snap of the fingers.  Do they believe in fairy godfathers as well?

Russian involvement was always something lurking out there anyway.

But the new government should watch out and stop all this posturing.  Too much hubris (well, it's a Greek word, isn't it?) could be their undoing.

[PaulT]

No sorry, I am on the side of Greece. Why should not a country borrow sheds load of money, spend it on anything it wants and then be able to say to those it owes money 'please forget what we owe you'.

Shows how gullible the Greek electorate are to believe that, as a bankrupt country, it can increase wages and give loads of handouts only to be handed to Putin. Seems like the Greeks have lost more than the Elgin Marbles but their own.