The Greek Debt Crisis for Economic Morans
Imagine if the U.S. government cut spending by nearly $1.6 trillion in one year. I daresay we’d have riots in the streets too. What policymakers, bureaucrats, and ordinary people in Europe are beginning to realize is that there are limits to the welfare state. After being told for 60 years that government was a spigot from which flowed unending goodies, reluctantly, and with great resistance, Europeans are beginning to understand the concept of limits. There comes a tipping point where taxing producers and giving to non-producers is no longer a viable governing strategy. And because Greece hid their real deficits for years (with the help of Goldman Sachs and other big banks), when the tipping point was reached, it came as a total shock not only to the Greek people, but to creditors around the world.
This “contagion” of doubt is a disease that afflicts much of Europe at this point, as explained by Neil Irwin at the Washington Post:
Contagion is a function of vicious cycles in which confidence in a country’s ability to repay its debts falls. If investors lose piles of money on the debt of one country, they assume that owning the debts of other countries with similar finances might cause them to lose even more. So they sell their investment in the second country, which in turn must pay higher and higher interest rates to get any loans, which adds to its debt and creates a fiscal death spiral that can well move on to the next country.
The Greek bailout package is supposed to tide the government over while they deal with the fiscal insanity left over from previous governments. But some very smart people are saying even the $150 billion isn’t near enough, that it is only postponing judgment day.
This becomes of interest to American taxpayers because about 40% of all that IMF money comes out of our pockets. And with the prospect that other weak sisters like Spain, Portugal, and Ireland may follow Greece in taking a long walk off a short pier, we Americans would be faced with the prospect of bailing out the IMF:
Greece’s bailout alone is likely to cost 120 billion euros ($159 billion) over three years, German Green Party lawmaker Juergen Trittin told Bloomberg News Wednesday, after being briefed by IMF Managing Director Dominique Stauss-Kahn. The IMF can handle bailing out Greece, as well as a potential stabilization plan for Portugal (budget deficit 9.4% of GDP), if the debt contagion moves West. The actual bailout tab could, of course, turn out to be a lot more.
The IMF wouldn’t have enough funds on hand, say, to stabilize Spain (budget deficit 11.2% of GDP), which has an economy four times larger than that of Greece, if Spain determined that it required help at the same time as Ireland needed funds.
With the entire euro zone tapped out from bailing out Greece, the problem will fall right into Uncle Sam’s lap. At that point, it will become necessary to decide whether to allow Europe to collapse into a muddled heap or assist the IMF in saving what’s left. The fact that such a catastrophe would almost certainly impact our own economy negatively might give the impetus to politicians for bailing out the IMF.
Still with me? The numbers being tossed around are dizzying – especially for us Morans. All we need to know at this point is that Greece is getting gobs of money, including 22 billion euros from Germany alone, and that there doesn’t seem to be much spine in the Greek government to make the admittedly tough decisions on cutting spending that would start them on the road back.
In other words, these guys are so addicted to spending and so terrified of offending voters that they might prefer paying off 25 cents on the dollar to their creditors and being kicked out of the European Monetary Union instead of biting the bullet and doing what’s right for the long-term health of their economy. In their efforts to quiet social unrest, they may open an even bigger can of worms when the dominoes start to fall and the Greek economy collapses, triggering a “contagion” that would affect several other states.
When experts a helluva lot smarter than me and you start talking in such apocalyptic terms — and in researching this piece, I found that so many of them are — the natural tendency to accept “authoritative” analyses becomes almost overwhelming. In truth, I would like to believe those other experts who are confidently predicting that the Greek bailout package will do the trick, and that other nations like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Great Britain can muddle through without causing a massive problem.
But many of these optimists had a hand in creating this debacle in the first place. EU governments, central bankers, finance ministers — they all ignored the problems until the fire began to consume them. And now we’re supposed to accept their confident forecasts of recovery?
What do they take us for? A bunch of Morans?
It should be rather obvious that Europe is failing. The EU was a really bad idea, a mistake of astounding proportions. And, all based on assumptions not common sense. I’m old enough to remember the arguments against a single currency – they were sadly very accurate. Then, the EU became this enormous unaccountable undemocratic bureaucratic monster, riddled with corruption, inefficiency, governed by lunatic political correctness, multiculturalist crap, & the elitism of a political & cultural class totally disconnected from reality, not to mention greedy & self-serving.
The European model is not only bankrupt, financially as well as morally. The lower-than-replacement level birthrate of native Europeans has consequences, politically, economically, & culturally. Eurabia is just around the corner, right on time for a spectacular bankruptcy.
You can bet that Europe will head for some form of political authoritarianism, some bastard form of National Socialism.
“You can bet that Europe will head for some form of political authoritarianism, some bastard form of National Socialism.”
Given how the Europeans are beating up and persecuting Jews and doing their damndest to destroy Israel, I’d say a rather pure form on National Socialism is already running the continent.
You spelled “Moron” wrong. lulz.
Obvious Cat,
Check the author’s name.
Ed
Thanks, Ed: my no-brainer (as in moron?) observation altogether.
“Obvious Cat” is obviously catty, as well as being a bona fide (to paraphrase Pooh), “a [Cat] of Very Little Brain, and long words [like Moran] bother me . . .”
Is this a young person or Lefty, perchance? Doing something as arcane as “using the text” doesn’t appear to occur to these . . . morons!
“Imagine if the U.S. government cut spending by nearly $1.6 trillion in one year. I daresay we’d have riots in the streets too.”
You mean, if spending were reduced to equal Federal revenues?
Then America would cease to exist. We don’t make much anymore, we need others to provide us stuff. Case in point, if most appliance makers, Apple, BB&T and Caterpillar all shutdown we would never recover.
Then America would cease to exist.
What on earth makes you say such a thing? Cutting Federal spending by 1.6 trillion dollars would simply take us back to the level of spending we had 3 – 4 years ago. Why would that cause America to cease to exist?
It sounds like you swallowed the left’s claim that without massive government spending, the economy wouldn’t work. History demonstrates othwerwise.
You’re confusing productive companies with the government.
What, specifically, does the government produce, besides endless forms?
Can you buy a dishwasher made by the US Government?
Can you buy a computer made by the US Government?
Please try to comprehend the difference between the government and a company that provides a good or service that people want. Once you do that, you will be well on your way to intelligence and conservatism.
Well no but you CAN buy a car…
We don’t make much anymore?
I don’t know where you get your facts, but you need to see if you can get your money back.
American manufacturing output was highest in 2007, right before the collapse. Manufacturing jobs have been declining, but only because demand hasn’t kept up with productivity.
A major source of the Greek problem is simply that Greeks cheat their government by not paying BILLIONS of Euros in TAXES each year. Absolute lack of personal responsibility and unethical behavior.
And now they are fighting the government trying to save them from themselves . . . Sad.
A major source of the Greek problem is that they spend more money on entitlement “NANNY” programs than they bring in. Are you totally unable to understand the GDP to debt ratio?
Exactly right, vivo, socialism will make tax cheats and lawbreakers of us all. You are learning despite yourself, grasshopper. Meditate well and hard on what you just said.
In other words, the Greeks are no different from the people Obama nominated to be part of his Administration… or do the names Geithner, Killefer, and Daschle not ring a bell?
If it’s good enough for Your One’s own Treasury Secretary, Vivo, why would you complain about the Greeks doing it?
Now you know why the Trojans would have been well advised to ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’. Its seems that the UK despite having the good sense to stay out of the Euro Zone, for all the obvious reasons such as weak economies dragging down the stronger ones that Greece, Spain and Portugal and ALL of recently admitted Eastern Europe countries exemplify, will still suffer as the European Union is making them pay into a fund to prop up the Euro wether UK wants to or not.
So much for staying out of it and yes if the European economy collapses, as it might well do, such is the intertwining of the Worlds economies that the USA and Asia will collapse too. No sitting on the fence and selling to all for America this time your economy is just about as bad and indeed some States like California for example are in a WORSE state than Greece. .
When you up the tax rates to 80%, it’s amazing how many people do what they can to avoid paying taxes. And of course, it’s always the peoples fault for not being the drones govt wants them to be.
Who approves tax rates in this country, my dear friend?
YOU do, through YOUR representatives.
And if yours is not elected, you have agreed to abide by the decisions of the majority, for good or for bad.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/12/60minutes/main6292458.shtml and http://www.financialpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2996249 set the narrative, and all the dancing around by government types, and those in the financial markets is just wasted time and effort.
In September 83′ Greek buildings from Thessaloniki to Athens were “decorated” with the number “17%” (and as “political” free speech such grafitti was “protected” speech . . . so you could not remove it). The reason? The communists had won that percentage in the most recent election . . . The Greeks seem to have no memory, after WW2 the communists tried to seize power and murdered thousands . . . Now . . . the with a union movement so compromised by it’s affiliations, and a government so fearful and weak the Greeks have become used to the learned helplessness. Looking to the unions for their “benefits”, demanding them from a government used to kowtowing to unions that have no concerns except the consolidation of their power (like the SE
It reminds me quite a bit of Odysseus’ mishaps on the Island of the Lotus Eaters. If any of you remember your Greek literature, you will remember that when Odysseus and his men wash ashore, they are given lotus to eat. The unfortunate side effect, was that people would fall asleep. When they woke up, they would eat more and drift off for another spell. With all of the narcoleptic interludes, it all reminds me of watching Titanic in the cinema.
Wikipedia describes the effect this way: “The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were narcotic and addictive, causing the people to sleep in peaceful apathy.” This pretty much sums up the effects of the welfare state. You wake up, look around and discover that your country is deeply in debt. Just when you start to worry, government representatives come by to tell you about a fantastic programme where you can trade in your old useless car for $4,500, well above market value, to purchase a newer, state approved vehicle. This isn’t very different from the “narcotic and addictive” lotus fruit that made Odysseus “sleep in peaceful apathy.” It is the smooth jazz of social statism.
IU).
vivo – You took the words out of my mouth.
Self-realization, accountability is sadly lacking worldwide.
“The Irish, sir, are a FAIR people; they never speak well of [their own neoselves].”
Healthy affordable days!
Prepare for the coming economic storm. Greece and the European Union are the canaries in the mine.
Our money that we have worked so hard to save will be halved in value. Our medical system will implode. Our country will have been invaded from the south not by soldiers, but by millions of hungry refugees. Our inner cities will burn with riots when the welfare check bounces. It is time to STOP this orgy of spending and face the hard facts. We HAVE NO MONEY!!! NOT FOR EUROPE, NOT FOR MEXICO, NOT FOR OURSELVES!!! We must bite the bullet now and hard or we will perish as a republic and invite despotism.
What you say is true. The problem is that our elected leaders and their sycophants in the media will not listen to the voice of the public. See the response to Health Care and now the reaction to the new law in Az.
Isn’t the idea of the IMF bailing out Greece and then the U.S. bailing out the IMF pretty much the international version of kiting checks? Sooner or later the debts come due, and the one who wrote the last check is the one holding the bag. Maybe we can get the Canada to bail us out before that happens …
Thank you PJ media for starting to highlight the Greek problem. As I’ve joked on here before; how do you translate “The wheels have fallen off the gravy train” into Greek?
The EU, a moribund union of welfare states,is now having to make welfare payments to its members. The irony is delicious;let’s hear it for those “sophisticated” eurotards:turn ‘em over;they’re done!
#13 How about:”Catastrophe”?
Simple, catchy, and I like it. I was looking for more nuance though. There is a certain amount of, dare I say it, traditional Greek irony involved in the situation that I fear may get lost in translation. Oedipus was supposed to be killed after his father Laius heard that he would be done in by his own son. Oedipus gets passed around from shepherd to shepherd until he is raised in another royal court. Attempting to find out who his parents are, an Oracle tells him that he will kill his own father and mate with his own mother. Desperate to avoid his fate, he leaves and then promptly does just that. Twice in the story, people directly bring about their fate by trying to avoid it. The modern Greeks, likewise, threw fiscal sanity to the wind in order to provide a high standard of living for their citizens through tight state controls; they taxed every transaction, made entrepreneurialism disappear under mountains of regulations designed to give the 40% of the population that works for the government something to do, and enacted draconian laws that offered everything to everybody. In the end, this over-regulating, clown in a funhouse meets Santa Claus version of a government will drag the country into poverty.
There is surely a moral here.
Yup…”Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
“With the entire euro zone tapped out from bailing out Greece, the problem will fall right into Uncle Sam’s lap.”
And we’re surprised … why?
Rick, I tried to simplify this conundrum even more by personifing my own accounts. This would be like having my credit cards 83% maxed out in relation to my income, leaving me 17% for cost of living. Taking it to the Greek’s 120% maxed out credit cards would be an exempliary feat (or defeat). The tricky part is installing the attitude of paying myself not to work, and awarding myself entitlements and other largess with someone elses’ money. Protesting austerity would give me claim to being a spend-aholic and serial cheat, which has to be an entrance for some federal program.
Believe it or not, there are federal programmes in some European countries that do indeed pay for such things. I read a story last year about a Swede who was officially listed as a “Heavy Metal” addict. Since his disability (no argument from me on that one) is government recognized, he receives a special supplement from the Swedish government to add to his income as a dishwasher. He is also allowed to listen to music at work at louder than normally acceptable volumes and can miss work for concerts as long as he makes up his time later. Since he leads a Heavy Metal Lifestyle ™, he is allowed to dress casually for job interviews and employers are not allowed to discriminate based on his appearance, since it is a “disability.” I, too, am a huge music fan, but I really can’t sympathize. I still manage to show up to work in clean clothes and matching socks. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the government seems willing to nourish a hobby, which is what this is, that reduces someone’s ability to compete in the job market.
It is certainly a good thing that his “disability” is not chronic onanism.
You are right on that one. I know personally of an individual in Sweden who has been on disability for over two decades ago. Once upon a time she worked as a bus driver for only a couple years, some medical condition or other made it difficult to sit for extended periods of time.
Most people would just have retrained for another job. Instead, she has spent 20 years on “disability”, while she gardens and dotes on dogs. Able bodied enough for that, but ready to take the gravy train when offered.
Exactly. With that sort of thing, it is reasonable to accept short-term disability to replace your income for six months to a year, which is why people purchase insurance policies for that sort of thing, but after that, you get another job in a different industry.
“but after that, you get another job in a different industry.” This is one of my biggest gripes about some European labour markets, particularly Germany’s. Here, you have to have a training programme for every single job you do. If you don’t have the appropriate qualifications, an employer is allowed to pay you less or to not offer you the job. I have taken enough space on other threads flogging this dead horse, but it bears repeating because I want America to retain this aspect of its labour market that makes it far more flexible and reduces unemployment. I understand why some jobs, such as secret service agent, may require lots of on the job training before you are released into the field. But in Germany, you finish high school at the age of 21, then you start to queue up a couple of years to wait for a University place. (That’s right. You can’t just go and study something. You have to wait for an opening.) Men are required to perform military or civil service. Then, when they are 23 and many Americans are settling into their first post University jobs, Germans usually do an “Ausbildung.” The word has no direct translation in usage, but it means roughly apprenticeship or job training. This training usually lasts for 2 – 3 years, depending on the career path. That means that most Germans cannot hope to be self-sufficient in any way shape or form until they are pushing 25…. usually from the wrong side. Almost every job in Germany requires one of these job training certificates. They issue them for such jobs as Deli worker, bakery assistant, and supermarket cashier. My wife’s brother is 25 and will finish his “Ausbildung” as “Office worker in businesses dealing with large markets” around his 26th birthday. As complicated as that sounds, it doesn’t really mean much. As an “apprentice”, he has spent the past 2 years making photocopies, coffee, and cleaning the kitchen. When he graduates, if he can’t find a job as an “office worker in a business dealing with large markets”, he is effectively screwed. He cannot pick up work as a cashier in a supermarket because he does not have the training. He will probably not be hired in the company where he trains because he is currently paid 500 Euros a month. (This does not translate into dollars. To give you an idea, the average rent with utilities in Hamburg for a one bedroom flat is around 450 Euros.) This means he must rely on the state to supply his health care and he draws a monthly “Children’s money” allowance. That’s right: children’s allowance from the government at the age of 25.
Once Germans have gone through this process, if they are unable to find a job, they have three options: they can either retrain which will take another 2 – 3 years if they can find the trainee position, they can spend 2 or 3 years working as an intern earning around 500 Euro per month, or they can go on the dole. If you lose your job in your thirties, going on the dole is often your only recourse. Germany’s guild system blocks job mobility and usually locks people into a professional area for life. My wife just graduated from university with her undergraduate degree in French and English education. She is 32. This year has been the first year of her life where she was able to draw a real salary. And since she studied French and English education, had she not accepted a job at a school in an immigrant ghetto, she would have had difficulties finding a full time position. (For full-time, you can also substitute “job that pays the bills.”) If she decided that teaching was not for her somewhere in her 8 1/2 years of studying to be a teacher, well, then that is tough. If she hadn’t finished, she would have no degree and would have to start all over in her thirties, pushing her first paycheck back until she is almost 40. If she wanted to do something else now, she couldn’t because she lacks the “training” to work as a waitress or a supermarket check out clerk.
A key bonus of the American system is this flexibility. We have it; Europe doesn’t. Greece especially doesn’t. I hope the “necessitate to regulate” democrats don’t destroy it.
jacob,
To top that off, most Europeans expect to be able to retire at 60, if not younger.
To paraphrase USAF Gen. Curtis Le May, Commander of SAC back in the Cold War days:
It’s not an obstacle, it’s an opportunity, an opportunity to try something new;
Greece needs an Intervention, carefully timed to fall in the narrow window of
opportunity between the time the Greeks realize they are about to lose everything,
and the time it is too late to save anything. It will be a miserable learning experience
for everyone concerned, the only positive points are that is the least bad option,
and it will provide a guideline/motivation to manage/avoid future falls.
rectification: Germany is only guilty for 8,1 million euros, France for the double, IFM for 15 millions, for 2010 !
the US contribution to IFM is approximatively identical to UK + france + Germany’s part.
The problem of the threat that Greece crisis might extend to world wide, is rather due to Merkel being a bad poker game, from the beginning she knew that Germany would participate into the bailing out, though let things going worse for Greece by her uncertain position, one day, “yes”, the day after “no”, she was scared of the elections that occured today, that she lost of course, wether because of she was undecise or because she’d said that Germany would step in. Anyway, german banks are wetted by the greek debt loans, and probably have more bad surprises, that BILD wouldn’t have like to expose. So some say that the 600 million of euros alloted to solve the EU financial problems is in reality a bailing out for our banks. (ie AIG and the 700 millions of the Paulson plan) So after America, we have our Paulson plan.
Has Angela Merkel Played The Worst Poker Hand In History?
http://www.businessinsider.com/has-angela-merkel-played-the-worst-poker-hand-in-history-2010-5
“She has succeeded in turning the sovereign debt challenges of a small EU member into a full blown currency crisis, and potentially, a global banking and stock market crisis.”
Nothing Merkel did or didn’t do changed the realities of Greece. They cannot pay their debts. Cut ‘em loose or make their debts German debts. While the debate raged the markets were in turmoil, as they should be. A lot was at stake. Now the debate is settled. Greek debts are now German debts. Spanish, Portuguese, Irish and Italian debts are now German debts. The markets are calm for now, as they should be. At some point the issue will arise as to whether the Germans can pay their debts. Will the policies of the German-Germans be followed by the Greek Germans, the Irish Germans, etc? If not, the next crisis is Germany.
Suppose the Germans had gotten ahead of the game early. The markets would have been calm. Nevertheless, the issue would remain: will German-German policies prevail or will Europe drag Germany down.
Speculative frenzy does not exist in a vacuum. Focusing on turbulent markets is confusing the symptoms for the disease.
That’s funny, for lot ol good popole, only Germany is bailing out Greece and or the PIIGGS next. France has put 89 billions of euros in the deal, the other EU countries a lesser part, except UK, nada !
I agree, this will not solve the insolvability of the Mediterranean club, because at the next opportunities the euro will be attacked again.
The solution is that we return to our own currencies, and thus can devaluate them to make the economy through exportations, restart, and keep the euro only for the banks exchanges.
Why the Euro Is Doomed http://bit.ly/bPxE5E
Europe’s Debt Crisis: Your Questions Answered – New York Times (blog) http://tinyurl.com/2dscn7r uh there was a precedent, Asia crisis
The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy’s Death Spiral From Greece to the United States http://bit.ly/dndhTw
http://www.zerohedge.com/ “Goldman Can Create Shorts Faster Than Europe Can Print Money” The euro bailing out isn’t the end of our worries
“Germany (like China) views its high savings and export prowess as virtues, not vices. But John Maynard Keynes pointed out that surpluses lead to weak global aggregate demand – countries running surpluses exert a “negative externality” on their trading partners. Indeed, Keynes believed that it was surplus countries, fa…r more than deficit countries, that posed a threat to global prosperity; he went so far as to recommend a tax on surplus countries”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/can-the-euro-be-saved.html
Quite a few financial analysts are pointing on the disequilibrium of the EU exchanges, it’s not only the too generous social policies of Greece that are the cause,otherwise Germany would be as much hit, besides Germany’s cities are proxy to bankrupty too, it the stiff policy of stabilization of the euro, wanted by Germany, and seconded by ECB, that condamned the Mediterranean club at only buying expensive German (or French, or Dutch) products, because of their new inflated money, and having not enough means to invest into a local industry that could also export to the Eurozone. But they had only sunshine and villas constructed under the construction bubble generated by the cheap loans of the ECB.
Now Germany isn’t innocent, nor France, our both countries have bought lot of insane debt bonds from these countries, for good reasons. Though when the fire was in the house, Germany wanted to get away, while the other EU countries firemen were at the stakes. Obama did press on Merkel to join the team, cuse the greek crisis was going global, stocks exchanges in New York, London, Asia… were going mad.
Merkel was running away due to a simple reason; Germany would have to pay for the largest chunk and this was extremely unpopular with voters before a crucial election. And of course the UK will donate nothing for Greece; they are not a member of the Eurozone.
The Euro is a complicated issue. I have lived here for nearly a decade, so the Euro is all that I really know. I still have some French Francs stuck in a drawer somewhere, but I have no idea what the last printing of DM looked like even though I’ve lived in Hamburg since 2006. I remember the difficulty everyone had after the official switch; I could calculate old prices but I was completely lost when I visited Italy for a weekend and they still had only the Lira prices on items. In my opinion, the Euro was an ill-conceived plan. I can’t imagine that it will be around 50 years from now at all, or maybe not even in 5. The issue of bailing out Greece has already proved toxic to Merkel; if it looks like a much larger economy like Spain comes to the table asking for massive handouts I could easily imagine the sitting German government reluctant or unable to approve the funds. It may also be challenged constitutionally and blocked by the German court system.
Until now, I don’t think I’ve met any French citizens say they don’t think the Euro is permanent. I lived there for a couple of years (Dijon, Valenciennes) and seemingly all French people I met thought the Euro was a major step towards a unified Europe that would overtake America on the world stage. Has sentiment changed significantly? I know that here I find very few people who are excited about Europe at all. Given a referendum, the Germans would overwhelmingly vote to go back to the DM. I could also imagine Germans voting to reduce the EU’s size to a few core countries if given the choice.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,693973,00.html
“Complicit in Corruption: How German Companies Bribed Their Way to Greek Deals
Greece’s rampant corruption is one of the reasons why the country’s economy is in such a mess. German companies have taken advantage of the system for years in order to secure lucrative deals.”
olright: “la raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure”
The right of the stronger… is always better
Jean de Lafontaine “The wolf and the Lamb”
This isn’t to say it’s moral, money business has no emotion, but the right of strengh
http://tinyurl.com/34oky7l
“Europe, Nationalism and Shared Fate
When the Greek financial crisis emerged, other Europeans asked the simple question, “What has this to do with me?” From their point of view, the Greeks were foreigners. They spoke a different language, had a different culture, shared a different history. The Germans might be affected by the crisis — German banks held Greek debt — but the Germans were not Greeks, and they did not share the Greeks’ fate. And this was not just the view of Germany, the economic leader of Europe, by any means.
In the past, Mexico has had several economic crises in which the United States intervened to stabilize Mexico. This was done because it was in the American interest to do so, not because the United States and Mexico were one country. So, too, in Europe: The bailout of Greece is designed not because Greece is part of Europe, but because it is in the rest of Europe’s interest to bail Greece out. But the heart of the matter is that Greece is a foreign country”
uh, why my links have disappeared ?
When the smoke clears from this worldwide economic meltdown it will be interesting to see how much of us/them the banks will own.
I’m betting lock stock and barrel.
When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would no longer use the dollar for oil transfers but would switch to the Euro I knew it would be a good time to get out..
Now he will come to the UN and tell us how the big bad Jewish bankers caused this Greek/Euro disaster to lose so many of his petrol dollars.
Good market rule-
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejerkoff thinks its a good investment,
get the hell out.
Good rule; I will immediately diversify into any company that sells bikinis.
you can put your golden eggs by us, we invented the bikini
How are financial reports like bikinis? What they reveal is important, but what they hide is essential.
Thread winner.
Sharp investors have their eyes on the bikini bubble. They say it’s a good time to get in at the bottom.
Look, Moody is in trouble
Hey, Moody’s, why didn’t you tell us about the SEC’s Wells Notice until now? http://bit.ly/aEXCVy LMAO, Moody wasn’t in mood for it, he !
how could our responsibles rely on such arbiters for our right of death or economical life !
Not talking of the computers bugs, uh, some cofound billions with millions !
The first global crisis of the Twentieth Century arose out of “some damn fool thing in the Balkans”, if I may quote myself.
It appears that history shall repeat itself in the Twenty-First Century. The difference is, this time, God may not be around “to protect fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
We had subprime crisis in US followed by Bank failing in US, then came Dubai international crisis and now Greece crisis.
All these countries had quite strong currencies of Dollars, Dirhams & Euro. Technology, GATT agreement have made the world look small & flat. It might be wise to have currency week, than being strong, example for this China, who has created trade surplus. China can trigger another crisis, if it withdraws USD treasury.
Jacob:
Your summary of the socialist economic job life in socialist Europe is a much needed description of the destination that awaits this country on its journey to socialism under Obama/Reid/Pelosi. The liberal dullards and the adoring ignoramuses of Obama need to have this story rammed down their throat. Good job.
Sixtnpenny
You are welcome. I constantly try to leverage my experiences in Europe to explain to Americans the need to steer clear of European social market policies. The fact of the matter is that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi want to remake us in Europe’s image, but they don’t really know what that means. It means crippling levels of permanent unemployment, massive deficits, and a slow and steady decline.
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