Ave, Jeff!

Dr. Jeff Hodges has a post that answers, at least in part, an accusation of German hypocrisy that was made by one of my commenters in the comment thread of my post on why Greece should go back to the drachma.

Jeff's post, which quotes heavily from Ronald J. Granieri's "Greek Debt, Austerity, and the Myth of the Hypocritical Hun," notes that the Greek accusation of German hypocrisy stems from the fact that, at the end of World War II, Greece was one of the signatories of a measure that had economic mercy on Germany, thus allowing Germany to undergo its "miraculous" economic recovery. Germany, now, is refusing to show Greece the same mercy, the story goes. But Granieri points out that, unlike Greece, Germany (1) was willing to compromise with the rest of Europe and (2) actually underwent fiscal austerity before recovering (something post-IMF South Korea also did). Greece has done none of this yet, so who's the real hypocrite?


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