Discussion on:

How the iPad is helping save Greece

It helped to get Greece in trouble in the 1st place.The rest of the world too, for that matter.

"Super-friendly machine that any of the bankers involved could figure out how to use"... ungh... well... considering the reputation bankers have these days, that's not exactly something Apple could brag about.

In Iceland, Ireland, the UK, Spain, and the US, the state bailed out the banks. In Greece this write down, a lot of that is held by Greek banks. The Greek banks just bailed out the STATE. So, while generating BS "financial tools" is destroying the world, in Greece's case, they were generated by the Greek STATE, and the banks need more advanced physical tools to cut through the BS.

I've been writing apps for that for the last 15 years. And as far as I can tell, complicating finances so that nobody else understands what's going on is how financial industry makes its living. Producing complexity to obscure things, so to speak.

Sorry, but what an utter waste of an article, not to mention my time.
And if I were some anti-globalisation protestor I would find it deeply ironic too. (Maybe I should explain that comment to the bankers as they are apparently very stupid).

Ironic and iconic.

... much less understand what the article was even about.

"Somebody used technology to facilitate negotiations that took place in many places at once". On top of that is draped an Apple marketing spiel, and then the whole thing was ballooned to fifty times the size of its substance.

Soufflé

Perhaps more good would come out of arguing about my point than my spelling.
Perhaps you can explain the use of the article though, if not as a puff piece for Apple.

"Greece was able to save $140 billion in debt with the help of the Apple iPad"


...This is fanciful, uncorroborated Marketing bollocks. Same sort of nonsense that helped the UK Parliment vote through iPad for MP's to save paper, where they could save the same money by reading stuff on their existing laptops and not printing it in the first place.

If Greece wanted to reduce it's debts, not retiring at 53, having efficient public services, not lying their arses off about public finances and people paying their ****** texes would be top of my lists.

I agree with the first paragraph. On the second one, I would say you're a bit missing the point. Yes, there's a lot of tax evasion, but coming about lying about public finances, the Greek government just preached to the congregation. Nobody wanted to really ear about the truth, specially not the German government that now is acting as the injured party. How about for example if Greece returned the submarines that we're bought to a German company in what is known to be a crooked deal? And how about Germany paying the war reparations that weren't paid? Or how about the UK pay for the sculptures stolen from the Parthenon?

You don't see a problem with the idea that you can enjoy a first-world standard of living for a lifespan of roughly 80 years on a working career that lasts less than half that? No amount of flashy tech toys can solve that problem.

It used to be that people only lived to 60 or so until recently, so a younger retirement age made perfect sense. They just never bothered to change it since it still worked for them--until now.

...for the last 100 years. It doesn't take a masters in finance to understand that actuarial tables that are based upon average mortality at 60 that are not consistently adjusted will fail.

Either way, you hurt yourself in responding and yet failing to explain how it's possible for a society to live a first-world standard of living when a working life isn't even half of overall life expectancy.

No, Greece is a living example of what happens in social democracies where people will always selfishly vote for their own goodies without regard for the health of the system as a whole. All of Europe, and eventually the US as well is heading down this fiscal black hole. This is just the beginning.

as apposed to the US democracy where people selfishly vote for there own goodies without regard for the health of the system as a whole. "heck no.. we don't want better healthcare or education that would improve living standards and benefit the country as a whole.. it might mean I have to pay more of my money in taxes!!" (besides, smarter and healthier voters are not beneficial to governments maintaining and expanding control)

If more social democracy leads to selfish voters and catastrophe, why are your northern neibours not on the curb beside Greece with hats held out?

I don't believe the selfish voting choices are a result of the form of democracy. I'd also suggest that other factors where involved in leading Greece into this.

...then perhaps we'd be more confident of entrusting it to run the more complicated ones. As it is, our government is fundamentally bankrupt and the dollar is only being kept afloat by the Chinese Communists, of all people. Do tell me more about how the people responsible for this state of affairs is also capable of running an omni-trillion dollar health care scheme. Seriously.

But we digress. If you'd bother to read the news from outside America, you'd see that the "democracies" of the "social democracies" are throwing temper tantrums at being told that their economies are not viable, and they're going to have to change. Again, will someone explain how working less than half of ones life and expecting all the goodies of the first world is the least bit viable?

...we can also quickly agree that they're all incompetents who need to be replaced with something more worthwhile, like, say, the residents of any random home for the hopelessly senile.

they're as adept at obfuscating their schemes as the bankers (noted elsewhere, above). The craft of ripping off constituents relies in large part on misdirecting the victims' attention to cynically-managed 'social hot-button' issues such as gay marraige and abortion. Like their bedfellows in banking, U.S. legislators keep the rules complicated and ever-changing--while directing constituents' attention elsewhere; this displays their competence at long-term deception of populations (rather than INcompetence at the public 'service' for which they campaigned).

...then why would any sane person want them to be responsible for their health care as well? I want the government to be responsible for as little as possible.

Since my comment was on a lot of self-serving profiteering that gets excused as 'incompetence', how did you manage to infer that I would advocate giving *crooks*---who I differentiated from 'incompetents'---responsibility over even MORE of citizens' affairs?! You appear to be asking me to defend something I just came out AGAINST.
C- for comprehension, John; Ansu had just called U.S. politicians 'incompetents', and I supplied a more cynical motive than he did (greed) to explain our 'representatives'' failure to do much of anything save enrich themselves. That strikes me as 'successful avarice', not 'incompetent public service'...so I give up; why WOULD I want the U.S. government 'managing our healthcare'?

Incompetent, or self-serving, the outcome is about the same. Either way, allowing these people any power over our lives is a tragic mistake. Sorry if I offended.

As a disabled vet, I'm already a long-term 'customer'/victim of gov't-run health *care*....Like Leonard Cohen said, "I have seen the future; it is murder."

You obviously have no clue. Have you no idea that 40% will get Alzheimers over the age of 60. Probably the super rich Madam Lagarde already has got Alzheimers.

Greeks on average work longer years than most workers in the EU and they also work on average longer hours. The EU forced the Greeks to buy Eurofighters at twice the price instead of Block C F16's, they sold submarines using bribes which were unseaworthy, they carried out numerous IT projects that either do not work or do not cooperate with each other, they push the entire problem of illegal immigration on the Greeks and the Spanish, they provide little or no help for checking the entire border of Greece and do not support Greece when the Turks overfly (in direct violation of internation law) Greek territories as far as Crete. The EU was asleep and used Greece to boost their own economies while there was no recession. I would like to remind you that 60% of my wife's family died of starvation in the war and that Greece suffered 23% damage compared to 11% in Germany. After the war the UK ran away and left Greece to the USA who supported corrupt goverments between the war and the end of the Junta in 1974. Greece received no Martial plan. (Its much more complicated than anyone on this thread has any idea about.) The sculptures was just the start of the interference. In fact, most of the Greek political families were helped by the foreign powers to the detriment of Greece.

Germany actually paid ALL its reparations from World War I, albeit slowly and with several defaults along the way, completing it in October of 2010. (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2023140,00.html). Deals with a private company in Germany don't affect the debt owed to the German government by Greece, so your implication that the German government is greedy and playing both ends is foolish. Germany forgave a huge chunk of Greece's debt and Greeks respond by burning Merkel in effigy. If that isn't the action of spoiled children, I don't know what is. It all boils down to corruption, socialism, and a sense of entitlement.

...within the next year or so as German citizens start to question why they're working over 40-hours a week until over 65 to bail out a nation that gets to retire at around 50 and is demonstrating little willingness to change.

The Tea Party is a scam to distract people while the Republicans try to steal some more pie... not that the Democrats are any better, mind you, I just don't think there's a need to let one evil justify another.
If the Germans do decide to change their step, they have grass roots movements of their own, and don't need to copy the American faux one.

Naturally, the Germans will have their own grass-roots movement, just as the Tea Party was. But the basis of both will be the same; the productive citizens are tired of being made slaves to the unproductive.

And that the Tea Party being a GOP scam is simply absurd. Most of the GOP has fought the Tea Party from the beginning, which is why there's a Tea Party in the first place.

are why there's a 'Tea Party in the first place', and they ARE a subset of the GOP.....

Some republican candidates, who were a bit out of tune with the tea party populist agenda, probably did frown on them, but the Republican party has owned that movement, if not from day one, then from day two. Look around, where do you see anti-tea party flak guns now? If any Republican today is against the co-opted tea party, it is only because the tea party is also being used in power struggles internal to the republicans.

Disgust for incompetent, self-serving big government and a GOP that is fundamentally little different from the Democrats transcends the left's current bugaboo straw-men, "The Koch Brothers".

They're being used by the same neocon idiots who were with DeLay, driving the same agenda: More extreme republicans, with less concern for a viable policy.

Well, just last week they took out Richard Lugar; he was as establishment GOP as there is.

The Neoconservatives are just rooting out the conservatives.
Business as usual on the path to a more extreme republican party.

The Tea Party to support Democrats?

in the end, they find that they can't quite wrap their flag around more than a few *individual liberties* at a time. The 'Tea Party Movement' is a carefully-managed neo-populist pressure group wholly within the GOP, as was intended. 'Tea Party Republican' is a phrase heard every day; 'Tea Party Democrat' is an oxymoron....

Germany paid nothing from the WWII. Also Greece was forced to be excluded from any reparations that might be paid. Probably because Greece suffered more damage that ANY of the countries (including Poland) and they couldn't affort it in their entire life-time.

They were merely transported for safekeeping.

Right. Greeks have pulled $75 billion out of personally held accounts and hid it in their mattresses. If Greeks REALLY had ANY confidence in their ability to govern themselves, they'd bail their own country out. Instead, they're hoarding and begging for a Euro bailout.

Meanwhile, Greece didn't foot the bill for the iPads. The guys trying to minimize losses while getting the maximum reduction in Greek debt did.

Which Greeks are you talking about? We have 23% unemployment now. Perhaps we are talking about the politicians who don't even want to raise that question? Greeks do not have the confidence at the moment that ANYONE will help. It's one thing read about it and another to experience it.

Look back at some of the excellent write ups on Greece, and how they are uncovering stuff buried, so Greece could lie it's way into the Euro, and stuff bured ever since. The prosecutions in Greek Courts of some of the EU bean-counters sent in to investigate is disgraceful. Greece needs a dose of German Tax inspectors through it.

How about it Greece returns some of the money/resources robbed and countries destroyed by the mulitary expansionist actions of Alexanbder the Great.

Or is their a statute of limitations on this sort of thing, and that does not count any more - LOL.

Do you remember in the first days of the Monetary Stability Pact?
Who fell short? The big guys. Who decided that the sanctions already agreed on NEED NOT APPLY, there by setting the trend that nothing is done to verify compliance? That's right, the big guys.

Now they can pay for their stupid pointless pride, through the nose or through the other end if need be.

So you're saying it serves the rest of them right that Greece screwed the whole thing up (among others)?
Wow, that's some argument.

The Euro had sound measures for checking and sanctioning, but when Germany and France decided that the sanctions shouldn't be working, because Germany and France stood to get a smack on the touche, they also screwed up the checking: Who would bother checking something that can't have consequences? Who measures the water level in a tank that will never be used?

They screwed us over, simple as that.

Greeks asked for the German tax inspectors to come over here but the Germans refused. They said they fear for their safety but most people think that they didn't know their job. Its easy to say to someone to do it but harder to actually do what you say.

Actually Lord Elgin PAID for stolen goods. In law that means the true owner should be returned his goods and Lord Elgin convicted for handling stolen goods regardless of if they caught the criminal.

I move that the US buy IPads.... They must be Freakin Magic.......

I move the US buy the ipads back at twice the price. They are Freakin Magic... They'll also make your weaner grow 10 inches ... honest!

... doesn't mean they're wrong. Greece is one heck of a lot older than the US, so should not be compared to US methods of operation.

I think they compare very well to US methods of operation

it's that what they did seems NOT to have worked = being wrong.

There are very few people retiring at 53. The people who are allowed to are limited. I beleive that in the UK the Police can retire at 45. I certainly won't be able to retire before 67 which is a shame because I may have Alzheimer's by then (though I hope not). Yes you are right there is a lot of bollocks flying around on both sides. Be the way the Greek people didn't lie about their finances, the Greek politicians lied to everybody for 40 years and the EU never said anything.

That kind of mutual gratification scheme does involve mental sloth on the parts of the voters. Of course, it's a vicious circle, sloth begets ignorance.

Love the comment "Bank of Greece (their version of the Federal Reserve)",.. as if Greece copied America when they decided they needed a bank!

I live in Greece and I find it insulting that a bunch of the "Cult of Apple" prats should even suggest that Greece wasting 80000 euros on ipads in a recession has anything to do with saving the country when the people have so many problems caused by corruption. Probably Apple even gave a bride to sell it to them. Perhaps they think that the ipad is fixing the UK economy too because the UK parliament has also receive a batch for its members. As a subject of the UK too I also would find that insulting but then again nobody thinks much about insulting the Greeks. Biggest load of bollocks I have read on TechRepublic. Fan-boys!!!

I agree with you ... but when Apple starts giving away brides, I'm running for the hills. My luck, I'd get a defective Steppford Wife.

Although I meant "bribe", Greeks have an expression which is "they paid for the bride" meaning to pay too much for something that either isn't theirs or not their responsibility. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip

If your attitude is common in Greece, then I guess I can see why you are in such a mess.
This is a matter of investment. The 80.000 euros was an investment to get something done which, if done quickly, could pay itself back many-fold. You have to look at the future rather than looking at right now. Reducing debt may not seem like the same thing as making money, but it really is.
Can you say you will not spend 80 euros for gasoline to go to a last-minute job interview that is likely to result in a much better job? You could just save money and walk, but once you get there it might be too late.
I have many Greek friends in the U.S. who do not have the same type of attitude and are very hard workers and are willing to invest time and money, even when these things are scarce, for a chance at improving their situation. I do, however see and respect the strong family values that Greeks and Greek-Americans share.
I agree that you shouldn't throw money around like its nothing, and 80.000 euros is not nothing. But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and act quick and trust the best information you have before you.
I also agree that corruption in gov't and society can be very disheartening, especially for someone who is doing their fair share to help get the economy on its feet. In fact there is plenty of corruption here in the U.S. as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if we spend our way into insurmountable debt in the next couple decades also.

"I have many Greek friends in the U.S. who do not have the same type of
attitude and are very hard workers and are willing to invest time and money,
even when these things are scarce, for a chance at improving their situation."

But how many of them are in the public sector?

You mean but how many know what they are talking about.

"But how many of them are in the public sector?"

Good point... none that I know of are in the public sector. Probably because they realize that these traits are not desirable in the public sector. In fact these are traits are in direct opposition to the public sector. When the people have these traits, the public sector has less control/power. A re-emergence of these traits could put the public sector out of business.

Cheap conventional laptops would have cost less and would be capable of more. The app could have been written as a web app and not been limited to a specific platform.

The iPads may be an investment, but it doesn't strike me as a particularly good one.

Exactly how good are laptops as Mobility devices? If you have to put it down to use it, it's certainly not "mobile."

So you may have to put it down to use it; get over it. It beats lugging a desktop around, and when you're economy is in the toilet you've got to start cutting corners somewhere. For PR purposes alone it would be a good example for the public (non) taxpayers. Better still, stay at your desk and use communications and connectivity tools instead of wasting money on travel. The savings could have been used to purchase additional systems for the Greek government.

It was the application and back end that did the heavy lifting, not the client platform. Writing the app for all browsers would expand the user base to include other government and financial employees with 'traditional' systems. Conventional laptops could have been shipped to those remote users just as easily as an iPad, and used the same communications WiFi / 3G / 4G channels.

The iPad was graft for the people broking the deals, and in that respect, yeah, being a high-profile snazz-bucket really is pertinent.
So, the real deal is, they used these desirable commodities to shine and bling, catching the attention of these people. And these people thought, sure, ok, I can throw away some one else billions, and pocket this shiny toy at the same time.

In that respect, 80k in iPad graft probably saved about a million in real-money graft.


Corruption. It's the Midas touch, and just as damning.

I am very critical of Apple, but these guys get points for making it work. You assume with no evidence that it could have been accomplished for less money. The Facebook IPO was 1/20 the size and complexity of the Greek debt deal, was run on very expensive and conventional systems, and was a complete mess. Would I prefer it were accoplished on Android tablets? Sure. Do I have the blind faith, in a complete absence of evidence, to assert that of course they would have worked just as well. No.

See "Was mobility even needed?" above, please.

Those people who received the ipads would not have used it for any work. Perhaps they thought that it would save on paper costs? This is wrong since the people in parliament don't have a clue about technology and most likely gave them to their kids to play with. I am a sceptical tax payer living in Greece and when I see that successive governments have wasted money on IT infrastructure projects that do not cooperate and who for which some parties try their best for them not to work, it make s me livid to think that the "Cult of Apple" should join in with the others just for the PR. But then again it not just Apple that can't take our situation seriously. We are paying dearly for the mistakes of corrupt politicians in both Greece and the EU. Christine LeGarde just admitted that she can be bothered with a situation that she was trusted to help with (and no, this was not taken out of context). People who work for other people always pay taxes at the source and those people are not tax dodgers. For the people living in Greece it just doesn't stop.

Perhaps Apple would cosider loaning Greeece some of it's tens of billions of stock-piled Cash, instead of being involved in some cheap publicity on iPad Solve the Debt Crisism which they don't.

You make it sound like there were no computers in Greece before this Job lot of iPads - LOL.

Perhaps the investment should have been elsewhere? What exactly is wrong with my attitude? Actually I am British. Actually Greeks work more hours and work for longer years. If you go on holiday you only get to experience the holiday. You don't actually realize how many people are working. Besides Greeks who left Greece didn't help Greece. Greeks work hard, which is why they leave Greece. They don't work hard for no reward. Perhaps if the Greeks that become successful abroad supported Greece like the Jewish board then there would be less problems.

JSargent, please go back and re-read the article. Greece didn't waste 80,000 euros on the iPad purchase. The 100 iPads were bought by Bob Apfel himself and given to the holders of Greek debt, who used them to help Apfel re-structure a $270 billion debt obligation into a more manageable (but still huge) $130 billion debt. I'd say that Apfel made out pretty good, investing 80,000 euros into a project that saved the Greek citizens 176 billion euros ($140 billion US).

Is he a Charity, I wonder...

So, in the very first line of this "article", you openly admit to a disingenuous title? What utterly cheap journalism this is. TechRepublic is becoming a farce.

I thought it was a typo when I read the article and then realised the guy's name really is Apfel (German for Apple). Love it.

Hmm Jason Jason... Jason the jester of TR!!!

Thanks for this good laugh!!!

What crap! You only need an abacus to deduct 140 [billions] from 270 [billions].

Apple's got some money in the bank - something in the range of those Greek savings.
Maybe they should go out and buy Greece?
After all they're more or less for sale now...

A rather cheap way to get Daily Digest readers to visit the website.

It's the software that did the trick, not the hardware. The exact same software could have been written for ANY other hardware. To say that it was Apple or the iPad that did it, is just plain bollocks.

Jason, I used to be a fan of yours, but if you are resorting to drivel like this, it's bye-bye.

The emphasis is on the ease of use and not having to waste time with training classes or internet connections or virus laden laptops.
An iPad or Android tablet uniquely fill this role. They could just as easily used an Android tablet, and probably even more easily written the software in Java. iPad is much less intimidating to the masses though, and this was obviously important for quick turnaround.

Are you suggesting user-friendly software can only be written for a tablet? I have seen software written for a PC (could be a Mac, or anything else for that matter) that can be used by a three year old without any training.

Plus, I am pretty sure the financial guru's all know the basics of computing. They wouldn't be who they are without being able to use Excel, for example.

They know how to USE a device but that doesn't mean they know how to make it do something that available software doesn't allow.

You are 54 days late.

Jason, this is very close to the bone. In my opniion, it is disrespectful to a lot of people who are experiencing tough times... A very flippant article. It is similar to tabloid journalism... where you make a statement in a headline, & the detail doesn't back it up! I am sure it will generate lots of feedback, which may be the purpose of the article... I hope this isn't a sign of the way Tech Republic articles are going in the future...

What a stupid article! Maybe it was meant to be funny, but it's not.
So it was debt-restructuring app that made all the difference, and OFC, it could run only on Apple iPad. This is crazy and stupid on so many levels that person who wrote this should have their head examined.
Copy/paste journalists and fans of certain technologies/products should not be allowed to write stuff here, much less be editors in chief. TechRepublic has just lost a lot of credibility for me

The article quite clearly said that decisions need to be made on extremely short notice. Standard computers, desktop and laptop, simply don't have the agility to make those connections and present the numbers in such a dynamic situation. Only a mobility device, such as a tablet (I don't care if it was iPad or Galaxy Tab) can display all the factors in the shortest amount of time to the greatest amount of people--no matter where they may be at the moment. The whole point of the article was that, as a mobility device, the tablet made things work far faster and far more effectively than any other currently existing system.

"Only a mobility device, such as a tablet (I don't care if it was iPad or Galaxy Tab) can display all the factors in the shortest amount of time to the greatest amount of people--no matter where they may be at the moment."

Okay, I'll bite. Why specific factors provide an advantage over a cheap conventional laptop running a comparable web-based app?

The instant-on, multitouch nature of a tablet, plus the single-function purposefulness of an app -- that's the difference. No training needed. Just send instructions -- 1.) Turn it on, 2.) Touch the app that says "Debt Planning." Done.

So your saying these bankers/investors/financial decision makers need to be trained how to open a webpage and sign in securely to view the same "dept planning" information? Believe it or no intuitive software can be written for non iOS devices...

Face it, this was just a marketing gimmick to make some fat cats feel special. End of story...

and it is closer to the truth than you know.

Sure is was a marketing gimmick, but those 'fat cats' often can't log in without their secretaries help (I know, I work for many like that).

However, I question the true value of the tablet in the process. In the end contracts have to be drawn up, delivered, signed... and none of that happens with a tablet. None of that is done by the people that had the tablets, other than perhaps the signing.

Should I take a guy called Apfel (German for Apple) seriously?