Apple Gives iCloud Customers in Greece 30 Extra Days of Storage Amid Fiscal Crisis

[antonis]

Greece should be kicked out of the Eurozone, declare bankruptcy and start again as some other countries did in the past. Don't forget they've never actually met the criteria of ERM II to get the EURO in the first place but rather they have cheated on their macro-economical statistics.

You simply can't have such a social, welfare state (low retirement age, benefits, tax exemptions etc.) combined with absolutely ridiculous tax collection levels and corruption running through all levels of government.

And don't forget:
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” Margaret Thatcher

You might want to send this post to Goldman Sachs first, as they are the ones that masked Greek debt in order to join eurozone. And while doing this, put German government on copy, since regarding corruption, almost in every financial scandal emerged in the country, a German company was also behind.

 

[tomnavratil]

You might want to send this post to Goldman Sachs first, as they are the ones that masked Greek debt in order to join eurozone. And while doing this, put German government on copy, since regarding corruption, almost in every financial scandal emerged in the country, a German company was also behind.

That's a very valid point for sure and quite known information. Considering the scale of this event (Greece joining ERM II), there was a lot of people cooking books, bribing others and masking Greek debt as you say.

Thinking in a global picture, I've never understood why countries like Greece want to join the Eurozone in the first place. And Greek government must have known this would happen down the road with the state of their economy at the time and all the issues they've had.

Of course, as you say, Germans got involved too. For them, strong monetary union with their leadership is a good thing, they've probably never realised how much was Greece screwed though.

 

[Gasu E.]

Yeah, but to be fair they weren't in any state to deal with those issues at the time.

They were literally bombed back into the stone age. The population was screwed, the citizens scarred, factories & not many assets available to contribute to their economy, and so on.

OK, fine for back then. But, since Germany is currently a wealthy country, why doesn't Germany pay back those old debts now. Also pay back the Marshall Plan, and maybe a little something for all those years other countries were paying for Germany's defense to keep them from being invaded by the Soviet Union?

 

[oneMadRssn]

Because the problem at stake, as far as Apple is concerned, is not that the Greek are poor (that's not Apple's problem). It's not like Apple's is giving away free iPods or extra iCloud storage in the hopes that it'll solve the Greek issue, but their banks have shut down for a week, so they cannot pay. . It's as simple as having a payment service like Paypal down on scheduled maintenance. Confusing the two concepts is ridiculous. They are giving a month of cloud service because they don't know when the electronic payment services will be online again, but they expect it'll be within a month. Call it a sympathetic courtesy commercial gesture. If it lasted more time, I'd guess Apple would allow downloading the over 5GB content for a while, but lock the uploading to the free 5GB.

Maybe instead of throwing around condescending insults then, you should realize that you said the same thing I did - that Apple is doing this because payment processing is uncertain in Greece right now. Where we differ is our guess as to the motive; and it is a guess, since neither of us are Apple executives that were a part of this decision.

You seem to think Apple did this as a sympathetic gesture to the Greek people, and I think Apple did this to avoid the costs and hassle of having lots and lots of payments declined, and to avoid losing those users with active credit cards on file (because once a credit card is declined once on a user account, it is no longer an account with an active credit card on file, and Apple cannot charge it automatically for appstore purchases and the like).

I'll concede that some form of sympathy may have been a factor in the decision process. Logically though, this is business and mitigating unnecessary costs and harm to Apple's bottom line.

 

[b0fh666]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31849430

seriously?

 

[Happybunny]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31849430

OK now you are just living in fantasy worlds, if this had any chance of comming true, then why wait till now.
Why didn't Greece bring up this topic before it joined the Euro?

OK, fine for back then. But, since Germany is currently a wealthy country, why doesn't Germany pay back those old debts now. Also pay back the Marshall Plan, and maybe a little something for all those years other countries were paying for Germany's defense to keep them from being invaded by the Soviet Union?

OK, but first all Americans must leave the USA, leaving only the members of the First Nation.

I mean that's only fair after the genocide.

 

[takao]

OK, fine for back then. But, since Germany is currently a wealthy country, why doesn't Germany pay back those old debts now. Also pay back the Marshall Plan, and maybe a little something for all those years other countries were paying for Germany's defense to keep them from being invaded by the Soviet Union?

theoretically they still could.. the "ERP-Sondervermögen" (aka. the Marshall Plan funds received) is still a special denoted asset and managed by the KfW.
Germany never spent the money but only loaned it out to companies. Thus the money still exists and is used for economic development even today. The initial 6 billion D-Mark were through the decades of investments turned into 12 billion euro

paying back those 12 billion and using it for greece would help Greece for a whole whooping 2-3 months
(The funds in Austria also still exist and used similiar)

The problem is this:
the marshall plan was huge in 1948 but it always needs to be compared to the economies at scale. Compared to that Germany hasn't received that much per capita.
(Don't forget that Greece also received help from the ERP.. )

the german debt cut in 1953 was massive at the time but looking at the GDP of Germany wasn't actually that big. Calculated as percentage it was around 10% of the german GDP of 1953


now compare that to today with giving back:
from 1990 to 2011 Germany net-payed roughly 170-200 billion euro into the EU budgets from the numbers i have seen.
Greece has been a net-receiver of EU money since 1981

and the haircut Greece received in 2012: 50% of greek GDP 2012

 

[antonis]

That's a very valid point for sure and quite known information. Considering the scale of this event (Greece joining ERM II), there was a lot of people cooking books, bribing others and masking Greek debt as you say.

Thinking in a global picture, I've never understood why countries like Greece want to join the Eurozone in the first place. And Greek government must have known this would happen down the road with the state of their economy at the time and all the issues they've had.

Of course, as you say, Germans got involved too. For them, strong monetary union with their leadership is a good thing, they've probably never realised how much was Greece screwed though.

Agree 100%. That's my question too. Why a weak economy (and this goes beyond Greece) would join eurozone willingly, when the purpose of all these is really obvious. Even if I'd give the first countries that joined eurozone the benefit of doubt that they didn't see where this is going, there are even now more countries with weak economies that still want to jump on the wagon. I'd guess this is where corrupted politicians come to play.

 

[tomnavratil]

Agree 100%. That's my question too. Why a weak economy (and this goes beyond Greece) would join eurozone willingly, when the purpose of all these is really obvious. Even if I'd give the first countries that joined eurozone the benefit of doubt that they didn't see where this is going, there are even now more countries with weak economies that still want to jump on the wagon. I'd guess this is where corrupted politicians come to play.

Agreed. There are a few things I can think of, which might be beneficial to a new Eurozone member and that's access to foreign markets without having to go through exchange rates and certain backup / bailout mechanisms in case things go wrong - unfortunately but otherwise the whole concept would collapse soon.

However all EU countries benefit of free movement of goods and services, no EURO needed. As you say, it's a very stupid idea in many countries where the economy is simply not strong enough to take that hit. In the Czech Republic the support for EURO has never been lower actually with Slovakia, our neighbours, not doing too well with EURO.

Because of such massive economical but also social and cultural differences between some EU countries - just compare Germany vs Nordic countries vs Spain, Greece, Portugal, the concept of fully integrated fiscal and monetary union can never work.

Free movement of goods, investments, people = awesome idea. One currency with global rules set by EU = stupid idea.

 

[sim667]

OK now you are just living in fantasy worlds, if this had any chance of comming true, then why wait till now.
Why didn't Greece bring up this topic before it joined the Euro?

Its been brought up a number of times I think....

I don't doubt that Greece will ever get its money back, but the fact that Germany has NEVER paid back any of the money it took from any occupied certainly doesn't give Germany the right to take some kind of moral high ground when it comes to Greece.

 

[miknos]

You make it sound like this is the result of one government, from one point in time... not so sure you can simplify it to that level. Not that the current Greek government is really helping the situation.

You're correct. I didn't had to put "a crap government". Just government would be enough. It's the government's fault. Maybe not the last one but all together.

 

[Ironduke]

Yes, but it was a Greek government elected by the Greek citizens, and their representatives were doing what the voters said they wanted. However, it was to get re-elected, and not necessarily in the best interests of the country.

In the Greek's case, it's like Mom feeding her kids a continuous diet of ice cream. It's what the kids want, but in the long run, it's not in their best interest.

we elect our governments to act smart for us tho.

 

[Digital Skunk]

.. There are people in Greece who work 16 hours a day, doing 3 different jobs, to get 400 euros a month .. They can barely pay for their bills and rent and for the past 5 years they are doing the best they can to survive .. But at least those are still alive, because there are others who have nothing to eat and die in the streets ...

Poor people in America and other countries do the same thing. In fact, there are entire countries whose economies are like this.

This isn't anything new.

You didn't even begin to understand the what or the why of the situation and Apple's actions, so please refrain from writing.

A better response would be to explain so he and others could have a better understanding of the situation. Censorship, quips, and insults doesn't help anyone.

I know I'd rather like to know more about it and am going to read up on the situation now. The parallels between Greece and impoverished people in the States is obvious, and the claimed reasons are the same, yet Apple isn't handing out free iCloud to anyone in the US.

 

[unlinked]

Its been brought up a number of times I think....

I don't doubt that Greece will ever get its money back, but the fact that Germany has NEVER paid back any of the money it took from any occupied certainly doesn't give Germany the right to take some kind of moral high ground when it comes to Greece.

Greece and Germany signed a deal in the 90s about that.

I know, I know, I'm sure the Greek government that year was corrupt.