Protesters have “demand(ed) an end to the Greece’s financial crisis” as the Greek government prepared to cut down on public spending. It had previously taken advantage of its EU membership to run up unparalleled deficits and borrow money on a monumental scale to increase its public spending, while concealing the true nature of its condition from EU inspectors. With the EU unwilling to assure any further bailouts the Greek government is under pressure to cut public spending and the protesters don’t like it. Just end the crisis already, they urged.
“It is a simple issue of survival,” the newspaper quoted Anna Tsounara, a protester as saying. “… I have never demonstrated like this before but now I want answers. All of us here worked in the public sector on contracts for years and now we are told the state is bankrupt by a government that comes in and says it wants to get rid of us. Just like that. That’s not fair,” the protester added. …
The country’s leftist government under Prime Minister George Papandreou, only in power for three months, faces the colossal task of carrying out reform programs to eradicate problems of corruption and politics standing in the way of economic growth.He has reportedly warned of the country’s “sinking” as a result of bad public finances unless changes are made.
“People are puzzled. They spent the best part of the last decade thinking ‘it’s over, we made it, we’re rich’ and then suddenly they’re told the country’s bankrupt. Like the past conservative government, many bought into the illusion that borrowing was OK. And now they, too, are weighed down by debt,” Pavlos Tzimas, a political analyst told The Guardian.
Greece’s problems were ironically exacerbated by its inclusion in Euro currency area. With Greek prices denominated in Euros, it’s tourist industry collapsed because people could no longer afford to visit the country and it had to borrow more and more to keep up the economy. The saga of Greece’s attempts to rein in decades of entitlement makes for gripping reading, not in the least because it echoes many of the themes now being heard in the US.
In Oct 2009 the socialist PASOK took power with a big majority. They promised to rein in the deficit but the new budget submissions soon showed that the deficit rather than falling wound continue to rise. In response the Prime Minister vowed to tax the bankers and increase tax rates on high income groups while announcing some cuts in social security. But the markets fell and international creditors remain unconvinced that Greece was serious. Meanwhile the protesters continued to demand that Greece ‘end the economic crisis’. Nobody believed that the party was over, that the last days of disco had come and that the gravy train had to stop. It simply couldn’t be true and the protesters acted accordingly. The public sector employees union ADEDY has called a 24-hour nationwide strike to protest against the government’s austerity measures on Feb 10. “Greek tax officials have also called rolling nationwide strikes throughout February. Private sector union grouping GSEE has said it will stage a 24-hour strike against the government’s austerity measures at end-February.”
Although Guardian columnist Larry Elliot proclaimed the Euro “too big to fail”, the chief economist of Deutsche Bank, Thomas Mayer said “If the Greece situation is handled badly, the Euro-zone could break down, or suffer major inflation … Neither the European Central Bank nor the Commission nor any other EU body can force Greece to implement necessary reforms in exchange for help.” Mayer warned that Greece may be only one of several countries that will fall into the “EMU trap” a condition in which Europeanization essentially destroys the competitiveness of the economy.
Thomas Mayer warns that some countries might have fallen in what he calls an “EMU Trap”: According to his analysis, countries which have strong labour cost increases might fall into a position in which growth is slowing because competitiveness has badly deteriorated. With growth slowing, tax revenues are falling and outlays for unemployment are increasing, leading to a bigger budget deficit. In this position, a country cannot do much anymore: Cutting the deficit further would lead to even slower growth while there is no possibility to improve competitiveness quickly.
Thomas Mayer sees Portugal and Italy already in the EMU trap and Greece and Spain in imminent danger of falling into this trap. Thomas portraits three possible consequences from the EMU trap: First, a country could cut its production costs. Second, it could leave EMU. Third, it could pressure the ECB to allow for a higher rate of inflation in the whole union.
Without competitiveness, there is no goose to lay the Golden Egg and therefore no eggs. But these admonitions fell on deaf ears as Greek farmers blockaded borders with neighboring countries to demand debt moratoriums, more subsidies and higher prices for their goods. Eggs! Eggs! Greek officials have explained that the government simply has no more money but many protesters were sticking to their demands. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, the US is struggling with its own crisis brought about by a huge increases in spending, which like Europe were mostly the product of entitlements. Ironically these rose even as the government continuously reduced spending in one of the core government functions — national defense — to levels unseen in fifty years. Surprising as it may seem, Bush spent less for defense as a percentage of GDP than the lowest point under Jimmy Carter and at half the rate of Kennedy years, even before Vietnam. It isn’t the burden of guns which is sinking the West, it’s borrowed butter. Rising interest payments may eventually overtake defense spending.
The economic crisis in the West is in part a cultural crisis born of a contradiction in expectations. For many decades and especially since the End of History was declared circa 1989, there was a widespread belief that an unlimited amount of money existed from which to draw while populations went around fulfilling themselves tending the garden of Gaia in a politically correct universe in which there was no need for guns, no prospect of hunger and no cause for danger. And now the publics are saying “do you mean it was all a lie?” You mean like Global Warming?
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Excellent Richard.
This is THE big issue.
Another spectacular entry, Mr. Fernandez.
I wonder what the protesters expect to happen? Greece is experiencing Margaret Thatcher’s judgment on socialism, and is running out of other people’s money. It appears that the union fallback position, both here in the US and in Europe, is to continue eating the seed after the rest of the harvest is gone. Economically speaking, an economy with no more capital input through borrowing and limited capital input through trade has become ‘Lord of the Flies’ writ large, with the few people with taxable assets becoming Piggy. In this story, though, Piggy is likely to take a boat elsewhere.
I actually had someone tell me in an internet exchange that they were opposed to political action by corporations, but not by unions. Their argument was that unions ‘stood for the common man’, which may have been accurate 75 years ago. These days, unions operate for the benefit of union members, period. At least here in the US, that encompasses a whopping 12-13% of the workforce, leaving out a large segment of common men. Me personally, I don’t see any difference between SEIU and GE. Both ostensibly work for the benefit of those who hold a stake in the organizations, called ‘members’ on the one side and the slightly dirtier (for leftists) term ‘stockholders’ on the other.
I think the last few years may have finally let all the air out of the concept of ‘too big to fail’, if not the practice. Our US government seems to believe that AIG was too big to fail, or at least to catastrophically fail. Same with GM, but both of those organizations are living on borrowed time and money. AIG should be gone in a few years, and GM will likely follow it. From that perspective, we have created our own Eurozone here with a common currency and paperless borders. We have not managed to avoid the financial downside of that, though. We don’t need Greece for an example of a state spending on public unions in a profligate manner and wrecking their own economy, we have California. Unless there is a serious change in governance, the serial collapses that follow a cushioned financial failure in California will closely resemble the fiscal issues that are likely to bedevil the EU. Other states have debt and generous social systems, why shouldn’t they get the same deal that California gets from the federal government, particularly if it’s a sweetheart deal?
For me, all of this comes down to a lack of feedbacks. I guess I have an overly mechanistic worldview, but without feedback systems will run awry, as happened in the mortgage business and as seems to be happening in Greece. Until the people who make the mess are forced to deal with it in painful ways, the messes will continue to be made. Keeping the people in place who make the messes but removing the feedback only perpetuates the problems, and the interest on the original mess continues to accumulate. If Social Security were only indexed to life expectancy at the outset, for example, we would not have a Social Security problem today.
Somehow, some way, a politician needs to stand up and tell people loudly that there is no free lunch for them or anyone else. And then the people are going to have to vote for that politician. It’s the second part that is the hard part, apparently in Greece as well.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts
Beware of gifts baring Greeks
Have fun while the rising tide lifts
Later cry when your rising boat leaks
The socialist gift’s a charade
Borrowed money can last for a while
But eventually the piper is paid
And the bubbly wine turns into bile
We speak of canaries in mines
We parse what the wise men have said
We listen to wind in the pines
No matter, the canary is dead
We may not be next, but we’re certainly in the batting rotation.
Maybe the Greeks need to talk to the Evil Roy Slade and find their own “Randolph the Accountant”.
Greece’s problems were ironically exacerbated by its inclusion in Euro currency area. With Greek prices denominated in Euros, it’s tourist industry collapsed because people could no longer afford to visit the country.
Huh? How and why does the currency denomination affect pricing? I’m asking, and I guess many economists might ask, too.
–
Back in the USA, I’m asking, what exactly is the nature of our problems? I mean, besides the resident in the white house. What if the real estate bubble had not (yet) burst, and we had not spent $700b on TARP and another $770b on porkulus. Would we have a crisis?
I mean, yes we have the same “productivity” problems as any and all of Europe including Greece, but we were getting by – by magical incantations, perhaps, see my rant on the previous thread about long-term trade deficits, but even so.
I need to start reading WSJ again for a while, I’m completely out of touch with wtf is in this new budget. Though, perhaps I don’t care, as I suspect Congress will not enact half of it. But, what will they enact, and why? What MUST they enact to keep Act 2 of the financial meltdown from occurring? Enquiring wallets want to know. And THEN I might ask questions about jobs.
Including my own. Hey, how about a thread where we can rant about the current job market, or lack thereof?
A phrase comes leaping to mind…
“There will be a reckoning.”
I think the last few years may have finally let all the air out of the concept of ‘too big to fail’, if not the practice.
You make some brilliant points, Darren.
One thing always left me a bit befuddled, though. If a company needs the government to throw billions of dollars at them, didn’t they already fail?
I mean to say, what’s the measure of failure…if not the need to grovel at the feet of Congress and beg for a handout?
I guess I have an overly mechanistic worldview, but without feedback systems will run awry, as happened in the mortgage business and as seems to be happening in Greece. Until the people who make the mess are forced to deal with it in painful ways, the messes will continue to be made
Continue to be made…and hidden? Darren, you are a good and decent man, with great insights. Perhaps you can help me on one question…where on the books is the mountain of debt held by Fannie and Freddie being carried?
I can’t seem to find an accounting for it in the budget analysis, the deficit analysis, the future credit analysis, or the “recovery” analysis.
If you add that to your insights above, it won’t take a Greek oracle to come to some pretty jarring conclusions…
forgive the typos in the previous, no edit widget.
–
oh, here’s an edit widget! AND on the previous! The mysteries of PJM’s interface. ok, never mind, fixed typos on previous.
regarding “It’s a trap!” what comes to mind immediately is a similar case where it looks too good to be true and the punchline is, “It’s a cookbook!”
Greeks make some “black” work as a national sport too
10. Marie Claude:
Greeks make some “black” work as a national sport too
We Americans will be doing a lot more of that ourselves pretty soon, at this rate.
Don’t worry, we will all have our 20 hour/week jobs wearing green shirts and working for the Obamacorps for the common good, which will include a vegetarian lunch and a tax-free minimum wage paycheck, minus commuting costs.
The IG just released a report on the efficacy of the TARP program. In a word, TARP is a turd
Remember when Ben Shalom Bernanke (his real name, no slur) wouldn’t answer where the money had gone. Here’s part of your answer and it’s being repeated all over Wall Street and passed through to cut outs who will grease future deals. Wall Street isn’t for the small investor, never has been. Hell, the SEC just gave permission to fund managers to simply not pay out on funds if they so desire….”Can I have my money please?”,
“No, go away peasant”
Here’s where the money went
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankenfein will reportedly get a $100 million bonus just one year after his company received billions in taxpayer money to survive a financial crisis.
A sucker born every day aye Mr. Wage earner? …to the egress.
Josh,
You forgot our ‘free’ health care’ under Obamacare. We will enjoy that free veggie luch while waiting to die in our doctors waiting rooms. We will commuting using all the transportation provided by
‘alternative transportation and green energy’. bicycles like the peasants use in the Orient. Minimum wage check as most of it will have been sucked dry by our ‘comrade’ friends in the gov’t.
What work, jobs? I am in central Oregon and out of work since November. It is very bleak and getting WORSE!
“Surprising as it may seem, Bush spent less for defense as a percentage of GDP than the lowest point under Jimmy Carter and at half the rate of Kennedy years, even before Vietnam.”
One of the reasons that the republicans lost in 2008 was that Bush was seen as a liberal, and McCain more-so. With a choice between dumb and dumber we all lose.
Much of the R&D work (with the associated civilian by products) were lost – see what happened to Lockheed and other Defense contractors – including HP, CRAY etc.
My apologies for being too obscure. “To the Egress” was a famous trick used on the rubes by P. T. Barnum to move them outside so they would have to pay another nickel to get back into the exhibit.
Wiki..second to the last paragraph.
At one point, Barnum noticed that people were lingering too long at his exhibits. He posted signs indicating “This Way to the Egress”. Not knowing that “Egress” was another word for “Exit”, people followed the signs to what they assumed was a fascinating exhibit…and ended up outside
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum's_American_Museum
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four –
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
* * * * *
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began –
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mice,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire –
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
R. Kipling 1919
When I worked at the Pentagon I used to wonder at the common attitude among management – including the Congress – that resources did not matter. They could issue orders and they would always be obeyed. I was working 12 hour days, leaving for work at 0630 and getting home on a good night at maybe 2000. And that often was not considered to be enough. They insisted at looking on their decisions incrementally, each added task was so small it did not matter, only a few more minutes out of the workers’ day, no big picture viewpoint.
I decided that this was caused by traffic. People going to work in the morning could not help but notice all those other commuters. So it would be easy for a supervisor, a political appointee, a Congressman, to conclude that there just had to be plenty of people to carry out their orders for yet another report, for a new study, for a new way to shift money around to favored projects. The big picture was not examined except to conclude it was so big that it was infinite. There was so much Design Margin in the Federal Govt that it was endless; it had to be just look at all those commuters!
One day I was told to call a certain USAF project office and tell them that a few hundred $K had been cut out of their budget. I called and told them and the response was endless protestations “No! We already don’t have enough money! Our unfunded requirement is…” I replied “Let me explain it this way. Some men came in. They had masks and guns. They took your money.” Then he understood. And he was nearly unique in that respect.
Reading between the lines at the FT, it seems Germany and France are unwilling to pay to bail out Greece. There is sentiment for any bail-out to be on such hard demands for cutting spending and anti-corruption reforms as to make it domestically impossible for Greece. So that it will be kicked out of the Eurozone.
France and Germany between them control the ECB and the Eurozone bailout policy. There is no chance that Sarkozy and Merkel will agree to go down in flames to bail out the Greeks, by measures increasing interest rates for their countrymen. Everyone knows inside Europe that the Greeks lied to get into the EU and Euro in the first place.
Ireland has cut and gut public spending. They’ve had to. Italy is probably in less of a rut than Spain, with a lower Debt to GDP ratio than Spain or Portugal. Spain’s collapse was a real estate bubble (sound familiar?)
Naturally, how this plays out is that the first thing to be cut by national governments will be spending on immigrants and indeed, public sentiment will demand immigrants legal or otherwise be kicked out. So money is spent on natives not foreigners. You can have PC and multiculturalism as long as the money lasts but no longer.
Expect anti-Foreigner riots and anti-foreigner sentiment. I wouldn’t give much for Greek Cyprus either. Convenient time for the Turks to simply grab all of it. What, NATO would matter? Please.
“(Greece) will be kicked out of the Eurozone”
wiskey, then what? Greece starts printing it’s own money again… how do they handle the transition? do all euro denominated contracts/debts get revalued in the new currancy?
It will be facinating to watch.
F47 #15:
The big cuts were done in the Clinton years, a reduction of almost 50% in the U.S. Military, with all sorts of mergers and downsizing by military contractors as well. We did lose a lot and we lost many of the wrong things. Bill Clinton’s “Humanitarian Invasion of the Month Club” caused an emphasis on operations rather than R&D.
Remember Thomas Jefferson: “I fear for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
And the Sword of Justice is keen–I heard that in the military.
The EU and the Maastricht Treaty were a joke from the start. Anyone with a wit of understanding Europe knew it. Yet they went ahead because this time it was going to be different. About that; If there is one common theme to the vast range of crises we consider, it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether it be by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. Infusions of cash can make a government look like it is providing greater growth to its economy than it really is. Private sector borrowing binges can inflate housing and stock prices far beyond their long-run sustainable levels, and make banks seem more stable and profitable than they really are. Such large-scale debt buildups pose risks because they make an economy vulnerable to crises of confidence, particularly when debt is short term and needs to be constantly refinanced. Debt-fueled booms all too often provide false affirmation of a government’s policies, a financial institution’s ability to make outsized profits, or a country’s standard of living. Most of these booms end badly. Of course, debt instruments are crucial to all economies, ancient and modern, but balancing the risk and opportunities of debt is always a challenge, a challenge policy makers, investors, and ordinary citizens must never forget. Yet the best and the brightest did because it was going to be different this time. Yeah.
Perhaps more than anything else, failure to recognize the precariousness and fickleness of confidence-especially in cases in which large short-term debts need to be rolled over continuously-is the key factor that gives rise to the this-time-is-different syndrome. Highly indebted governments, banks, or corporations can seem to be merrily rolling along for an extended period, when bang!-confidence collapses, lenders disappear, and a crisis hits.
Various sources.
This Time is Different is a book worth reading.
Where’s Akbar? You have a post title like that, and no Akbar.
21. RWE:
Me Bad – you are correct of course – I was working for Rocketdyne at the time – lots of downsizing and loss of research contracts.
LOL! My first thought was of Admiral Ackbar too!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4
Josh @ 6:
“‘Greece’s problems were ironically exacerbated by its inclusion in Euro currency area. With Greek prices denominated in Euros, it’s tourist industry collapsed because people could no longer afford to visit the country.’”
You asked:
“Huh? How and why does the currency denomination affect pricing? I’m asking, and I guess many economists might ask, too.”
Josh, presumably that happened because Greece used to have its own currency, which was valued unfavorably in relation to the Euro. So people with Euros could pay a lot less for things in Greece with their Euros. And that made more European tourists visit Greece.
You also asked:
“Back in the USA, I’m asking, what exactly is the nature of our problems? I mean, besides the resident in the white house. What if the real estate bubble had not (yet) burst, and we had not spent $700b on TARP and another $770b on porkulus. Would we have a crisis?”
The answer would be yes, we would still have a crisis, because we still have many crises coming up. For instance, we would have had a meltdown in 3-4 more years when Social Security and Medicare went broke. They are already running on fumes. When the huge Boomer generation begins to retire shortly, there won’t be enough money. Or the coming Medicaid crisis could do it, because it keeps growing and is also going broke. Or the huge consumer debt could do it. And these are just the crises that would have happened, even if Obama and the Dems hadn’t come into power and started spending money that doesn’t exist like maniacs. When you add their frantic spending and borrowing to the mix, the size of the crises ahead gets hard to believe.
All simply because we have bought into the free lunch fantasy for too long. We’re about out of time.
Habu’s comment # 23 got it exactly right.
The euro’s don’t have the guts to kick the greeks out, even though they should.
the greeks don’t have the guts to cut their spending, even though they should.
the protestors don’t have the guts to face the nature of the disaster, even though they should.
This is how an epic collapse happens. Greece must default on it’s debt, but if they do they drag the entire EU down into the financial pit with them, because the EU cannot let go.
there is no happy ending possible.
F47 #25:
Yep, I am in the space launch business myself, and they cut y’all because Clinton needed to bomb Kosovo and invade Haiti and Serbia. And because the military’s senior leadership used that as an excuse to protect their empires.
There is a reason most of our launches use Soviet rocket engines or old ones we developed in the 50’s or the one for the Shuttle.
wws: Greece must default on it’s debt, but if they do they drag the entire EU down into the financial pit with them, because the EU cannot let go. there is no happy ending possible.
Sure there is. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela could follow through with their threat to sell their oil only in Euros in a bid to replace King Dollar as the world currency. Then we’d have hilarious YouTube videos of people bringing wheelbarrows of Euros to the gas station to get some fuel for their lawn mower.
GerryP: For instance, we would have had a meltdown in 3-4 more years when Social Security and Medicare went broke. They are already running on fumes. When the huge Boomer generation begins to retire shortly, there won’t be enough money.
What do you mean there’s not enough money? Those are perfectly good I.O.U.s! It won’t be until sometime between 2041 and 2052 (estimates vary) before Social Security will have cashed in all those I.O.Us, which were issued by Congress during the recent years of surplus in the Trust Fund so they could continue to spend money without raising taxes or the national debt. You remember when they kept saying our children and grandchildren will have to pay for the party we’re having now? Well, payback starts in 2019 when the Treasury notes bought by Social Security are cashed in. After that, they start dinging the general fund until those I.O.Us are fully redeemed.
The difference between the US and Greece is that Greece is running on the EU’s dime, and the US is taking money from the middle class to pay for everyone else. For elite Green Dreams and for patronage/pork payoffs to Blacks/Hispanics in the urban core, with most of the money of course skimmed off by the political class.
And its all happening at once.
IMHO, this is part and parcel of a global system that is unsustainable. You can’t have every nation trying to export its way out of problems. So you’ll likely see economic autarky. Not to the level of North Korea but more like Japan or China.
Yes Greek debt holders will be hosed when they exit (or likely, get kicked out) of the Eurozone. I mean really, can you see Sarkozy and Merkel sacrificing their funding initiatives to bail out Greece? Debts will be denominated in the new currency (Argentina is notorious for this).
I’m sorry to be such a consistently dreary poop.
The sh*tter-of-wisdom in the White House has hacked off the space program’s most inspiring goals.
Ah, weeell… We need to remember that we can contemplate the universe in a drop of water, and the distilled secrets of the universe surely reside in any single brain cell within the titanic cranium of our wonderful leader. Who am I to question his mighty decisions?
In many ways, the space program at this point could be re-vitalized by handing it back to the private sector…
HEY! WAIT A MINUTE!
Do you think maybe that could work for some other programs the thousand tumbling turds in the administration have been screwing up?
The protesters’ demands to “end the crisis” without any interest in understanding (let alone accepting and submtting to) the mechanism for doing so is almost akin to magical thinking. “Give me ends without means!” is what it comes down to. It reminds me of a quotation from G.K. Chesterton, describing people who stubbornly insist on demanding a magical world that works without requiring any effort or understanding on their part:
In other words, it is exactly as if somebody were to say about the science of medicine: “All I ask is Health; what could be simpler than the beautiful gift of Health? Why not be content to enjoy forever the glow of youth and the fresh enjoyment of being fit? Why study dry and dismal sciences of anatomy and physiology; why inquire about the whereabouts of obscure organs of the human body? Why pedantically distinguish between what is labelled a poison and what is labelled an antidote, when it is so simple to enjoy Health? Why worry with a minute exactitude about the number of drops of laudanum or the strength of a dose of chloral, when it is so nice to be healthy? Away with your priestly apparatus of stethoscopes and clinical thermometers; with your ritualistic mummery of feeling pulses, putting out tongues, examining teeth, and the rest!…”
First: “That Debt-Star is operational”
(couldn’t resist)
Second: Josh, to two of your questions. As GerryP #27 points out the exchange rate was favorable, and now it’s not. What was customary when a country joined the Euro was for all the stores to take down the symbols designating local currency and replace them with Euro signs. In the Netherlands, for example, this doubled the price of everything overnight–instant 100% inflation… and the locals are still bitter.
As for what may happen if Greece decides to leave the Euro? I’d imagine that would be handled much the same way hyperinflation is corrected: issue new currency and set an exchange rate, implying all the old signs come down and new numbers go up.
–JC
Teresita #31
Good farce, Teresita. Enjoyed it. The Treasury I.O.U.s – backed only by the promise to pay of the U.S. government – are going to save Social Security. Sure they are! With funny money backed by more funny money. And why not? It always worked before. We just have to keep on keeping on. I feel so much better now.
Did someone mention Argentina? Do you know that by 1900′s Argentina was an economic powerhouse? If there were something like G5, Argentina would have been in.
What happened? Simple: Peron started experimenting with socialism.
The problem is not so much feedback mechanisms but the government’s arrogation of unconstitutional powers, primarily the power to spend for anything, whether or not the spending discharges a power enumerated in the constitution. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the game was lost when the Constitution was murdered in the house of its guardians.
In Britain if the Tories had any brains they would take the collapse of Greece as a grand opportunity to steal much of their program out from under the UKIP. That would not only make clear the distinction between fiscally sound rule of law patriotic principles on the right and the socialist euro-zone corruption of Labour on the left but it would in addition isolate the BNP in the eyes of voters as being just a thuggish variant on the same failed socialist pit as Labour and the EU.
Parties do steal platforms and get away with it. Lenin stole his land program from the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
“All of us here worked in the public sector on contracts for years and now we are told the state is bankrupt by a government that comes in and says it wants to get rid of us. Just like that. That’s not fair,”
This sentiment expresses why it will be very difficult to cut the guvmint down to proper size. What we have here is not a struggle between classes, or races but between those one way or another feeding at the public trough or those who don’t.
Those feeding at the trough have been told for decades they are better, the elite, and they ought to have this or that including huge benefits and unbelievable pensions. They have come to believe the feed at the trough for them is an unalienable right, not to be trifled with by us evil greedy capitalists.
The trough feeders will not give up their sumptuous feed without a bloody fight. Cutting government means a lot less feed at the trough so the trough pigs will get mighty ornery cause feeding at the trough is the only thing they know how to do oftentimes. The Dims have tried to expand the feedtrough and the number of trough feeders to a critical mass where they cannot be beaten, but I do believe they have fallen more than a tad short.
So let the fight begin.
JLB/38; …actually it was lost when the murderers weren’t punished –because there was no reason then to resuscitate.
***
what will perhaps happen with Greece is, sorta nothing. There’s a term, “financial repression”, referring to a best of bad options wherein the sovereign, or it this case perhaps the EU, does a version of ‘extend & pretend’ (japan and USA have plenty of this happening –a relaxation of definition of ‘performing’ based on, uh, cash flow of tenants, or something, where app-lick-able) on as much debt as possible, vaulting the rest of it at a hyper-low interest rate to be held forever or until something changes.
man, capitalism and democracy both must be looking pretty crappy to the average third-worlder these days. not to mention the average first and second worlders.
Greetings from Greece – a most wonderful place to live – however a nightmare if you have the courage to be an entrepreneur.
One factor not discussed is the negative effect of the statist beauracracy on those who wish to fight their way out of the black hole. My son and I decided to open a business here. We have been trying since Christmas to finalize the paperwork – without success until now. Dealing with the beauracracy is a numbing experience. Every day I am landed a new body blow – just for the privilege of doing business in Greece. I expect the worst when we are actually up and running.
I could tell you alot about single payer health care as practiced here. I will save it for another day. In closing, however, I would say that if you value your mental and physical health you must do everything in your power to prevent it from happening in your country.
BTW, ”financial repression” is in fact a partial default –the legerdemain is exclusively to cloak that word ‘default’.
***
Xylourgos: thanks, man –good on ya for the warning –and best of luck with the project –
Xylourgos: make sure you come back and tell that story about single payer. It’s always good to get first-hand evidence.
Best of luck with the problems over there!
Let’s not forget how the British, soon after the end of WWII, despite the fact that the country was bankrupt, elected a leftist Labour government and awarded themselves a raft of new benefits including nationalizations and free lifetime health care for all.
The result was a whole generation of poor economic performance, humiliations overseas and social strife at home, until Maggie Thatcher came along to break the accumulating power of the public sector unions. By that time, of course, Britain’s position in the world had become a much-mocked shadow of its former self.
Is any of this debacle sounding topical?
Just how representative of the general population are the protesters? If they constitute a majority of the electorate, it’s goodbye to the Greeks.
To be honest, I don’t hold much faith in the ability of common folk to understand basic economics, notwithstanding the Tea Partiers. It seems to be a default state of people to be economically ignorant and unable to, as someone else stated, understand the means that lead to certain ends.
A whole lotta wishful thinking nowadays.
“I’m Robin Hood and I will rob from the rich and give to the poor! Vote for me.”
“Uh, Robin the poor are in revolt and there is no money from the rich anymore since a lot of them left and the ones that stayed have big private armies, and that plated lead just isn’t buying anything. What should we do?
I don’t know about you but I’m taking a job as a tax collector in another kingdom. I will be working for the former Prince John.”
If I lived in Greece today, I would be sorely tempted to adopt Kaiser Soze as my role model.
Especially when dealing with the bureacracy.
Sooner or later, someone will. And he’ll end up in charge of the whole shootin’ match.
38, James L. Buchal:
Respectfully, I would argue that in sidestepping or ignoring the Constitution the government has been deliberately subverting feedbacks that were designed into the system. Everyone’s power is limited in some way in the Constitution, the Executive can check the Legislature, the Legislature can override but can itself be overridden by the Judicial. The Executive sets the budget, which must then be appropriated by the Legislature. The House and Senate have to agree on legislation before it can be signed.
The system falls apart if there is sufficient back-scratching between at least two branches, though. GWB didn’t veto a single bill for six years, for any reason. BHO hasn’t vetoed much of anything yet (zero, I believe, though I have not checked). The House and Senate have become partisan voting blocks who pass legislation written by a few and read by none. It took the election of a Republican from Massachusetts (!) to break that and fire a shot across the bow of the, to use a Medicare term, “Reasonable, Usual and Customary” way of doing business.
It’s not just our elected officials, though. When incumbency is a virtual guarantee of reelection in most cases, we get the government we vote for. Shame on the citizens for not waking up sooner, but I’ll bet a dollar that Barney Frank is re-elected despite his involvment with CRA and the mortgage blowup. The US, and Greece, are becoming proof of the quote attributed to Alexander Tytler, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.”
It galls me to no end that in seeking to maintain their offices there really were Senators demanding bribes “on behalf of their constituents” from the public treasury in return for support of the Health Care plan. It’s harder for me to be upset with the faceless millions that hoped to gain a free lunch on the health care bill than it is for the few who stood for election to the Senate and swore an oath, maybe it’s because I can put a face to the malfeasance in the case of the Senators. It galls me even more that Harry Reid said that Senators who didn’t arrange their own Louisiana Purchase or Cornhusker Kickback were “bad politicians”. If voting yourself political favor with public money is considered good politics, then Tytler hit the mark.
Greece is going to become a controlled state by the EU commission
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2010/02/03/bruxelles-approuve-le-plan-d-economies-de-la-grece_1300472_3214.html#xtor=RSS-3208
(for those that understand french, there is also a podcast)
Marie @50:
Any chance of an English translation of the Le Mond article?
I don’t trust java script web browser software to translate accurately, and I don’t understand French.
Gracias!
http://tinyurl.com/ykf7ka8
here are some articles that say about the same thing
wws/48; yes, and he’ll wear a uniform and be a man of the people. later, he’ll make a four hour speech declaring for marxism, then he’ll retire behind a secret police formed by the simple expedient of having a well-armed Che! start shooting every IQ over average unless it falls into line. capitalism has to build a working machine, communism has only to drop a wrench in the gears, or i guess nowadays, unplug the currency –i mean the current.
In the US unless you are protected species like a drug dealer, it has gotten harder and harder to work black. Back in the late 1960′s you could work a a contract worker for cash off the books. I knew a guy who went to school at nights and worked for a fencing company during the day. Since then it has gotten harder and harder, you have to be careful even when you barter. That’s one of the things that makes people so mad when they read about a government appointee who hasn’t paid his taxes when they know people who have been severally fined or sent to jail for the same thin. Of course if things get bad enough people will work black and damn the government.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,675738,00.html
“The World from Berlin”
Good article, Greece in broader context, and summaries of center left and center right response to Obama skipping the upcoming summit. links to:
RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
“The rise of Chimerica” –a G2 World?”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,674848,00.html
The New Superpower: ‘The Chinese Are Unready by Their Own Admission’ for Global Leadership (01/29/2010)
Obama’s Year of Crises: Mr. Change Needs a Reboot (01/20/2010)
Consequences of Copenhagen: Forget the Club of Rome, This is the Club Of Losers (12/21/2009)
SPIEGEL Interview with Spanish Prime Minister: ‘The EU Is Already Playing in the Top League’ (11/23/2009)
Ok Ok Greece is far away.
But maybe there is a lesson here.
Think California.
Who is going to bailout California?
Talk about world class bad government.
They did just pass singlepayer healthcare.
Josh, Teresita, et al:
About an hour ago, Rush Limbaugh read from today’s news that Social Security finally ran out of money TODAY. Current Social Security tax receipts, for the first time, have fallen so low that they no longer cover current pay-outs of benefits. (Of course the reason SS tax payments are down is because the economy is so bad.)
Gee – these days it can get worse so fast that if you blink, you miss it.
GerryP: About an hour ago, Rush Limbaugh read from today’s news that Social Security finally ran out of money TODAY. Current Social Security tax receipts, for the first time, have fallen so low that they no longer cover current pay-outs of benefits.
The meme that “Social Security is broke” continues to run unabated. Social Security is a transfer of payments from people who are working today to retired workers. It can never “run out of money”. But today the amount that is promised exceeds the amount that is coming in, due to two factors, the high unemployment and the Baby Boomers who are finally retiring right now. If you were born in 1945, then you are 65 in 2010. In anticipation of this, some of the surplus in the trust fund was invested in Treasuries.
Thanks Marie.
Teresita,
In theory, and all other things not varying (“being equal” or held constant), you are right in saying “Social Security is a transfer of payments from people who are working today to retired workers. It can never ‘run out of money’.” That is indeed the principle behind how it works – or is supposed to work. Something like a perpetual motion machine.
The joker is Demographics, as Mark Steyn and others have been shouting at us for some years. We have a “gray overhang.” The Boomers were the biggest generation ever. But they had only enough kids to barely replace their generation. So as a retired generation, the big Boomer bulge does not have a “next generation” big enough to support their retirement. (It takes much more than one worker, or two workers, per retiree.) So sooner or later, their retirement fund was going to run out of money. “Sooner” seems to be arriving earlier than we expected, as a surprise gift from the dismal economy.
Europe and Japan are worse off than the U.S. Their oncoming “replacement worker” generations are even smaller than in the U.S., in relation to the size of their retiring generations. For whatever cold comfort that might be, that is.
From today, or pretty soon now, Social Security retirees will be on a path leading to more and more outright charity from the rest of the country, and less and less direct support from current SS taxes. Which will throw them more and more onto the tender mercies of whatever Congress we happen to have. Social “Security” will be getting less and less “secure.” This day, today, just got here long before we thought it would.
From one of the articles Marie Claude linked to:
BRUSSELS — Greece won breathing space Wednesday in its battle to stave off financial ruin as the European Commission endorsed plans to bring its public finances under control, though it warned that the country’s progress back from the brink faced unprecedented monitoring by Brussels.
Greece has two routes to take. One is to leave the Eurozone. The EU will not allow this to happen. There is much of the old Soviet mindset [or Islamic mindset] in Brussels. Once part of the Warsaw Pact, the Ummah, or the EU; always part of them. Once out of the Eurozone, much of the leverage Brussels has on Athens is gone, the Eurozone being the central core of the EU. While a regression to some form of authoritarian government in a non-Eurozone Greece is pretty much assured; there are real risks for the EU in a non-controlled Greece. Aside from the example to other EU satrapies who might be considering leaving in the future, there is the purely theoretical possibility that if free markets should recover and prosperity should return it would be an economic threat to the EU. If EU investors have a free market across a simple border, capital will hemorrhage across that border away from the clutches of the “Revenoo-ers”. Further, if things get tight, one can see Greece expelling foreigners who they consider to be a threat. That is not an idea that the EU wants floating around. Especially if on first glance it seems to be successful. And there may be other non-PC social policies that Brussels does not want the other parts of the EU thinking about.
The second route is the one mentioned by Marie Claude and the articles. Brussels will take over the economy of Greece; at first with a long set of puppet strings, and eventually directly as conditions get worse. The logical concommitant of that will be Brussels eventually taking over political power within Greece, directly or otherwise, because without that they cannot enforce the economic controls. If there is nationalistic resistance to outside control of the economy, then it will have to be suppressed. Greece will become a client state/colony of Brussels. This would not be an unwelcome development, but rather a formalization of what the EU is, the Vierte Reich in direct line from the Erste Reich, the Holy Roman Empire. As it stands, from its conception the EU has had the tacit understanding that it has levels of importance and power:
On top are France, Germany, and Belgium. They run things.
In the second tier are the UK, Ireland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Some consideration is given to their national needs so long as it does not interfere with the wishes of those on top; and of course the ultimate lawmaking power for those formerly sovereign states resides still in Brussels and not within their borders.
On the third tier are the rest; the Iberian states, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, former Warsaw Pact and FSU. They basically have no real power and do as they are told, although Italy sometimes gets uppity. Greece is the first to move to the new version of the third tier which the rest will eventually achieve; territories ruled directly and formally from Brussels as subject territories.
I believe that Orwell said it best in “Animal Farm”. In it, the ‘Seven Commandments of Animalism’ which justify the Animals seizing power get condensed down to “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”.
Mind you, we are not far behind the EU in loss of liberty.
Subotai Bahadur
“some of the surplus in the trust fund was invested in Treasuries.”
T. is this an attempt at humor?
The “social security trust fund” is an accounting gimmic. It is nothing more than a stack of IOU’s (if the feds actually bothered to print them).
To pay current bennefits, the US government must A) raise taxes B) print money or C) borrow from the Chinese.
Subotai, except that what you exposed here, isn’t arational analyse but your own shema.
EU ain’t any kind of pale imitation of a nazi party, nor a soviet one, It is only an elaboration of the EU countries administrations.
Sorry to disapoint you but Germany and France are the greatest contribuators of money provisions and some that whin the most, are those who benefit of my taxes, don’t count Greece among the whining countries, people there have a long tradition of self help
if UK hasn’t the place that it deserves it’s its fault, it has been critisizing EU since the beginning, it hasn’t euro as money, but nonentheless likes our subventions, though in the last EU configuration as a republic, a British is the “absent” and discret foreign minister, so if the Brits can’t assume their place, this is due to their own weakness !
Spain and Italy have a heavier weight than Ireland or Danemark, because of their populations, besides they aren’t contesting the benefit of being in EU
Sorry again if France and Germany can get along, in spite of the many efforts done by the many american administrations to divide us and or the different countries of EU, now that your trojan horse, UK, is in a deep merda, and that you can’t back it, because of your same illness, and above it, because Obama hasn’t the same reverrence to the mother patry like the previous presidents of US, (uh didn’t the Brits burn your Capital though), UK is desaperatly courting the EU for money, money, money, not because they like us, a Brit only works for his purse !
and thank you, for taking care of our health, we aren’t at the article of the death, nor we are going to invade some part of the world.
The thing is, we Germans, and French ought to strenghten our voice toward our irrascible neighbour, Putin, but together, we can smash a vindicative Russia, don’t worry for us !
have a nice day
After reading all of these, some one needs to write up on the wonderful things EU does do for the common folks, no?
The thing is, we Germans, and French ought to strenghten our voice toward our irrascible neighbour, Putin, but together, we can smash a vindicative Russia, don’t worry for us !
Does this describe the function of EU, on the financial front?
Or D) Reduce benefits, which is scheduled to happen when the last of the T-bills are paid out. Teresita, the SSI surpluses of the last couple of decades have been invested in T-bills, this is true. But now that there are so many T-bills in circulation this is not necessarily a positive development. The surplus has been taken out one door in the Treasury and brought back in another in the form of T-bills, and spent year-to-year. What’s left in the trust fund is promises, nothing more. The SSI surplus has been a net benefit to the US budget since the 1970s, when it was added in to yearly receipts. Now, it’s going to be a net drag, and who do you think all those SSI-receiving voters are going to want their government to pay first?
All things considered, the next 30 years are going to be a crappy time to be old & sick, what with the SSI payments looking to drop and the Medicare “trust fund” going deeply underwater. It’s also going to be a fairly crappy time to be young, healthy and working, because that’s who is going to pay for the unfunded mandates of generations ago.
Always right, are you doubting it ?
Subotai @62:
I don’t have much first hand experience with the Greeks.
I’ve just passed through Athens a few times on my way to various MidEast and former Yugoslav locations, but I seem to recall they had a Hell of a civil war, communist invasion / insurgency type, back in the 40′s and early 50′s.
They’ve also had a lot of nastiness with the Turks, from the fall of Constantinople to just a few years ago.
As a people they have a sense of pride in their history and place in western civilizations history some Americans would find threateningly nationalistic. They’re not ashamed of their culture or history, quite the opposite in fact!
I spoke with a few Greek aquaintances, and their take is that the educated, sophisticated people in the cities are EUrophiles, while the folks who live and work in the towns and countryside want little to do with the EU at all, and are still smarting from the beating they took on the price of everything since they entered the EUrozone.
Given the long history of violent resistance to Turkish occupation, The difficult mountainous and island terrain, the strong sense of nationalism, and the ready access to arms available from former Yugoslav states and organized crime, the EU had better think twice about “un-employing” lots of military age Greek men.
That’s not to say they couldn’t move in and effectively control the place with the assistance of a puppet Greek government, but if they’re not carefull, they may bite off more than they want to chew & swallow. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Brussells had demonstrated the text book, ham-fisted example of pissing off large portions of the people in a given fiefdom…I mean country.
I wonder If there’s a copy of the film 300 available with good voice dubbing into modern Greek? The Internet provides all kinds of interesting opportunities for distribution…
Armagedon and alikes,
what you fail to understand, is that the comission will only control greec debt to recover its sanity, not its local and political busineses
Marie:
Based on what my Greek aquaintances said, much of what constitutes the economy in Athens and other large cities is government jobs of one kind or another. Almost the entire agricultural sector is heavily subsidized by the Greek government in indirect ways.
Tourism was the only large source of non-governmental money supporting the economy and people of Greece, and that has been drastically cut by Greek inflation after adopting the Euro, and by people world-wide cutting holiday spending to reflect the current economic depression.
If Brussels forces the Greek government to lay off its workers and cut subsidies to Greek agriculture, industry, arts, etc. thus causing the lay off of many more workers in the so called “private” sector, in order to reduce their budget, unemployment may approach 50%.
If that happens, there will be riots in Athens and many other cities throughout Greece. If the EU sends troops to “stabalize” the situation Greece will be well along the path to civil war.
Control of the Greek budget and national debt is tantamount to control of the economy since the Greek government has it’s fingers in so many economic pies there. If the apparatchicks in Brussels aren’t carefull, they’ll wish they’d sent more troops to Afghanistan years ago so they could get more seasoning in bitterly fought insurgent warfare in mountainous terrain.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!
Marie Claude,
To a certain extent, that is like saying “We’re not going to allow the government of France to issue more debt, and we’re going to control your taxation policy to be sure you make your payments. But we’re not going to interfere with your politics or business.” That works up until the required debt payments take up money that would otherwise go to public sector unions, at which point the EU will definitely be affecting political and business issues.
On the social security thing, I always looked at it as the ratio of people paying in to the ratio of people taking out. It has been steadily growing lopsided 10 to 1, 8 to 1, 6 to 1, and then I stopped keeping track. With unemployment, the number of people hitting retirement age It has to be pretty bad. On top of that people who where going to keep working till they could get the full or bonus amount of social security lost their jobs and took early retirement even if they got the lowest payout because it was better than nothing. They can draw from the general fund but that is going to accelerate the over draw on that already. Look for means testing to become law. Also they will be getting more picky about people with disability and minors drawing on it, not that they aren’t picky now. Look for a sneak tax of some sort to keep social security “funded.”
http://bruxelles.blogs.liberation.fr/coulisses/2010/02/la-gr%C3%A8ce-plac%C3%A9e-sous-surveillance-europ%C3%A9enne.html#more
this site explains how the “control” will be operated (sorry in french)
well, Greece, population and leaders have always cheated their counts
it’s in their mentality.
Now if it only was left up to me, I would let t’em do their own business as they always had up to now, and get bankrupted, because they can’t be reformed, it’s their ways.
Last year I hosted a french former legionnaire married to a greec woman. He told me that Greecs have 2 or 3 part-time jobs, or 1 job and the rest is “black”, the majority of them belongs to the 2nd category. “Black” means that they do all sorts of traffics, that could be also Bulgar mafia that proposes them. Even knowing that, this former legionnaire makes “traffics” too, he came to France with a lorry full of cigarettes or alikes, that he sold at a lower price (our cigarettes are expensives), naturally he found people or stores for buying them. He also said that Greeks like to enjoy life, and traffiquing is part of their untertainment, as well as earning their life. Also that he was quite happy to live in Greece, where food, population are nice.
Darren, “who do you think all those…” –not all –i’m not gonna take either one, SS nor Medicare. Folks can go ahead and make it ‘need-based’ right this instant, from the bottom up, individually.
#’s 69 & 71 Armageddon Rex and #72 Darren:
That brings up an angle that I had not considered. I was pondering the coercive means [and that is what it would have to come down to] if for domestic political reasons the Greek government found that it could not comply with EU diktats and found itself forced to recommend the virtues of coprophagia and expiration to Brussels. I was thinking along the lines of a standoff between Athens and Brussels as a government to government thing. I had not considered the “Peoples’ War” aspect. I rather suspect that the encounter will be entertaining in a certain morbid way so long as you are safely distant. They can’t [and won't] dare let Greece go, nor allow them to stay in while violating EU orders for fear of others imitating them.
I wonder how Brussels would phrase an equivalent to Lincoln’s April 15, 1861 call to the states for volunteers?
Subotai Bahadur
I think we all agree that the Greek government will not make te kind of cuts necessary because they would be tossed out of office. The Greek workers and unions are not going to accept reality, and the French and the Germans are not going to lend the Greeks money so where do you go from here?
Kick the Greeks out of the EMU? OK then what? Do they print their own currency? Or do they just keep printing Euros? That is what I would do if I were the Greek government. Greece is that 32 year old kid still living in your basement a phenom all too familiar to Europeans and increasingly familiar to Americans. You can’t throw him out. You can’t find him a job or make him work, and you can’t kill him.
Any animal gets to a certain age and it starts picking up parasites of varous kinds. The EU has Greece and the USA has California.
We may be seeing a situation arise in which the EU finds it proper and fitting to send armed troops into a member nation like Greece to quell uprisings and violent protests.
The protests that may prompt the almost inevitable soviet-style crackdown have started among public-sector employees who thought their life-long union support of cradle-to-grave socialist government expansion guaranteed their jobs and pensions.
Ironies heaped upon ironies…
Sadly, there’s not much comfort in seeing that there are dumb-asses everwhere a body casts an eyeball.
In the same week, Iran has sent up a research satellite with Turtles, Froggies, and worms, which according to triumphant reports from the Iranian Space Agency, have all been recovered in good health.
Careful scientific studies have established that the aggregate I.Q. of the crew of the Iranian spacecraft surpasses that of the incumbent U.S. executive branch by a large factor.
ol right, I’m transparent, Subotai carries on his stubborn vision of the EU (LMAO), though does he knows that that an anglo-saxon enterprise of rating, and analysing the credits business had made the survey of greece ?
first in 2004, that’s where the EU should have been more firm with the greec government ; the EU diktats like he likes to call them are liberal (in the european sense, therefore not lefty) and their objective is that each EU country fits the positive balance debts/credits, I suppose you read too much into your propaganda anti-EU, for not investigating more on true documents.
http://www.moodys.com/cust/default.asp
Greece experiments manifestations like in each EU country when one government is planning to cut off administrative privileges and or positions. Though if the events turn to become worst, greece have enough policemen and or soldiers to contain the mobs, just remember that at the end of the sixties there was a fashist regime of colonels there.
Stop making your scenario with american basis, EU is no America, therefore the old world has more aftermaths in its drawers than you ever had
Besides, if moodys was about to rate America or UK, the results would even worst than Greece, might be you’ll need the EU commission to control your government too.
Like Joe Hill I’m not expecting that Greece will change its habits, then we’ll get a fashist regime there, another moral problem for the EU too. Might be that necessity will make thatthe founding nations of EU will cut some ties with recalcitrant countries.
#79 Marie Claude
therefore the old world has more aftermaths in its drawers than you ever had
Madame, I understand that you do not speak colloquial American English. Therefore,I will not touch the quoted line above, other than to note that I am pretty sure that what you said probably, as best I can interpret it, is not related to what I thinkyou intended. At least I hope not.
Besides, if moodys was about to rate America or UK, the results would even worst than Greece, might be you’ll need the EU commission to control your government too.
Actually, Moody’s does rate the sovereign debt of most nations, including both the US and the UK. Both may be downgraded if we continue on our current path. However both are still at triple A rating, which is the highest. As is, incidentally France. I cannot find a rating for the EU, and I think that is because for the last several decades the auditors have not been able to see the books, and have therefore not signed off on the supposedly required annual audits of the EU budget.
I think I can say in reference to your statement, that as much as I, and others, detest our current regime; that if any aspect of the EU tries to get involved in our government in any way, controlling, advisory, or otherwise, that the reaction will make the Greeks we have been discussing above look like a kindergarten spat. We are better armed and far more bloody minded. I rather suspect that I am far from alone in that sentiment. There is a phrase from ancient Greece that would fit such a situation.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Subotai Bahadur
Greece is a preview of coming attractions all over.
Subotai,
your attempt to make a greec quotation failed :
All ΛΑΒΕ –> all ARABE ?
I’m not pretending that I know greec language, sorry my skills are just good for a broken English, a more broken German, and infancy attempts in Italian and Spanish, so at least that’s makes of me citizen of Europe
sorry if I hurt your feeling of patriot, but so long you weren’t mean to undermine mines
The first sentences means that since Europe history existed, different happenings occured, not only a civil war and or a revolution, because of our longer history and of our diversities
I am sure you personally ment that you’ll take the arms against us if we’d any intention to interven in your government enterprise, though once the founding fathers were glad that we did. So, in parallel of your warnings, I can tell you that I would not support any european intervention towards America, at least a French one.
I like your comparaison of “kindergarten” for Greece, then you ignore what the colonel regime was able of, and as far as your supposed superiority, you probably have the strengh, and the material, but not necessarly the tactics, and above it the support of the american nowadays population, so, in this virtual scenarion, not sure that you’ll be the winner at the end, Blacks and hispanics have demonstrated that they aren’t choir children, and can have imagination in fighting
this phrase is an advice
禪宗還是我的朋友
Alright, Marie, how about this? (if the text editor will allow it)
Μολὼν λαβέ
It’s not that hard to figure out. You could even say that it’s Laconic.
for subotai:
“therefore the old world has more aftermaths in its drawers than you ever had”
Your restraint is truly legendary. ROFLMAO!!!
wws,
uh of course, as a Texan, you are aware of this “motto” !
Molon labe has been repeated by many later generals and politicians in order to express an army’s or nation’s determination to not surrender. The motto ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ is on the emblem of the Greek First Army Corps,[3] and is also the motto of United States Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT).[4] The expression “Come and take it” was a slogan in the Texas Revolution.
In the Anglosphere, both the original Greek phrase and its English translation are often heard from pro-gun activists as a defence of the right to keep and bear arms. It began to appear on pro-RKBA web sites in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the wake of firearm seizures during Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent defiance by the New Orleans government of Federal court orders to return seized weapons, the phrase has again gained popularity among Second Amendment supporters.
Molon labe has been recently used in the 2007 feature film 300 in which Leonidas speaks this famous line in English in response to “Spartans! Lay down your weapons!” as “Persians! Come and get them!” In the 1999 comic book of the same name, upon which the film is based, the phrase becomes “Come and get it”, with no exchange concerning the laying down of arms.[5] In the earlier 1962 film The 300 Spartans Leonidas says the phrase both in Greek and English to the Persian general Hydarnes. The same exchange contains Dienekes’ remark about “fighting in the shade” (as Persian arrows would “blot out the sun”), assigned to Leonidas.
MC, they are joking about the word ‘drawers’ –which is a slang term for ‘underwear’, or ‘panties’, or ‘shorts’. You could joke back in French slang –but we wouldn’t ‘get’ it — us’s am invulnerabubble!
But, do search [ Gonzales cannon ]
Buddy, you’re a “pote”
uh how about the “rough riders” or the dreamed life of a warrior, as far as lots of our heros here ?
http://www.answers.com/topic/military-slang-1
some colorful expressions
MC, the disappointment of my life, i was born a century or two too late –ah, the days of simple life and no forms to file –plus you kicked the bucket at 50 while you were still riding hard and plenty frisky. Now we lay around ’til 90 and spend half our life ‘old’ –yes –you are right, completely right.
Anyhoo, here’s how ‘Molon Lave’ applies to my scribbling here: the “Come And Take It” cannon started the Texas Revolution (the Alamo war):
(snip)
Since the citizens of Gonzales decided the old cannon should not be surrendered to anyone who might effectively use it against them, especially the Mexicans, they buried it in George W. Davis’ peach orchard on September 29th. They then taunted General Cos with the message to “come and find it.” General Cos reacted quickly. He sent a detachment of one hundred men under the command of Lieutenant Francisco Castaneda to forcibly retrieve it.
This action was not unexpected by the town’s leaders. With the little gun safely hidden among the peach trees, they sent out word to other communities for help. By the time the Mexican army arrived on the other side of the Guadalupe River, 160 Gonzales defenders had gathered on the opposite bank, including Colonel John H. Moore from LaGrange, Colonel James W. Fannin and his “Brazos Guards,” and William B. Travis. Some of the volunteer force dug up the cannon, polished, loaded, and primed it, and mounted it on two wooden oxcart wheels.
On 2 October 1835, the village of Gonzales became enshrined in history as “the Lexington of Texas.” Flying a home-made, six foot battle flag made from the white silk of Evaline DeWitt’s wedding gown, the Texians went to war. Evaline DeWitt was the widow of George C. DeWitt, who had died a few weeks previously. On the flag was painted a picture of the tiny cannon. Above the gun was a lone star. Beneath it were the words, “Come and Take It.”
At the first blast from the 65-pound cannon, the Mexicans scattered, eventually retreating to San Antonio.
(end snip)
ah, La vie rêvée du cow-boy,
I played to the game “les cow-boys et les indiens” when I was young, naturally my part was among the “winners”, it was mostly about fightings, not about to appreciate a natural life style, that besides we already had in our countrysides.
May-be Argentina still has the spaces for such a “ride movie”, “Gauchos” still look after thousands of cattle in the Pampa
thanks for the precision of “Molon labe”, I read a few things that weren’t so clear
Greece has more Marxists than all the rest of Europe combined. Not just euro-socialists, whatever this means, but hard-core Communists. So, this country is doomed. They need two or three decades of Gulag prison camps to come to their senses.
Sergey said:
“Greece has more Marxists than all the rest of Europe combined. Not just euro-socialists, whatever this means, but hard-core Communists.”
Unfortunately this is true. The Greek civil war between the communists and everyone else almost destroyed the country. The Soviet Union correctly saw Greece as a strategic nation and put considerable resources into funding the local communists.
So many wind-up robots created by the Soviets are still aimlessly wandering around trying to follow their dead master’s programming. It’s more pathetic than funny.
“The economic crisis in the West is in part a cultural crisis born of a contradiction in expectations. For many decades and especially since the End of History was declared circa 1989, there was a widespread belief that an unlimited amount of money existed from which to draw while populations went around fulfilling themselves tending the garden of Gaia in a politically correct universe in which there was no need for guns, no prospect of hunger and no cause for danger.”
With 60+ years of unparalled growth in the USA (post WWII), we collectively have been conditioned to accept Wretchard’s summary (above). With my limited understanding of history and its cycles, I think the mess we’re in had to happen. Yes, intelligent choices could have been made all along that would have kept US on an even keel, but that didn’t happen.
Context. It’s all-important.
Mad Fiddler,
“We may be seeing a situation arise in which the EU finds it proper and fitting to send armed troops into a member nation like Greece to quell uprisings and violent protests.”
I agree. And I wonder if they’ll ask the US Air Force to transport them, or if they’ll take the train.
To parody Gogol:
In Euroland, we have generous subsidies for farting, which lead to bigger and more frequent meals, more farting and consequently greater subsidies. Life is fantastic yet the air is becoming stale. Careful with those matches.
In the UK, if you are a new immigrant and have worked for a year, the UK will pay child benefits for all your children left behind in your old country. Yes, all 73 of them.
The vast public sector, in every EU country, has long forgotten that its wages are paid for by the taxation of those doing the real work. Its a fantasy socialist world.
in Euroland we eat boiled cabbage for farting
a guess, you just came out of the iranian spacecraft
Greece
Army:
80 000 professional militaries, 98 000 conscripts, and 291 000 réservistes.
Police, infiltratred by far-rightists, check the net with “police”, Greece, “army”, you’l see if they are weak, there are plenty of pages about how they treat manifestants
so, don’t take your dreams for granted, Greece has no need of our intervention, besides Greece is also a nato member, a guess, GI joes–> hello Greece !
MC/96; “tout le monde” ?
(ok ok, ”toot” is another ainglee slang –for the expression of boiled cabbage aftereffects)
***
What’s happening now needs to be directed back to the ”youth riots” some months ago in Greece (remember the resist-arrest student that got shot, or some like, set of months of vandalism). Either or both, some in Greece are deliberately subverting its western orientation, or simple lack of confidence of Greeks themselves, what with the streets of Athens being up for grabs.
back then, i read a few news stories deep backgrounding what the future looks like, by way of economic opportunity, to an average greek young person –if true, the picture was astonishingly grim.
As the old post WWI expression went –”Now that they’ve seen Paris, how ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm?”
With Greece, how are the kids gonna like raising goats, like 450 BC ?
…the answer is, they won’t –they’ll rather invade Persia again, like in the glory days of Alexander the Great (rather than Alexander the Accountant).
sure the youngs will not go back to raise goats !
this is where a world conflict would solve the problem, this is 2 generations there hasn’t been a major conflict that makes millions of dead, before there was one war pro generation, and this equilibrated the forces of a population, for too many idle young males, it is likely to become remnent streets guerillas.
Idem for us, that would solve the unemployment of our surburbans
MC, i bet you’re not the only one noticing those things. I wish i knew who wrote this –Churchill quoted it in the years just before WWII began.
Who is in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak and the couplings strain,
and the pace is hot and the points are near,
and sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear,
and the signals flash through the night in vain,
for death is in charge of the clattering train
http://www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?7,153503
here you have the response
Who is in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak, and the couplings strain.
Ten minutes behind at the Junction. Yes!
And we’re twenty now to the bad–no less!
We must make it up on our flight to town.
Clatter and crash! That’s the last train down,
Flashing by with a steamy trail.
Pile on the fuel! We must not fail.
At every mile we a minute must gain!
Who is in charge of the clattering train?
Why, flesh and blood, as a matter of course!
You may talk of iron, and prate of force;
But, after all, and do what you can,
The best–and cheapest–machine is Man!
Wealth knows it well, and the hucksters feel
‘Tis safer to trust them to sinew than steel.
With a bit of brain, and a conscience, behind,
Muscle works better than steam or wind.
Better, and longer, and harder all round;
And cheap, so cheap! Men superabound
Men stalwart, vigilant, patient, bold;
The stokehole’s heat and the crow’s-nest’s cold,
The choking dusk of the noisome mine,
The northern blast o’er the beating brine,
With dogged valour they coolly brave;
So on rattling rail, or on wind-scourged wave,
At engine lever, at furnace front,
Or steersman’s wheel, they must bear the brunt
Of lonely vigil or lengthened strain.
Man is in charge of the thundering train!
Man, in the shape of a modest chap
In fustian trousers and greasy cap;
A trifle stolid, and something gruff,
Yet, though unpolished, of sturdy stuff.
With grave grey eyes, and a knitted brow,
The glare of sun and the gleam of snow
Those eyes have stared on this many a year.
The crow’s-feet gather in mazes queer
About their corners most apt to choke
With grime of fuel and fume of smoke.
Little to tickle the artist taste–
An oil-can, a fist-full of “cotton waste,”
The lever’s click and the furnace gleam,
And the mingled odour of oil and steam;
These are the matters that fill the brain
Of the Man in charge of the clattering train.
Only a Man, but away at his back,
In a dozen ears, on the steely track,
A hundred passengers place their trust
In this fellow of fustian, grease, and dust.
They cheerily chat, or they calmly sleep,
Sure that the driver his watch will keep
On the night-dark track, that he will not fail.
So the thud, thud, thud of wheel upon rail
The hiss of steam-spurts athwart the dark.
Lull them to confident drowsiness. Hark!
What is that sound? ‘Tis the stertorous breath
Of a slumbering man,–and it smacks of death!
Full sixteen hours of continuous toil
Midst the fume of sulphur, the reek of oil,
Have told their tale on the man’s tired brain,
And Death is in charge of the clattering train!
Sleep–Death’s brother, as poets deem,
Stealeth soft to his side; a dream
Of home and rest on his spirit creeps,
That wearied man, as the engine leaps,
Throbbing, swaying along the line;
Those poppy-fingers his head incline
Lower, lower, in slumber’s trance;
The shadows fleet, and the gas-gleams dance
Faster, faster in mazy flight,
As the engine flashes across the night.
Mortal muscle and human nerve
Cheap to purchase, and stout to serve.
Strained too fiercely will faint and swerve.
Over-weighted, and underpaid,
This human tool of exploiting Trade,
Though tougher than leather, tenser than steel.
Fails at last, for his senses reel,
His nerves collapse, and, with sleep-sealed eyes,
Prone and helpless a log he lies!
A hundred hearts beat placidly on,
Unwitting they that their warder’s gone;
A hundred lips are babbling blithe,
Some seconds hence they in pain may writhe.
For the pace is hot, and the points are near,
And Sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear;
And signals flash through the night in vain.
Death is in charge of the clattering train!
apparently the link is broken
then I’ll copy you the interesting pieces
Its called “Death and his brother sleep” by Edwin J Milliken.
I’ve been in touch with the head of mechanical engineering from Imperial College London (he has researched rail crashes) about this and he hasn’t tracked down this crash yet. Marindin was BoT investigator from 1895 to 1900, Milliken died in 1897, so the crash must have happened between 1895 -1897. He found a crash in that period at Eastleigh but the circumstances don’t fit.
The source of the information was a letter from the Punch archives, but I’m not sure to whom the letter was addressed! Henry
According to our [Punch’s] contributor’s ledger it [the poem] was written by an Edwin J. Milliken. From what I have picked up he seems to have held the literary post at Punch, equivalent in status to the chief cartoonist, writing much of the magazines poetry and the “letterpress explanatory” of the main cartoons.
DEATH AND HIS BROTHER SLEEP (Queen Mab)
Major Marindin, in his report to the Board of Trade on the railway collision at Eastleigh, attributes it to the engine driver and stoker having “failed to keep a proper look-out”. His opinion is that both men were “asleep or nearly so” owing to having been on duty for nearly sixteen hours and a half. “He expresses himself in very strong terms on the great danger to the public of working engine drivers and firemen for too great a number of hours ” – Daily Chronicle
Cool –thanks, MC! I heard the short few lines (i used in my comment) in an HBO movie –somebody had given me the disc for Christmas –”The Gathering Storm” –Albert Finney as WC –a great flic, BTW.
So i remembered something like ‘death is in charge of the clattering train’ and was able to dig up just the shred.
In the movie, WC uses it in conversation with an associate, as a metaphor for Europe during the 30s, as the ‘war train’ was picking up speed, and beginning to run out of control.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704022804575041733133321528.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth
Might interest you, MC –
Churchill wasn’t really my cup of tea because of this good reason that the Brits aren’t quite our “supporters” and faithful alliees, and probably because of what de Gaulle had to suffer under the Brits contempted protection, though I recognize that he was an interesting person, and if I have enough time I might digg more into his personality.
there is a movie that just been launched on screens:
http://movies.sbc.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/execution-an-offbeat-view-stalins-last-days-reuters
about Stalin last years, I read the book of Marc Duagain, and it is very interesting to know how Russians lived under Stalin and in the first days of Putin’s regime, it’s also from this book that I learnt a few anecdotes about Putin
http://mysoupis.blogspot.com/2007/02/book-i-am-reading.html
http://www.evene.fr/cinema/films/une-execution-ordinaire-27699.php?video
a video of the new Marc Dugain’s movie
Critics are unanimous, it a good work, and the actor that incarnates Stalin is impressive
Fedorovski, a former Soviet diplomat finds it excellent, (video)
http://programmes.france2.fr/vous-aurez-le-dernier-mot/index.php?page=article&numsite=4199&id_article=12407&id_rubrique=4202
MC: Les reves “cowboys” are superior to les reves rouges, bruns, et noirs which Europe has burdened the world with for 200+ years.
wow –good stuff –i just glanced off it so far but have saved all for later in the morning. BTW my link in #105 isn’t about WC –it’s just an article in the WSJ about old French places of interest that are being used in various art forms today. Off-beat but interesting, i thought.
I do understand about WC and the French –he was the head les ang, and the zang were his first interest & duty –he withdrew RAF from France during the fighting (not to mention the Expeditionery Force at Dunkirk, which was, um, forced) –Americans too realize how badly he wanted America to join the fight, and that it was because he wanted America to help the British. But probably because of the fullness of his character, which a common language allows us to see, Americans don’t feel manipulated (well, some do) but instead understand how frank and obvious that maneuvering was, and that any patriot would do the same under similar circumstances.
In fact, he was a lot like De Gaulle, in his nationalism and cultural pride (no surprise, that’s a very large part of what a people need in a total war leader). And likewise, the anglos don’t feel all that warm toward De Gaulle –so i guess it’s just one of those cultural selfishness things –not xenophobia but halfway there –that we all do.
Buddy, of course I have read your link about those french books that I have read too, fictions on historical facts and psychological “researches” on the characters personnality, also explorations narrations, are my favorite readings
gokart-mozart,
yeah, but they don’t inspire “chefs-d’oeuvres” in litterature, or art, like coercive regimes
toad: On the social security thing, I always looked at it as the ratio of people paying in to the ratio of people taking out. It has been steadily growing lopsided 10 to 1, 8 to 1, 6 to 1, and then I stopped keeping track. With unemployment, the number of people hitting retirement age It has to be pretty bad.
The Social Security Administration already crunched the numbers. There are currently 3.2 workers for each Social Security beneficiary. By 2034, there will be 2.1 workers for each beneficiary. Near geezers like me (I’m 44) have far more earning power than 21 year old kids working at McDonalds or Starbucks. That translates to far more influence with Congress. Seasoned citizens vote, punk kids blow it off and go to the mall. That means given a choice between reducing benefits or raising payroll taxes, it is far more likely that taxes will go up. And that on top of Obama’s coming mandate for those kids to get health insurance whether they need it or not. Sucks to be young.
Greece and Japan are the canaries in the mine. Governments and people can increase debt without obbvious concern so long as their underlying income grows at a faster rate than the debt. The problem comes when income stops growing, or the increases in debt vastly exceed any likely increase in income. When it happens to a person, banks stop lending to that person. Japan and Greece face increasing debt, and decreasing income. At some point investors will get concerned whether the Greek or Japanese bonds will be repaid. No one will want to be the last investor out of these markets. We will see a sudden equilibrium change from relatively low rates to high rates, first in Greece and Japan, and then in the many other debtor nations including the US.
@ Buddy Larsen
I’m the one who did the follow up research in tracking down the background to the Clattering Train. Here are the details of the accident which inspired it, a relatively minor accident as it happens, except for the death of Guard Turner.
**As some of you will remember we have been questing after the accident which inspired this poem for several years now and finally we have a result. It was a very minor accident which is why it hasn’t made it into print or on-line until now.
On the evening of 12th July 1890, a light engine (i.e. engine only, no train) ran through signals at Eastleigh North Junction and collided at relatively low speed with the rear of a freight train standing waiting a path through the station. Nobody would have been hurt but for the freak chance that a length of wood thrown from the wreckage penetrated the guard’s lookout window of an excursion passing on another track and killed the guard. It is clear that the driver and fireman of the light engine had both missed seeing stop signals at the previous signalbox, Chandler’s Ford. The signalman had tried to attract their attention by waving a red lamp but they did not see that either.
The light engine, named “Castor”, had set off from Salisbury at 8.39 pm to run to Southampton. Its driver, William Pitt, with fireman Joseph Pitcher, had been on duty from 6.30 am having worked the following:-
6.30 am Southampton – Weymouth Passenger, arr 9.05
10.35 Weymouth – Portland goods, arr 11.20
Shunt at Portland
12.00 Portland – Weymouth goods, arr 12.15
Lunch 12.15 – 12.45
2.20 Weymouth-Eastleigh light engine arr 5.11
6.05 Eastleigh – Salisbury special arr 7.00
Shunt at Salisbury
8.39 Salisbury-Southampton light engine.
The man killed was Guard Turner of the London & South Western railway, and the train in which he was riding was a Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway excursion returning to Bath.
But for the freak death of Guard Turner the incident would probably have escaped attention. As it was, it was unremarkable by the standards of the day – by contrast, that at Armagh in 1889 was truly horrific – so I’m surprised it inspired such a poem. There was no runaway train rattling through the night – just two tired men who missed a signal.
My thanks go to Prof R A Smith, Professor at the Dept of Mech Eng, Imperial College and Glen Simpson of York for their help in finding the accident report in the archives of the NRM.**