Thank you so much, John, for, like, having the most stress you have ever had in your life and still making a thought-out, intelligent, informative, objective, over-7-minute video for us. I am German and I often don't really catch up on all of this stuff (although obviously everybody is talking about it all the time), because it is kinda exhausting me and I don't think that I can judge anything or anybody because I just don't know enough and hate it when people think that they know the 100% right solution to the problem and the others are just simply wrong. There is a lot of "not imagining things complexely enough" involved in most discussions. So yeah, thank you.
Tigermond1 Thank YOU for your really empathetic comment. This is a really stressful time in my life, but to be honest making stuff for and with nerdfighteria is my biggest professional stress relief. This is what I love doing, so thanks for giving me the chance to do it. -John
***** I feel exactly the same. I don't really follow the news and nobody really teaches us what's happening. It is so nice to hear about the Greek crisis from someone who isn't European. Thank you so much!!!
***** Hi John, I would just like to reehmphasise this. As someone from the UK I feel like the greek/European economic situation is something that I should know about. I know it is a hugely important issue but economics has never been something I understand well. Thank you for a short and clear discussion of the complexity of the situation. I feel I understand the world a little better because of you. DFTBA
I just wasted three days trying to understand something that you cleared up for me in under 8 minutes. This is why I love being subscribed to you, John :)
JuliaTheBookMonster I looove him! I featured Paper Towns in a favourites video a good bit before Christmas & have talked about his books a good few times in older vids, he's fantastic :)
Anarchy Bruh busy, bruh :) I'm Irish (so Greek's situation isn't something I go out of my way to keep on top of) & have a really hectic job. Let me give John a compliment without being a total dick, cheers!
Why does it still amaze me that I can spend an hour trying to understand the financial crisis in Greece, to no avail, then watch/listen to John talk about it for less than 8 minutes and understand the financial crisis in Greece?
Hello John! I am a 16-year old fan from Greece! Thank you for taking the time to explain what is going on in my country.Everytime I pass by an ATM there are at least 15 people waiting, the city center is full of homeless people who are begging for food,children pass out at schools because of starvation.People are depressed,they are desperate,they've lost hope,young people have no ambitions.Both of my parents are now unemployed and we visit an ATM every single day to get ONLY 50 euros...I know that there are people who have it way worse than I do, but i just want people to understand how tragic the situation is.
Yeah,things got worse.Product prices even in cheapest supermarkets are high,unemployment still is a really major issue (and those who are employed live on wage of 400-500E/month),energy & fuel prices are high,rent is a considerable percentage of your monthly wage.Government over-taxes buisness owners while essentially there is no cash flow & ofcourse older people have it usually the worst since pensions are getting cut almost systematically. Greece is a really nice place for vacation but it's not a nice country to be a citizen of
Yes, things are still bad, but, if anything, they have stabilized. During that summer of 2015 everything was uncertain. Shops closing, unemployement rising, serious problems with liquidity, long lines in front of ATMs that didn't have enough money, and plans that entailed GREXIT or a return to drachma actually starting to sound plausible.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this video. As a Spaniard supporting Greece's struggle and the need for a united Europe, it is very refreshing to hear you speak this way.
First of all:this is very informative. It helps me understand the situation a lot better, thank you for continuing to be so intelligent, and for wanting to spread that to others. Second of all: you answered my question on Dear Hank and John about a week ago, and I just want to say thank you. It was about some...habits that I have, and you were so gracious and thoughtful in what you said. I've had several doctors (not mental health doctors, just pediatricians), teachers, and family members just tell me to "stop doing that", and it made me very emotional to hear someone (two someones who I adore) say "we're sorry, and this is part of who you are, and you deserve support." This has nothing to do with the video topic, but yeah. I'm going to try to see a mental health specialist as soon as I can. Thank you for everything John. DFTBA.
Frederico Augusto Wohooo, CONGRATULATIONS, you are officially one of us!!! :D It took me half a year as well. ^-^(But, sorry if I'm too curious, which missing one? I know that one is missing because I made a playlist of all the vlogbrothers videos I've ever watched, i.e. all of them, and one of those videos is private now, but I have no clue which video that was. Do you have any information that I don't have? O_o)
Tigermond1 There is a video mentioned on the following video by hank, so it is clearly missing. From the comments of the following it looks like it's gone for good.
***** I have watched John's first video. So it leaves me with only the one missing. Also, on a sidenote, one of the Batman discussion videos, that later became that awesome song, is not missing from the channel, but is not on the 2014 playlist.
I love the way you add the human element to the issues you discuss. At the end of the analysis and arguments, it's people we are talking about. Another brilliant vlog.
juststeveschannel Maybe we can do something about it. Imagine the impact of the whole of Nerdfighteria getting behind this crowdfunding www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-crowdfund ! We couldn't solve the problem, but we could help raise money to help families in real need.
juststeveschannel I wont give a name to it but the solution seems obvious. Think about this; the ground can still yield crops, factories can still manufacture goods the people are still capable of doing work; why wait for the capitalists to say "Go"? Can you guess what I'm talking about? It begins with an "A"...
juststeveschannel The solution is eliminating the problem. The problem is unemployment, that means no more production of goods and services (food, clean water, buildings , machines, technology etc). The cause of the problem was partially free money given to the greek people. Now the second part of the cause will be the lack of money in the system. Do you see a common link in these two causes ? Yes, its the very existence of money, or in other words the existence of the belief that with money comes production of goods and services. The production of goods and services comes with knowledge (science) and the will do to them. No money necessary in this. Some greeks apparently realised this and are starting to do barter.
Thank you John, even with the huge amount of stress that I'm assuming you're under, you've still taken the time to talk about something relevant and even interesting, as well as helping those people like me who had absolutely no idea what was going on with Greece to understand. Thank you, hope you've been well xx
These really are my favorite videos that you guys make. It's always a struggle for me to understand current events, and I love that you guys can give the proper back history for viewers to get a full picture. Thank you.
Wow, thanks for all the information! I needed it desperately. I also love the fact that, though their careers are growing, the Green brothers still care about educating people.
Oh, THAT'S what he was saying. I couldn't quite hear and thought it was a Mark Rufallo situation where he was getting involved with politics or something.
John, you have a way of explaining things that makes it extremely easy to understand whatever it is you're choosing to explain. Thanks for these videos.
Hi, John, I'm Ana, from Bulgaria (north of Greece) and right now I'm studying law (just had exam in European law) and I love how objective your videos are. You explain very complex problems, so that everyone can understand them (now mather if they study law, economy, if they live in Europe next to Greece or on the other end of the world). I congratulate you (and Hank) on that and all of the other projects! Have a great week and keep up the great work! :)
The Euro is such a risky thing. In order for the currency to work all participating countries must have in-sync economies. And there's a major difference between the Western European economies and the Eastern. I hope things work out in the end.
JustinBobcat it's not really. euro losing value is beneficial to europe actually. and if it ever fails completely there won't be a huge problem either.
Simonas Mažeikis it's beneficial in the fact that it helps with the manufacturing industry, but losing too much value isn't necessarily a good thing neither. Plus, I don't think if the Euro fails it'll be as easy as you think of a transition
Simonas Mažeikis I didn't say it was going to fail because of Greece. It'll only fail for Greece. I'm sure the EU is going to implement stricter rules about collecting accurate data
I think you explained the Greek crisis and Eurozone crisis better than anyone I have ever heard before. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you for making this video! I will share it with many.
I visited Athens two weeks ago! I could definitely feel the uncertainty that hang in the air over the economy. There were a lot of people desperately asking for money on the streets or selling things. My friend got his phone stolen. Most of the local businesses asked only for hard cash when paying for things. It was little nerve wracking, but not terrible. The ATMs worked too. But... now I know that it may be more worse now.
SDFGReturns :) I haven't taken an economics class or visited Greece, but from the news everything you're saying is clear. Also, John Green helped me understand austerity in economics and how deficits aren't entirely bad. He's a helpful economics teacher.
SDFGReturns it is also a lot easier to avoid paying tax if you only deal in cash. I'd expect a grexit to just make that even worse with a whole new underground economy in euros. Things were destined to go wrong when half the people doesn't pay tax and the other half keeps electing the government that will give them the highest salaries and best pensions.
SDFGReturns as far as i know, the greek werent to keen on taxes ever, if you accept credit card and not cash it would be almost impossible to evade taxing, so thats why most places only accepted cash - which is a big factor why greece has such a big tax problem, many people, specially young people in greece think taxes are evil and only to screw them - but a functioning tax system keeps everyone afloat and for the better
michaela blom come on man it's not that bad. I spend quite some time in Athens but there are everywhere poor and rich people. Over here people usually pay with cash
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The year 2012 during economy crisis my mom divorced on dad Why? Because they lost their jobs because of devil business bosses who can't let them relaxing
The real problem was fudging the numbers in the first place. Independent Central Banks keep politicians from using economic policy as a means to getting elected but that doesn’t work if lying about it is an optional economic policy
My older brother just got his bachelor degree in economics and has talked about Greece on several occasions so, this just made my life a lot easier and I thank you for that.
Well damn, you just pretty much summed up everything that's being going on in my country the past few years. Personally, I've been a fan of yours for quite a long time, reading books, watching movies etc and I kind of feel the need to comment. In my perspective, being a Greek teenager, it's quite difficult to fit in the current Greek society, having literally not much of a hope for my future, my studies (which are very very close) and then my search for a job that's going to help me settle down and have some sort of financial ease. Me and many many other teenagers in general are 'forced' to imagine a future abroad. Choosing to follow the foreign language studies (probably French), I personally don't have much of a future here. I need to find a way, probably after my studies, to travel abroad and eventually settle there. That may cause other problems which are the current most faced ones by the Greek families. Personally, my family could be classified as 'the middle class' to 'the ones who were influenced by the economic crisis in a level that's very noticeable' may I say. The fact that I have to find a way to figure out on my own how I'm going to start my own life when I'm a young adult (which again is very close, pretty much 2 years) has me extremely nervous, anxious and worried, yet hopeful. It really depends on the way you see things and life in general. My point is that there are so so many problems going on all around the world and some things that some people consider as normal and ordinary are not always faced the same way by some others. We should really appreciate whatever comes into our lives and try our hardest and best in order to hope for the best, because in the end, life has a plan for all of us. I never really comment, let alone open up to a rather large community here on TH-cam(even if I've been a supporter and fan of it for the past 3-3,5 years) and by no means my personal 'overview' of life is similar to everyone else's here in Greece or anywhere else in the world. I don't know, I guess I just wanted to thank you for choosing such a touching subject (at least for me-my country) and I really wanted to find a reason to thank you for keeping me entertained with your books, movies and videos because I couldn't really ask for any other way to spend my teenage years. (Your books may or may not have helped me to develop my English skills in any way haha) thank you very very much, all the love xxx (sorry this was huge I never really do this hahaha)
Loved your comment!!( I rarely leave comments on youtube too) My generation is facing the crisis now. I've finished studying and I'm currently unemployed.(Considering moving abroad).I'm facing now what you might face in a couple years and I'm, just like you, anxious,worried but still hopeful! I like your optimism, never stop hoping for the best, don't let the crisis kill your dreams and ambitions!!✌
I owe you a huge thank-you, John. You posted this right as I was trying to come up with a topic for my macroeconomics research paper. Obviously, the information and sources you provided were not the only ones I used, especially since events continued to unfold even as I researched, but it was a great starting point, and I don't know that I could have wrapped my head around everything without this nice little summary. I ended up getting an A on the paper, and my teacher was impressed at how I managed to tackle such a difficult and ongoing topic. I definitely, however, would not have been able to cover this without your video, and I don't know that I would have found a suitable topic. So thanks again, John.
John I am from Greece and I have to say that you are 100% right! And thanks for making a video for our crisis now I can understand the problem much better!!!
As a Greek it is nice to see someone trying to inform the others about our situation.But John ,Hank and everybody else ,it is not that simple...People commit suicide because they do not have money to survive or suffer from depression...the unemployment is over 47%...and these are just a few problems that Greeks are facing.And trust me,it is quite hard to be a 19yo student in Greece and away from the city you grew up.I do understand the "hate" that some people and Europeans have for us,but we suffer from that huge debt.So ,everybody, please inform yourselves before typing a comment and stating an opinion based on lies and not facts. (if you are about to write a hate comment ,please don't! I've had enough of those...)
Greece is a Balkan country that decided it could live like a Western European country. The crisis has returned it to the Balkans. Greetings form Serbia.
The unemployment rate is nowhere near 47% today, nor do I believe it was 3 years ago. People aren't commiting suicide and even if a select few are don't make it seem as if the entirety of Greece is going through psychological depression. I am greek and I love my country, our history, our language and our cultrue but there is something dead wrong about us and this is the thing our fellow europeans need to understand. First of all, we do deserve the hate (well not every single one that would be racist but most of us), it is true that greeks lived off the europeans' money for a lot of years because we were too lazy to work on our own. The thing that is usually left out when talking about greece though, is the fact that both the greek governments and the eurozone wanted to force greece into debt. They knew what was happening when they were giving the loans, they knew that in a few years' time they'd be able to suck the blood out of greece (which is happening now). I blame the greek people for not realising that they were spending so much money that they didn't work for, the greek government for being absolutely corrupt and passing on to the greek people the idea of "Try to work less and steal more" and the eurozone learders for deliberately putting us in our current position. If there is one thing we should ask europeans to understand then don't ask them to feel pity for us, just ask them to realise that we aren't living in a 3rd world country and that there are still economical opportunities to be found here, it is just the greek people aren't willing to take them. p.s.I don't know where john got his statistics about people not having enough food to survive, but that is a bit far-fetched
The man on the video tries his best to explain the situation while the comment section is dominated by generalisations fit elementary school children... If those problems were that easy to solve as some comments would suggest, they would had been solved already.
I can't imagine how difficult it is to research, comprehend, and then form an almost eight minute video regarding the topic of a country's financial history and current economic position so that others understand.... Thank you, John.
Love the fast pace in this video. This is what i love about youtube. 8 minutes giving me info that the state owned television in Denmark would have used hours and weeks for. Thanks.
At the expense, unfortunately, of many of the most vulnerable in Irish society. You have people protesting in the tens of thousands over water charges, but how many protests do you have over cuts to homelessness services, hospitals,disability services, to name but a few? We're on a path upwards, but was it worth it? Hard to tell.
Julius Dictator Perpetuus That's the same kind of thinking that set Greece back from recovery. Now their entire economy is going under, and they won't have ANY money for homelessness services, hospitals, disability services, not to mention police, fire, pensions, etc. It's going to be rough, but there's no getting around it for Greece now.
thepokkanome I completely agree with you. There is a similar situation going in Spain, where the economic recovery is real, but to many it hasn't resulted in such because of certain austerity measures. This gives rise to the far-left party Podemos - it is sickening to watch its popularity grow at the rate it is. If they get the majority, it will be the undoing of the recovery as we know it. Which is great for those most affected by austerity, in the short run, but hardly sustainable. Whereas now they are reducing austerity out of the merit of a stronger and reliable economy, though not at the rate many want. I'd rather wait it out for a better sustainable future than to jump on the bandwagon of the far-left. Was the austerity worth it? Damn right. Corrupt economies learn it the hard way, and innocent people are always the victims.
Jan Aike Germany Italian Banks at the beginning of the World crisis had pratically nothing to do with shitty investments, now after the German banks where saved by your Goverment, the share of saving your banks resulted in 40-60 billion Euros more debts for Italy. You think this is fair? Who is paying or paid for your reforms?
JustCoNa Yes, along with the UK, France and some other countries. I thing then it all happened to strengthen the newly formed Germany (East and West Germany together)
John, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I've never studied any form of economics and I was really confused about this (I still am), but this video has cleared up a lot of confusions I had about this situation in Greece.
Thank you vlogbrothers!!! It's nice to hear the hole story objectively for once. It is, indeed, a "vicious circle"... No one seems to care about the people, just the money! Like when you owe money you stop being human. Well, it doesn't work like that... I am Greek and I know the consequences of this crisis first hand... (I am also a huge fan of John Green) Unimployment reached 25% (50% among young people), there were a rise to suicides, cuts to wages, retirments etc(so few money on the market), too many people leaving the country(beacuse they couldn't make a living), no money for drugs, no future, disappointment, fear, anger, stress... For five years now they were hiding that the dept is Not sustainable. Why? More games? Anyway, thank again for even bothering to talk about Greece's crisis...
***** Really Brown was a total prat. Sold our Gold reserves and told the world before, price of gold crashed we lost £10 billion. He was told the Banks were over exposed in 2001 and did nothing. Removed regulation of the Banks from the bank of England and gave it to his mates in the FSA then we had a massive credit boom, which he should have stopped. Then borrowed money like crazy up to the credit crunch causing a massive structural deficit, which is why we are in the shit now. The one and only thing he did of any note was keep us out of the Euro.
sibtain ali Yes, and thank god for the computer. It would have cost a lot of trees and inkt. Ofcourse your not in the Euro, you tried to get in and failed misserable on 16 september 1992. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday th-cam.com/video/K_oET45GzMI/w-d-xo.html Your politician tought to know how many Deutch Mark a pound was. Without asking the Germans. ;-)
Thank you, John, for taking your time to explain our situation in just an informative way. Sometimes it is so easy to get information misconstrued one way or another and for the facts to not seem as prevalent as some opinions. Ευχαριστώ παρα πολυ :)
Wow... I am from Germany and never saw it from your perspective... But it makes scenes and probably every country outside from Europe thinks the same way.. But now we are in this huge crisis and nobody knows a way out. Everybody only knows who has to be the scape goat. Always the others. So what is a solution without Greece totally ruined and the other European countries completely ruined?!
Look, I'm not gonna pretend I know anything about economics. I never took an economics class in my life. But every single time I hear about some kind of financial crisis, whether it's personal or national, it seems like it's always caused by compounding interest getting out of control. What if we just stopped charging compounding interest on loans? I know interest is what encourages people to loan in the first place, but what if it was just a flat rate instead? Like, as a completely arbitrary example, I borrow $100 and then pay back $110, but it stays $110 no matter how long it takes me to pay it back. I guess compounding interest encourages people to pay back faster, but I'm sure we'd be able to find some other sort of incentive. Has anything like that ever been considered? Because it seems to me like our current interest system just ruins everything. Like I said, I don't know anything about economics, so feel free to point out major flaws with this. It's just something I was wondering.
AnonymousJon Up until you said something about some other sort of incentive I totally was going to ask you for all your money. Sure, I'll pay you back. Soon? Sure! *years pass by* Hmmmm? The money? What money? .. Oh, THAT money.. Ehem.. Yeah, that's gone. Sorry?
What about collateral? You give something of yours in exchange for a loan, and once you pay the money back, you get that thing back, but you might need a lot of space if it's for physical items.
You've actually touched on the real problem people deliberately don't mention, the interest rates on Greece's loans were 16%. At that rate, your principle doubles every five years. And the terms of this debt were that they had to screw over their own people, sell off all their public assets like airports and maintain a massive surplus. It does not take a PhD in economics to realize there was no way in hell this was going to work. The absolute first thing they teach in macro is that central bankers lower the interest rates during recessions (the U.S.'s are at near zero percent). You only raise it when you *want* the economy to contract, like when there's too much lending and inflation. So what actually happened here? Are the Troika so dumb that they don't even understand elementary economics? No, of course not. They don't *want* the Greeks to pay back the loans. Austerity was the real goal. The destruction of democratic programs and the fire sale of cheap public assets. Because *anyone* could have told you what was going to happen next. It's not a mystery what austerity does to a country in recession. There is zero way the Troika actually expected the Greek economy to magically recover and for them to make an enormous profit from the loan. It's the same reason austerity has continued in the UK despite being a miserable failure there. Moneyed interests are dismantling democratic institutions piece by piece, crisis capitalism. It's been happening since the 80's.
rinus454 Yeah, I almost left that part out, but I realized how important that was right before I posted. :P iamanenigma unknowntotheworld Yeah that might work. Another thing I was thinking of might be similar to how people build up credit today. You wouldn't be allowed to to borrow large amounts of money until you've proved you could pay back smaller amounts in a timely manner. I'm not sure how that would factor in with countries paying each other back though, so it's obviously not perfect. People who actually know stuff about the economy would probably be able to think of something.
Thank you John, I was just talking about this to my therapist because I felt guilty for literally understanding NOTHING. Thank you, you've clarified a lot! xxx
I'm so so sorry for the Greek people. I mean, I don't really like their government (I'm Germany and from my point of view they're...crazy (I could be wrong there though)) but I really cannot imagine how it must feel to life in Greece right now.
Another excellent video in the John & Hank Explain playlist, but it strikes me that nobody is talking about one fundamental factor in the Greek economy: The second world war. The German occupation of Greece was brutal and destructive, and when they pulled out the left a huge power vacuum which allowed the communist party the seize power. This led to the civil war and further destruction and Greece has never truly recovered from these events. This is why I find it particularly uncomfortable that Germany is being so unhelpful to Greece at the moment. I realise Germany is a totally different country than it was back then, and nobody alive today bears any responsibility for what happened in the second world war, but I can't help feeling that a little historic sensitivity here might lead people to be a little more generous towards Greece.
atomicmrpelly you are right in your main point but you oversimplified the Civil War. The greek civil war was the first theater of the cold war, i think thats an important fact. People can understand from this and that greece is a NATO country ,what went on. Λαέ,θυμήσου το χώμα που πατάς...
John, I daresay you are by far my favourite TH-camr. You analyse very clearly and your narratives are well thought through and systematic, but moreover you always seem to put your own words into perspective, a moral one. Now I'm not a 'morally enthusiastic' person, if you will, but the fact that you're self-critical just puts you up there in my opinion. Thanks for this great video on a very misunderstood topic. Victor, a Greek/Dutch guy from the Netherlands.
ehhh John. How Greece's economy got so bad is still highly debatable, but you didn't mention one of the major arguments which is that Greece's public funding was unsupportable. For the sake of simplifying Greece has been running a socialist economy with really, really, high public spending while each new gov't pretended like that wasn't going to catch up with them.
John Ericson well if you compare it to other European countries, it was quite normal. Google it. They should cut military spending's and tax the rich though...
John Ericson Nothing wrong with that in itself. As John shows (as well as countless economists), deficits can easily be run for many many years without a problem. It's catching up to them now because 1) the forced austerity and privatisation in Greece is reducing government revenues and 2) They had a chronic tax evasion problem
***** You don't seem to understand the problem. Greece spends almost nothing on their military. It's not even 3% of the budget. And Greece has a major problem with tax evasion. Taxing the rich won't fix a spending problem.
+voodoodummie regardless the cheerleaders of this economy are full of shit. The statistics are manipulated to show economic growth shrinking unemployment and wage increases. Oh and new home sales. The reality is the economy is stagnant and on the verge of shrinking. Also massive money printing will cause hyperinflation in the near future. Our only hope would be some sort of deflation for a number of years until we could even everything out but that's not gonna happen because everyone wants to keep the facade going as long as possible
+voodoodummie and actually I doesn't depend what you compare it to. Just completely on its own we have a weak economy right now reliant on other countries holding our assets even though they are not sound.
You should do lectures when you have time. Normally I couldn't care less about issues like this but when you make videos on it I actually care and learn.
Well we had a referendum recently and 61% of Greeks voted no to the austerity measures. But the European Union, the Greek and the German governments did not respect the Greek people's choice. So I can't blame the Greek people also every single day we have people protesting at the center of Athens but no politician Greek or non Greek respects the people's choice...
+I thought this was america ! In a way this goes the other way around. Germany destroyed Greece and Greece let it keep all the debts it had forcefully taken.
Victoria Daisy I wouldn't be shocked if they threw that idea around. I mean there is probably a good reason the UK still deals in pounds that's for sure.
Victoria Daisy The germans profit most from the EU, because they have the highest export. If they would be on their own with a different currency, their exports would be too expensive (exchange rate) for the other european countries and therefore germanys economy would be recessive.
Victoria Daisy I don't think that would benefit anyone. If I'm understanding this right Germany (and others) are loaning money to Greece so Greece can give that money back to German banks. So Greece now owes a debt to the German government and another to the German banks. The only one who's losing money in this is Greece who has to pay interest on these loans. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Victoria Daisy John explained this, the issue isn't about paying any money, germany as well as the other countries John listed essentially gifted greece a bunch of money by loaning money with interest rates they would never get anywhere else. The issue is that printing more euros would lower the value of the euro overall, thus hurting every other countries economy. Now while that would be a very altruistic thing to do, you first have to convince a whole continent of people to help the country that got there through corruption and lying in the first place...
DragonRidingHood I'm not really up to date on the whole currency thing but I'd say that England is better off with its own currency, I cannot tell you why but it has probably its economical advantages.Also England isn't a part of the eurozone. The eurozone consists out of all countries that use the euro. England like you said uses the pound. Great-Britain is however part of the european union but that has nothing to do with curreny.
DragonRidingHood Euro Zone just encompasses the countries that use the currency €. Britain is part of Europe the continent. And Britain isn't part of the € because they think they are better off without it.
The UK is in the EU, but not the Eurozone. They get all the benefits (and possible negatives) of being in the EU, like open borders, cheaper phone calls and free trade. But they are not in the Eurozone, so they don't use the euro currency.
DragonRidingHood We have Blair/Brown to thank for it, and basically its so that we weren't at risk of things like this affecting us too greatly. Sterling is a strong Currency and we saw no need for it. We are Part of The European Union Which gives us relief on trade taxes with the continent Free flow of citizens Etc.
Very good video, but there is a problem at the very end. This issue arose, because Greece should never actually have been allowed into the Euro, just as many other countries wouldn't have. If the full extent of their economy had been known, it would have been clear that their economy simply couldn't handle the Euro yet, and they wouldn't have gotten it, and we wouldn't have had this problem.
***** We can feel smug for having the sense not to get involved with the Euro, but since a large slice of our trade is with Europe, we still have a strong self-interest in not seeing the Greek crisis drag everybody else down. The British government is heavily involved in the negotiations/diplomacy.
***** No, this is the part where we feel terrible because Greek families are starving and their children are growing up in terrible poverty. Nothing to feel smug about.
that's not a bad thing, lot's of european countries don't use it. England, Checz and Switzerland for example, in sort only Germany benefits the most from it, even Austria wanted to leave the Euro in 2012
Jokester The Mighty Your first sentence is the problem and your second is the reason. I'm not exactly a prophet of a world leader, but it seems to me that everyone either needs to come together or go their separate ways. In my life experience nothing good has ever come from a half measure in the long run.
Thanks John for being the first person to recognise the Greek people are also suffering. I am Greek and I have cousins in Greece they are suffering with not enough money for medicine and presenting to hospital with malnutrition and having to pay for there own nurse and going back to a bartering system to get food. Which I wish people would see. Thanks for recognising that and be the first to address it.
i am greek and i totally agree with everything in the video. but like he point at the end economy is only half of the problem the other half and the more important one is political... and manly the neoliberal policies angela merkel try (and succeed) to enforce in europe and now the economic crisis tern in a crisis of democracy.... markets must never outweigh freedom and democracy
I have always been a fan of your videos. I study my masters in economics at Stellenbosch university in South Africa and I am so happy to find out you are an economist! that is really cool, you are giving all economists a good name! thanks ;)
I really appreciate you taking the time to lay this out in updated ;) simple terms. I hear about this constantly, as the BBC World News Radio is where I get my news. Even with all the coverage, though, it still a confusing mess to me. Thank you again for helping me wrap my brain around it :) Get some rest, watch cartoons with the kiddies, lay on the couch with your head in the lap of a Yeti. We'll see you in the Paper Towns...
sorry but you are not pointing out the MOST IMPORTANT THING. I must remind you that most of the money that built up the Greece deficit was due to GERMAN BANKS - and FRANCH ones- which fraudolenty bought Greek debt to take advantage of the disproportionate interest rates. The very most of TROIKA loans did not go to the businesses of Greece but they RETURN TO GERMAN AND FRANCE BANKS.
Greeks (majority of them) are not as innocent and poor as you make them sound. Most of them have no problem with avoiding paying taxes and VAT. There is €30 billion of taxes per year going uncollected. Just look at tourism for example; you almost never receive receipt in bunch of tourism business.
josethim It's the tourist job to ask for a receipt, in 2012 they put out a law that all business must include in the register a big sign with "The customer has the right not to pay if he doesn't get a receipt" and that taxes are uncollected are simply false. Even if you don't make any money at all, if you are over 18 the irs will tax you with an income of 2k euros, which is crazy considering that even if you are at a job that pays you minimal wage you will only be making double of that.
Yeah, but,blaming them now when the past can't be changed will benefit nobody - I'm really curious as to how they're going to solve this problem. I can understand Germany's point of view completely but I also get that the greek people can no longer live in austerity what I don't get is the greek government spending money on a stupid referendum and playing mind games to pit his people against the Germans and the rest of the EU. I'd say they need a new government one that can actually negotiate with the eu
Actually the previous goverment at the same position at this one didn't even think twice, which lead to lowering the minimum wage, lower pensions and raising taxes with nobody being able to fulfill them, which in turn lead to the worst years this country has seen. While this goverment and the results of the vote shows that it has the full support of the people. Don't believe the media about it, especially the Greek media are the most corrupt controlled by political parties from previous goverments, you see for decades Greece had a two party goverment, with a lot of members of those goverments have been trialed for economic crimes, including under the table deals with German companies, most notorious of which was the Siemens scandal , it hurt them a lot that now rules a left party goverment so they are trying to overthrow it by any means
A lot of middle-class citizens have been avoiding taxes because the government would leave them with nothing.it's the very rich people that have caused the problem
No, it´s called Greek government lying about the real economical data and mala fide relying on the, for them too hard, currency which enables them to hire money way easier than it would be for Greece without being able to claim the European Central Bank´s backing. In fact, without the backing of the European Institutions and other Euro-Zone Memberstates Greece would be now bankrupt, what is more, the Mediterrian countries, including Italy, would be bankrupt: the mere fact that the European Union (and its members) act(s) actively in a case of crisis generated huge trust by third parties and shows that the Euro is a stable functioning currency.
This is a really complicated problem and those who say they have a solution and are sure its going to work are wrong. Thanks for the amazing video John :)
Sometimes with the growing popularity of the Vlogbrothers' channel thanks to John's movies, I worry that Nerdfighteria has been weakened by becoming overly dilute. And then along comes an eight-minute video of John talking at the camera about financial austerity. Thank you, John and Hank. Keep on being awesome.
You totally skipped over Greece's extremely bloated government and it's absolutely unsustainable social spendings that allowed people to retire at 50, on borrowed money.
Germany needs Greece, but Greece does not need Germany. Greece allows Germany to run a budget deficit while having a trade surplus because of the devaluation of the Euro. The loans largely go straight back as "repayments" to Germany, so they are printing money for themselves and then turning to Greece and saying you should run a surplus as well. Please use facts next time.
aha, so you're an expert...look Greece is corrupt...thats why you have a crisis, but just blame it on Germany, EU, whatever, but don' blame it on the Greek society that doesn't pay the fucking taxes
Thanks for doing this! I am currently an American doing study abroad in Greece and it's nice to understand what is going on from an outside perspective from the country
Thank you so much, John, for, like, having the most stress you have ever had in your life and still making a thought-out, intelligent, informative, objective, over-7-minute video for us. I am German and I often don't really catch up on all of this stuff (although obviously everybody is talking about it all the time), because it is kinda exhausting me and I don't think that I can judge anything or anybody because I just don't know enough and hate it when people think that they know the 100% right solution to the problem and the others are just simply wrong. There is a lot of "not imagining things complexely enough" involved in most discussions. So yeah, thank you.
Tigermond1 Thank YOU for your really empathetic comment. This is a really stressful time in my life, but to be honest making stuff for and with nerdfighteria is my biggest professional stress relief. This is what I love doing, so thanks for giving me the chance to do it. -John
***** I feel exactly the same. I don't really follow the news and nobody really teaches us what's happening. It is so nice to hear about the Greek crisis from someone who isn't European. Thank you so much!!!
***** Hi John,
I would just like to reehmphasise this. As someone from the UK I feel like the greek/European economic situation is something that I should know about. I know it is a hugely important issue but economics has never been something I understand well. Thank you for a short and clear discussion of the complexity of the situation. I feel I understand the world a little better because of you. DFTBA
Are you a German who's from Germany, or your anscestors immigrated to America? Because your English writing skills are on point.
I fully agree to your comment! Thanks John! 😊😙
I just wasted three days trying to understand something that you cleared up for me in under 8 minutes.
This is why I love being subscribed to you, John :)
Melanie Murphy HI MELANIE! I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WATCHED JOHN! *waves*
JuliaTheBookMonster I looove him! I featured Paper Towns in a favourites video a good bit before Christmas & have talked about his books a good few times in older vids, he's fantastic :)
You're not very bright, are you?
Anarchy Bruh busy, bruh :) I'm Irish (so Greek's situation isn't something I go out of my way to keep on top of) & have a really hectic job. Let me give John a compliment without being a total dick, cheers!
Anarchy Bruh fellow anarchist, not proud of your condescension
Why does it still amaze me that I can spend an hour trying to understand the financial crisis in Greece, to no avail, then watch/listen to John talk about it for less than 8 minutes and understand the financial crisis in Greece?
GodRoxMySox092 _ Well that is encouraging to hear! -John
The exact same thing happened to me! I actually understand it now!
This is practically scratching at the surface
***** but more than nothing
GodRoxMySox092 _ I think it's because he explains it in a way we can understand.
Hello John! I am a 16-year old fan from Greece! Thank you for taking the time to explain what is going on in my country.Everytime I pass by an ATM there are at least 15 people waiting, the city center is full of homeless people who are begging for food,children pass out at schools because of starvation.People are depressed,they are desperate,they've lost hope,young people have no ambitions.Both of my parents are now unemployed and we visit an ATM every single day to get ONLY 50 euros...I know that there are people who have it way worse than I do, but i just want people to understand how tragic the situation is.
Στυλιανός Γρηγοριάδης
A year passed since that started gaining attention, has the situation changed at all?
Yeah,things got worse.Product prices even in cheapest supermarkets are high,unemployment still is a really major issue (and those who are employed live on wage of 400-500E/month),energy & fuel prices are high,rent is a considerable percentage of your monthly wage.Government over-taxes buisness owners while essentially there is no cash flow & ofcourse older people have it usually the worst since pensions are getting cut almost systematically. Greece is a really nice place for vacation but it's not a nice country to be a citizen of
Στυλιανός Γρηγοριάδης any updates now
I'm Greek myself and I can say that, yes, people are having very hard times.
Yes, things are still bad, but, if anything, they have stabilized. During that summer of 2015 everything was uncertain. Shops closing, unemployement rising, serious problems with liquidity, long lines in front of ATMs that didn't have enough money, and plans that entailed GREXIT or a return to drachma actually starting to sound plausible.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this video. As a Spaniard supporting Greece's struggle and the need for a united Europe, it is very refreshing to hear you speak this way.
First of all:this is very informative. It helps me understand the situation a lot better, thank you for continuing to be so intelligent, and for wanting to spread that to others. Second of all: you answered my question on Dear Hank and John about a week ago, and I just want to say thank you. It was about some...habits that I have, and you were so gracious and thoughtful in what you said. I've had several doctors (not mental health doctors, just pediatricians), teachers, and family members just tell me to "stop doing that", and it made me very emotional to hear someone (two someones who I adore) say "we're sorry, and this is part of who you are, and you deserve support." This has nothing to do with the video topic, but yeah. I'm going to try to see a mental health specialist as soon as I can. Thank you for everything John. DFTBA.
JuliaTheBookMonster I heard the answer on the podcast, wish you the best of luck and lots of streght to get trhough your obstacles! Best wishes! :)
JuliaTheBookMonster I'm really happy to see your problems are being solved!:)
Heloisa Schmidt Burg Thanks you so much! Right back at ya!
littlehouseonthepreposterous Me too. Also GREAT USERNAME.
JuliaTheBookMonster Thank you kindly.
Finally I finished watching all of the vlogbrothers videos (except for the missing one). Took me 5 months, but it was worth it!
Frederico Augusto Wohooo, CONGRATULATIONS, you are officially one of us!!! :D It took me half a year as well. ^-^(But, sorry if I'm too curious, which missing one? I know that one is missing because I made a playlist of all the vlogbrothers videos I've ever watched, i.e. all of them, and one of those videos is private now, but I have no clue which video that was. Do you have any information that I don't have? O_o)
Frederico Augusto Or do you mean John's first video? (Because that is not missing, it's just on another channel.)
Tigermond1 There is a video mentioned on the following video by hank, so it is clearly missing. From the comments of the following it looks like it's gone for good.
***** I have watched John's first video. So it leaves me with only the one missing.
Also, on a sidenote, one of the Batman discussion videos, that later became that awesome song, is not missing from the channel, but is not on the 2014 playlist.
Frederico Augusto If there was a video that was taken down, do you know why it was?
Maybe Greece should start a GoFundMe or something.
***** Ha seriously.
***** www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout-fund?#/story
***** Somebody tried :/
Jordan Gerber
I might have to get the postcard of Alex Tsipras!
Jordan Gerber
Ended yesterday - never mind.
I love the way you add the human element to the issues you discuss. At the end of the analysis and arguments, it's people we are talking about. Another brilliant vlog.
"We cannot share a continent effectively..." - J.Green.
This quote just blew my mind. Awesome Mr.Green.
I'm glad that your educational videos can be more than 4 minutes long; that would have been hard to explain in the given time
TheVlog Just imagine a high-pitched sped up John Green voice explaining the greek economy (like in the style of Fred). ^^
If only getting to understand the problem was the same thing as getting to seeing the solution...But it's a good first step, I suppose. Thank, John.
juststeveschannel Maybe we can do something about it. Imagine the impact of the whole of Nerdfighteria getting behind this crowdfunding www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-crowdfund ! We couldn't solve the problem, but we could help raise money to help families in real need.
Oh hey I've never seen another arandanaut outside of arandanaut specific spaces good to see you hope you day is going well :)
Maxx B Haha piss your money away stupid
juststeveschannel I wont give a name to it but the solution seems obvious. Think about this; the ground can still yield crops, factories can still manufacture goods the people are still capable of doing work; why wait for the capitalists to say "Go"?
Can you guess what I'm talking about? It begins with an "A"...
juststeveschannel The solution is eliminating the problem.
The problem is unemployment, that means no more production of goods and services (food, clean water, buildings , machines, technology etc).
The cause of the problem was partially free money given to the greek people.
Now the second part of the cause will be the lack of money in the system.
Do you see a common link in these two causes ?
Yes, its the very existence of money, or in other words the existence of the belief that with money comes production of goods and services.
The production of goods and services comes with knowledge (science) and the will do to them. No money necessary in this.
Some greeks apparently realised this and are starting to do barter.
Thank you John, even with the huge amount of stress that I'm assuming you're under, you've still taken the time to talk about something relevant and even interesting, as well as helping those people like me who had absolutely no idea what was going on with Greece to understand. Thank you, hope you've been well xx
This is by far the best description of the crisis I have seen so far. None of the usual propaganda or bullshit. Just pure facts!
These really are my favorite videos that you guys make. It's always a struggle for me to understand current events, and I love that you guys can give the proper back history for viewers to get a full picture. Thank you.
Wow, thanks for all the information! I needed it desperately. I also love the fact that, though their careers are growing, the Green brothers still care about educating people.
John saying "cidades de papel" I JUST CANT
Compartilho do mesmo sentimento kkkk
Oh, THAT'S what he was saying. I couldn't quite hear and thought it was a Mark Rufallo situation where he was getting involved with politics or something.
You explained this way better than my economics teacher, and it's only 7 mins long! :D Thank you so much for another very informative video♡
John, you have a way of explaining things that makes it extremely easy to understand whatever it is you're choosing to explain.
Thanks for these videos.
This has nothing to do with the topic of this video, but your voice is soothing and I needed that. Thank you for putting your voice out there.
Hi, John, I'm Ana, from Bulgaria (north of Greece) and right now I'm studying law (just had exam in European law) and I love how objective your videos are. You explain very complex problems, so that everyone can understand them (now mather if they study law, economy, if they live in Europe next to Greece or on the other end of the world). I congratulate you (and Hank) on that and all of the other projects! Have a great week and keep up the great work! :)
phoenixlament115 Thanks so much. Good luck with your studies! -John
***** Thank you very much! :)
The Euro is such a risky thing. In order for the currency to work all participating countries must have in-sync economies. And there's a major difference between the Western European economies and the Eastern. I hope things work out in the end.
JustinBobcat it's not really. euro losing value is beneficial to europe actually. and if it ever fails completely there won't be a huge problem either.
Simonas Mažeikis it's beneficial in the fact that it helps with the manufacturing industry, but losing too much value isn't necessarily a good thing neither. Plus, I don't think if the Euro fails it'll be as easy as you think of a transition
It's not going to fail after this Greece failure. People will maybe realize that if you lie about your financial crisis you will get a bigger one.
Simonas Mažeikis I didn't say it was going to fail because of Greece. It'll only fail for Greece. I'm sure the EU is going to implement stricter rules about collecting accurate data
yep. and to me euro seems reasonable. it's so comfortable to use :D
THANK YOU JOHN
I am from Greece and I can guarantee you that this video is extremely helpful and as objective as it could be.
Well done, John♡
How should greece deal with the debt?declare bankruptcy?
I think you explained the Greek crisis and Eurozone crisis better than anyone I have ever heard before. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you for making this video! I will share it with many.
I visited Athens two weeks ago! I could definitely feel the uncertainty that hang in the air over the economy. There were a lot of people desperately asking for money on the streets or selling things. My friend got his phone stolen. Most of the local businesses asked only for hard cash when paying for things. It was little nerve wracking, but not terrible. The ATMs worked too. But... now I know that it may be more worse now.
SDFGReturns :) I haven't taken an economics class or visited Greece, but from the news everything you're saying is clear. Also, John Green helped me understand austerity in economics and how deficits aren't entirely bad. He's a helpful economics teacher.
SDFGReturns it is also a lot easier to avoid paying tax if you only deal in cash. I'd expect a grexit to just make that even worse with a whole new underground economy in euros.
Things were destined to go wrong when half the people doesn't pay tax and the other half keeps electing the government that will give them the highest salaries and best pensions.
SDFGReturns as far as i know, the greek werent to keen on taxes ever, if you accept credit card and not cash it would be almost impossible to evade taxing, so thats why most places only accepted cash - which is a big factor why greece has such a big tax problem, many people, specially young people in greece think taxes are evil and only to screw them - but a functioning tax system keeps everyone afloat and for the better
michaela blom come on man it's not that bad. I spend quite some time in Athens but there are everywhere poor and rich people. Over here people usually pay with cash
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2:43 Nope! It's made other countries government economies Collasping.
Money doesn't matter
#removetheeuro #donttrustmoney
The year 2012 during economy crisis my mom divorced on dad
Why? Because they lost their jobs because of devil business bosses who can't let them relaxing
This sounds like a scam.
@@stshahar It is
botted comment lmao
The real problem is one currency + multiple economic policies
The REAL problem was socialism&hedonism in Greece...
DISMANTLE THE UNWELFARE STATE.
The real problem was greece artificially inflating its economic indicators, they did this just so they could join the EU, so its kinda greece’s fault
@@adrianhutabarat1736 Corrupted greek politicians did this because Goldman Sachs suggested it.
The real problem was fudging the numbers in the first place. Independent Central Banks keep politicians from using economic policy as a means to getting elected but that doesn’t work if lying about it is an optional economic policy
My older brother just got his bachelor degree in economics and has talked about Greece on several occasions so, this just made my life a lot easier and I thank you for that.
You nailed the issue. Honestly, you are one of the most objective and thought provoking people on youtube.
Let's hope Greece stays together and overcomes this, because I need to travel there in my lifetime!
Nicole R. Go travel now. It's great the economy is not gonna affect your experience.
We will attempt to keep our shit together to satisfy your needs, don't worry
Well damn, you just pretty much summed up everything that's being going on in my country the past few years. Personally, I've been a fan of yours for quite a long time, reading books, watching movies etc and I kind of feel the need to comment. In my perspective, being a Greek teenager, it's quite difficult to fit in the current Greek society, having literally not much of a hope for my future, my studies (which are very very close) and then my search for a job that's going to help me settle down and have some sort of financial ease. Me and many many other teenagers in general are 'forced' to imagine a future abroad. Choosing to follow the foreign language studies (probably French), I personally don't have much of a future here. I need to find a way, probably after my studies, to travel abroad and eventually settle there. That may cause other problems which are the current most faced ones by the Greek families. Personally, my family could be classified as 'the middle class' to 'the ones who were influenced by the economic crisis in a level that's very noticeable' may I say. The fact that I have to find a way to figure out on my own how I'm going to start my own life when I'm a young adult (which again is very close, pretty much 2 years) has me extremely nervous, anxious and worried, yet hopeful. It really depends on the way you see things and life in general. My point is that there are so so many problems going on all around the world and some things that some people consider as normal and ordinary are not always faced the same way by some others. We should really appreciate whatever comes into our lives and try our hardest and best in order to hope for the best, because in the end, life has a plan for all of us. I never really comment, let alone open up to a rather large community here on TH-cam(even if I've been a supporter and fan of it for the past 3-3,5 years) and by no means my personal 'overview' of life is similar to everyone else's here in Greece or anywhere else in the world. I don't know, I guess I just wanted to thank you for choosing such a touching subject (at least for me-my country) and I really wanted to find a reason to thank you for keeping me entertained with your books, movies and videos because I couldn't really ask for any other way to spend my teenage years. (Your books may or may not have helped me to develop my English skills in any way haha) thank you very very much, all the love xxx (sorry this was huge I never really do this hahaha)
Loved your comment!!( I rarely leave comments on youtube too)
My generation is facing the crisis now. I've finished studying and I'm currently unemployed.(Considering moving abroad).I'm facing now what you might face in a couple years and I'm, just like you, anxious,worried but still hopeful!
I like your optimism, never stop hoping for the best, don't let the crisis kill your dreams and ambitions!!✌
Περιγράφεις το πως νιώθουμε όλοι μας...
christine 👏👍Hope everything is going well..your always welcome in the UK..
I was hoping he'd talk about this.
I owe you a huge thank-you, John. You posted this right as I was trying to come up with a topic for my macroeconomics research paper. Obviously, the information and sources you provided were not the only ones I used, especially since events continued to unfold even as I researched, but it was a great starting point, and I don't know that I could have wrapped my head around everything without this nice little summary. I ended up getting an A on the paper, and my teacher was impressed at how I managed to tackle such a difficult and ongoing topic. I definitely, however, would not have been able to cover this without your video, and I don't know that I would have found a suitable topic. So thanks again, John.
John I am from Greece and I have to say that you are 100% right! And thanks for making a video for our crisis now I can understand the problem much better!!!
The most entertaining way to remove my ignorance. thanks john and hank :)
As a Greek it is nice to see someone trying to inform the others about our situation.But John ,Hank and everybody else ,it is not that simple...People commit suicide because they do not have money to survive or suffer from depression...the unemployment is over 47%...and these are just a few problems that Greeks are facing.And trust me,it is quite hard to be a 19yo student in Greece and away from the city you grew up.I do understand the "hate" that some people and Europeans have for us,but we suffer from that huge debt.So ,everybody, please inform yourselves before typing a comment and stating an opinion based on lies and not facts.
(if you are about to write a hate comment ,please don't! I've had enough of those...)
slumanythingsiro dang
Greece is a Balkan country that decided it could live like a Western European country. The crisis has returned it to the Balkans. Greetings form Serbia.
The unemployment rate is nowhere near 47% today, nor do I believe it was 3 years ago. People aren't commiting suicide and even if a select few are don't make it seem as if the entirety of Greece is going through psychological depression. I am greek and I love my country, our history, our language and our cultrue but there is something dead wrong about us and this is the thing our fellow europeans need to understand. First of all, we do deserve the hate (well not every single one that would be racist but most of us), it is true that greeks lived off the europeans' money for a lot of years because we were too lazy to work on our own. The thing that is usually left out when talking about greece though, is the fact that both the greek governments and the eurozone wanted to force greece into debt. They knew what was happening when they were giving the loans, they knew that in a few years' time they'd be able to suck the blood out of greece (which is happening now).
I blame the greek people for not realising that they were spending so much money that they didn't work for, the greek government for being absolutely corrupt and passing on to the greek people the idea of "Try to work less and steal more" and the eurozone learders for deliberately putting us in our current position.
If there is one thing we should ask europeans to understand then don't ask them to feel pity for us, just ask them to realise that we aren't living in a 3rd world country and that there are still economical opportunities to be found here, it is just the greek people aren't willing to take them.
p.s.I don't know where john got his statistics about people not having enough food to survive, but that is a bit far-fetched
chris, your comment actually gave me a lot more hope for Greece's future
Happy to hear that! DFTBA!
The man on the video tries his best to explain the situation while the comment section is dominated by generalisations fit elementary school children...
If those problems were that easy to solve as some comments would suggest, they would had been solved already.
Well can be easily solved but with limited government power. It can be hard to get it approved for application.
reform the system, its a democracy.
He doesnt claim to solve
I can't imagine how difficult it is to research, comprehend, and then form an almost eight minute video regarding the topic of a country's financial history and current economic position so that others understand....
Thank you, John.
Love the fast pace in this video. This is what i love about youtube. 8 minutes giving me info that the state owned television in Denmark would have used hours and weeks for. Thanks.
Drachmas make me think of Percy Jackson.
Haha that's what I was thinking too!
Dude you're throwing me back to 2008
I thought that!! Xx
Tessa Same :) Percy Jackson is my favorite book series
Tessa I thought that too. I'm just rereading the book series as I wanted to read House of Hades but could not remeber what happened before :)
Hearing all this makes me so glad that Ireland is on the road to recovery.
At the expense, unfortunately, of many of the most vulnerable in Irish society. You have people protesting in the tens of thousands over water charges, but how many protests do you have over cuts to homelessness services, hospitals,disability services, to name but a few?
We're on a path upwards, but was it worth it? Hard to tell.
Julius Dictator Perpetuus That's the same kind of thinking that set Greece back from recovery. Now their entire economy is going under, and they won't have ANY money for homelessness services, hospitals, disability services, not to mention police, fire, pensions, etc. It's going to be rough, but there's no getting around it for Greece now.
thepokkanome I completely agree with you. There is a similar situation going in Spain, where the economic recovery is real, but to many it hasn't resulted in such because of certain austerity measures. This gives rise to the far-left party Podemos - it is sickening to watch its popularity grow at the rate it is. If they get the majority, it will be the undoing of the recovery as we know it. Which is great for those most affected by austerity, in the short run, but hardly sustainable. Whereas now they are reducing austerity out of the merit of a stronger and reliable economy, though not at the rate many want. I'd rather wait it out for a better sustainable future than to jump on the bandwagon of the far-left. Was the austerity worth it? Damn right. Corrupt economies learn it the hard way, and innocent people are always the victims.
Jan Aike Germany Italian Banks at the beginning of the World crisis had pratically nothing to do with shitty investments, now after the German banks where saved by your Goverment, the share of saving your banks resulted in 40-60 billion Euros more debts for Italy. You think this is fair? Who is paying or paid for your reforms?
Unemployment is still stubbornly high, but it could have been a lot worse.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Greece agree to cancel 1/2 of Germany's debts from WW2 in like 1953?
JustCoNa Yes, along with the UK, France and some other countries. I thing then it all happened to strengthen the newly formed Germany (East and West Germany together)
JustCoNa yes but i think it was all of it not just 1/2. But Germany denies to do the same thing.
It's not exactly the same thing, the two crisis and debts were created under very different circumstances.
I didn't say its the exact same thing, but when germans had financial problems Greeks helped them and crossed out the dept
Katerina Padalecki No honor in government. Gotta search hard to find it anywhere these days.
John, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I've never studied any form of economics and I was really confused about this (I still am), but this video has cleared up a lot of confusions I had about this situation in Greece.
Thank you vlogbrothers!!!
It's nice to hear the hole story objectively for once. It is, indeed, a "vicious circle"... No one seems to care about the people, just the money! Like when you owe money you stop being human. Well, it doesn't work like that... I am Greek and I know the consequences of this crisis first hand... (I am also a huge fan of John Green) Unimployment reached 25% (50% among young people), there were a rise to suicides, cuts to wages, retirments etc(so few money on the market), too many people leaving the country(beacuse they couldn't make a living), no money for drugs, no future, disappointment, fear, anger, stress... For five years now they were hiding that the dept is Not sustainable. Why? More games?
Anyway, thank again for even bothering to talk about Greece's crisis...
Thank god the UK isn't part of the Euro
***** Really Brown was a total prat.
Sold our Gold reserves and told the world before, price of gold crashed we lost £10 billion.
He was told the Banks were over exposed in 2001 and did nothing.
Removed regulation of the Banks from the bank of England and gave it to his mates in the FSA then we had a massive credit boom, which he should have stopped.
Then borrowed money like crazy up to the credit crunch causing a massive structural deficit, which is why we are in the shit now.
The one and only thing he did of any note was keep us out of the Euro.
sibtain ali Yes, and thank god for the computer. It would have cost a lot of trees and inkt.
Ofcourse your not in the Euro, you tried to get in and failed misserable on 16 september 1992.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday
th-cam.com/video/K_oET45GzMI/w-d-xo.html
Your politician tought to know how many Deutch Mark a pound was. Without asking the Germans. ;-)
TheSamuraiPanda Ha! That made me laugh.
Puff levels are high today
Maybe it's just a bit of Greece in his hair
Julius Dictator Perpetuus did you just what get out
molly devlin Hahahaha, what are you getting at?
1997jankuschef Sorry, it's just, that pun made me feel things
Julius Dictator Perpetuus Oh my god
Also Goldman Sachs was helping Greece to lie about its debt each year.
Thank you, John, for taking your time to explain our situation in just an informative way. Sometimes it is so easy to get information misconstrued one way or another and for the facts to not seem as prevalent as some opinions. Ευχαριστώ παρα πολυ :)
I learn more here than I do in my Econs class and it only took 7:41 minutes. Bless you man!
This was all very fascinating and I feel very educated but mostly I want that shirt
Wow... I am from Germany and never saw it from your perspective... But it makes scenes and probably every country outside from Europe thinks the same way.. But now we are in this huge crisis and nobody knows a way out. Everybody only knows who has to be the scape goat. Always the others. So what is a solution without Greece totally ruined and the other European countries completely ruined?!
*sence (I hate my phone...)
Look, I'm not gonna pretend I know anything about economics. I never took an economics class in my life. But every single time I hear about some kind of financial crisis, whether it's personal or national, it seems like it's always caused by compounding interest getting out of control.
What if we just stopped charging compounding interest on loans? I know interest is what encourages people to loan in the first place, but what if it was just a flat rate instead? Like, as a completely arbitrary example, I borrow $100 and then pay back $110, but it stays $110 no matter how long it takes me to pay it back. I guess compounding interest encourages people to pay back faster, but I'm sure we'd be able to find some other sort of incentive. Has anything like that ever been considered? Because it seems to me like our current interest system just ruins everything.
Like I said, I don't know anything about economics, so feel free to point out major flaws with this. It's just something I was wondering.
AnonymousJon Up until you said something about some other sort of incentive I totally was going to ask you for all your money. Sure, I'll pay you back. Soon? Sure!
*years pass by*
Hmmmm? The money? What money? .. Oh, THAT money.. Ehem.. Yeah, that's gone.
Sorry?
What about collateral? You give something of yours in exchange for a loan, and once you pay the money back, you get that thing back, but you might need a lot of space if it's for physical items.
AnonymousJon Because the value of money decreases, $110 in 2030 money might have less buying power than $100 in 2015
You've actually touched on the real problem people deliberately don't mention, the interest rates on Greece's loans were 16%. At that rate, your principle doubles every five years. And the terms of this debt were that they had to screw over their own people, sell off all their public assets like airports and maintain a massive surplus.
It does not take a PhD in economics to realize there was no way in hell this was going to work. The absolute first thing they teach in macro is that central bankers lower the interest rates during recessions (the U.S.'s are at near zero percent). You only raise it when you *want* the economy to contract, like when there's too much lending and inflation.
So what actually happened here? Are the Troika so dumb that they don't even understand elementary economics?
No, of course not. They don't *want* the Greeks to pay back the loans. Austerity was the real goal. The destruction of democratic programs and the fire sale of cheap public assets.
Because *anyone* could have told you what was going to happen next. It's not a mystery what austerity does to a country in recession.
There is zero way the Troika actually expected the Greek economy to magically recover and for them to make an enormous profit from the loan.
It's the same reason austerity has continued in the UK despite being a miserable failure there. Moneyed interests are dismantling democratic institutions piece by piece, crisis capitalism. It's been happening since the 80's.
rinus454 Yeah, I almost left that part out, but I realized how important that was right before I posted. :P
iamanenigma unknowntotheworld Yeah that might work. Another thing I was thinking of might be similar to how people build up credit today. You wouldn't be allowed to to borrow large amounts of money until you've proved you could pay back smaller amounts in a timely manner. I'm not sure how that would factor in with countries paying each other back though, so it's obviously not perfect. People who actually know stuff about the economy would probably be able to think of something.
I got a 4 on my APUSH exam thanks to me binge watching crash course the night before, thanks John!
Thank you John, I was just talking about this to my therapist because I felt guilty for literally understanding NOTHING. Thank you, you've clarified a lot! xxx
I'm so so sorry for the Greek people. I mean, I don't really like their government (I'm Germany and from my point of view they're...crazy (I could be wrong there though)) but I really cannot imagine how it must feel to life in Greece right now.
Anni we The government is crazy don't wory
Anni we it's ok to live in Greece. You can vote for Merkel
In Greece the temperature during the summer in athens is about 30-35 °C and rarely 40 °C and a little more.
Anni we it’s awesome. Greece is the best
Another excellent video in the John & Hank Explain playlist, but it strikes me that nobody is talking about one fundamental factor in the Greek economy: The second world war. The German occupation of Greece was brutal and destructive, and when they pulled out the left a huge power vacuum which allowed the communist party the seize power. This led to the civil war and further destruction and Greece has never truly recovered from these events. This is why I find it particularly uncomfortable that Germany is being so unhelpful to Greece at the moment. I realise Germany is a totally different country than it was back then, and nobody alive today bears any responsibility for what happened in the second world war, but I can't help feeling that a little historic sensitivity here might lead people to be a little more generous towards Greece.
atomicmrpelly you are right in your main point but you oversimplified the Civil War.
The greek civil war was the first theater of the cold war, i think thats an important fact. People can understand from this and that greece is a NATO country ,what went on.
Λαέ,θυμήσου το χώμα που πατάς...
Turns out the media would continue to come up with more equally horrific compound terms
John, I daresay you are by far my favourite TH-camr. You analyse very clearly and your narratives are well thought through and systematic, but moreover you always seem to put your own words into perspective, a moral one. Now I'm not a 'morally enthusiastic' person, if you will, but the fact that you're self-critical just puts you up there in my opinion. Thanks for this great video on a very misunderstood topic.
Victor, a Greek/Dutch guy from the Netherlands.
Not bad at all. One of the better summaries I've seen. For those interested Tariq Ali has a lot of good things to say about this.
ehhh John. How Greece's economy got so bad is still highly debatable, but you didn't mention one of the major arguments which is that Greece's public funding was unsupportable. For the sake of simplifying Greece has been running a socialist economy with really, really, high public spending while each new gov't pretended like that wasn't going to catch up with them.
John Ericson Isn't the unsoportable spendind that makes up the deficit?Because if that is then he has talked about it...
John Ericson well if you compare it to other European countries, it was quite normal. Google it. They should cut military spending's and tax the rich though...
John Ericson Nothing wrong with that in itself. As John shows (as well as countless economists), deficits can easily be run for many many years without a problem. It's catching up to them now because 1) the forced austerity and privatisation in Greece is reducing government revenues and 2) They had a chronic tax evasion problem
John Ericson High government spending has little-if nothing at all-to do with socialism.
***** You don't seem to understand the problem. Greece spends almost nothing on their military. It's not even 3% of the budget. And Greece has a major problem with tax evasion. Taxing the rich won't fix a spending problem.
"A younger and more promising version of myself" that's genius :')
*we HAD a strong economy. We do not have a strong economy.
+Luke Powers it depends on what you compare it with.
it isn't as strong as it was in the nineties, it is stronger then the thirties
+voodoodummie regardless the cheerleaders of this economy are full of shit. The statistics are manipulated to show economic growth shrinking unemployment and wage increases. Oh and new home sales. The reality is the economy is stagnant and on the verge of shrinking. Also massive money printing will cause hyperinflation in the near future. Our only hope would be some sort of deflation for a number of years until we could even everything out but that's not gonna happen because everyone wants to keep the facade going as long as possible
+voodoodummie and actually I doesn't depend what you compare it to. Just completely on its own we have a weak economy right now reliant on other countries holding our assets even though they are not sound.
I look forward to these kinds of videos every time you guys make them. They're fun to watch, and informative.
You should do lectures when you have time. Normally I couldn't care less about issues like this but when you make videos on it I actually care and learn.
Thank you. Finally someone telling the truth in a mature manner instead of
"pay up Greece"
Well we had a referendum recently and 61% of Greeks voted no to the austerity measures. But the European Union, the Greek and the German governments did not respect the Greek people's choice. So I can't blame the Greek people also every single day we have people protesting at the center of Athens but no politician Greek or non Greek respects the people's choice...
ο τσίπρας συνθηκολόγησε, ενώ είχε την επιλογή να σεβαστεί το αποτέλεσμα του δημοψηφίσματος
Could you help me out with a link showing the true results of the referendum that took place?
Good analysis
Thank you for this video, I've been a bit lost on what's going on with Greece for quite some time.
If it wasnt for the Green brothers I would have no idea what was going on in the world. This is more informative than the news!
I thought he was going to talk about Brazil after!?!??!
michelle contreras he said "later", not necessarily in the same video :-)
**shrug** I did too. I guess he meant "later" as in another video.
michelle contreras another video! Sorry! -John
1:44 Sorry John, but that was a full blink. Shame on your eyelids.
Falcondances Ze Frank is crying
Falcondances It's an educational video, John has read notes from the inside of his eyelids.
Greece was letting people retire at 50 and they wondered by the money ran out.
they also rely only on tourism for thier economy.
I thought this was america ! your name and profile pic made me laugh ;)
Andrew McDonald retirement for women was 55 and for men, 60. Banks and lousy socialist policies as well as German bankers are to blame.
+I thought this was america !
In a way this goes the other way around. Germany destroyed Greece and Greece let it keep all the debts it had forcefully taken.
Greeks are experts at tax avoidance..
I gotta say, I really love learning about things I would have never known about through these educational vlogbrothers videos.
The first vlogbrothers I ever watched was Younger!John talking about the Greek Crisis. We've come so far...
Maybe Germany should leave the EU - if they had their own currency they wouldn't have to pay all this money to countries in financial crisis'
haha yeah also there's countries like spain etc who are also struggling so maybe thats a good idea to prevent them from having to pay more
Victoria Daisy I wouldn't be shocked if they threw that idea around. I mean there is probably a good reason the UK still deals in pounds that's for sure.
Victoria Daisy The germans profit most from the EU, because they have the highest export.
If they would be on their own with a different currency, their exports would be too expensive (exchange rate) for the other european countries and therefore germanys economy would be recessive.
Victoria Daisy I don't think that would benefit anyone. If I'm understanding this right Germany (and others) are loaning money to Greece so Greece can give that money back to German banks. So Greece now owes a debt to the German government and another to the German banks. The only one who's losing money in this is Greece who has to pay interest on these loans. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Victoria Daisy John explained this, the issue isn't about paying any money, germany as well as the other countries John listed essentially gifted greece a bunch of money by loaning money with interest rates they would never get anywhere else. The issue is that printing more euros would lower the value of the euro overall, thus hurting every other countries economy.
Now while that would be a very altruistic thing to do, you first have to convince a whole continent of people to help the country that got there through corruption and lying in the first place...
Can someone please tell me why, in England we use £pounds and not €Euros? Despite the fact that we live in the Euro Zone.
DragonRidingHood I'm not really up to date on the whole currency thing but I'd say that England is better off with its own currency, I cannot tell you why but it has probably its economical advantages.Also England isn't a part of the eurozone. The eurozone consists out of all countries that use the euro. England like you said uses the pound. Great-Britain is however part of the european union but that has nothing to do with curreny.
DragonRidingHood Euro Zone just encompasses the countries that use the currency €. Britain is part of Europe the continent. And Britain isn't part of the € because they think they are better off without it.
The UK is in the EU, but not the Eurozone. They get all the benefits (and possible negatives) of being in the EU, like open borders, cheaper phone calls and free trade. But they are not in the Eurozone, so they don't use the euro currency.
DragonRidingHood We have Blair/Brown to thank for it, and basically its so that we weren't at risk of things like this affecting us too greatly. Sterling is a strong Currency and we saw no need for it. We are Part of The European Union Which gives us relief on trade taxes with the continent Free flow of citizens Etc.
DragonRidingHood England decided not to participate in the euro.
Very good video, but there is a problem at the very end. This issue arose, because Greece should never actually have been allowed into the Euro, just as many other countries wouldn't have. If the full extent of their economy had been known, it would have been clear that their economy simply couldn't handle the Euro yet, and they wouldn't have gotten it, and we wouldn't have had this problem.
The colors are amazingly well matched in this video. That room is perfectly themed. Your shirt matches it perfectly.
This has been the clearest video on the Greek Financial crisis.
How does he barely blink???!?!?!?
EK. 1 editing
Sharpies. Too many Sharpies
Is this the part where all the Brits watching feel smug?
***** porbably
***** Nope. Just sorry for the Greek people.
Plus I can't understand feeling smug considering how shite our government is.
***** We can feel smug for having the sense not to get involved with the Euro, but since a large slice of our trade is with Europe, we still have a strong self-interest in not seeing the Greek crisis drag everybody else down. The British government is heavily involved in the negotiations/diplomacy.
Harry Strong well I didn't vote for the posh wanker and all his Eton chums
***** No, this is the part where we feel terrible because Greek families are starving and their children are growing up in terrible poverty. Nothing to feel smug about.
If Greece exits the euro more will follow
Jokester The Mighty It'l set a dangerous precedent that countries can enter and leave when it benefits them, the Euro could fall apart
that's not a bad thing, lot's of european countries don't use it. England, Checz and Switzerland for example, in sort only Germany benefits the most from it, even Austria wanted to leave the Euro in 2012
Jokester The Mighty It could be devastating to the last few still in it.
They don't care when we have problems, why should we care about them? That's no union
Jokester The Mighty Your first sentence is the problem and your second is the reason. I'm not exactly a prophet of a world leader, but it seems to me that everyone either needs to come together or go their separate ways. In my life experience nothing good has ever come from a half measure in the long run.
YES THANK YOU! I was just thinking about how much I needed John to explain this to me!
Thanks John for being the first person to recognise the Greek people are also suffering. I am Greek and I have cousins in Greece they are suffering with not enough money for medicine and presenting to hospital with malnutrition and having to pay for there own nurse and going back to a bartering system to get food. Which I wish people would see. Thanks for recognising that and be the first to address it.
I predict hyperinflation.
Who’s watching this during Covid and the first 5 seconds gave you ultimate anxiety
i am greek and i totally agree with everything in the video.
but like he point at the end economy is only half of the problem
the other half and the more important one is political...
and manly the neoliberal policies angela merkel try (and succeed) to enforce in europe and now the economic crisis tern in a crisis of democracy....
markets must never outweigh freedom and democracy
I have always been a fan of your videos. I study my masters in economics at Stellenbosch university in South Africa and I am so happy to find out you are an economist! that is really cool, you are giving all economists a good name! thanks ;)
I really appreciate you taking the time to lay this out in updated ;) simple terms.
I hear about this constantly, as the BBC World News Radio is where I get my news. Even with all the coverage, though, it still a confusing mess to me.
Thank you again for helping me wrap my brain around it :)
Get some rest, watch cartoons with the kiddies, lay on the couch with your head in the lap of a Yeti.
We'll see you in the Paper Towns...
sorry but you are not pointing out the MOST IMPORTANT THING. I must remind you that most of the money that built up the Greece deficit was due to GERMAN BANKS - and FRANCH ones- which fraudolenty bought Greek debt to take advantage of the disproportionate interest rates. The very most of TROIKA loans did not go to the businesses of Greece but they RETURN TO GERMAN AND FRANCE BANKS.
Greeks (majority of them) are not as innocent and poor as you make them sound. Most of them have no problem with avoiding paying taxes and VAT. There is €30 billion of taxes per year going uncollected. Just look at tourism for example; you almost never receive receipt in bunch of tourism business.
josethim this is partially true. Consider living under corrupt governments, who would want to pay taxes?
josethim It's the tourist job to ask for a receipt, in 2012 they put out a law that all business must include in the register a big sign with "The customer has the right not to pay if he doesn't get a receipt" and that taxes are uncollected are simply false. Even if you don't make any money at all, if you are over 18 the irs will tax you with an income of 2k euros, which is crazy considering that even if you are at a job that pays you minimal wage you will only be making double of that.
Yeah, but,blaming them now when the past can't be changed will benefit nobody - I'm really curious as to how they're going to solve this problem. I can understand Germany's point of view completely but I also get that the greek people can no longer live in austerity what I don't get is the greek government spending money on a stupid referendum and playing mind games to pit his people against the Germans and the rest of the EU. I'd say they need a new government one that can actually negotiate with the eu
Actually the previous goverment at the same position at this one didn't even think twice, which lead to lowering the minimum wage, lower pensions and raising taxes with nobody being able to fulfill them, which in turn lead to the worst years this country has seen. While this goverment and the results of the vote shows that it has the full support of the people. Don't believe the media about it, especially the Greek media are the most corrupt controlled by political parties from previous goverments, you see for decades Greece had a two party goverment, with a lot of members of those goverments have been trialed for economic crimes, including under the table deals with German companies, most notorious of which was the Siemens scandal , it hurt them a lot that now rules a left party goverment so they are trying to overthrow it by any means
A lot of middle-class citizens have been avoiding taxes because the government would leave them with nothing.it's the very rich people that have caused the problem
Its called the central banking cartel and predatory lending practices.
No, it´s called Greek government lying about the real economical data and mala fide relying on the, for them too hard, currency which enables them to hire money way easier than it would be for Greece without being able to claim the European Central Bank´s backing. In fact, without the backing of the European Institutions and other Euro-Zone Memberstates Greece would be now bankrupt, what is more, the Mediterrian countries, including Italy, would be bankrupt: the mere fact that the European Union (and its members) act(s) actively in a case of crisis generated huge trust by third parties and shows that the Euro is a stable functioning currency.
This is a really complicated problem and those who say they have a solution and are sure its going to work are wrong. Thanks for the amazing video John :)
Sometimes with the growing popularity of the Vlogbrothers' channel thanks to John's movies, I worry that Nerdfighteria has been weakened by becoming overly dilute. And then along comes an eight-minute video of John talking at the camera about financial austerity.
Thank you, John and Hank. Keep on being awesome.
You totally skipped over Greece's extremely bloated government and it's absolutely unsustainable social spendings that allowed people to retire at 50, on borrowed money.
A country has a debt because it spends more money than money comes in.
In principle so simply .....
Germany needs Greece, but Greece does not need Germany. Greece allows Germany to run a budget deficit while having a trade surplus because of the devaluation of the Euro. The loans largely go straight back as "repayments" to Germany, so they are printing money for themselves and then turning to Greece and saying you should run a surplus as well. Please use facts next time.
aha, so you're an expert...look Greece is corrupt...thats why you have a crisis, but just blame it on Germany, EU, whatever, but don' blame it on the Greek society that doesn't pay the fucking taxes
metalhead7127 yeap only Greece is corrupted... You could say corruption was discovered in Ancient Greece...
Wow, you should be like the king of Europe or something. So WOKE! 🍄💛🍄💛🍄
Juicier Greek scandals are those made by German companies though...
+metalhead7127 After 2 world wars by Germany which one wouldn't claim that Germany discovered the corruption?
Thanks for doing this! I am currently an American doing study abroad in Greece and it's nice to understand what is going on from an outside perspective from the country
as always, john, thank you for the eloquent and succinct explanation of a very complex situation.