Greek crisis - it ain't over yet
Time and time again with the Greek debt crisis it has seemed that a solution has been found, only for the drama to continue.
So again with Greece's formal request to activate the EU-IMF rescue package last Friday. It turns out that many of the details are still being worked out. The markets sniff uncertainty and the borrowing costs for Greece have soared to a 12-year high.
What is now being laid bare are the tensions within the eurozone. On the streets of Athens I found very few people who support the bail-out package. There is widespread unease at the involvement of the IMF. There are fears that further austerity measures are on the way. It is easy to find people who would prefer to leave the euro rather than go through with this.
In Germany, too, several editorials and several senior politicians are questioning whether Greece should stay in the eurozone. The fear there is that Greece will need supporting for at least three years. It is also being asked what will happen if Greece cannot repay the loans or if other countries need aid. There is real concern in Germany that they are signing up to bankrolling a series of weak economies.
Chancellor Merkel is walking a tightrope. She knows the mood of the German people and she knows there are regional elections in a few weeks' time. Her strategy is to insist that Greece lays out a convincing plan as to how it will reduce its debt over a three-year period, perhaps longer. If that happens she will try and sell it to the German people.
"Germany will help, If requirements are fulfilled," she said. "This will still take a couple of days." She is looking for a sustainable programme. That, she said, was "the only chance to ensure the stability of the euro permanently". This would only work if Greece makes its own contribution. In other words Germany is setting out tough terms. It wants Greece to reduce its spending plans further.
That will prompt further strikes and protests in Greece in the days ahead..
Such is the level of opposition to helping Greece in Germany, that politicians are having to sell it as "in the national interest". German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said "what we are talking about is the destiny of the whole of Europe". The stakes are being raised.
Increasingly, this is being presented as not just a struggle to save the eurozone but the whole European project.
Michael Massourakis, the Chief Economist at the Alpha Bank in Greece said: "If the markets perceive that there is a European Union and a eurozone club that cannot take care of one of its members, obviously you may have a contagion effect being transferred affecting other countries."
In Portugal, the costs of servicing its debt are rising too.
The Foreign Minister of Portugal, Luis Amado, acknowledged today that it, too, was in a fight. He said they were doing what they could to avoid a similar situation to Greece. "We are not in such a critical situation as Greece. We didn't cheat," he said.
The financial markets want to see the fine print of the deal to rescue Greece. They also need to be convinced that this is not just sticking plaster and that Greece will not be in the same position next year. There is also the wider concern that the economies within the eurozone are just too different to be part of a monetary union.
This is not just the gravest crisis to face the single currency. Some very fundamental questions are being asked about the wider European project.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~56~RS~)
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... when there are many volptures, battles erupt for which one will cut the best part...
It 100% natural that the case of Greece takes extraordinary more time than the usual for a country of this little size. It is exactly because the issue is not purely financial in the first place.
How about the oil?
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"Some very fundamental questions are being asked about the wider European project. "
Ironically that may please both sceptics and federalists. The former hope for the EU edifice to come crashing down (or, at least, for the construction to stop) and the latter will be certain the only answer is further integration. (No prize for guessing which camp will emerge victorious but I'll offer a hint: Brussels).
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Blog title "Greek crisis - it ain't over yet."
Reminds me of a quote from one of America's greatest sages, Yogi Berra. "It ain't over till it's over." The quote of his with the greatest pertinence for this situation. When asked how to get to his house he replied...."When you get to a fork in the road, take it."
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The sooner EU politicians realise that the game is up the better.
Unless drastic action - such as the ejection of Greece from the Eurozone - is taken, the following will most probably occur:
1. Greece will need more cash - a lot more cash - sooner than expected.
2. It will then default nontheless. (Mainly because there is no political will to dish out the bitter medicine needed).
3. German and French banks will suffer great losses due to their indulgence.
4. Portugal will be next in the firing line. (Even though, as their minister says, unlike the Greeks, they didn't cheat).
5. Germany will remove itself from the Eurozone and resurrect the D-Mark.
'Interesting times' - as the Chinese curse has it.
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Please note that although the UK is in trouble it is not being worried by speculators. I believe that the floating Pound and not being paert of the Euro is what is helping us.
The EMS was a politically motivated silly Europroject like the Channel Tunnel and possibly the Eurofighter.
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"Increasingly, this is being presented as not just a struggle to save the eurozone but the whole European project."
Since the British people did not want the "European project" in the first place and are victims of small minded, flag-waiving, arrogant, megalomaniac Euronationalism, I can only hope that the "EU" does fall apart.
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@3 Yes, Yogi Berra is wise.
Another famous quote of his aptly sums up the machinations of the EU elites (i.e. in-fighting, hand wringing, undemocratic tendencies, etc) “It's deja vu all over again”
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@MaxSceptic Re: 4
Max, I am not sure that your analysis isn't just wishful thinking. How can you tell exactly that there is no political will in Greece and what exactly is 'the bitter medicine needed' in your opinion?
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How come Portugal that did not cheat arrives now in such a difficult position, anyway? And none accused Portugal of the endemic corruption there is in Greece for example. Did Portugal undertake pharaonic projects? What? Did they give good salaries? As far as I know they had at the same level as Greece. Did they just go bad for not producing a lot and still giving those salaries? Then it is amazing how they are close (even if not exactly on) to the position of Greeks who were a corrupt country that cheated and did not real projects. Does that mean that Greece really withstood so much cos it is rich or something? Or is the pattern of Greece, Italy (thanks to its central, south), Spain and Portugal having problems accidental with... say... I said say... the fact that 80% of ships passing to Suez will not touch any Mediterranean port but will go unload directly in Rotterdam or Hamburg?... for example.... even if they will feed... Bavaria... kind of saying...
Portugal is in eurozone. It did not cheat. So it was an open book (as-if greece was not...).
Quite a puzzle there? No. All I see is people fooling themselves.
PS: Nobody blames anyone else, the countries' fault alright said, enough of this, now try to think a bit further guys that is not enough. EU was aware of the books of these countries right since the beginning. Everyone knew what he was doing and the same holds true for now.
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To EUprisoner209456731 (5):
British government owns a printing machine, that is why they aren't in trouble, they just press more money. In comparison Eurozone governments don't have anymore printing presses, they are locked behind the ECB which doesn't have authority print money and give it to member governments.
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g_rizzly @8,
Bitter medicine*:
a) cut bloated public sector.
b) cut corruption as a way of life (political and economic)
c) become a productive economy: produce goods and services that people want to buy.
I can't see any Greek government (of whichever corrupt family happens to be in power) being up to the task.
(You may as well ask the French to tame their bloody-minded unions).
*BTW - much of points a) and b) apply just as well to the UK.
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Those Greek blogs are driving the remaining contributors slightly insane.
Wouldn´t one be enough -- Just change the title ?
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Mr. Hewitt,
Three things from Berlin today:
1) Merkel has said it is not an issue to ask Greece to leave the Euro.
2) She has also said that the deal must be done within this week. I think we should understand that many of her statements have the German audience as address, as you also suggests.
3) Merkel has been behind the involvement of the IMF. When the Greeks started to talk about Nazi crimes it became clear to her that she needed someone to tell the Greek about the political demands that follow with the money, so that she is not the evil German in the play.
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Looks like the new European currency will be the D-Mark after all ?
Glad to see that now everybody is happy and jumping up and down with glee !!!
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Here is my posting from the previous threat that was "awaiting moderation" for around 24 hours or more. It was finally published....over a hundred postings later. It is still relevant;
""The Germans, #81, are lately only good at determining where the "threat" is coming from (those nasty speculators--official German stance--and not good at solutions nor implementing these "speculative solutions.")"
The threat to Germany was invented by...Germany itself and France. THEY were the ones who engineered the particulars of the EU, THEY were the ones who engineered the single currency tying their own economies to those of countries that were economically much weaker and politically corrupt, THEY were the ones who first insisted on the growth and stability pact in Maastrict, then violted it, then had it erased from the map, and they were among those who allowed the books of these countries to go unaudited to find out what kind of condition those countries were really in. So what is one to make of it when one day years later they suddenly wake up to discover... OH what a surprise! The whole thing is a mess. We never knew or suspected. So much for German engineering (we all knew French engineering stinks anyway.)
The Germans are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't dilemma. If they bail out Greece they are not only merely buyng time until the next installment comes due, they are setting a precedent for the other PIIGS who will also require bailouts. That could be like throwing good money after bad so giving Greece more money now just ups the ante for their risk. That is why they are not going to be any less reticent to act on the Greek bailout than the IMF unless Greece shows some radical reforms. But even if Greece complies, there is no assurance that Greece will turn itself around and become capable of paying off these loans.
But if the Germans don't, then the worst case fear of the unknown is that the whole Euro scheme will start to come unraveled and their economy with it, at the very least be seriously depreciated in value. (This is why the distinction between the balance of trade between the EU and Eurozone countries and the rest of the world is important. Germany's exports to the rest of Eruope mean nothing if they are offset by imports by others especially from beyond EU borders like China.)
The root cause of it as I said all along was the whole purpose of the EU from the start, to build a European superstate that would challenge the US. Chirac and DeVillepin said so explicity over and over again. Even that didn't work except on paper. In the real world Europe is just a collection of several dozen Dutchies. Pathetic if you are on the inside, hillarious if you are on the outside watching from a safe distance. Why President Obama has gotten involved in something that is none of America's business would be a complete mystery were it not for the fact that his inexperience leads him to stick his nose into everything except the two things that are of importance to Americans, its own national security and its own economy. Both are still in serious trouble over a year into his administration and the political consequences to the Democrats for it this fall are ominous to say the least."
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#15 MarcusAurellius
The paragraph ´But if the Germans don´t --------- like China ´ sounds Greek to me.
Could you please decipher the mental Gymnastics for us mere Mortals ?
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From Open Europe:
Quote of the fortnight:
"On liberty, the Liberal Democrats are at their best...Strangely at odds with this is their warm embrace of the euro, the Lisbon Treaty and the European Union, which many of the same people feel is another kind of tyranny...Is it stretching the definition of 'honest politics' to change the party line on the EU, two weeks before a general election?"
Leading article, Times, 20 April 2010
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"The root cause of it as I said all along was the whole purpose of the EU from the start, to build a European superstate that would challenge the US."
That's a very common misunderstanding of what the EU was designed for. The original purpose was to
a.) create a common market
b.) merge the French/German mining industries to avoid further conflict between the two countries.
At the time this happened, the US was still the undisputed big momma of the west. Nobody even thought of questioning the American role.
Even today, I would venture the guess that most Europeans still realise that America is by and large a benign superpower and that everything else currently on the market as a potential partner for Europe is much, much worse than America.
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Nice piece Gavin with the point that fundamental questions about the wider European Union Project are being asked at long last.
My response is good; it is not before time that the politicians started to think about where they are taking the people of Europe and, more importantly, they should now consider asking the people of Europe where they want to go (and whether they want to go at all!) with the European Union Project.
For far too long this project has been planned, promulgated and delivered without any choice on the part of the people who live in Europe as to where the project is leading, what the project will deliver and all without democratic electoral choice as the control of destiny of the EU has been entirely a matter for the political leadership who have never consulted with the plebian classes as to what they want.
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#15 MarcusAurellius
´Germany´s exports to the rest of Europe mean nothing if they are offset by imports by others especially from beyond EU borders like China´ ????
I think this is called balance of trade ?
If there is no Euro then Germany will accept any currency for its goods.
You are basically saying America would suffer dire consequences without the Dollar ??
No one noticed China disintegrating when it changed the name of its currency to the Remimbi.
With no Euro, the currency Germany has will again be dominant -- as with the D-Mark. America is already suffering with the low Remimbi and Euro. Your Schadenfreude is a double edged sword which the American unemployed do not think as funny as you seem to.
Please consider the consequences of your dreams and fantasies before you wish them on America.
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16. quietoaktree
"The paragraph ´But if the Germans don´t --------- like China ´ sounds Greek to me.
Could you please decipher the mental Gymnastics for us mere Mortals?"
Although I am not gifted with ESP as is Nik, I would like to offer my humble interpretation. Kinda like reading a religious text, everybody has got an interpretation. That's what we mortals do.
"Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The devil you know is better than the one you don't." But what if all the devils are unknown?
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@quietoaktree(20)
I think that you are missing the point there. It is not the name of the currency that matters. It is if there are any customers left to buy your products. What MA says is simple. If Germany's trade surplus is mainly with EU/Eurozone countries, then a Europe in financial ruins is no good news for Germany as well, Euro or DM. Who will buy those fine German products? If Germany's trade surplus was with China, then it is another story.
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I don't normally give lessons in economics 101 but since more than one person seems confused, here it is. When Euroland as a group imports more than it exports, there is a net outflow of its currency to other countries. When that outflow grows faster than its wealth (GNP) there is a net outflow of wealth. The result is that the currency it has buys less and less. Those outside who hold its currency can buy back more of Euroland assets with it. This is the situation the US is in with the dollar. The US can offset this by printing more money paying back all creditors with cheaper dollars. This will devalue its currency which will cause it to be able to buy fewer imports unless those who export to it lower their prices. As the US is the world's number one importer, some of them may have no choice if they don't want to go broke. This would be the equivalent of upvaluing the Chinese currency. The Euro by contrast is not the world's reserve currency. If it does this before the US does, there will be dire consequences for it. After the US does it, it will be safe.
As the world's number one debtor, the US government (14 trillion) will have to pay back this huge amount one way or another when the T-bonds, T-Bills, and T-Notes come due. It cannot raise this money by taxing Americans, it would send the US economy into a far worse depresssion than it is already in. It will have to inflate its way out. This will surely get the creditors which include banks, China, and others very angry. But who really cares. I certainly don't. So it boils down to whether or not Euroland can hold out long enough for the US to devalue. Right now it looks like the answer is that it can't.
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If it seems the Euro will disappear, what will foreign holders of Euros do with them? Wait to be handed a basket of currencies, some like Drachmas of dubious value or will they buy up Germany with all of it while they still can? That's my bet, they'd buy German assets including stocks, land, whatever they can get with all of it. When the Euro disappears, the weak currencies will go into freefall almost immediately and the Deutchmark will rise for awhile anyway. Germany will have the monkeys off its back.
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is Anything being investigated as far as future prosecution (one would think of course) in Greece or the EU..
concerning all these allegations and counterallegations????????
Would really help Greece...prosecutions....do you know if that is happening...in the legislatures???
I know nothing of anything of this, as I do not read the newspapers sites (in languages not English blush) Cannot.:)
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Chris Camp
"Even today, I would venture the guess that most Europeans still realise that America is by and large a benign superpower and that everything else currently on the market as a potential partner for Europe is much, much worse than America"
might be news to some people ....um .....in the rest of world, here--in fact, as well :O)))))
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sorry that is the end of my "lashing out" (off hard drugs now)
trying to entertain thou's
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If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, the EU is one long caravan of them lost in the desert. Is this thing made out of whole cloth coming apart at the seams? It would seem so. It is long overdue. Only America's huge subsidies through NATO and its prior one way trade policies kept it alive as long has it has.
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Marcus,
I've found when the people stop commenting here I can go to other blogs here, especially the Tech and Astronomy/Space blogs for fun.
:)
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Tying together a disparate number of countries with very different economic models and levels of fiscal responsibility under the banner of one currency and one Central bank was always going to end in tears.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I would have thought one of the key benefits of having sovereign control over your own currency/monetary policy is the ability to devalue said currency if you need to? For me, giving away this vital instrument was reckless at best. Countries such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden & the UK must have realised this as well...pity the Greeks did not.
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BTW, all,
The IMF helped the Asian tigers during their crisis and They came out fine. Just remember Nik, oil and remember everyone else, Life ..she goes on and on and on and ....on..and.....
But, also,
Prosecutions anyone in govt? Whats happening there?
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25. At 02:01am on 27 Apr 2010, David wrote:
is Anything being investigated as far as future prosecution (one would think of course) in Greece or the EU..concerning all these allegations and counterallegations???????? Would really help Greece...prosecutions....do you know if that is happening...in the legislatures??? I know nothing of anything of this, as I do not read the newspapers sites (in languages not English blush) Cannot.:)
Nik laughs:
Ahahahahahahaha ahahahah ah aha haahahahaha... David, good man! Are you going crazy? Have you got fever or something? What are these fascist things you demand? Prosecute MPs? Where are we? In North Korea or something? Do we have a colonels' dictatorship? Sit down, take a bit of fresh water and take a nice deep breath! Ok, I think you are alright now and you won't say such mean things again!!!
You just don't touch MPs. Even the slightest one. It is widely known that the only issue where all MPs (and when I say all I mean almost-ALL, apart the occasional populist but still welcome exception of extra-right wing LAOS) are united is:
1) voting on their salaries: has one of the best paid (and I mean only the legal salaries!) MPs in Europe reflecting of course all that extraordinary work they do for the country!!!
2) voting for lifting the immunity of an MP accused of a scandal - the perfect Avaton (not avatar... Avaton= i.e. a no-go (usually holly) area).
Last time MPs and a PM was prosecuted was Andreas Papandreou, the father of current PM Giorgakis Papandreou. He did not even present himself one day in the court ridiculing the whole process and leaving the grave responsibility of his own criminal actions on his yes-men, Koutsogiorgas and Tsovolas, 2 men who were relatively clean anyway (not directly responsible, they were responsible for not having resigned in such a corrupt government), finally the one who got punished (more of being "repremanded") was Koutsogiorgas, who ... had cancer and soon died... Andreas went on in 2 years to re-become a PM - since people became (=were driven) desperate with the doings of the ND-party government led by Kostantinos Mitsotakis, Andreas' alter-ego in the the right wing party.
After this mockery, none sought again very actively to pursue an MP. The level of impunity of course extends not only to MPs but to a wide range of judges, journalists & editors, civil servants, businessmen, syndicalists and so on and up to a 30% (i.e. it is the usual 30% I refer so often), can work with impunity. THIS is the system. If you attack it, it is an attack against "Democracy", David. And you are a fascist!!!
Hehe
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David;
"Marcus,
I've found when the people stop commenting here I can go to other blogs here, especially the Tech and Astronomy/Space blogs for fun."
I'll bet you can meet a lot of interesting aliens from other worlds there. Stephen Hawkings' recognition of them may have finally piqued their interest in communicating with us. What better way than by posting on BBC blogs? Do you think he has some inside information about them he hasn't revealed yet but is tauntig us into trying to guess what it is? Do you think he speaks their language? Sometimes it sounds like it to me.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8645511.stm
"Europe has chosen the place it wants to build the world's biggest optical telescope."
I don't want that sick, arrogant, wasteful, spendthrift, incompetent, undemocratic, anti-democratic, megalomaniac monstrosity in Brussels doing anything "on my behalf".
I don't want the disgusting people who run and work for the "EU" spending any more of my money.
The "EU" is still not Europe.
If I wanted to cooperate with other countries in such a project, then it would not be exclusively or mainly with European countries. I would not want it to go through the"EU". There are many ways in which I would prefer to cooperate with the New Zealanders, the Australians, the Canadians and the Americans.
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What this crisis shows is that economic integration needs to be accompanied by adequate political integration, rather be preceded and guided by it. If this is not accomplished on the regional European level, it won't be achieved on the international level. In a closed system such as Planet Earth nothing can grow indefinitely- no plant, no animal, no economy, no population, no country. So either human civilisation begins with the predatory exploitation of space thus opening up the Earth system or it will have to find a way to share the resources of this planet without destroying itself.
The introduction of fiscal federalism in the Eurozone with the power to levy taxes for the European Parliament could both be an expression of solidarity and address the lack of democracy within European integration.
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I do apologise for my previous posting.
I forgot to use the word "nauseating" when describing the "EU".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/04/the_bitter_taste_of_a_greek_ba.html
"Is it now safer to lend money to Iraq than to Greece?"
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"Thanks to another day of mixed signals from the rulers of the eurozone, the cost of fixing the Greek problem just went up again. If it can be fixed at all."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/04/the_bitter_taste_of_a_greek_ba.html
EUpris: What a surprise!
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/04/the_bitter_taste_of_a_greek_ba.html
"However, in their exasperation at German mixed messages and foot-dragging, investors and policy makers should perhaps spare a thought for all those Germans who never wanted to share a currency with Greece in the first place. As far as they are concerned, they woz robbed. "
The Germans woz robbed of their D-Marks. We wot is in the UK woz robbed of our rights.
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"You'll remember that Greece was left out of the first wave of euro members and only got in by the skin of its teeth in January 2001. Well, in September 2004, Eurostat decided - in effect - they were false teeth.
It revised the Greek government debt and deficit data for the entire period from 1997 to 2003, with the deficits for 2000-2002 all revised up by more than two percentage points of GDP. The numbers for 2003 went up even further.There have been a string of revisions since then."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/04/the_bitter_taste_of_a_greek_ba.html
EUpris: So what other rubbish is this Crock of Euro, this Concentration of Dark Forces hiding from its victims, the "Citizens of the EU" ?
The "Citizens of the EU" are victims of despicable supporters of the "EU".
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#22 Christos
With China and the rest of the world. Germany´s trade with China now exceeds that with France.
The mental gymnastics MarcusAurellius demands from us just to understand basic universal truths, which in most cases have nothing to do the discussion underway, is only time and energy wasting.
His continual refusal to rephrase the logical spaghetti is hardly a Democratic signal
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35. At 10:56am on 27 Apr 2010, EuropeanFederalist wrote:
" ....
The introduction of fiscal federalism in the Eurozone with the power to levy taxes for the European Parliament could both be an expression of solidarity and address the lack of democracy within European integration."
EUpris: No it couldn't! People have not had a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
No referendum = no democracy = no legitimacy, real or perceived.
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34. At 10:53am on 27 Apr 2010, EUprisoner209456731 wrote:
‘There are many ways in which I would prefer to cooperate with the New Zealanders, the Australians, the Canadians and the Americans.’
Why don’t you just come out clear and state ‘ to cooperate with other parts of the Empire’ so that we know for sure where you stand?
For the record, I do understand people who are against the EU because they think is undemocratic. What I cannot stand is people who do not want to be in the EU because France and Germany are also in.
EUprisoner, it is about time you laid-off the books about Captain Sharp and went out to meet some real people from Europe. You will be surprised that they do not wear white long johns with blue coats any more.
P.S. I am more than happy to cooperate with other European countries, if that leads to the creation of the largest telescope ever. You, however, are free to cooperate with the USA in bringing ‘freedom and prosperity’ to Iraq.
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Chris Camp
Re #18
Well, of course nobody could seriously argue against Your points 1 & 2 as to the origins of the EEC:
I.e. 1) create a Common Market & (2) merge Germany-France interests to prevent conflict.
However that was the Treaty of Rome circa 1956-57.
Now, if You would care to face the reality of the EUropean Union as set-up post-Maastricht Treaty 1992 & post-Lisbon Treaty, 2009, then a lot more actuality and transparency are required!
The Common Market is patently not the EUropean Union.
The EU is a political construct that has never had the approval of the Citizens of continental EUrope or the British Isles. The EU has nothing to do with Your highly laudable points 1 & 2. The EU is an entirely different species of 'Political-Judicial-Fiscal-Social' body from that envisaged by the creators of the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s.
Indeed those millions of us Britons (myself included) who signed up in 1975 to the EEC vision and bitterly resent the replacement of the supremacy of UK Government by venal, anti-democratic apparatchiks in Brussels would in the main almost certainly support a return to such an entity.
However, fanciful & deliberately misleading versions of what the modern day EU is about compared to an EEC, such as yours in #18, most certainly do nothing but make the EU appear an even more incredulous and dangerous supra-National organisation.
The idea that Europe's Political Leadership in the 1950s aspired to a EUropean Union & EUro-zone political-cultural-economic dominance with Nations such as Greece, Eire, Portugal utterly dependent on the Political will & whims of Berlin-Paris-Brussels is an absolute travesty of the ideals Schumann etc. had espoused during their life times.
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#34 EUprisoner
Even a vinyl record has two grooves-- Where is your other one ?
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@ 34 EU "Prisoner"
"The "EU" is still not Europe."
The 'USA' isn't America.
Britain isn't the British Isles.
What exactly is your point?
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Once again the crisis in Greece continues to rumble on. The international media and markets are now questioning the viability of the Eurozone and the Euro as a single currency.
The argument has been put again and again that you cannot manage a single currency without a centralised fiscal policy.
Major investors are losing confidence in the Eurozone, and one commentator described the European economy as one of the worse in the developed countries. Europe cannot sustain its excessive welfare system, nor can it promote growth within its economy.
The problem is not the European Union, per se, but the people employed to manage the European Union. When you have a European Commission that is mainly staffed by the French and Belgians - well need I say more!
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35. At 10:56am on 27 Apr 2010, EuropeanFederalist wrote:
""""What this crisis shows is that economic integration needs to be accompanied by adequate political integration, rather be preceded and guided by it. If this is not accomplished on the regional European level, it won't be achieved on the international level.""""
EF... I am afraid that the series is quite inversed. Political integration - i.e. lets not hide it, a kind of an Empire (without the connotations of that word) - always follows financial integration apart the case of forced conquest. However financial integration always is preceded by some form of military integration, i.e. an alliance. Do you think that Empires are built with conquests (=political integration) just like that? No. Most of them are done via a complex system of alliances. Till now we have the NATO Empire not the EU one.
Europe cannot integrate unless distancing from NATO (maintaining it only in a low-level very loose relationship, of loose collaboration) and replacing it with its own allied formation creating a unified European Defense space. Following that you have a unified Energy policy (the initial idea of the EEC) and after than something closer to a meaningful financial integratition. Following financial integration, the political integration is ripe.
Now some people might not wish so but that is how it is. Perhaps people would like to keep it maximum to an early form of financial integration. But what Europe does now, i.e. jumping defense and energy integration and moving to financial one is a recipe to failure of which Greece is a particular side-effect of it.
The main deficit of Greece is not financial, or social or even organisational - all that can be solved in pretty much the span of less than 1 generation (and direct results in really a few years). Its real deficit is geopolitical. Europe does not provide a barried for the protection (and not money!) that Greece sought when it enterred in 1978.
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Euprisoner:
"I don't want that sick, arrogant, wasteful, spendthrift, incompetent, undemocratic, anti-democratic, megalomaniac monstrosity in Brussels doing anything "on my behalf"."
You're getting on my nerves with your ignorance. It is repulsive. The European Souther Observatory has NOTHING to do with the EU. It is something entirely different. Why can't you at least use proper arguments, like CBW? It is beyond my understanding..
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European Federalist is spot on with his/her analysis.
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Re323: I do not believe this! For a change I got to agree with many points of Chris mes317, and the message is being moderated! Someone must have a lot of humour there! I saw in the comments it says "moderation seek to maintain the discussion as enjoyable and other such..."... I guess moderators are having a good laugh with our battles here and dislike when we find points of concensus. Haha! Ok, let it be.
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... ops, in the previous issue of course... but that serves as a warning in this one too! Do not agree too much as we will all be moderated!
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~47
' The problem is not the European Union, per se, but the people employed to manage the European Union. When you have a European Commission that is mainly staffed by the French and Belgians - well need I say more!'
Well yes, actually. You do need say more. Some proof of that statement would be a start.
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The bankers are upset about the Greeks being dishonest about its financial situation......odd...didn't the banks do just that a coule of years ago and are fighting every attempt by governments to regulate their dishonesty. The Greeks do have a problem but some of the blame goes to the bankers as well, but of course no government is willing to be honest about the bankers, the governments are handmaidnes of the bankers and kow tow to their corruption.
Banks are too big to fail but nations are not...does that tell you something about the power relationships in the present time.
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#23 MarcusAurellius
So, if the balance of trade is positive and the GNP is positive ---everything is OK ???
It is ----- Where is the problem ???
unless you keep adding --- if if if if if to your arguments ???
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EuropeanFederalist wrote:
"What this crisis shows is that economic integration needs to be accompanied by adequate political integration, rather be preceded and guided by it. .....
The introduction of fiscal federalism in the Eurozone with the power to levy taxes for the European Parliament could both be an expression of solidarity and address the lack of democracy within European integration."
How would it address the lack of democracy?
Over and over and over again, we keep coming back to the same ridiculous proposition by advocates in favour of increasing EU power.
"The EU institutions must be given more power because that will make them ...... more democratic."
I have a massively shocking news flash for EuropeanFederalist and gheryando and anyone else who keeps bleating on about the saviour living in Brussels and carry a party membership card:
NOBODY IS STOPPING BRUSSELS PURSUING DEMOCRACY.
You fellows really need to quiet down and think hard about that fact. Nobody is holding Brussels down and forcing them to ignore and avoid democratic reform. Nobody has been trying to force Brussels to avoid democratic practices since the institutions of the EU were founded.
Brussels has had fifty years and untold billions of dollars, and has recruited and paid the best educated europeans in plush offices with fantastic resources. And yet they have begrudgingly resisted a massive and sustained demand for more democracy throughout the entire period, and have earned a reputation for insincere lip service to the idea of democracy whilst doing everything possible to circumvent it and ignore its' appeal to the citizens of Europe.
It is absolutely correct that IF the institutions of the EU were democratic, and IF the people who designed them were not pathologically set against real democracy, THEN Europe would likely be moving swiftly towards federation.
But that is not where we are. The reality is that the institutions of the EU are NOT democratic, and the people who designed them WERE pathologically set against real democracy, and SO Europe is not moving towards federation, but is INSTEAD moving down the drain by way of the fiscal toilet.
Gheryando grows tired of EUpris and his lament over brussels, but others grow tired of his insistence that the fox is the best candidate to guard the chicken coop. It is puerile and idiotic, and betrays a sycophantic willingness to support the party regardless of history, regardless of the principles involved.
Argue for a federal and democratic Europe, by all means. I'd join that club myself.
But cease this absurd claim that the people fit to lead us towards a brave new world are the very same who have created the current monstrosity under which we labour. Show some self respect, and hold these party members accountable for their statements, their actions and their laws.
Nobody ever forced the institutions of the EU to be undemocratic, and nobody is stopping them now. Nobody except themselves.
Giving these people more power is not only idiotic, it sets Europe up for civil war and massive bloodshed on the streets. It is precisely because the vast majority of the people of Europe do not trust the institutions of the EU that the EU cannot obtain more power to pursue policy. If power is seized by the EU regardless, under the guise of doing economic good, the result must be more distrust, more anger, and outright rebellion.
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"The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.
(...)
All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
(...)
The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.
(...)
We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented."
from the Communist Manifest, Chapter 1
I would like to know if anyone can provide a better analysis of globalisation than what Marx wrote more than 150 years ago.
@Nik
What I mean by political integration is that the people of Europe and of this planet need to find ways and means to deliberately shape and guide integrational processes that are taking place anyway. Otherwise, as Marx has put it, there will be centralisation (as in the current EU) that will benefit only few.
From a global perspective its the same: global economic integration (globalisation) is deliberately only shaped by a few actors such as MNC or international NGO's some of which may have good intentions but none of whom are in any way democratically legitimised.
Now I believe that in circumstances of diversity the best way to combine democratic legitimacy with the preservation of diversity is a federation.
In any way, however, a system will always seek to become integrated and establish a system equilibrium. We can choose whether that equilibrium will be imposed on us (either by the financial/political elite or by Mother Nature) or decide to achieve an equilibrium, a sustainable balance ourselves.
With regard to the Greek crisis this would mean the following:
Pushing Greece out of the Eurozone would be similar to cutting of one's finger if for some reason that finger created trouble. Of course, an infection could spread from a finger to other body parts and endanger the entire body sytem. However, without that finger (if it's cut off) the body system would never again be complete. Thus, in an interdependent system the appropriate action would be to mobilise all system resources to cure that infection.
If there'd be a democratic European federation and a common European social policy it'd be more difficult for the financial elites to play out the interests of the people against each other on a national basis. The people of Germany have much more in common with their Greek brothers than with their own elites. Marx the great prophet of the crises realised this long ago. Seems like market economies don't really contribute to people's enlightenment.
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The USSR was an economic structure dominated by party members, whose institutions were devoted to feathering the nests of party members at the expense of those who worked under their undemocratic regime. It eventually collapsed, after people just got sick and tired of working for the sake of supporting the massive corrupt edifice of the ruling politicians who denied them a political voice with any meaning.
Whereas the EU is......
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The US remains the protected hide-out for the criminal bankers. Between the bankers and the Republicans not much can be expected from that cesspool of corruption. The Republicans are trying very hard to do the dirty work of their masters and make sure that the Wall Street gang can steal from everyone and with time destroy the global economy again in the near future. The rot of corruption in the US congress can be smelled around the world.
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dt
"Argue for a federal and democratic Europe, by all means. I'd join that club myself."
We are starting to find common ground..
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Speaking about democracy:
All fractions of the Bundestag have yesterday made a principal approval of the financial assistance to Greece. If the tax payers in Germany are unsatisfied with this, they will have to replace the entire Bundestag.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung regrets the decision, however it continues to back the government, and the same governement's wish for financial coordination within the Euro zone via Bruxelles.
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56. At 2:58pm on 27 Apr 2010, democracythreat wrote:
... Nobody ever forced the institutions of the EU to be undemocratic, and nobody is stopping them now. Nobody except themselves. Giving these people more power is not only idiotic, it sets Europe up for civil war...
Precisely! We have seen for long now that the captain has ignored the compass and was cruising in the wrong waters, now we find out also that he even threw compass out of the boat and tried to re-learn orienting the boat with the ancient method of the stars but its too much mathematics for him, angles, trigonometry etc. The possibility of finding the right way is small already, but then we do not even set the final destination, we only have a lit of small ports here or there!
Deeply federal or loosely collaborating, European countries have to pass necessarily from some form of strategic alliance in the fields of defense and energy. Without that, there can never be any consensus and the construction will remain at the hands of those who created it, i.e. bankers. And bankers care not about how much successful the integration will be but about how much profit they will be making out of it. EU has come down to this: the only hope to make it work is to take it from the hands of the very ones who pushed for it in the first place.
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@democracythreat #56
I can agree with almost everything you wrote. The Brussels bureaucracy is both a product of and necessitated by the ever-increasing EU regulations. Replace all those treaties by a federal constitution that everyone can understand and the result of which would be that everyone actually knows what Europe is responsible for, let all Europeans vote on that constitution. I am simply advocating for the elite project European Integration to be turned into one of the people and into one for the benefit of the people.
I also believe that giving taxation power to the currently only democratic EU institution- the EP- would first enhance the interest of Europeans in Europe as they would want to know what there money is used for, and as a result rather sooner than later lead to more transparency and accountability, after all thats what happened at national levels. No taxation without representation- the indirect EU funding certainly contributes to the EU democracy problem.
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Isn't England happy it avoided this by not joining the single currency?
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And again the Greek deficit is higher. Not 12.7 percent, not 13.6 percent but 14 percent. In a discussion with someone [offline discussion] I claimed the real deficit was over 16 percent. Looks like I'm going to be right eventually.
Chancellor Merkel has another problem apart from the coming regional elections, a potential legal challenge to what is effectively a bailout. The constitutional court in Germany will [or rather: should] review this thing and some suggest it could well be blocked by them.
My proposed solution is dissolution of the EU and the Euro currency and to revert back to some form of EEC aimed at economic cooperation. Because I think virtually everyone can agree that economic cooperation is a good thing. Even those like me who think supranational political integration is a very bad thing.
18. Chris Camp wrote: That [the idea of a European federation to challenge USA] is a very common misunderstanding of what the EU was designed for. The original purpose was to
a.) create a common market
b.) merge the French/German mining industries to avoid further conflict between the two countries.
Only for the problem that it is not at all a misunderstanding. The idea right from the start was all out federalism. Monnet had been having these ideas since the 1920s. After 1945 the Council of Europe was founded, but it was intergovernmental and not supranational like Monnet wanted. Monnet wanted a supranational entity that would become at first the de facto and later the de jure government of Europe. And he had the Americans on board for this, the Americans more or less financed the European Federalist Movement. You see, Monnet was very close with people in the USA's state department.
And one thing above all Monnet wanted: at all costs prevent any sort of real democracy, because heaven knows the people might vote for the 'wrong people'. Some sort of 'after the fact' referendum could be allowed but no more.
35. EuropeanFederalist wrote: What this crisis shows is that economic integration needs to be accompanied by adequate political integration, rather be preceded and guided by it.
Good luck on getting people to vote for that, very few want such a thing. Oh wait, the EU-elites don't plan to let us vote on that because they know we'd vote against it.
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What I should have added to my #57 to make clear why I included Marx is that his remarks perfectly illustrate how integrational processes without adequate corresponding political integration actually endanger democracy.
How do you address issues and problems created by globally operating forces on a national level? Our elites have realised what their common interest is and act accordingly, its about time we the people of this planet do the same. And regional or global democratic politics without sacrificing diversity can best be achieved in a federation.
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Re57: I had read this description in the past and indeed this part of his analysis is correct (unlike the analysis of the over-value of worker's time which misses slightly the point and the analysis of societies' evolution which does not depend merely on financial status or position inside production system). But I would expect a European Federalist to claim it.
Integration and Federation are general terms and the one can enter in the other's region.
I do agree when you say:
"""Now I believe that in circumstances of diversity the best way to combine democratic legitimacy with the preservation of diversity is a federation. In any way, however, a system will always seek to become integrated and establish a system equilibrium."""
But while knowing where you refered, and not having a different view, somehow I get the feeling that those (very few) supporters of global government (among them our dear PM, Papandreou!) could carboc copy such comments.
That is why what I suggest as a rememdy is to set the end destination and the limit targets clearly. We want a loose collaboration? Ok, step1, step2, step3. We want a close union? Ok step1, step2, step3.
With EU we have done the one nor the other.
Without clear limitation of the general scope we end up in huge absurdities.
E.g. a non EU country threatens with war a relatively old EU country and refuses to recognise its sovereignty over an area well defined by treaties both signed. Yet the aggressive non-EU country is also permitted the status of candidate country and in the whole affair selective EU countries are clearly positioned more posively on the side of the aggressive non-EU country.
Forget about the military, I mentioned in the above message. How this EU country positions itself inside the EU when the the whole EU framework not only does nothing but directly undermines its own territorial space? And how can it come up forward with a clear strategic financial plan inside the EU whole? These absurdities end up because exactly there is a blatant lack of clear definition of the overall final scope of EU, the current one and the way countries have to move forward.
If EU indirectly says to the country that it has to surrender territoty (something unthinkable for any state!) to an aggressive non-EU country to promote the overall well being of the EU what is the interest of being in the EU for this country? It would not be in the first place. If there was a concensus on what "integration" means the ones who considered it as beneficial would read, agree and move on, the ones who would consider it negative would avoid enterring. What we have is the mid-solution between a complete federal integration and a complete independence, which is not the golden solution either.
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Gheryando wrote:
"dt
"Argue for a federal and democratic Europe, by all means. I'd join that club myself."
We are starting to find common ground.."
Hey, I've always been for Europeans working more closely together and forming better relations. I share your irritation at those who profess that the UK is in some kind of profound danger of succumbing to undemocratic and fiscally irresponsible management if they give up the westminster system for the European alternative. It's absurd, and the arguments are counterproductive in the extreme.
But I think the current institutions are not only unfit for the purpose of building a better Europe, they are in fact a grave danger of making it far worse.
The problems with the EU are that it, like the soviet union, is a structure built by organized political party elites for the sake of political party elites. Like the soviet union, those who benefit most from the precise and deliberate structure of power in the EU are exactly those who would suffer if the EU were more democratic.
Just so, the reason I question the IMF is not because I think it is an evil minded and cruel institution which is hell bent on ruining people's lives, but rather because politically speaking it is indifferent to the will and welfare of the broad mass of humanity and is focused only upon sustaining the private profits of the elite who designed it and staff it. It is, to be frank, a business aid for a very small minority of the worlds population.
But when the political power in a state resides within a business model, the politics of those who staff the business model becomes, de facto, the politics of the state.
In the case of the IMF, you find ultra right wind politics. Not first and foremost in the minds of those who staff the institution. First and foremost, those folks want money for the banks their families own. But secondly, those people do have a political ideology, and that political ideology is "everyone for themselves". Those people honestly believe that is the best policy, and they tell themselves fantasy stories about how a "free market" is the best way to govern, and that they are not interfering in the market by controlling the political process of states.
If the 19th and 20th centuries were all about the struggle between socialism and capital, I think the 21st century will be about the struggle between democracy and capital. Well, I hope so. Call me a deluded optimist if you want.
But I have been around this little earth a while, and I have seen various systems of law and politics ranging from corporate imperialism, to one party communism, to the brutal rule of the fist. I have also seen democracy at work, real democracy, and it coincides with prolonged peace, great wealth, the best living standards and the most enlightened and charitable citizens.
I have never seen a society as admirable as the Swiss in every way, despite their culinary failings and irritatingly slow service culture. That is why I advocate for democracy, and against corporate or communist rule via sham representation.
Nothing would please me more than to see the whole of Europe adopt real democracy, and unite as a cohesive force in world affairs. There is nothing I would rather see.
But the institutions of the EU are a major obstacle to that vision, and I fear they must be dismantled and discredited entirely before such a union of European people is possible.
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59. ghostofbichuan
Want to bet on which country gets meaningful bank reform? Want a bet on which country goes to far? (re Sarbane Oxley).Want a bet on which country looses it's international banking to countries with less restrictions. You forget we Americans are in favor of overkill and could care less about what people like you sthink.
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Mathiasen wrote:
"Speaking about democracy:
All fractions of the Bundestag have yesterday made a principal approval of the financial assistance to Greece. If the tax payers in Germany are unsatisfied with this, they will have to replace the entire Bundestag."
Replace them with what, Mathiasen? Does the german voter have any real choice?
It may have escaped your notice, but the way representation works in Germany, the UK, the USA and elsewhere is that the representatives are carefully and rigorously preselected by those who sponsor their careers. In other words, by the corporate financial elite: the owners of the major corporations and banks.
If representation worked, the soviet union would have worked. They had elections, they had a system of representation which the elite called "democracy". So does Iran, so does North Korea, and so did east germany. DDR, remember?
And that is how you sound, offering the German people a "choice" to vote out the entire bundestag. You sound exactly like a soviet commissar telling the people of east germany to use their democratic power to vote out the entire politburo.
Most thinking people are well aware of the fact that western representation is an sham, in terms of reflecting the will of the people. Even Obama was shrewd enough to acknowledge the fact. He went to the people of the USA proclaiming that "Washington is dysfunctional. Lobby groups have taken over."
The curious fact that his entire career has been sponsored by wall street lobbyists escaped the voters just as surely as it escaped the main stream corporate media.
The first day I was ever in London, I saw a million people march against the invasion of Iraq. It was an awesome sight to behold. there could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of any genuine representative of the people what was the will of the people.
And yet, the British people have never been offered even the slightest hope of ending their engagement in Iraq. And that is but one example. Obama campaigned on closing Gitmo and ending the wars abroad. They continue unabated, almost as if he had never spoken of such things.
Controlled representation is no more democratic than oligarchy. It is simply the same system with smoke and mirrors to entertain the mob.
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EuropeanFederalist @57,
Your keen enthusiam for EU Federalism and Marxist Socialism is touching.
I cannot believe that a true EUrofederalist would reveal his hand so blatantly.
Therefore you must be a 'bourgeoisie' EUrosceptic plant.
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BTW, whilst we take note of Greek bonds being relegated to junk status, and see the frantic frenzy of chickens coming home to roost, can anyone tell this smug EUrosceptic whether there is a Greek word for schadenfreude.
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DemocThreat & Your #56
One of those remarkable posts by You that captures the essence of the debate and sets the standard for the rest of us.
Thank You.
Is there any Information Technology method I could use to purloin Your inestimably accurate, informed and cogent contribution on the EU's alarming decades of 'deficit-Democracy' and put it across the whole World Wide Web for ALL to see & consider?
Alternatively, is there a 'hacker' out there who is wholly 'anti-EU' as it presently stands & is willing to devote some time & resources to 'spamming' (or whatever its called) #56 into every UK Politician's PC between now & the Election?
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Dt, cbw et al.
It seems, after all, that we are all of a very similar opinion. (not you EUpris)
We basically all agree to the need for strong, democratic cooperation (union?) on a European scale.
What we (seem to) disagree on is how to get there.
I see the current EU as a necessary evil to get to the open, federal and democratic EU. I am a pragmatist, I don't believe in miracles and thus am willing to accept this painfully slow transition that is the workings and remodelings of the current EU.
I would, of course, love to abolish it all and introduce a US style constitution.
This is very unlikely and unless we have some sort of MASSIVE crisis, change will be slow and people will grow tired.
Alas, there is a crisis. Lets see where it goes.
Final word to EUpris: I don't disagree with your desire to have a referendum. I disagree on the vote you want to cast.
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27th April 2010
Time: 21.03
Quotes from BBC News web page:
"..Greece's debt has been downgraded to junk status by Rating Agency Standard & Poor's amid concern it could not take steps to tackle its economic crisis.." plus, "..it makes the struggling nation the first EUro-zone member to have its debt downgraded to junk level."
"..Portugal's debt was also lowered on fears the trouble could spread..".
"..if it reaches junk status, a country loses its investment grade status.."
"..the news rocked markets in EUrope and the US.."
"..German Finance Minister... Wolfgang Schauble said, 'We now have to realise and implement the rescue plan... and thus send a clear signal we will not let Greece fall..'"
"..EUro-zone countries, together with the International Monetary Fund, have yet to agree details of the package.."
"..S&P warned holders of Greek debt they had only an 'average chance' of between '30% and 50%' of getting their money back in the event of a debt restructuring or default.."
No doubt the 'pro-EU' will write yet more about how the EUro is to be the World's reserve currency sometime soon.
Meanwhile, in another BBC Report, the first solo flight to the moon using a craft based on a design by Icarus has taken off and everyone is awaiting with baited breath the imminent landing!
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#70 DemocracyThreat
"Replace them with what, Mathiasen?"
Other parties. But they will not. The single largest part of the voters will continue to vote for Merkel.
I have sometimes mentioned that 90% of the German parliament is behind the EU policy. In this matter it is 100%, measured on fractions, but we should probably still expect dissent from individual members of the Bundestag.
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#75 cool_brush_work
How much money did your (or your neighbors) 401(K) loose today ?
Please be careful what you wish while flag-waving !
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#70 Democracythreat
´ Obama campaigned on closing Gitmo and ending the wars abroad.´
At least with Gitmo he tried, you cannot deny that.
I agree with you completely on the ´Human democratic condition´ but this appears a non-negotiable fact of life. Even Anarchy has its problems with democracy. Many societies are the same as UK and USA, however my experience of Germany differs in one important point. (it may also apply to Scandinavian countries )
The idea that a part of the increasing wealth (and loss) should be distributed throughout the population.
A simple example is longer vacations than in UK or USA. Eating out was not a luxury for most of the citizens until Globalization took hold. Perhaps only the living standard for the masses is the best way to judge democracy ?
For all the pain suffered by those under Communism, its fall was a catastrophe for those not in its grip.
The `Capitalists´ were free to do anything they wished and they did.
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Why don't those in favour of a United States of Europe, of which the Euro is meant to be a key component, make a personal contribution to solving Greece's debt problem and thereby support the Euro? I would suggest a gift (not a loan) from each USE supporter to Greece of €5,000. Of course by themselves those gifts would be drops in the ocean; but with enough publicity there might be a snowball effect, and then who knows what might happen?
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re72: Of course there is, word production is an age old speciality of ours!
"Schadenfreude" means in German "joy out of (one's) misfortune"
The greek equivalent in greek alphabet is: XAIPEKAKIA (prounounced "HEREKAKI'A") and it is the exact meaning and more or less the exact translation word on word (i.e. "happyness out of one's misfortune").
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#78 MarcusAurellius
Do you believe that outburst of childishness has increased your respectability on BBC blogs. Must I now apologize for you ?
I will attempt to get it removed by the moderators.
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quietoaktree wrote:
"... Must I now apologize for you ?"
EUpris: Apologise for yourself and your pompous attempts at "clever" putdowns.
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77. At 11:07pm on 27 Apr 2010, quietoaktree wrote:
"#75 cool_brush_work
How much money did your (or your neighbors) 401(K) loose today ?
Please be careful what you wish while flag-waving !"
EUpris: There is no flag-waving in CBWs post. It is your phantasy.
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Re: 63. At 5:21pm on 27 Apr 2010, EuropeanFederalist
EUpris:
1) I just don't want to be in a political union with the continentals at all. I want to be friendly with them. There is no reform of the "EU" which would be acceptable to me. I guess that many Germans are starting to think like that.
2) I don't want an American/European style constitution.
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quietoaktree wrote:
"#78 MarcusAurellius
Do you believe that outburst of childishness has increased your respectability on BBC blogs. Must I now apologize for you ?
I will attempt to get it removed by the moderators."
I did not get to read marcus's post and so cannot know what he had to say.
Apologize for yourself, qot. You may think your meddling high mindedness is welcome, but if so you are gravely mistaken. The pride you take in setting out to silence others, and the vanity to adopt in presuming to apologize for one capable of speaking for himself, betrays your character.
Marcus may not be popular on this blog, but he speaks his mind and fights his corner with admirable eloquence and occasional conviction. I enjoy his contributions and bitterly regret his censorship.
Speak for yourself only, and try to be as articulate as those you would censor with such happy abandon. So far you strike me as verbose and patronizing without cause.
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Quietoaktree & Your #77
If You are unable to 'read' my #75 content in its admittedly weak 'sardonic humour' context and see it only as "flag-waving" I would suggest You need to refer Yourself to the Moderator and not hector others on their shortcomings!
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acorn for a brain.
Do you feel better now that it is gone? Is Europe saved? You would have done very well as a high priest...during the inquisition. I'll bet you'd have jumped to be the first to "convince" Galileo that the earth was the center of the universe...with you at the center of the earth.
dt;
I quoted that old saying that "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." Now whom do you suppose the fat lady was that I was referring to? Hint, she holds the purse strings.
Then there was a few well chosen lyrics from a song in the Mikado in which the flowers that bloom in the spring have nothing to do with the case. And another line from another song in the Mikado.
That you don't know that song acorn brain speaks to your ignorance. That the censors don't know it only proves that to get that kind of job you not only have to be a complete ignoramus but have no sense of humor whatsoever. In fact they are both quite evidently requisites for employment at BBC.
Hey you BBC nitwits, how about doing something novel, putting it back where it belongs.
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When you think back 10 or 15 years and remember the unrestrained glee (I can't just call it enthusiasm, it was ecstasy) over the EU and the Euro, anyone looking at it with any real perspective and suggesting that the garden path lead to the edge of a cliff from which there was a drop into a bottomless abyss was called a Cassandra. It is well to remember that Cassandra was given the gift of prescience by the gods but nobody would believe her. So led singing merrily along, suddenly as the train careens out of control to where we all know it is going, now shock, horror, and awe set in. But it is far too late. How the UK managed to escape the full brunt of being part of Euroland is only a matter of luck or perhaps and instinctive sense of self preservation. Yet to this very day, there are those who would join the UK to the Euro. Being in the EU, the UK may still not escape entirely unscathed. Even the US could take a hit through defaults to the IMF.
Here Web Alice, the Walrus and the Carpenter from Lewis Carrol's Through the Lookig Glass.
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"
"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."
"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?
"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"
"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
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Now would be a good time to apply to join the euro - the exchange rate is likely to be better than we'd eventually get (it's also close enough to 1:1 to enable people to easily adjust) - we're not under attack whilst the euro is which makes it a good time to go in - the eurozone countries will be appropriately grateful for our involvement - we should be able to negotiate significant involvement/control/power within the european central bank etc. - the financial downside is we'd need to get more involved in resolving the current crisis (but we are in no different position to our neighbours) and selling this idea with a self interested partisan press is perhaps unresolvable. Anyone care to take this on?
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yuk what to add..
Gehryando and Mathiasen get the prize for keeping their cool and actually trying to add positive posts:)
Some others get the straitjacket prize for nihilism unchecked leading to heavy doses of thorazine.
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Willie Coupe
Re #90 and '..UK.. join EUro-zone.. now.."!
Only 1 of those greed-driven, irresponsible, self-centred City Bankers/Investment Managers of the last decade who caused the Worldwide Economic Recession could think it was a good idea at this moment!
With that fiscal-economic illogicality for a massive gamble that has every chance of indescribable and unforeseeable disastrous consequences You would have fitted right in with the 1998-2008 con-merchants!
Thankfully, whichever of the Politically illiterate and Economically innumerate pygmies gets into No.10 in a couple of weeks they wont be following your advice (at least, I hope not!).
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Willie Coupe @#90
I have an old game of Monopoly in my loft.
If I dig it out I can trade you my Monopoly money for your GB Pounds. I am more than happy to exchange at 1:1.
And you can be the Banker, Dog, Shoe or the Iron .... whatever you like.
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The Euro will be the worlds reserve currency soon.
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It is natural for Eurasia (more than 60% of the world in landmass, more than 75% of the world in population) to increasingly see the Euro as the preffered reserve currency. The first to jump on european value was... Saddam. And he ended hiding 3 meters underground... hehe... Now it is Iran and Venezuela. I do not know. One to boast a reserve currency he has to bring out the big guns and support it on all fronts. Just boasting being a rival to US dollar is not enough.
Thus it remains to be proved in future. For the time being the bulk of transactions still take place in US dollars, not the euro.
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"I am simply advocating for the elite project European Integration to be turned into one of the people and into one for the benefit of the people."
I used to hope this would happen once. Then I woke up and realised that the EU is purely a project for the elites. It is a means for the new European Aristocracy to control us. We can never change it as only those who 'think right' can ever hold any power in the administrative or political arenas. The party lists will stop it from ever becoming a government of, by and for the people.
Anyone for tea?
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Re: 91. At 08:16am on 28 Apr 2010, David
EUpris: A bunch of disgusting people have rammed the Lisbon Treaty down the throats of the British people and others knowing full well that they do not want it. And in the case of the British people knowing that they were promised a referendum and that the government of the day was elected on the promise of a referendum.
Nobody should expect "business as usual."
We now have an illegitimate pan-"EU" state.
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I requested the contribution #78 removal as it was of the quality I usually expected from a High-school-teenage- bubbelgummer.
The house rules are often broken, and some moderators are more lax than others, but there are limits to ´Free Speech´ . As both the moderators and myself considered #78 below those limits, it was justifiably removed.
MarcusAurellius has no whims at using worse tactics against other contributors (the list is long).
The ´Sub-crime ´financial crises has cost millions of Americans and others around the world the loss of their homes and decimation of their pensions ´nest-egg ´ and yet the shortsightedness and insensitivity of some contributors continues with their ´Flagwaving- schadenfreude-Wish them the worst ´contributions.
From those intelligent remarks I can only gather they are ´jumping up and down with glee ´ at the prospect of more innocents suffering if the Euro does collapse.
The childish egocentricity of ´winning´arguments as Rome burns (marcusAurellius and others) suggests `If they are not in panic it is because they do not understand the problem´
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The Party's Over, it's time to call it a day.
They've burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.
It's time to wind up the masquerade.
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid.
The Party's Over.The candles ficker and dim.
You danced and dreamed through the night,
it seemed to be right just being with him.
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.
Take off your make up, The Party's Over.
It's all over, my friend.
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#99 MarcusAurellius
You never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to prove my point.
Thanks again !
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Q-Tip;
"shortsightedness and insensitivity of some contributors continues with their ´Flagwaving- schadenfreude-Wish them the worst ´contributions."
I think if you read the house rules very carefully you won't find any of those descriptors among them. You just don't like my opinions and wish YOU had the power to supress them yourself. Evidently there is sufficient room for interpretation of the rules for moderators to disagree among themselves but whatever rule I broke had nothing to do with displeasing your sensibilities.
Have you ever thought that if you don't like what I say you'd be far more convincing to others and yourself if you came up with a better argument for the opposite side than trying to get my views deleted? Or is that inability lead to the first resort of a despotic tyrannical mind. You'd have made a perfect grand inquisitor.
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#101
´They seek him here, they seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell ?
That damned elusive Pimpernel. ´
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Greek crisis - it ain't over yet...
You “bet” it’s not over yet!!
Of course the Greeks don’t want any part of the IMF. IMF loans come with reduction in social programs and privatization of companies.
I truly dislike the editorials questioning whether Greece should stay in the Eurozone. Do you discard one of your children when that child encounters molesters, is raped?
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has struck the nail on its head: "what we are talking about is the destiny of the whole of Europe".
Michael Massourakis, the Chief Economist at the Alpha Bank in Greece knows that the disease that has struck Greece is contagious. Portugal is already ailing. Soon all of the STUPID PIIGS will be ailing. So, whatever precedent is set by the EU for Greece is vitally important.
Nick Sarkozy strikes close to home when he says the Greek crisis is like Lehman Brothers. If you believe that letting the famous bank go was a big mistake, then leaving Greece at the mercy of the markets could be just as disastrous.
When the dominos start to fall all STUPID PIIGS will fall one after the other – Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom…
Why?
Because all STUPID PIIGS are heavily exposed to the same virus that is threatening Greece. The exposure of the five PIIGs - Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain is in the trillions.
How?
My guess is that their economies were exposed to low-interest derivatives. When Eurozone interest rates fell to 2% earlier this decade, the interest was far too low for the PIIGS. So inflation rose and kept on rising. Usually, the effect of rising inflation is counteracted by a fall in the currency, currency devaluation. But this wasn’t an option, because they all shared the Euro.
What exactly happened to Greece? How did the country get sick?
Greece got involved with CDS (Credit Default Swaps) OTC (Over the Counter i.e. not regulated). Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules.
Greece's debt managers agreed to a mega-deal with the US investment bank Goldman Sachs. This was at the start of 2002. The deal involved so-called cross-currency swaps in which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro debt for a certain period - to be exchanged back into the original currencies at a later date.
BUT in the Greek case, the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fabulated exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value. In this way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion. This credit disguised as a swap didn't show up in the Greek debt statistics. Eurostat's reporting rules don't comprehensively record transactions involving financial derivatives. "The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps". This is a hole that the EU MUST plug. And I'm sure it will.
So, back to the beginning.
Greek crisis - it ain't over yet...
You “bet” it’s not over yet!!
By the way: How much in derivative swaps failed to show up on the UK books? When do they mature? Who profits?
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Marcus:
Saw that the pimps (bankers) were publically lying to the prostitutes (congress). Some relationship to the cause of all this....must make you proud that the American criminal class is doing so well.
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The Greeks have their own verses about it, Marcus Aurelius:
In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.
---------------------------------
That things in the Colony are not what they should be
no one can doubt any longer,
and though in spite of everything we do go forward,
maybe—as more than a few believe—the time has come
to bring in a Political Reformer.
But here’s the problem, here’s the hitch:
they make a tremendous fuss
about everything, these Reformers.
(What a relief it would be
if no one ever needed them.) They probe everywhere,
question the smallest detail,
and right away think up radical changes
that demand immediate execution.
Also, they have a liking for sacrifice:
Get rid of that property;
your owning it is risky:
properties like those are exactly what ruin colonies.
Get rid of that income,
and the other connected with it,
and this third, as a natural consequence:
they are substantial, but what can one do?
the responsibility they create for you is damaging.
And as they proceed with their investigation,
they find an endless number of useless things to eliminate—
things that are, however, difficult to get rid of.
And when, all being well, they finish the job,
every detail now diagnosed and sliced away,
and they retire, also taking the wages due to them—
it will be a miracle if anything’s left at all
after such surgical efficiency.
Maybe the moment has not yet arrived.
Let’s not be too hasty: haste is a dangerous thing.
Untimely measures bring repentance.
Certainly, and unhappily, many things in the Colony are absurd.
But is there anything human without some fault?
And after all, you see, we do go forward.
(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)
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#101
You dont want an argument you want acquiescence.You confuse intelligence with wisdom. You prove the maxim that a little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. You want to be able to provoke a response by drafting factless, hate-filled posts but totally ignore any response, especially if it involves criticism of the US or Israel.You wont admit you got anything factually wrong, nor have ANY of your opinions shifted one iota. You have a superiority complex the size of Canada. You hate and insult all-things European down to the individual citizen,hate the UK,hate the BBC and fail to write anything without providing a flaky, ill-conceived connection to the US , and you cannot admit one thing you like or respect about Europe whatsoever .You think your views are normal. Most of what you write comes from wikipedia cut n paste. You take isolated examples and use the exception to prove the rule.
Everytime you post , people ask the question "Why are you here"? Now you are complaining about moderation and it seems like you are going to flog the horse to death. A bruised ego? The question you should be asking yourself is "Why am i not moderated more"?
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Benefactor wrote:
"The Euro will be the worlds reserve currency soon."
No doubt backed up with the formidable might of the entire Slovakian 3rd Armoured division.
Please, desist, you've caused me to strain an eyebrow muscle.
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As a British ex-pat living in Greece, it seems to me that many of Greece's financial problems could be resolved with a more creative approach to inviting foreign investment and in an improved approach to commerce in Greece.
Example 1: In the UK the English Heritage and National Trust now administer 90% of the heritage sites. They are independent of government and have charity status, and are funded by interested investors and members of the public. Yet in Greece, all historic sites are administered by the civil service. Why? The government could easily award charitable status to a "Greek Heritage" organization and give it the freedom to raise the cash to purchase Greek's heritage sites, freeing the government of the burden.
Example 2: There is as yet no significant "venture funding" opportunity in Greece nor via the Greek Banks. Foreign investment is not welcomed in starting businesses in Greece. There are no incentives, only dis-incentives. This denies the Greek nation the opportunity to seed new commercial enterprises that could otherwise assist the nation to recover from its debt burden.
Example 3: Elsewhere in the EU, the "tax office" is fully computerized and highly efficient in what it does. In Greece the "tax office" is entirely paper-based. There is almost no automation, scarcely any cross checking and virtually no compliance mechanism built in to the Greek tax system via employers' and employee payroll declarations. The art of "dodging the tax man" is facilitated by a paper based bureaucracy which has scarcely changed in more than a century. The opportunity for reform based on a computerized system is immense. I would not lend Greece a penny unless the tax system here was completely overhauled in line with those in the UK, Germany, France etc.
Example 4: Greece is primarily an economy fueled by tourism. Yet so little of the country is oriented towards serving the customer - the tourists. A local tourist information center recently recruited a pretty young Greek lady to front their information desk. When asked (by a British ex-pat speaking Greek) what languages she could speak, she replied ("mono Ellenica", only Greek). In a country that is run on nepotism and favoritism, it is a natural consequence that serving the customer is last on the list of priorities. Yet, for Greece to regain control of its economy, the customer must be first.
I will stop at this point, but there are about 200 more examples of "creative thinking" that would become the new national policy after the Greeks elect me to bail them out of this mess :-)
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Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder who you are.
Up upon the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wander who you are.
I'm not quite sure how this relates to the problem at hand but it's the only poem I can remember.
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Quietoaktree
Your reference to Baroness Orczy's little tale of daring-do reveals the shallowness of your own predeliction for telling us what is the right/correct manner of contributing to these blog debates.
It seems You forget heroic Sir Percy Blakeney was of course attempting to rescue those whom the Directory had decided were the wrong sort of character or whose ideals & ideas did not suit the version propounded by the Paris regime.
By your condemnation of others it seems You favour the tumbril for those who do not find favour in Your personal estimation of the persons to be allowed that Free Expression/Free Speech of opinion You so glibly lay claim to supporting!
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#110 cool_brush_work
Questioning the moral integrity of those who clap their hands in glee at the possibility of millions more innocents having their existence ruined ---- is wrong and non-democratic ????
Tell that to your poor and destitute, and not to me !
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Re108:
1) A little example of the numerous major ones existing. Did you know we stil have a National Sugar Industry? Not even in Couva and Venezuela! It is to settle down smartly the "own ones", green kids, blue kids (in this case green kids). When the blue director tried to end the sick atmosphere of the green upper management he lost his job - and he was a right hand of the blue PM. Power of the underlings!
2) Venture or Ace Ventura? What venture capital... here the state tries to kill even locally paid healthy enterprises, let alone new ones eternally funded. The country is long ago assigned to import. Read the case of Nissan, Nissan's bet assembly unit in the world, read carefully how it went out.
3) Naaaahhhh..... you think Greeks will stop in software? Naaaahhhh... just open new prisons.
4) A Greek that does not know English? He must have tried a lot to find her!
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You tell them, You clearly have such an opinion of Yourself that no one else is worthy of attention.
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ummm, islandhopper, you didnt need to apologize, I was in LASH OUT mode, so hmmm, maybe its me..hehe
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Is he bothering you?, CBW,
Im in LASH OUT mode...off and on...
just kidding, keep up the good posts CBW:)
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This means its "go to ground" time, EU Priz...much support:)
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ghostofsichuan,
awwwww I thought you like US(A)...
This is just one of those times
Sorry if I Stereotype you but (I realize you are British or American)
I just read a great article about Shanghai in National Geographic (while at the doctors office today) It seems Shanghai is the fastest growing place in China and (its the "NG" with the Wolf (wars on)on the front--if that helps), and it really made me feel better about China and its apparently dominant future.
Hope I didnt stereotype anyone...hate that...so embarrassingly embarrassing.
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Corruption, Corruption long live Corruption. Even the Church is in the game! Reforms? What reforms are you kidding me? Just keep sending us a few billion Euros every other week and we will stop demonstrating.
What a country and what audacity. This is the unfortunate attitude that persists in Greece. Little do the Greeks know that this crisis will prove to be fatal to their country. Sadly the ruling elites will rather see their country destroyed than surrender their privileges. Quite right, It ain't over until its over! But this time it will be for good.
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"""Sadly the ruling elites will rather see their country destroyed than surrender their privileges""".
Great comment. Refer to 1920-22 and the role of Britain and the role of London-based Greek elites.
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#114,#115,#116,#117 David
Please return to your BBC Teenage music blog or Twitter.
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#113 cool_brush_work
Are you giving me a choice ?
The poor and destitute Americans OR you ?
Guess who just won ? sorry.
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And 119 is just another paradigm why Greece is the land of the most heros per population per century.... simply because it holds the records in traitors too... these two go hand in hand... it is always the few that betray and always the few that save... Tragic.
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Pleasantly surprised with the amount of poetry weaved into one thread.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Yes, Web Alice, its so much fun talking about depressing financial matters....you know what I think is so nutty about this whole crisis....its a small important country that the world could save with a snap of its fingers ...
If it wanted to....sad huh?
And to QOT, enjoy:)))))
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Goldman Sachs 'facing criminal charges'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10092972.stm
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Wall Street's biggest banks must account for record profits while average Americans (AND NOT ONLY) still suffer financially.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63T00U20100430
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Its like that saying.. what comes around goes around.... Beware, when you relegate people to pariah, whose turn is next?
First, France and Belgium harass Muslim women and now this happens?
Karma anyone?
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