Many thanks for your answer. Actually and as you surely guessed, my post is ironic. Sorry to be straight but your perception of the crisis is way too simplistic, regardless of your political views … and I’m not Greek, i’m french!!!

I could write a book (well, many in fact) to explain the crisis but let’s take some examples to illustrate the truth.

1) German banks are full with crap debt, especially greek debt, and for many years, they’ve been rewarded high rates in terurn for the risks they took. So German banks are not victims here, they’ve made a lot of money on the back of Greece while knowing well the structural weaknesses of Greece BEFORE lending.

2) Greece was not crazy enough to think that the situation could last forever. They knew too that the system would colapse one day or another … and to some extent you are dead right : they enjoyed the safety nets as much as could be.

3) But who really enjoy the safety nets in this situation? Greece?…or Germany? Actually both took advantage of it : Greece directly and Germany indirectly. And what about the current situation? Both are in a difficult situation : Greec directly and Germany … indirectly. Obviously, the productivity and currency stuff makes the headlines of non specialists and even populists newspapers … and it’s real by the way, but look, it’s far from beeing that simple, believe me it’s my full time job!

In economy, you can’t report theories you heard, everything is about obervation and numbers, like in science. The rest is not economy, it’s journalism.

This is one example among hundreds I could mention, but it shockingly illustrates that selfreliance works in both ways, in many ways actually. I can tell you something about it, as I told you, i’m french, single, banker for 5 years so I know what paying for others mean every December you have to believe me …

And talking about self-reliance, and as I am deeply intersted in coaching, psyche and human related subjects, I do agree totally with your view, but think your example is just terrible and does not serve your purpose, please no offense, I mean it in a constructive way.

Once again, nothing personal at all in my post and I do think your posts often stimulate thinking and in my view this should the first purpose of any article.
I’ve noticed you checked my profile on Linked In, let’s be friends there and go on deeper on that subject if you fancy.

Cheers

David

I wasn’t really trying to think outside the box it’s just that I coach a lot of different kinds of people [here in Canada]and so many seem stuck on ‘not self reliant’ so I think about it alot and wanted to make that point i.e. can you figure out how to take charge of your own life?

Politically I’m a Thatcherite i.e. the immorality of socialism is that it robs people of self-reliance or something similar and that’s bad when extended to the macro.

But you seem to know something so let me ask you about a theory of the EU crisis that I heard. The theory goes something like this.

Germany has been benefiting for many years by selling it’s high productivity goods with a relatively weak currency [the Euro] while
Greece has suffered by selling with the same currency. So Germany
has grown strong while Greece has weakened. Now Greece is too weak and it’s time for Germany to pay back for it’s previous benefits.

What do you think of that?

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Jerome Shore
Managing Partner
The Coaching Clinic
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