The Bar of Cadiz
Two dramatic events unfolded in Europe yesterday. The first was when Gordon Brown drove a stake through his own political heart on the campaign stump. Brown was pressing flesh among supporters when an old lady asked about “all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?” Brown answered with what the Online Times called his “fixed smile” with ill but feigned grace; moments later he savaged the lady as a “bigot” in the imagined privacy of his limousine. He forgot to turn his radio mike off. It was a Jekyll and Hyde performance, Brown’s own gun and Bible-clinging fiasco, and will probably be fatal to his campaign.
The second event was the spread of the Greek contagion through the Eurozone as Spain’s credit rating was downgraded. Although some leaders blamed the ratings companies.
Ratings agencies have been strongly criticized for their role in the U.S. financial crisis, in particular over conflicts of interest and their failure to recognize the high risks inherent in complex structured products. They have also been panned for throwing fuel onto the fire of crises by belatedly ratcheting down ratings, stirring many investors to scramble to sell securities.
But unless the ratings companies are completely off, the problem facing European authorities now is how to stop the cascade. The Southern European economies are weak and are being punished by higher rates of interest.
The crisis affecting the Eurozone worsened yesterday when Spain’s credit rating was downgraded less than 24 hours after Greece was sent into financial meltdown.
Fear of contagion gripped Europe’s financial markets when the debt rating agency Standard & Poor’s cut the rating on Spain’s sovereign bonds. The decision — coming after the agency downgraded Portugal’s rating and cast Greek bonds into the scrapyard, designating them junk — sent the euro plunging against the dollar.
The risk that weak eurozone economies might be infected by a Greek financial virus added pressure to an emergency meeting in Berlin, where the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank considered a proposal to triple the size of a bailout for Greece.
The Guardian says there are fears that Portugal might be next. “Portugal’s Socialist prime minister José Sócrates called in opposition leader Pedro Passos Coelho, of the centre-right Social Democrat party, for an emergency meeting … Portugal shares Greece’s explosive cocktail of a high budget deficit, a large and growing debt mountain and poor growth prospects.” Peter Boone and Simon Johnson of the NYT blogs predicted on April 15 that Portugal might be in trouble.
Next on the radar will be Portugal. This nation has largely missed the spotlight, if only because Greece spiraled downward. But both are economically on the verge of bankruptcy, and they each look far riskier than Argentina did back in 2001 when it succumbed to default.
Portugal spent too much over the last several years, building its debt up to 78 percent of G.D.P. at the end of 2009 (compared with Greece’s 114 percent of G.D.P. and Argentina’s 62 percent of G.D.P. at default). The debt has been largely financed by foreigners, and as with Greece, the country has not paid interest outright, but instead refinances its interest payments each year by issuing new debt. By 2012 Portugal’s debt-to-G.D.P. ratio should reach 108 percent of G.D.P. if the country meets its planned budget deficit targets. At some point financial markets will simply refuse to finance this Ponzi game.
The problem is that the conflagration threatens not only to move north into the core EU economies but to jump the channel. Another article from the Guardian reported that “UK banks sitting on £100bn exposure to Greece, Spain and Portugal”. That will add to Britains already weakening credit ratings. Labor’s impending loss in Britain will do little to slow the growth of its debt. The reductions proposed by all the major British parties to spending are far too small to have any major impact on the situation. While they agreed that the RMS Titanic is leaking, all they have between them are a bunch of 5 gallon pails.
Vermont Public Radio says that unless the problem is firewalled it will cross the Atlantic to the US. First, American institutions have exposure to Portugal and Spain. Second, the dollar will rise with the decline of the Euro, killing US export prospects. Third, it will “derail” the recovery. It’s safe to say that the next few weeks in Europe will be interesting ones. They will put pressure on the Euro, the Pound and ultimately the Dollar.
Like the Brown campaign, the world financial system is entering a critical period. Some really fundamental changes and not just government stimulus and band-aids are necessary to fix the underlying problems. Greece and Portugal are extreme examples of fundamental shortcomings: bad demographics, inefficient economies and a declining human capital base. The problem is way beyond the capability of Green Jobs, carbon trading or other shambolic nostrums to fix.
Farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain;
For we’re bound beyond the bar of Cadiz,
But we hope very soon we shall see you again.
The problem is way beyond the capability of Green Jobs, carbon trading or other shambolic nostrums to fix.
Oh ye of little faith in shambolic nostrums!
I think we’re looking at the wavefront of Phase 2 of the meltdown right here. The interesting thing is that none of the major British parties have a clue to solving the problem. They’re still fiddling at the edges of a system whose basis is under threat. So if the crisis crosses the continent it will not only be a catastrophe for the British Labor Party but a catastrophe for the entire establishment political system. They’ll be like the cop in the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms who comes out to meet the Rhedosaurus with a .38 police special.
From my own uninformed view, I think the European political systems with their ossified mainstream parties and their nasty fringe parties present the danger of a “cliff function”. If Labor, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats go down the tubes who’ll pick up the pieces, the BNP? This is the real price of holding on to politically correct fantasy for too long. They’ve failed to adjust incrementally, “doubling down” each time. And now if it goes, it goes right over. Those unshakeable pillars of the establishment like the BBC and Oxbridge and going to prove as eternal as Lehman Brothers and General Motors. Nothing is too big to fail. So the worry is that Europe won’t have the political flexibility to respond and may become whipsawed by the bimodal distribution of its politics.
The great advantage of America, as I’ve written earlier, is that more people recognized the truth sooner. Limited though they may be, the Tea Parties are to today what Paul Revere was back in Boston. They’ve ridden out to sound the alarm. That’s an advantage, but a slim one. The challenges coming down the pipe are going to be quite daunting.
Down the Gualalquivir, the old river of war
From Seville to the sea and then west
To the sun spattered lands of the Aztecs they bore
Men of steel, men or arms, Europe’s best
That was then, this is now, golden days are long gone
When the ships and the men put to sea
And returned with the gold to Cadiz with the dawn
A fair harbor and safety to lee
The Platte fleet now sails in the night in the dreams
Of a nation now somehow laid low
By the socialist nostrums and socialist schemes
Of the leftists who could not say no
To the unions and others who held out their hands
For the good things the leftists could give
Now the rivers of war water sparse and dry lands
And the dream of the past does not live
The cascade of debt accumulated used to finance shoddy asserts that created a false impression of wealth, that was subsequently relied upon to justify profligate social welfare expenditures and extraordinary benefits for government employees, has bounced back and forth across the oceans and around the world. The economies are now consuming themselves, with the efforts to restore sanity resulting in spreading misery. This is the economic equivalent of an auto-immune disease spreading from host to host. It can largely be traced back to Barney Franks and his boyfriend at Fannie Mae. That unprepossessing duo may prove to be the Patient Zeros of the fiscal Aids crisis. Ultimately they may be responsible for more widespread suffering than Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. Barney the destructive dinosaur wreaks havoc.
Andrew Ian Dodge believes that a deal is in the works between Cameron of the Tories and his old schoolmate at Eton, Clegg of the Lib Dems. If that happens then the pacifist impulses of the Lib Dems and the Wettest impulses in the Conservatives may combine to make Americans remember fondly the great days of our partnership with Labour. The space for a voice friendly to America is getting smaller and smaller in Europe. Dodge believes that the major parties are foolishly throwing voters to the BNP. My question is can the UKIP benefit as the saner alternative?
My question is can the UKIP benefit as the saner alternative?
Maybe. Other political systems may have equivalent ways of responding to the crisis. The Tea Parties hearken to a particularly American tradition. Others may have incomprehensible, but effective ways of achieving the results. So the only thing is to wait and see.
Now, what do we look for? I think the irreducible signs of life are: a) are alternative groups beginning to develop a consensus understanding of the problem? b) are they converging on possible solutions? and c) are they evolving a core, but democratic leadership to deal with it?
If we see things happening then whether or not it is as strange or incomprehensible as cricket is not an issue. Something positive is happening. I would worry most if we start seeing an old style “mass movement” which really means astroturf with strings pulled behind the scenes some left or right or crazy faction. A real mass movement has many, but convergent voices in dialogue. A fake mass movement has a savage order all its own.
Walt @ 3,
Brilliant. Evocative, poignant, Ozymandian. Shelley ain’t got nuthin’ on thee.
Cheers,
L3
Reports I am seeing are those nations in Europe that can bail out Greece & soon to follow Portugal are in no mood to do so. If my recollection serves me well, the numbers I hear range from 80-90% against bailouts. Of course, the whole too-big-to-fail mantra will start rearing its head, and I suppose if GM is reckoned too big to fail I suppose a nation state fits that category too.
Is anyone or any institution really that far from disaster & death?
O’Dithers is faced with Hobson’s Choices everywhere: What to do? what to ….-
“Action on immigration reform may be more dangerous than inaction”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7110949.ece
…-
“Now Obama Is Making Emergency Calls To Merkel Over Greek Aid”
“The Greek crisis is obviously freaking out The White House.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/now-obama-is-making-emergency-calls-to-merkel-over-greek-aid-2010-4
Is anyone or any institution really that far from disaster & death?
The paradoxical opportunity within this crisis is that the Western Hemisphere and Oceania stand to gain in relative terms if a global crisis cascades. I wrote earlier that three countries are likely to ride anything out. The USA, Canada and Australia. Plus the Western Hemisphere by extension. The three giant countries produce food, are geographically secure and have relative domestic peace. That plus technology.
On Eurasia things are not so clear. What happens to China if their partners can’t buy their goods? The factories idled, the workers destituted? What happens to the oil producing countries if demand dives? How do they sustain the welfare which props up their legitimacy? Will Germany, which has a real economy, finally dominate whatever emerges? Has the UK, having bet on services and finance, made the wrong bet? A global crisis may create a World War 2 like destruction not by warfare, but by economic realignment. The US post World War 2 pre-eminence wasn’t due to American brilliance, but rather to the fact that the Old World cut its throat. This may be happening again. If the Euro declines, the dollar is the last haven. If systems break down, a lot of countries which rely on food imports paid for by exports might find themselves short of three hots and a cot. In Canada, Australia and the USA there will be food and there will be secure borders (provided Washington agrees) come what may.
Now all this is worst-case speculation. But it’s interesting to pursue it just as a speculative exercise. First it means 2010 will be a very crucial election because an early ripening of the crisis means it will have to be met under an Obama administration. So 2010 is the only gateway into policy by conservatives for a crucial period. The political crisis is front loaded if the 2nd Wave hits now.
This is where the World War 2 scenario breaks down. If Washington is completely completely dysfunctional it will fail to seize the opportunities that arise and may even multiply the dangers. And even while America may gain relatively, the world as a whole, including the USA will suffer in absolute terms. Less money, less food, less everything. The only consolation is that others will be much, much worse off. So a 2nd Wave will not only magnify the importance of 2010 but intensify the political crisis in America.
Of course the whole thing may blow over on the weekend and we may be worrying about nothing.
I know this is bad for the whole world economy, But I do think there’s some poetic justice going on here. Greece and Greeks by in large are arrogant and condescending pains in the ass.Greece, instead of going to Germany, hat in hand and asking for help said, “just give us(your superiors) the money”.Now the Krauts(shuttup, my name is Kreutzberg)being the last productive society in europe said “what,you want me to work into my late 70′s so you worthless layabouts can retire from your 30 hour a week make work jobs at 48″? Ain’t going to happen bitches. I’d love to see China or Russia buy greece and put their lazy asses to work. It would scare the hell out of Spain and Portugal and the rest of our 60 yr old children living in the basement(europe). Granted, we have our own problems, Dingy lovelorn white women(McArdle Althouse types) put a “dreamy” communist in the whitehouse but we will figure a workaround for Obama untill we turn him to a bitter ex-president like Jimmah.
The funny thing about confidence is that when it’s gone, baby, it’s gone.
By all rights, Greece shouldn’t matter a whit. It’s entire GDP is equal to about one month’s worth of spending by Washington DC. It’s about 0.57% of the global economy. It’s a rounding error.
But if it fails, the magic protective bubble that surrounds sovereign debt will burst. “Wha!?!? Default on sovereign debt? But, man, it’s sovereign! Like, you know, a king. It’s the King of Debt! Next thing you’ll be telling me that Budweiser is not really the King of Beers! Maybe the Clydesdales are really pantomime horses! Arrggghhh! Beam me up, Scotty!!!”
That’s why Greece will get bailed out. By the US. If you live in a 14,257 square foot mansion, and your next door neighbor is living in a 330 square foot Airstream, and you’re levered to the eyeballs, and your neighbor threatens to go into foreclosure, you step in a buy his damn trailer to keep the bank from looking too closely at your loan.
This doesn’t solve the problem of course. But at least you have a place to send your teenagers when you get tired of listening to their music, their friends, and their whining.
“So, you see my problem, little ones: I can’t keep you all here any longer…me mind’s made up. I’ve given this long and careful thought, and it has to be Greek holidays for the lot of you.”
L3
…Mr. Obama has frittered away the great trust he had after his election by his deceitfulness. Whatever hard times are coming, he is more in the position that Hoover was in than he will be considered a laterday FDR. He may well find himself in the position after November of having to take back, from his lefty base, entitlements they depend on while all the while having to beg the Republican Congress for money and tax raises. Mr. Obama has shown himself to be not good at working with those he dislikes. He has not the charm or lack of ideology that got Clinton through his difficulties.
Americans have advantages nobody else has.
We occupy the most valuable, most productive, most fertile, most bountiful, best watered real estate on the planet, with convenient inland waterways for commerce.
And somewhere close to half of the Americans actually really do believe
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
and of these an ever growing number are becoming aware of The Constitution and the 2nd, 9th, 10th, 16th, and 17th Amendments.
In the end, the United States Government will be returned to its Constitutional mandate or it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Easier said than done, but when a critical mass of Producers who have spent their lives playing by the rules are plundered, they will rise and take their country back, what’s left of it, and it will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.
Or maybe I watch too much History Channel.
Greece, and other southern European countries + Ireland, should have never accepted the Euro. It is never wise not to control your own currency, but imagine trying to run Greece with a German currency, that’s the problem. Greek labor can’t compete at that price, they simply lack the required productivity and it’d take years to build it. Same goes for Spain, Portugal, and even Italy. These countries do not face a liquidity crisis, so any bailout is either an effort to buy time for creditors to unwind or a foolish hope. Greece can meet every austerity target on spending reductions and raise taxes across the board, but it won’t help. Let’s face it; what Greece, and Spain, too, have left are mainly tourism and retirement economies. It was always better for them when folks came down from up north bearing pounds, francs, and marks.
What all of these countries need to do is leave the EU and scrap the Euro, and it’ll be interesting if one does bolt. The others will follow. Sadly, by now lots of money from France, Germany, Britain, and the US has gotten tangled up in maintaining this fiction that someplace like Greece is effectively a Barvaria on the Med, when it’s not. Lots of folks are going to take a haircut on this. The US is very much among that group, and becoming even moreso now that the IMF is in the picture. That’s a terrible investment, a negative one in fact. One Goldman’s sure to short at the right time, of course!
Edit: These countries do not face MERELY a liquitiy crisis
10.ck – Ouch. Spot on, but ouch.
Walt – That’s gotta be one of your best yet.
Wretchard sez: “If Washington is completely completely dysfunctional it will fail to seize the opportunities that arise and may even multiply the dangers. And even while America may gain relatively, the world as a whole, including the USA will suffer in absolute terms.”
Collossally tragic, but this is the most likely scenario. With little doubt, the vermin currently running the asylum are the worst insects that have ever infested the American corridors of power, topped by that nasty little un-American dit.
ck
you’re repeating what “Bild” dipayed since the beginning, when Greece problem appeared on screens, though it ain’t the whole truth : german banks are holding quite a part of the greek bonds too(as well France’s), more than the CDS ofThat the accused Goldman sachs is supposed to hold (about 2% of the whole debt),and this is more worriable for them, because they will not recover their bet, and that german taxes payors will anyway have to bail them out !
Now, the evilness of the german governation of this affair, was that in delaying its response to the problem at the very beginning, was also betting on things going worse for the euro, and in the meanwhile, having a currency at a lower rating would make the exportations bursting, which it had !
Besides Germany knew that the Greeks would not behave since the beginning of the existence of the euro, because they have many second residences in Greece, as well as in spain, or the german masses spend there holidays in these countries.
Now, it is the new behaviour of Germany that deliberatly humiliates the euro members which will cause damages, Germany ostensibly shows who is the master of the game. In the long term it will end badly for her as it has previouly happened in the past centuries !
So we’re back to the SVO/FSB party line?
———
The fact that counts is that the Euro was a fictive unified currency with an imagined central bank…
Instead, the EMU ersatz currency is merely a ‘synthetic-gold-standard’ whereby the issuing nations agreed – on paper – to maintain exchange parity at one-to-one for their currencies.
Even at this hour one can spot Euros issued by Germany: their serial numbers end in an X.
Likewise, all other issuers have a national serial suffix.
The Euro was a fraud.
I predicted that the EMU would fold up over politics and national budget divergences over a year-ago.
Many are placing bets that it will be FRANCE that dumps the Euro FIRST.
The next day Germany will drop-out as well.
BTW Greek debt is in free-fall and I’d say Lehman II is upon us.
——
BTW Syn-CDO’s run to about $1,000,000,000,000 outstanding. Most were structured with adverse-selections by the true originators. When this reality hits the government pension crowd the political blast wave will be towering.
“I’d love to see China or Russia buy greece and put their lazy asses to work”
you wouldn’t believe it but China is already on the place, she own the Pyrrhea harbour, and Russia proposed to make the central Europe pipeline to cross Greece.
Greece isn’t a worser place than the US as far as debt is concerned, see if China (or Saudi arabia) wanted to get rid of the american bonds… a bet ?
Wretchard states: The USA, Canada and Australia. Plus the Western Hemisphere by extension. The three giant countries produce food [emphasis added], are geographically secure and have relative domestic peace. That plus technology.
Funny, how most people think petroleum the king commodity, but in the end it is food. If you have suitable climate, soil, and work ethic you can produce food even w/o petroleum. Petroleum makes it easier and allows one to massively upscale the production, but in the end the belly does much better with wheat & mutton than methane & petroleum.
Just prior to the onset of these rolling crises I was at a street fair (working a booth selling pork barbecue & lumpia) and I was chatting with the woman who owned the kitchen we did our prep work in. Gasoline was headed on up to its high of $4.00 and she thought it would be above $5.00/gallon before it reversed, I dismissed that but noted it was a good thing we knew about food production and handling, a much more important skill when the fat of petroleum is finally all burned off. I have that and beer making to fall back on.
Interestingly enough, those who work the soils & tend the herds of the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Alberta, Queensland, etc while looked down on as rubes are often very well off financially speaking.
w@9: Of course the whole thing may blow over on the weekend and we may be worrying about nothing.
One school of thought (Ken Heebner and Kudlow) is that the impact of the European defaults (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) will remain local, with further expanded impact mitigated by emerging market growth, despite the disputes over China’s numbers and growth issues.
I can’t help but recall the prevailing “narrative” in early (and even later) 2008 (Hank Paulson, Phil Gramm, et al) that the economic and market “fundamentals” were strong, and the sub-prime defaults would be “contained.”
I lean towards the Heebner/Kudlow view. There are a number of differences between the Greek default and the 2008 crisis, but the most important is that the debt is largely owned by European banks. Traders will move into emerging markets until the ECB’s sort it out.
What does this mean for investors? Geographic market sectors will demonstrate sharp performance differences. Global markets will evolve at different rates as each deals with legacy issues that are both historic and geographic. The Rising Tide of globalism will have crests and troughs. The EU troubles will be nasty for 2-3 yrs – a natural and necessary blood-letting – but they won’t touch the emerging markets, which are on fire.
Unless of course the capital-intensive tea leaves dictate otherwise.
The real wild card is energy – which means oil, which is “peaking.”
Permitting Greece, et. al. to borrow artificially cheap has had the same dynamic as CRA Policy in the sub-prime market in the US.
You trigger a real estate bubble as new players are permitted to roll-the-dice ENTIRELY with other people’s money. Whether this occurs at retail — or in the national budget — the market distortion is vast.
It is of the essence that these players have no alternate income stream to support their action and that the committed funds, as invested/spent, have at heart a completely consumptive function.
Spain, Greece, et. al. are Las Vegas writ large. Vacationing and goofing-off were national economic engines.
The USA has the advantage of being both larger and more diverse than any of the nations of Europe individually and collectively. Yes, more diverse, because the entire country has not succumbed to the same kind of neo-socialist thought as has all of Europe.
I read a Forbes article tonight saying that the top cities for shaking off the effects of the recession are Washington DC, Los Angeles and multiple cities in Texas. DC is less affected of all because of the growth of government. Los Angeles is supposedly doing better than a few months back because of no reason anyone can define, which probably means it’s all fake, and Texas never actually caught the contagion of building houses and condos and expecting them to go up 20% a year for forever.
So we have at least three radically different economic “success” stories in the USA, one that is part of the problem, one that is part of the answer, and one that is something else.
Europe, in contrast, seems to be trying to decide whether it would be best to let Abbot and Costello or the Three Stooges handle things, while a small but earnest minority are pulling for the Marx Brothers.
I see PJM is hungry again.
I am by no means a financial expert, but what I see is that bailing out Greece does not solve the problem. The bailout makes the Greek financial albatross the bailer’s albatross hanging on his neck. Nothing has been done to make Greece spend within its means. All you are doing is to prop up a govt and people that are unwilling and have been unwilling to readjust their lifestyles to meet their resource realities.
If you are the bailer, do you want to enforce some terms to make the Greeks become more responsible? You and who’s army? And when Greece again goes under, you want to bail them out—again, etc etc?
And there are countries waiting in the wings, including the USA. Think about WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO TURN THIS FINANCIAL CRISIS AROUND NOW, IF WE GOT OUR ACT TOGETHER. It may take a collapse to turn this country around. We collectively do not have the will to do it now. We are too unorganized and too divided.
But whatever happens, the situation WILL right itself. Our present course is unsustainable, our reservoir is seriously being drained, so the question is: will we do what we need to in order to get our house in order, or will we let nature, so to speak, do it for us, where it can get really ugly?
Our present legislative and executive branch could not work their way out of a wet paper bag if they tried. It will be up to the people. You and me, and all the Just Plain Joes of this country.
The US has a whole mess of problems, and they are getting worse fast, but I agree we are in better shape than Europe. What will be interesting is the way the Euro blows up. It is inevitable…and it always was.
I know it does no good to the credibility of a newbie commenter, but I predicted it would collapse to my meat space acquaintances as it was being implemented. I didn’t provide a timeline other than within 30 years. It is impossible. It could have been possible if done differently, but as done, it was impossible. The key is that monetary and fiscal policy are interwoven. They have to be. You can run a PIGS style fiscal policy, or you can run a German style fiscal policy, but you can’t run both with the same monetary policy. The ECB ran monetary policy like the Euro was a German currency, so Germany was fine and the PIGS were screwed. If they had run it more like French (middle), it might have delayed the implosion, but only at the expense of slowing the PIGS problems, and creating equal and opposite problems for Germany. They tried to manage it by aligning the fiscal policies with the rules…but that was hopeless, it depended on politicians telling their constituents hard truths. “There is no free lunch” doesn’t win votes.
There is a reason German exports within the EU have boomed, while PIGS exports have languished. PIGS traditional defense against productivity, efficiency and technology was a cheap and depreciating currency. Without that, they could not compete, and it started a spiral. And the less they could compete, the faster the spiral (both increased German exports and decreased PIGS exports) went. That is why Greece and Spain were reduced to the equivalent of Cancun…a resort for foreign tourists. Before the Euro, you could see the same inside Italy…they had to choose between the right monetary policy for the relatively rich industrial north, or the relatively poor south. And it was a constant struggle.
In what industry does Greece have a comparative advantage? Weather and olives. And that is why Euroland is drowning in olive oil.
But the interesting question is which way it implodes. For all the Euro remaining a stable currency and Greece (and who ever else, probably the whole med) getting kicked out…I think it is unlikely. Strong Euro, weak Drachma is not likely. The more likely scenario is that the ECB will end up cranking up the printing presses to keep the Euro together…because they are Europhiles and that is what it takes. Then the Germans will be forced to either subsidize all of Europe with Euro inflation eroding their savings and wealth and abandon their fiscal discipline…or re-establish a strong Mark. I think this is the more likely scenario because no one would take a drachma…not even the Greeks. But people would gladly take newly issued Marks as the Euro weakens.
I really gotta work on that pithy thing.
I think we’re looking at the wavefront of Phase 2 of the meltdown right here.
Don’t forget about Phase 1, it’s still lurking out there waiting for Act 4.
LA is a disaster. Take it from me. Unemployment here is about 12.5% officially, unofficially it is nearly 22%. LA is filled with fleeing Mexicans, and among them many criminals who are accelerating the ethnic cleansing of Blacks out of historically Black neighborhoods. Naturally, everyone concerned mutually hates Whitey.
LA is talking about massive DWP rate hikes and laying off city services. So no one is making money. The studios are all hit by the DVD decline, Blu-Ray has not taken off, Redbox $1 rentals, existing DVDs, or simply watching a ball game are eating into what had been a lucrative business. Most non-entertainment business long ago left California. Look at USA Cable — most of their series shoot elsewhere: Albuquerque, Seattle, Miami, etc.
Gordon Brown’s gaffe might not hurt him. I think Britain is loaded with folks like this. For those too lazy to follow the link, a woman goes down to Haiti, to write about racial oppression, is sadly assaulted, and blames … White men. For racism, or something.
As far as scary, Hungary’s Jobbik, now I think the #2 party behind the right party, is a place where European nations might go. The UKIP are nice, polite, and totally ineffectual libertarians. The BNP are ugly but effective street fighters for those scared of being what will otherwise happen: the Islamization of Britain.
As Mark Steyn pointed out, brilliantly on NRO, if Group A (Europeans) have one kid and Group B (Muslims) have four kids, then in a very short time, even with great numerical advantage currently, the future will be Islamic, and in Britain, Pakistani and Caribbean Black, basically. More Pakistani than anything else. Because that is who is having kids.
It does not take much foresight to pencil in twenty, or thirty years ahead, when one is old and feeble, and realize you’ll be a target for predators egged on by the Majority population which loathes you. And everything you knew about your country and nation would be gone. This is the heart of the immigration debate — will Britain remain British, or will it be Pakistan on the North Sea. Will America remain America, or will it be Mexico Norte?
Other issues such as who will pay for all these immigrants, requiring massive taxes to pay for their demands on services, from the older White natives, are certainly powerful but not as powerful as ultimately, will the Nation be filled with people who hate the former natives or remain as it was?
For Britain and the US, polite libertarianism is a dead end. Likely, the voters will send empty suit Nick Clegg who will open the flood-gates, and let in anyone. With the result being final desperation will bring in the equivalent of Jobbik, the BNP. Because there will be nothing else left. [Clegg thinks winning WWII was nothing for Britain to be proud of, btw. A man like Brown who finds nothing in his heritage and nation to be proud of.] Ultimately, Britain’s elite-ridden society, deeply feminized, will end up voting for BNP because there will be nothing other than a street-fight to prevent Britain from looking like Islamabad with worse weather.
In the US, Duncan Hunter has called for deporting kids of illegals. He’ll find many takers, not the least of which is how does America pay for illegal’s kids when the world economy and its own is falling apart.
But the larger issue is the same — will America remain America, or will it be Mexico Norte?
“Diversity” is of course weakness. Large groups of Mexican-ancestry folks on May 1 will parade around with foreign flags telling Whites to “go back to Europe” and “this is MY Land” and so on, with communist flags and so on. I make this prediction utterly certain it will come true, because that’s what always happens May 1.
I am not a goldbug, but there is a goldbug saying I like.
“All fiat currencies sink, just at different rates.”
In an effort to make my previous #26 pithy:
There is not enough real wealth, even in Germany, to bail out the med. But the med needs a bailout. It must be bailed out, thus the ECB will bail it out via the printing press. They are the only ones who can. Germany will leave…possibly taking the rest of the ‘north Europeans’ with it.
Obama will make sure the US picks up at least part of the tab first (IMF).
Daelagus Mugged this is the analyse that I read here too.
The BCE was created for german purpose and shaped for german needs. This is how the loans were adapted for Germany just after the reunification, the credit loans were lower than they should have been normally, this allowed Germany to recover quickly. The eurozone benefitted of the same loans, for creating a immobilistion bubble, and when the bulbble crisis happened, the Mediterraneen countries were the first to suffer with the Anglo-Saxon’s, and still didn’t recover from it, unemployment increased abnormally.
The european population who founded EU, is no more on the place, the new generation doesn’t care anymore of the motives and “ideals” which were the basis, the politicians are no more conscious of the historical necessities, they manage a crisis for which they have no clue, and are likely thinking for their own tribe first.
also it is said here that the Germans will get out the eurozone, and that we ought too
http://www.observatoiredeleurope.com/Euro-l-analyse-qui-donne-froid-dans-le-dos_a1359.html
Assuming the contagion spreads across Europe and causes a flight from the Euro to the Dollar can anyone explain to me why that wouldn’t just kick off an inflationary spiral here in the US? Money leaves the European bond market comes to the US and chases after what?
The problem everywhere is nobody knows how to price assets in fiat currencies that are merely a few revolutions of the rotogravure from being not worth the paper they are printed on. In a democracy without a property requirement for voting the politicians will always be in thrall to the mob and in an autocracy they are in thrall to their own vanity. A representative democracy where the franchise is limited by property requirement is the only form of government which can be entrusted with a fiat currency and is also the only form of government that can secure the liberty of all it’s citizens. That is not a popular or politically correct view but it is nonetheless true.
People need to keep their immune systems at optimal levels. Taking vitamin C coupled with zinc and d3 is an important ‘booster’ shot to the immune system.
Workout and keep muscle strength, stay strong, eat right so that if we do really have to be in survival mode we are mentally/emotionally/physically prepared for the worst to come. The weaker we are, the worse off.
Greece is a lost cause. Even if all of the latest aid package being proposed by the EU and the IMF were to be handed over today, it would not cover the interest costs of the Greek debt for a year now that interest rates have started moving up. And those costs are getting higher by the hour as investors start the spiral of demanding higher yields in return for the higher risk of default, and the higher interest costs have reached the point where it will be impossible for Greece to ever pay off the bonds, thus requiring more bonds to be issued to cover ongoing costs until the whole thing collapses.
Greece has no will to cut back on any aspect of spending. Right now one of the major points of contention causing riots in the street is a proposal to cancel the practice of automatically giving all government workers an extra month’s pay as a bonus both for Christmas and Easter. 14 months pay, for maybe 6 months of work spread out over 12 months. It is so bad that [insert traditional attestation of truth for stories told by naval personnel] the pilots of the Greek Air Force are having a sick out and are functionally on strike, being government employees.
http://tinyurl.com/32sfmyp
The thing is, the EU portion of the bail out is dependent on Germany coughing up the lion’s share. Germany is not eager to do so; Chancellor Merkel does not want to send any money until they see Greece trying to get its own house in order AND after German Länder local elections May 9. Given almost universal opposition across the German political spectrum, the need to pass the funding through their Parliament, and the fact that suit has been filed in their Constitutional Court which is likely to bar any such aid, that reflects German political reality.
The thing is, by May 9, there may not be a Greek budget to rescue or perhaps a Eurozone. France is insisting that something be done immediately. While some of that is perhaps concern about the Euro, there is a lot of worry about France’s own economy. Note this graphic from Der Spiegel showing the exposure of the banks of the EU if Greece defaults. For reference, the “milliard” mentioned is the European term for what we call “Billion” i.e. 1000 million.
http://tinyurl.com/2dgpycr
And Portugal and Spain are lined up right behind Greece with similar European bank exposure. On top of that, French, Austrian, and Belgian banks are sitting on non-performing loans to Eastern European members of the EU that add up to significant portions of their GDP’s. One good shove and it is house of cards time.
For more details I offer this fairly technical article by Reggie Middleton at Zerohedge. There is a series of pieces under the title “The Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis; to date” with links to the segments about halfway down in this article:
http://tinyurl.com/289x48y
Just to make things more interesting, if there is to be an attempted bailout of Greece, the first wave will likely be the IMF, which by its nature means we will be paying for part of it. In the absence of German funds, which will be the biggest segment, any EU funds will have to be collected from other members. Including the PIIS countries who are almost in as bad a condition as Greece. Kind of like Obama economics, the struggling middle class being taxed to benefit government wastrels and their political favorites.
As far as Gordon Brown’s inadvertent revelation of his carefully concealed and denied real persona when he called the woman a “Bigot” on mike for mentioning immigration in passing [read the Brit papers for details and transcripts] during questions about the deficit and taxes; I note that there is a new viral Twitter tweet in Britain:
BIGOT! = “Brown Is Gone On Thursday”; the election being next week Thursday.
Subotai Bahadur
I am by no means an expert on anything at all, but perhaps that is a good thing. I am merely an observer. But it seems to me that over history certain self-destructive paradigms become ingrained in the ruling classes that causes their reign to come to an end. In this period of history the primary dysfunctionality can best be described by the phrase “too big to fail.” We are so important that anyone and everyone must come to our aid if we are in distress. The fact that our problems were caused by our own self-destructive behavior is immaterial.
The governments of Greece and California come to mind. They are just the first. More will follow.
When everyone is hopelessly drunk there is no one in any shape who can save the one who falls into the lake. And the better question is (perhaps) –even if you could, why should you bother?
You are cheering me up, Wretchard.
Ah Subotai, I was wondering when you would come in and delicatly expose our weakness !
Uh, french debt is heavy, but not as much as the PIIGS, nor as UK, or even as the US an Japan, though just a few points above the German’s, but it’s so if you only consider the public debt, and if you add the private debt to it, then we are lower than the German’s.
I told you already that our banks aren’t in the eastern Republics (or so little), Austrian’s are, Sweden’s are, Switzerland’s are, probably Belgian’s too, and German’s are, of course, cuz the adjunction of the eatern Republics to EU was a german wish first, for good reasons, exportation, subventionned by EU in the first place when we bailed out these countries.
Now as far as investing in eastern Europe, up to now, it isn’t a bad affair, their debt is very low, only that they have to pay back their credit with euros.
As far as greek hudge advantages, they are no more in course since a few months, but it didn’t prevent that their debt loans rate climed up to 10%, so knowing that, if I was in Greek government, I wouldn’t bother to pay anything back, since Greece is screwed anyways. So That would be weird if Germany (and France) would dare to send troops there to recover their bets, like we did (and spain) for Mexico in 19th century. Doesn’t seem that we got our money back !
In my Daze in Hawaii I did note that the hula trade professionals came to resent their clientele: an endless stream of high-spending white people ( typically 40+) sitting on their asses getting a great tan.
Imitation came naturally: they didn’t want to work any harder than the vacationers.
Hence it is almost impossible to achieve ‘efficiency’ gains in the tourist trade. On top of that the quality of the product goes down as the production goes up. ( Less and less charming people are brought into the life.)
Where the Greeks really fouled up is in their failure to beat Dubai at the banking game. They’ve got much better everything as a pit stop for the wealthy. Banking, shipping, historic culture, retirement for the indulgent and vacations for everyone else — why can’t Athens put it together?
Absent the Euro zone, the market’s response would include a devaluation of the affected currencies. This reduced serve to increase exports and decrease imports, thus supporting economic activity within Greece and Portugal and affording a much better hope of recovery.
The Euro has never made sense except as a precursor to, and driver of, synoecism among the European countries. The very act of extending the Euro to more alien countries made this impossible. And so they reap what they have sown.
As to the comment by Blert, Greece is an hereditary oligarchy, in which the hereditary populares and the hereditary optimates struggle for power by proposing policies independently of their utility. Of course they have failed. Historic culture, now only a legend based on the fact that these idiots sit where the Greeks once lived, cannot overcome sheer stupidity.
If you don’t believe that, wait 10 years abd see where the U.S. economy winds up.
I agree with Whiskey on this one: LA is a mess. If anything, I think he’s a bit of an optimist, I peg the actual unemployment rate at about 24%. Recovery in Los Angeles? Dream on! This place is falling apart. If the economy ever does freeze up we’re looking at massive food riots, fuel shortages and really limited routes out of the city – to where? Can’t go West, too wet; desert to the East of us, dust bowl to the North, and more megalopolis to the South.
38. blert
My (haole) mom told me that the HVB made a big mistake in the 1950′s of switching from a few rich tourists (at the Royal, Moana, or Halekulani) to mass produced tours catering to less wealthy folks.
http://de.hpu.edu/lfrissell/Frissell_55-58.jpg
That is my brother and me with my grandmother on Kuhio beach (with only the first three hotels in the background).
I remember governor George Ariyoshi suggesting that no new in migration from the mainland be allowed in the 1970′s.
Maybe Whiskey is right.
Walt…
You’ve out done yourself.
I hope you e-publish your best of…
Langley…
Arioshi… WAS my governor…
WELL I remember that admission…
BTW, that was caught very much in the style of Gordon Brown, WE weren’t supposed to me listening in!
Like Hitler, the white, corporate power structure, (First Hawaiian and Bank of Hawaii) were his big supporters — yet he hated them.
Likewise the Emperor’s grandmother was the highest bitch in the First Hawaiian elite. ( Now owned by the biggest FRENCH bank — interesting n’est pas?)
Thanks, Langley…
A more innocent time.
Those beaches are NEVER that empty now.
BTW the Royal was the exclusive hotel for our WWII submariners during the conflict.
Got to love those Liberty Girls.
————
32-years ago I confronted a native – dang near pure Hawaiian blood. I asked him of two choices…
Being an American with equal voting rights and all the rest under the Constitution OR…
Being a Japanese supplicant, like an Okinawan WITHOUT equal legal treatment OR…
Dead in the struggle for the Pacific?
ONLY THEN did he realize his AMERICAN inheritance…. That his vote = mine and every other American.
And that ONLY under our flag he could say damn near anything he wanted…
He did a mental re-boot. Not quite the same, thereafter.
———
The education of Hawaii’s children is terrible and is directly involved in the incubus pResident — progeny of Punahou…
Pronounced: Puna’ho
Blert, looks more like a suckcubus to me. Maybe he’s a hybrid.
Joe Hill @32:
An excellent point sir. Change the system to pay to play for voting rights. I think owning land isn’t a exclusively valid basis in the 21st century. I know of folks in Silicon Valley who, at least until 18 months ago, rented a townhouse, but owned stock worth millions, multiple expensive vehicles, boats, and an airplane, and who paid substantial taxes for income and purchasing all those yuppie toys.
How about this for a test: Minimum voter age: 21
Property requirement: Must own $30,000 worth of land, house, etc, or pay a minimum of $2500 in income tax annually after all deductions and other codswoggle had been subtracted from the amount owed. People who don’t own real estate or feel the bite of the taxman by paying basically nothing in income tax don’t get to vote.
This would ensure that starry eyed idiotic college students didn’t wreck elections. It would ensure welfare sponges didn’t vote themselves more and more benefits at the expense of productive members of society, through their choice in electing patrons who will pander to them.
This would ensure that retired folks who no longer have much income, but who owned the real estate they had purchased with a lifetime of work will retain the franchise.
The one remaining fly in the ointment is unionized government workers. Many of them draw huge paychecks at the taxpayers expense and yet vote for and fund patrons who would push ever more taxpayer money into their pockets in a societally self devouring spiral of rising tax burdens, decreased productivity, and exploding power and influence of city, county, state, and federal employees.
It should be illegal for government employees at any level to belong to unions!
Marie Claude mentioned how the Bild Zeitung is influencing German public opinion. It’s getting even broader than Bild. Last night I caught part of the talk show Hart aber Fair, which had some guests who actually understand what is happening. However, they intersperce some short videos between discussions. One mentioned the much earlier retirement age of the Greeks and the much higher pensions as a percentage of former salary (roughly 70% vs 50%). The kicker for me was that upon the death of a pensioner in Greece, the unmarried daughter is awarded his full pension for the rest of her life.
I admit that I didn’t follow the show closely, but that last item above all will stick in my memory. I don’t think the Germans will have much sympathy for the striking Greeks. Politicians don’t have much room to move. It’s hard to argue an unpopular but rational case when the audience is enraged. Maybe someday the multicultis will learn that the cultural underpinnings of societies are important.
I looked at the BNP’s manifesto at its website, out of curiosity. They’re just as Leftist as the Labourites, and really only part company with them on the immigration issue and having some patriotic flourishes.
Another deck chair, anyone?
IOW, they are NOT a conservative party.
“What will be the colour of the web which the Fates are now weaving on the humming loom of time? will it be white or red? We cannot tell. A faint glimmering light illumines the backward portion of the web. Clouds and thick darkness hide the other end.
“Our long voyage of discovery is over and our bark has drooped her weary sails in port at last. Once more we take the road to Nemi. It is evening, and as we climb the long slope of the Appian Way up to the Alban Hills, we look back and see the sky aflame with sunset, its golden glory resting like the aureole of a dying saint over Rome and touching with a crest of fire the dome of St. Peter’s. The sight once seen can never be forgotten, but we turn from it and pursue our way darkling along the mountain side, till we come to Nemi and look down on the lake in its deep hollow, now fast disappearing in the evening shadows.
“The place has changed but little since Diana received the homage of her worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough.
“But Nemi’s woods are still green, and as the sunset fades above them in the west, there comes to us, borne on the swell of the wind, the sound of the church bells of Aricia ringing the Angelus. Ave Maria! Sweet and solemn they chime out from the distant town and die lingeringly away across the wide Campagnan marshes. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! Ave Maria!”
The Golden Bough –Sir James Frazer
#47 Bild Zeitung is influencing German public opinion
Bild is a boulevard paper that Germans pick up to while away the time on the train to work or during work breaks.
It has good soccer coverage, the infamous “girl on page 1″ / not safe for work and the burning current issues in a gossip format that probably echoes the heated discussions around the Stammtisch rather than propagates them.
It’s a newspaper that I would categorize as a mongrel cross between the New York Post / The National Enquirer / Sport’s Illustrated and Penthouse.
BILD reports on the populist topics of the day in an easy to read, quickie format. It is a sensationalist paper written at the 3rd grade level, that, as the Germans say, drips blood when you roll it up.
I honestly don’t think any German is going to be influenced by what’s in the BILD.
I have just read all the above. What an education! This why I read blogs. So much knowledge/opinion here. More than at a college. THANKS>
To all the Americans on this thread congratulating each other about how good you are at growing food because American agriculture is so efficient – sorry, but you are going to be just as stuffed as the rest of us when the oil runs out. Why? Because the ratio of energy output (food) to energy input (mainly oil products, but also coal for power stations) is less than unity. In other words, the calories from the food are less than the oil calories going in.
Lose the oil, and millions of Americans would have to go back to the land or all would starve – and almost nobody in the USA any longer has the skills to produce food in the old-fashioned way (crop rotation, manuring, using animals for ploughing, etc). Also, there are virtually no suitable draft animals left and it takes time to breed draft oxen and heavy horses – time you won’t have.
There is the related problem of poor soils, caused by decades of mining the soil for nutrients and putting nothing back other than a limited range of plant nutrients – also mostly produced using fossil fuels for power (example: Haber-Bosch ammonia).
Property requirement: Must own $30,000 worth of land, house, etc, or pay a minimum of $2500 in income tax annually after all deductions and other codswoggle had been subtracted from the amount owed. People who don’t own real estate or feel the bite of the taxman by paying basically nothing in income tax don’t get to vote.
To put it politely, AR, go jump in the lake. I am working my @ss off at two jobs so that I can save up 20pct down to buy a house. I’m finally in a location (Southwestern PA) where a house is actually affordable for a moderate income person like me. Unlike LA, where I lived for 15 years, and a dumpy condo in an unsafe neighborhood starts, rock bottom, at $150K (and that is dirt cheap).
If you want to see copies of my tax returns, I would be happy to send them to you so you can see what “paying basically nothing in income tax” looks like when you are busting your hump to live thrifty now so you can be better off in 10 years.
If you are cheesed off about the unfair tax burden, how about reforming the insane tax code instead? Nahhhh. Let’s just disenfranchise all the hard-working young un-RE’d people first.
# 34 after German Länder local elections May 9.
I feel this point is well taken and very important.
North Rhine – Westphalia (NRW) is the largest state population wise. They comprise c. 25% of German voters. The state elections there have historically been bellwether events.
At this point, Merkel’s CDU/CSU and her current coalition partner FDP do not look like they will hold in NRW. This could result in loss of MPs for the coalition that would reduce their current Bundestag representation of 37 to 31. 35 is needed to pass wished for legislation.
The FDP may not even break the 5% hurdle in NRW.
Conjecture I’ve read is that Merkel may attempt to form a coalition government with the Greens. The Greens are traditionally considered to be coalition candidates for the SPD ala Schroeder/Fischer. Currently, the CDU is running 37% in NRW, and the Greens 12%. The SPD is 32%, the FDP 6% and the Linke (left) 5%.
Recently, Merkel has had to put up with such headaches as FDP Westerwelle’s rantings against the social state and, just the other day, a turkish CDU minister in Lower Saxony commenting that they should banish crucifixes in schools. The irony being, of course, CDU stands for the Christion Democrats. Germans know they have to tighten their belts and get ready for lean times and do not want to put up with disharmony in the governing party at such a time.
Merkel will probably lose her current coalition, and then will have to make very non-traditional comprises in the near future that will affect how she governs. She can’t run the further risk of possibly destroying her party’s spot in the current government completely by appearing to ignore the wishes of the populace.
Germans do not want a bailout unless strict conditions are attached, so with a pivotal state election looming, Merkel has to tread carefully and play her cards close to the chest.
Property requirements may have been valid when land was the primary store of wealth and source of income. It is not valid today.
What I could support: You/your household have to be a net contributor to the level of government you are voting for to be eligible.
So, for example, if you are a federal employee, you don’t get to vote in federal elections (unless your spouse is producing so much income that your federal taxes exceeds your federal salary). But you do get to vote for state, county and municipal elections (assuming you are a net contributor at those levels). Or if you are a school teacher whose salary is paid 85% by the town, 10% by the state and 5% by federal funds…it is very unlikely that you would be eligible to vote in your town, but you might (depending on rates and spousal income) be eligible for state, and almost certainly for federal. If you are a welfare recipient…there is a decent chance you don’t get to vote at all. The price of the handout is not getting to decide how big the handout is.
Anyone who so chooses may elect to pay enough voluntary taxes at the appropriate level such as to become a net annual contributor to retain their franchise.
Several advantages: It turns voting into an ‘honor’…it is selective and you are eligible. It also requires you to identify yourself to vote.
@53. Your knowledge of basic agriculture, at least in the US is askew.
While highly mechanized production is the current norm, it is not that long
established, nor are most farmable lands in current production. W’s (and
others) point was that we can scale productivity back significantly and still
feed ourselves.
In most parts of the US a family can subsist on one arce per family member.
It has been done before.
Try spending a little time somewhere other than one of the big 25 cities.
I suggest rural Tennessee.
Bogie,
I see your point. However, look at the last election and the one in 2006. We’ve got too many people who are voting themselves gifts from the public treasury that they have no obligation to pay for. That can’t continue or the country will be bankrupt in short order. If you’ve got a suggestion for how to solve that problem, please state it. AR did, and even if you don’t like his suggestion, give him credit for at least addressing the problem. Something MUST change in the way we’re conducting our politics, and soon, or else. That “or else” won’t be pretty, either.
We might start with voters showing photo ID, giving our young reality based education… Property requirements won’t fly.
“almost nobody in the USA any longer has the skills to produce food in the old-fashioned way (crop rotation, manuring, using animals for ploughing, etc”
Amish. They are descended from Germans, by the way.
Longjack
I would categorise “Bild” like the UK “Sun”. I have been living in a working class german family in Travemünde in the seventies where I rented a room for a summer season. The only paper read was “Bild”, and I can assure you that the woman wasn’t shy to villipend anyone or any country that were in the actualities topics, at the era, UK wasn’t favorite, nor eastern Germany, especially when the border was across the Trave. Now I have, as a French, the best souvenir possible from my experience there. Die Frau considered me as her daughter, (she couldn’t have children, dunno if it was because of her, or of her husband that was a war prisonner in Yougoslavia for about 10 years, and had encountered some bad treatments). When I returned home from my day work, she usely prepeared me a cup of coffee with Zahne and a strawberries (from her garden) piece of cake, when she hadn’t any, she usely bought a Käse piece of cake from the DeliKatessen store at the corner, or when I was off, a delicious meal with hearings filets, (crude) with boiled potatoes and a glass of Pils.
Now from a german net friend on a german blog (I believe that he is a lawer, this is why his opinion is less of “popular’s”)
Rather symbolically, this change of mentality became apparent when a few backbenchers of the governing coalition publicly demanded from Greece to sell islands in return for monetary support. Surely there probably have been rather creative guys sitting in parliament at all times – but what has changed is that the government didn’t immediatly rule out and apologize for this.
Instead, our yellow press engaged in a row of populist verbal bombardment of Greece, having the biggest part of the population behind itself. Our leaders these days no longer dare to stand against such sentiments anymore, instead they rather jump on the bandwaggon
After the “negotiation” over Greece, nobody here criticized her for her lack of diplomacy, instead she was celebrated as the Iron Chancellor
bogie wheel @ 53
FHA loans are going for 3.5% down!
By the way, the most interesting fight in my proposal would be treatment of SS. If it counts, it would eliminate the franchise of all but the very wealthy elderly, and if it doesn’t, it would eliminate the vast majority of the lower classes (for whom SS is the primary tax).
I think the only long term solution is to start letting countries and then states (California, Michigan, New York) fail. Saving GM, the auto workers pensions, and AIG was a bad idea. The people that have used the resources and the people that have lent the money should take the hit.
Wretchard @ 9: “I wrote earlier that three countries are likely to ride anything out. The USA, Canada and Australia. Plus the Western Hemisphere by extension. The three giant countries produce food, are geographically secure and have relative domestic peace. That plus technology.”
Another take would be that only Russia out of the major economies is self-sufficient in energy. The EU, US, Japan, China, India are all net energy importers.
The Greek problem is not that they ran up debts. The problem is what they did with the borrowed money. Instead of building assets that generate a long-term return, they lived above their means. They were not the only ones.
Put those two things together. When the EU quakes & shakes as a consequence of non-repayable debt, Russia will be very well placed to pick & choose who it helps in a suddenly harsher world. No need for Russia to overpower Europe militarily — not when humble Europeans come begging at Moscow’s door.
There is opportunity in crisis, and this opportunity belongs to the Russians.
Farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain;
For we’re bound beyond the bar of Cadiz,
But we hope very soon we shall see you again.
So sang Mr Hollum in a clear and pleasant voice. And then he killed himself. Cinematic reference? Predictive allegory? Both?
# 60. I would categorise “Bild” like the UK “Sun”
I think that’s a good comparison.
a few backbenchers
One of whom is a member of the FDP which may not even reach 5% in NRW after a 12% showing 4 years ago. The other was a CDU member who wanted collateral, not excluding an island or two.
BILD’s response the next day? “We give you cash, you give us Corfu,”
BILD knows the German sense of humor quite well. It’s a joke. Tongue in cheek. That’s what BILD does very well. It’s like SNL in print.
Back to the MP’s. These type of outbursts within her current coalition are the reason Merkel has to adjust her governing coalition. Germans know they need adults in charge now and don’t want this juvenile type of behavior when tough economical decisions have to be made.
Germans also know what’s going on in Greece, and not from the BILD. IMHO, BILD reacts to the current interests of the German populace not vice versa.
Meanwhile, the workers at Airbus have decided to emulate the 1990′s UAW – ask for both raises and more workers be hired – after all that worked out so well for them, didn’t it?
Hey, Airbus, there is room for a plant right next to the one in Charleston SC, where Boeing is building their new 777 plant to get away from the unions in Seattle. Y’all come!
Airbus Workers Say Strike Has Stalled Production. |
|The AP (4/26) reported that Airbus employees striking for “higher pay and increased hiring” have begun to successfully block assembly of some of Airbus’ “biggest-selling aircrafts,” according to a union representative. The AP notes the “Production of the Airbus’ A330 and A340 long-haul jets was being blocked from noon until midnight (1000 GMT-2200 GMT). Strikes will hit assembly of other Airbus aircraft such as the A320 and the A380 superjumbo later in the week in a series of staggered strikes, said Alain Milhau, a representative of the CGT union.” The employees want the company to hire more workers in addition to a raise of 3.5% for 2010, which is in line with their 2009 raises. Management has only offered between 1.5% and 1.9%.
Property tests, or any other barriers to voting, are bad ideas for our Republic.
It used to be, in the 19th Century, that almost every eligible voter voted. In the North, participation rates often topped 90%, and even states that adopted universal suffrage had turnout rates the put current levels (<50%) to shame. We were also a 50/50 nation, not a 30/40/30 nation as we are today. Competition drove up participation and accountability.
The exception was the South. There, Democrats had a virtual lock on electoral politics after the Civil War. They imposed poll taxes, literacy tests, and a variety of other barriers that pushed voter participation below 50% (and sometimes near 30%!). This was done, of course, to keep blacks from voting, but it also pushed poor whites out of the system as well, making elections uncompetitive, which further reduced involvement, etc. Politics lost its accountability to the people.
We have to increase participation, particularly in primaries.
Still, voter fraud is a real problem. If you haven't see it, Texas Watchdog has been running a series on voter fraud (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/04/voter-fraud-persists-in-south-texas-as-enforcement-efforts-fail/1270496802.story). It's real.
There is a way to solve both of these problems. It involves two steps:
1. Eliminate early voting and have a single, unified voting holiday. This eliminates a source of abuse, and will drive up participation. Holidays are expensive, but so is voter non-participation.
2. When someone votes, they dip their index finger in purple ink. This provides both fraud protection and a social incentive to vote – if you don't have a purple finger, you're not doing your duty.
No need for Voter ID, no excuse for not participating, no way to vote multiple times.
Conservatives worry that greater turnout will result in more victories for the Left. But polling is consistent and clear that we are a center-right nation.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
L3
“BILD knows the German sense of humor quite well. It’s a joke.”
The problem is that all the tabloids and opinions blogs in the world took “Bild” as a referrence without knowing it was “german humor” ; who hasn’t seen the greek statue showing the middle finger ? who hasn’t read the “famous sentences”, and there were not more empathy in the “classier” papers, while we could read how successful is Germany.
Anyway, all this “mess” will end badly, because the “euro” was built on chimaeras, though it’s no use to humiliate countries that aren’t fitting the criteriums, in the first place each eurozone country knew how they were “working”, but everyone decided to close the eyes, it was so nice to spend vacations in Spain, in Greece… in nice condos or villas built with the cheap loans.
RWE, are you talking of the hijacked marcket ala Chicago wanabe ?
of course the Boeing unions never strike, the Cie never getstate sponsorings, and never lobby the deciders in DC…
Anyway enjoy your small tankers
“Eventually” has arrived. Europe has run out of Other People’s Money.
————
Daedalus M:
How about this alternative- everyone gets a vote pro-rated *according to the amount of Federal tax (including FICA) they pay.* Why shouldn’t the people who fund the public kitty have a say in how it’s spent which is proportional to their contribution? It would be a powerful weapon against Tytler’s Law and those who choose to vote for a living rather than work for it.
If you have suitable climate, soil, and work ethic you can produce food even w/o petroleum.
NOT. All the sophisticated, sensitive urbanites who politically call most of the shots have no clue how few farmers are feeding them, solely through petrol-powered machinery and petrol-based fertilizers and petrol-powered trucks and trains to market.
If they think they’ll all instantly reverse the last 100 years of demographics, and leave their hip and edgy urbs to move out onto the sacred ‘land’ and reinsert themselves into an ‘American Gothic’ cartoon, it’s the dumbest fantasy of any mass delusion yet.
They haven’t got the hand tools, the draft animals nor particularly the knowlege that those rural dwellers of a century ago lived and breathed – and which generated all those cute ‘farmer’ and ‘farmer’s daughter’ jokes.
And there are simply not enough ‘community organizers’ to fill all the agro-kommissar positions which would accompany, and direct, the invasion of private property by the urbanites.
52. Fletcher Christian
I don’t know how you formed this opinion (or was it just a dig to see what reactions you would get?)
You couldn’t be more wrong if you were drunk and just ranting.
Rural Americans still know how to farm and raise meat. Our typical suburbanite can still have a garden in their back yard that will give them all the veggies they need.
Those of us in the country (and there are millions upon millions of us) have the land, resources and knowledge to feed millions if we must.
And our land is fertile and will grow most anything and everything.
Why do you think that they call it “America The Beautiful”?
Papa Ray
Armageddon (46):
Not sure how to arrange that in a way that’s consistent with the right of free association. However, we can get essentially the same effect by (a) banning collective bargaining for government employees–i.e. you can join a union or any other association you like, but the government as employer has complete freedom to deal with your employment contract separately from everyone else’s–and (b) a complete ban on strikes by government employees.
74 Kirk Parker:
Same difference. If a ‘union’ can’t bargain collectively and can’t strike, it’s not really a union, just a trade association.
#20, Marcus Aurelius – good point about food, and with regards to meat, people are going to start noticing that no one seems to be anticipating much yet.
As we go into summer, basic meat prices, especially beef and pork, and set to soar. The reason? Pork and cattle herds last year got thinned out to their lowest levels in decades, as the high cost of feed and low product prices caused by the recession combined to induce meat producers to slash their herds dramatically. Not surprisingly, there have been far less new stock bred and raised this spring than in any comparable period for a long time.
Result: Supply is *very* constricted, and cannot be raised quickly. Even the slightest pickup in demand, as is expected this summer, should cause domestic meat prices to soar.
Coming soon to a Supermarket near you.
AR @ 46: Minimum voter age: 21
That works unless you want to draft 18yo and send them to war.
But overall, I do not know that we want to encourage participation in elections. Leave it to them who likes. And frankly, it is sometimes quite difficult to work up the mojo to mark anything on the ballet, I entirely understand if someone doesn’t want to.
Marie Claude #70:
No, I am not talking about the tanker competition at all. Which, by the way, Airbus would have lost anyway if it had even bid the 2nd time because they had been found guilty of massive subsidies for their commercial aviation products.
I am saying that Boeing is handling its union stike problem by moving away. And Airbus ought to do the same. Try New (Eastern) Europe or the American South, where they will appreciate the jobs and take pride in their work.
Ref #52, #72, #73
Now as for running out of oil and having to use Labrador Retrievers or whatever to till the land – I am convinced that given the advances being made in coal to fuel conversion (Univ of Texas for example) and making liquid hydrocarbon fuels from cellulose and so forth that we can produce all the fuel we need to grow food or do anything else. Nuclear power can provide all of our electricity. Robotic cultivators can replace stoop labor. And so on.
But we CAN’T do all that if we waste all our money on building mainly useless wind tubines and solar cell farms employing components not even built in this country, on bailing out unions and companies who deserve to go tango uniform, buying houses for people who can’t afford them and inevitably refuse to take care of them, providing Stumulis Payments for the most absurd things we can imagine, giving free healh care to non-citizens, on new taxes, and so forth.
I am convinced of our ability to handle anything. The question is: Will They let us?
Agreed, Papa Ray. I seem to recall that Fletcher is a Brit so he has no idea of what it looks like to have so much land laying around doing nothing. I live in East Texas, and there are literally tens of thousands of acres all within 30 minutes drive of my house that were farmland 70 years ago but which have been allowed to revert to piney woods. A quick logging operation and they could all be put back in production pretty quickly, and we’ve got lots of water and a good long growing season.
And Cattle? Waddya think brought settlers to Texas in the first place?
And that’s just in my little corner of the State. Texas alone has more than enough unused land to feed many times its current population, if it needs to. Hey, and we produce our own oil and gas too! All we’ve got to do is sweet talk the boys in Ft. Hood (many of whom are already Texans) and we’d even have our own army again. Hmmm, sounds like a plan!
Bogie,
I applaud your work-ethic. But I agree with AR. In our present circumstances the “right to vote” just means the right to “legally” steal from our fellow citizens. For the productive, the current progressive taxes mean that their votes are largely meaningless. Not much point in having the right to vote if it only means you get to lodge a symbolic protest against your own destruction. Like the lotus-eating Greeks, we cannot continue to live in a mob-ocracy. Our Constitution doesn’t define a democracy, it defines a constitutional republic. But it has become a defacto democracy where the Constitution is ignored; which has led to our current situation of a productive minority (race has nothing to do with it) ruled by corrupt politicians and their mindless mob of “voters”.
Wretchard is right about the potential of our country to survive the meltdown, but I think that is optimistic. At best we would be living under conditions most of us wouldn’t like (and probably wouldn’t survive), but I think we’re ignoring the fact that we’d be attacked by China and others who would want to “share” our bounties.
We can either face and deal with some hard realities or get mowed down by them. Right now it’s looking like we’re grass and the lawn mower is coming.
“And even while America may gain relatively, the world as a whole, including the USA will suffer in absolute terms.”
Absolute doesn’t matter. In real world terms it who is the biggest, not what percentage of the total that ‘biggest’ translates to.
Geopolitics IS a zero sum game. It will remain that way until there is a world government at which point “all politics is local” comes into play.
A raising tide lifts all ships. Big ones as much as small one. When the tide is high, that big ship is still bigger.
Remember America has more OIL then anyone else. It’s just a matter of converting it from solid to liquid. That is a bit of technology that was created long ago. All the USA needs is the political will to start digging. I think the next administration will address that topic.
Those wanting to limit the voting franchise have forgotten about the principle of “No taxation without Representation”.
Restricting voting to property owners only makes sense, is only just, and can be supported ONLY if property owners pay taxes for EVERYTHING. No sales tax, no usage fees, no income tax, no VAT – make it as it was in the early days, Property Tax is the only Tax. If that were the case then restricting the voting franchise might be fair. But any other setup allows property owners to become the class that burdens everyone else with taxes that they themselves do not intend to pay. That would be just as evil and pernicious a system as the current one is.
How about it, AR? Would you take that deal?
When considering the energy picture in the U.S., one ought not to forget American reserves of natural gas and coal. Both are enormous. Furthermore, there is still oil in the ground here, onshore and off. Some is left in the ground for reasons of expense of recovery or political scruples that might not withstand a severe crisis.
We remain a very energy rich country.
Best,
Richard
WWS, technically, Texas IS NOT part of the Union. The articles of federation where never ratified. So Texas could declare itself a Country and there is nothing the USA can legally do about it. Join the UN and you would be protected by treaty. You would be better off depending on the boys and girls at Fort Hood, but that is your business.
‘Course, if you’se guys went, so would Montana, Vermont and Arizona.
This time there would be no army to invade because they are busy. So it would be your locals vs what ever the feds could scrape up. This time we would win. Lots of support from foreign nations. Lots of other nations would see it as excellent opportunity to cut the USA down to size.
46. Armageddon Rex,
Thought through excellently. I would make one additional provision for honorably discharged veterans. Then we will have a new voting system.
As for government workers, I fear a “Knights Templar solution” may already be the only solution remaining. I’m old enough to remember when almost all civil servants were veterans or their immediate family members. A day saldly long past. Restoring order and cleansing this mess is likely to be a VERY messy task for serious, but unpleasant people.
I see the proposal (I hesitate to call it my proposal, because I still hope we don’t have to go there) in #55 as entirely consistent with that principal.
wws
“The reason? Pork and cattle herds last year got thinned out to their lowest levels in decades, as the high cost of feed and low product prices caused by the recession combined to induce meat producers to slash their herds dramatically. “
I don’t know the source you are referencing but I do know from friends in the meat producing business that they have not cut back and are producing as much as they ever have and are in no trouble at all.
Of course that is in Texas.
Papa Ray
P.S. In the Southwest there is a massive over population of wild boars.
Actually it has been guestimated that the number is closer to 4 million.
They are good eating too. best for slow smoking. Lots of fun to hunt, they are smart and you don’t want to let them corner you because they are not afraid of you. They breed almost as fast as rabbits, and that is fast.
Fletcher: Concerning vegetable gardening and poor soil.
On the hoe or beneath the row,
in either case the plants will grow.
RWE
I know that airbus employees were on stike, but missed that it was about higher wages and or to hire more employees, I thought it was because EADS had decided to delocate some production sites to northern Germany, because of a more convenient place for transportation and exportation (Toulouse is enclaved at the feet and in the middle of Pyréneas).
Now the workers strike to get the same wages like their german counterpart get, but didn’t read that they want that more workers are hired, at least in this article:
http://www.lexpansion.com/economie/actualite-economique/greve-chez-airbus-sur-fond-de-jalousie-franco-allemande_231080.html
Had the pentagonal authorities accepted the first project with Northrop Grumman(like it was selected by the military staff in the first place, also because the army was fed up to pay high prices for a product that it doesn’t really need, the Boeing tanker is smaller than the Airbus’s) for the A380 or A400, the production would have settled in Mobile, but that wasn’t counting with the american chauvinism, planes ought to be of an american label, and not french (though Eads is a european consortium with the Brits, Germany, Italy, Spain, France). Also the european project might have been more expensive at the first glance, but it was a definitive price, calculated with all the extra-costs, that Boeing forgot to mention.
Our aviation industry might receive state sponsoring, but Boeing does too, through military orders, paid at a much higher price than civil orders.
Also, Europe will not be totally excluded from the Boeing winning choice, for Boeing makes planes with lots of stuffs that are manufactured in Europe.
(I folloded the events when they occured in the beginning of 2008)
84
Surprise there…
OH…79. wws
“Hmmm, sounds like a plan!”
That “plan” is further along than most anybody thinks.
Papa Ray
32. Joe Hill
The problem everywhere is nobody knows how to price assets in fiat currencies that are merely a few revolutions of the rotogravure
………
re: rotogravure
I wouldn’t know the what this word was all about except that my choir got the rights to the sheet music so as to sing Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade. Turns out to be an archaic definition of a picture magazine. In the 30′s it would have been something like the Saturday Evening Post Here’s a Bing Crosby version of Easter Parade
“The lyric is the photographers will snap us and you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.”
Definition
1. a printing process using a cylinder etched with many small recesses, from which ink is transferred to a moving web of paper, plastic, etc., in a rotary press
2. printed material produced in this way, esp magazines Often shortened to roto
Wikipedia detail
source for the meat price rising story: (btw, this is very good news for producers and states with lots of producers)
“Wholesale prices for pork, for example, reached a 14-year high last week in futures markets, while beef is up 22 percent this year. Chicken’s gain in March was the most in 20 months, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Ruth Comer, a spokeswoman for the West Des Moines, Iowa-based chain, said prices could be up to 25 percent higher than prices a couple of months ago.
“Customers should prepare to pay more in general than they’ve been accustomed to paying,” she said.”
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/27/92936/meat-prices-on-the-rise-just-as.html#ixzz0mVT3SzQd
and I agree with you about the wild boars – I have a couple friends who have build a smoker that can cook a big one , after it’s been gutted. They’ve got a way to wrap it and inject the meat with a bottle of sweet white wine before they slow cook it in the smoker – damn, does that taste good!!!
Ro@81: I think the next administration will address that [CTL] topic.
When h^ll freezes over.
Ri@83: We remain a very energy rich country.
Yes. We Are. (campaign slogan for 2012?) You would think we were effing Afghanistan the way our political class behaves. I will take this opportunity to repeat one more time that this country is rich, not just in natural resources, but in human capital. The problem is the political class. Government was neglected? That is a term paper which I don’t do anymore. The very short story is, as Wretchard has stated repeatedly in different ways, the elections of this November and 2012. It’s going to be a long hot summer with “events” I am guessing so I intend to remain cool, calm, and collected as I vote out every incumbent within reach of my index finger.
Kudos and amen to RWE@78 (I’m tired of writing about it) and L3@68 (voter fraud being another failure of enforcement issue, just like financial services, just like immigration. How much these problems would be reduced in scale with the simple solution of enforcing the law? The answer is: somebody doesn’t want the law enforced.)
And blert@22: Permitting Greece, et. al. to borrow artificially cheap has had the same dynamic as CRA Policy in the sub-prime market in the US.
You trigger a real estate bubble as new players are permitted to roll-the-dice ENTIRELY with other people’s money. Whether this occurs at retail — or in the national budget — the market distortion is vast.
The interstitial connection between human nature and “other people’s money” will always be a sticky psychological wicket. But we – humans – are what makes the world go round, poets sing and dancers dance. I just have to balance the human angle of the current global mini-melts with a reminder that the derivatives markets – both synthetic and not – were toxic vehicles that carried away what started in this country as a righteous goal of getting people into houses to become stable homes. The corruption of the process has been well documented and the back-and-forth at this point would be redundant but history can’t be written without recording the role of these particularly nasty vehicles facilitated by an incestuous relationship between finance and the rating agencies. Just for the record.
Greece was different. I won’t debate whether the GS sale to the Greek government of derivatives that were used to disguise their growing debt was a “sh^tty deal” or not but it points directly to RWE’s comment that Europe, in contrast, seems to be trying to decide whether it would be best to let Abbot and Costello or the Three Stooges handle things, while a small but earnest minority are pulling for the Marx Brothers.
Josh @77:
Yes, by all means, raise the draft age to 21, and include women this time, just don’t allow any PC separate physical standards for women. If they want to serve in combat arms they must meet the same physical training requirements as the men. Most women would end up in support roles, which is fine, so long as they also serve. They want equal treatment and equal pay… I say give it to them good and hard. Yes, I have a daughter. I hope she grows up to serve in the military in some capacity at some point in her life, just not for 20+ years like her dad.
Better yet, cancel the draft. If we really need soldiers, start paying infantry privates $100K per year. There’ll be no shortage of volunteers, and it’s a much better use of taxpayer funds IMO than bailing out GM, or lining the pockets of well connected brokers and bankers.
WWS,
Yeah, I can not cite anything specific, but I have heard of higher meat prices on the near horizon too. A local store just ran a meat sale with ribeyes going for about $5.00/pound, needless to say I stocked up (tenderloin & t-bones too).
Looking at various commodity prices (namely energy & metals) I see them starting to inch up. Oil is not skyrocketing like it did back from ’07-’08 and is probably doing its seasonal thing right now, but I see silver is definitely moving upwards moving out of its $17.00 range into the $18.00s.
In fact, Larry Kudlow is pointing to such data points to suggest we are on the upside of a “V” shaped recovery.
wws
From the Kansas City link:
Wouldn’t you know it. The Congresscritters that authorized this Ethanol business should be punished…
(put them in a pen with wild boars? You know how they love fresh meat)
Along with those that won’t cut corn out of the deal and substitute other crops that work even better.
But back to feed prices. Not everybody buys feed, they grow it themselves and also let their animals free range.
Guess some have either forgot about that or don’t have the land.
For me, ethanol is a waste of resources, robs your engine of power and hastens engine wear. (of course they dispute that)
Papa Ray
Bogie wheel @53:
I don’t understand your objection to my proposal. It sounds like you’ve put in the hard work necessary to build a nest egg, and put yourself in a situation where you are, or soon will be, able to buy your piece of real estate. You would certainly qualify to vote under my proposal once you bought your property.
On the other hand, if you’re working your tail off, holding down two jobs, and are earning just $25K each year, and pay only 10% of it as income tax, you would once again qualify to vote.
If under current Federal Tax Code, earnings of only $25K per year didn’t require you to turn over at least 10% of your pay as income tax, I believe there is spot on tax forms where you can “contribute” the funds necessary to bring your total contribution over the $2500 threshold so you would qualify to vote. That way poor, hardworking folks who felt it was really important to vote would have that option if they were willing to put their money where their mouth was and didn’t utilize government services that counterbalanced the $2500 contribution.
I’ll go further and, taking a page from Robert Heinlein, say that any peace officer, firefighter, or military member who is currently serving, or who has honorably retired is always entitled to vote no matter their tax contribution unless they are later convicted of a felony or are legally judged to be mentally incompetent. If they’re willing to put their ass on the line to protect our society they definitely get to vote.
So Texas could declare itself a Country and there is nothing the USA can legally do about it.
OK, here’s the plan. Texas declares itself a country. Texas then invades Mexico and takes over that den of thieves, draining the swamps of corruption and clearing out the drug lords the old fashioned way, with a tree limb and a length of rope. Many tree limbs and many ropes.
Texas builds a border fence along the former Mexican border to keep its new residents IN, and thereby solves America’s immigration disaster. Texas is awash in revenue from selling oil to the United States. Low barriers of entry and favorable tax/regulatory treatment (free from the edicts of the Feds) create a super-business friendly environment. Investment and manufacturing explodes, and Texas becomes the new China, right on America’s doorstep.
Everybody wins.
Kirk Parker @74:
I agree with you completely. Let’s not “ban” government employee unions, let’s do as you have proposed and outlaw collective bargaining and strikes for government employees. Your proposal is much more in line with our Constitution.
But, as Bohemond pointed out @75, it does seem to be effectively the same thing.
I need to find out what’s involved with getting it on the ballot here in KKKalifornia!
Are there any attorneys out there with experience writing up ballot initiatives to survive multiple prolonged court challenges who would like to lead the writing of a KKKalifornia ballot initiative as described above?
“Anatole Kaletsky wrote a hilarious article on the subject, How the ECB’s fig leaf has completely withered away.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6597813.ece
…-
“Let Greece Have Its Default
Greece is rightfully making headlines these days, hovering on the edge of what would be a quite embarrassing default – an open admission that the country will not be able to pay back its staggering debt.
While such an admission would cause turmoil, and probably a career change for several politicians, it remains the least harmful of available options.
The core problem is debt, massive amounts of debt. The debt-to-GDP ratio of Greece is well above 100 percent, estimated to hit 124 % in 2010 and 131 % in 2011. While Greek economical estimates are notoriously unreliable (more on that later), this is plenty bad enough. For no plan exists to actually pay back that mountain of borrowed money.
There are plans to cut government spending, and these spell hardship for the Greeks, who are not among the most prosperous of Europeans in the first place. However, Greece has been systematically overspending since joining the eurozone, lured by easy access to loans backed by the European Central Bank (ECB).
The ECB will, no questions asked, provide banks fresh loans with sovereign debt as collateral. The banks can borrow relatively freely based on this mechanism, and will obviously be purchasing sovereign debt for the purpose. This decreases interest rates for the states, which is obviously attractive. Thus, the ECB not only constitutes a ‘Lender of last resort’ for banks, but for states as well, and that at rates so favourable that the ‘Last resort’ element has faded into the background and borrowing through this mechanism has become routine. Anatole Kaletsky wrote a hilarious article on the subject, How the ECB’s fig leaf has completely withered away.”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4412
Off topic but will do your heart good, please watch this:
Ordinary Men & Extraordinary Heroes: Serving Those Who Serve America|6min
One of our group’s members has his own plane and has been involved with this for some time. We have helped with his gas bill. He is the same great guy that took several of us to DC for the rally and does much for our organization.
Americans are the most generous and considerate people on the face of the earth…bar none.
Papa Ray
P.S. You have to register, but it is painless and they always have great presentations and videos.
Off topic as well, but this is soooo Whiskey that I had to provide the link.
“Political Biology: Genetic Interests and White Protest”
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/hbd-human-biodiversity/political-biology/
Let me add, that having now read the comment section for the above, that I am not in any way advocating the many rather nasty anti-Jewish comments that are posted there.
# 69
The problem is that all the tabloids and opinions blogs in the world took “Bild” as a referrence without knowing it was “german humor”
Apparently you did as well.
I hope presenting my point of view allows others to take a different perspective.
and there were not more empathy in the “classier” papers
There isn’t any empathy. Germans did not want to see their hard earned money going to Greece.
As the leader of the Germans, Merkel shows she respects that opinion, and that it will be a factor in her final decision. Germans expect her to remain above the juvenile outbursts and make a well considered decision.
while we could read how successful is Germany
It’s probably a true statement that Germany is successful. Actually, if they weren’t successful the Germans wouldn’t have the money other people want them to give away to Greece.
“Apparently you did as well.”
not apparently, just that I know that you have no sense of humor (excepted in Hamburg Kabareten)
don’t worry for the others, they all worship the strenghful Germany
“There isn’t any empathy…” This is contradicting your assertion of the supposed “german humor”
“Germans expect her to remain above the juvenile outbursts and make a well considered decision”
So, what is her final decision, bailing or not bailing out, we’ll know after 9th of may, but who cares, since it’s already too late ?
“if they weren’t successful the Germans wouldn’t have the money other people want them to give away to Greece”
Hmm, you’re giving this “money” away anyways, your banks are involved within the greek bonds, as so we are, the question was merely how can our banks get their bets back, without leaving more feathers. Also too late, see the above articles that maz2 brought
“Will Germany, which has a real economy, finally dominate whatever emerges?” I wonder if Wretchard has read the books Europe’s Full Circle: Corporate Elites and the New Fascism and Fascist Europe Rising by one Rodney Atkinson (older brother of Rowan Atkinson, the famous comedian Mr. Bean and former UKIP candidate).
Marie Claude probably is familiar with the notion that France likes to think of itself as the junior partner in the EU while some in Germany (and the UK euroskeptic hardcore) view it as the Fourth Reich.
Papa Ray (#87):
In my neck of the woods, ultra-liberal northern California, we have, alas, an over-population of tame bores…
Fortunately, most of them, unlike rabbits, don’t breed at all…
Jamie Irons
Insofar as predicating one’s right to vote on tax payments made, I think there is a middle way. I would not want to disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t make enough to pay federal income taxes but at the same time there is the “parasites voting themselves benefits” problem.
But we do have a bicameral Federal Legislature. The Constitution states that all revenue bills shall originate in the House of Representatives. What I would propose is that people who don’t pay taxes can’t vote for anyone running for office in the House of Representatives. For Senate races and the Presidency they can. They have representation, but not representation sufficient to rob someone else to give goodies to them.
We need more Checks and Balances for our times.
The above comment was not about German-bashing (I myself am an American of German heritage who dislikes the stereotype of all Germans as authority loving potential goosesteppers) but a recognition that certain issues can either be settled peacefully with Germany openly speaking up for its national interests as a democratic state or it can act under the guise of ‘Europe’ perpetually and thereby foster cynicism. I think the Greeks saying German taxpayers owe paying their pensions for life because the Nazis looted the Greek treasury are ridiculous. By that measure a Reconquista of the southwest by Mexico is a-ok and so would be Russia ruling Poland and Finland again, something nobody wants now.
I also admire Germany (and to a lesser extent France’s) willingness to keep their manufacturing base intact even if I think the methods used are sometimes underhanded. The U.S. adopting EU-style corporatism under Obama won’t work because we were the nation that all the corporatists, whether Asian or European, depended on to buy the goods that made their systems worked. The proof is in how much of their export revenues were recycled back into the U.S. to prop up our housing market for so long – this would have been impossible without foreigners, particularly the exporters and oil producers cash (hell, Russia was the 4th largest holder of short term Fannie and Freddie paper). The Asia Times/First Things Spengler has remarked many times that this recycling reflected not only the hegemony of the dollar but the demographic youthfulness of the U.S. vis a vis the EU and Japan, in the sense that there weren’t so many mortgage backed securities to invest in outside the Anglosphere because homebuilding was less.
So in a sense corporatism can only survive and succeed if it has les Anglo Saxons to buy its products and provide the innovations that it depends upon. Look at the scale of U.S. vs. EU patents and compare, or go back and look at how German and Soviet industry depended on U.S. technology transfers in the 20s and 30s to build up their war making potential in synthetic fuels, rubber, etc.
What happens when the Anglo Saxons themselves, as Wretchard asks above, shackle themselves to decaying corporatist entities (Wall Street – Gub’mt Sachs, Soros’ Colored Revolutions/insider tip speculation empire, Gub’mt Motors) is something fearful to behold.
In short, Deutschland needs a Tea Party, a ‘hell no we won’t pay anymore bailouts’ movement, to frighten its own corporatist ruling class. A patriotic refusal to pay unjust taxes is about as far from National Socialist hyper-nationalism as one can get even if the political class would immediately smear any tax revolters as brown shirts like they have here in the U.S.
Mr. X did you mean that “it” is France ?
uh no, we might be that in a “opera-bouffe”
LifeofMind #4:
You started off summarizing lengthy and complex things very well and vey briefly that led me to think of something.
What would be cool would be a flow chart that showed how not only the CRA but all the other things that ate up our Design Margin occurred. The CRA ultimately came out of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60′s and how it transformed itself from Equal Opportunity to Economic Equality Through Litigation. Then there were the tax laws that favored buying and holding houses over actual investment in production, the growth of the Entitlement Culture, the Envirowhackos and government restrictions on manufacturing in the USA, the big unions powwer grabs, when Barney met Freddy, Euros looking for safe investments, Goldman Sacks and other firms reacting to all of this,etc.
Most of this stuff happened not serially but in parallel. And just as the development of small computers led to the replacement of the carburator and a huge increase in gas mileage and improvement in reliability for cars in a way that no one expected, so did many unconnected but complementary things combine to use up our Design Margin.
It would be a beautiful thing to behold and would do a lot to convince people. I have seen people not be able to agree on anything and then you put up a timeline chart that says this led to this led to this and their jaws drop and they say “No one ever explained it to me that way before.”
Richard,
Some perspective is needed here. I was born and raised in Portugal. Portugal first obtained independence from Spain (well, Castille), some 900 years (give or take)ago by promissing to pay the pope a fantastic sum to recognize them. This has not — to my knowledge or the knowledge of those who taught me history — ever been paid. The country has gone bankrupt at least once, during the first republic (early twentieth century, the exact date evades me. I remember grandma’s stories, though) In the seventies inflated itself out of MASSIVE debt. Portuguese are just being Portuguese. The mind-set is QUITE different from the US. When I started learning English I couldn’t understand why so many American writers bemoaned taxation. Now that I am an American, I can’t understand Portuguese passivity (Or rather their treating laws and tax collection as a natural event, and going AROUND it by avoiding payment as much as possible.) This is not to exculpate the country. I’m not of the all-cultures-are-equally-valid mind set, witness the fact that I chose to become a US citizen and raise my kids in the US. However, cultures change very slowly if at all. No, it’s not the Portuguese people’s fault. The fault lies with the masterminds of the EU who, blinded by their dreams of a “country large enough to compete with the US” (from listening to them as I did late seventies and early eighties, they REALLY thought this was the reason we outcompeted them. Size) tried to create Frankenstein’s monster out of conflicting parts.
I ran across this:
Decisions, decisions…
Papa Ray
None of the people who replied to my comment actually referred to the main point.
Mechanised farming, which produces most of the food in the US and certainly most of the grain surpluses, is extremely energy-intensive and not very sustainable at all – I didn’t originally mention aquifer depletion but let it be mentioned now. And very few Americans as a proportion have the necessary skills to run post-oil agriculture. Regarding the Amish; sure. How many of them are there?
I’ll put it even more simply. Currently, the majority of Americans are (indirectly) eating oil. Take away the oil and a lot of people are going to start starving.
Incidentally, the same comments apply to large-scale agribusiness everywhere else as well. But the USA has taken it further.
#72 Insufficiently Sensitive – I agree on all points.
One more thing. You don’t think the soil of the midwest has been wrecked? Then please explain the numerous rural churches whose churchyards are 10 feet or more above the surrounding plains.
“Then please explain the numerous rural churches whose churchyards are 10 feet or more above the surrounding plains.”
Where the heck do you get that stuff? Have you ever even been to the midwest? I’ve been up, down, and around every state in the midwest for decades and I’ve never seen anything like that. What, do you have some old dust bowl picture of 1930′s Oklahoma and you think that’s what things are like today?
I’ve got an uncle in South Dakota who still farms a 10,000 acre spread, the core of which was settled by great grandpa in 1896. Produces a higher yield today than it ever has since it was farmed, and that’s true for the rest of the midwest as well. And yes, the old homestead site is still there (he uses it to store hay in) and there’s no difference between it and the rest of the farm, if you want some evidence to refute your ridiculous claim.
I think you done jumped the shark on this one.
Graphic showing Public Debt as Percentage of GDP
One thing to note in the media reporting of debt to GDP numbers is the definition of debt – government (public) debt versus private (household) debt versus total debt. I have heard at least one report confusing the issue by claiming US ratio is close to that of Greece.
Which is not even remotely true.
Armageddon Rex wrote: “Better yet, cancel the draft.”
Paging 1973, pick up on line 1, 1973, caller is holding!
Fletcher,
I hint at it in my first post on food. I’ve gone about this in other venues too. A lot of people seem to think if they get used to buying locally they will do well when the crash comes, those people do not understand that those currently not eating artisanal local breads will be doing so after the oil-crash.
I say:
Funny, how most people think petroleum the king commodity, but in the end it is food. If you have suitable climate, soil, and work ethic you can produce food even w/o petroleum. Petroleum makes it easier and allows one to massively upscale the production, but in the end the belly does much better with wheat & mutton than methane & petroleum.
I stand by that paragraph. I don’t think it will be easy, a lot of professions will disappear. I do suppose corn production will drop quite a bit for some of the reasons you state, favoring more beans and hay but the items you note a lot of non-farmers are familiar with them.
Also, the only Midwestern churches I’ve seen above the fields are those built on HILLS, that is, I call bull on your claim too.
Fletcher Christian/113
“Then please explain the numerous rural churches whose churchyards are 10 feet or more above the surrounding plains.”
3 m. Yea, I buy it hook line and sinker.
Show me da piccies.
I remember from my old country… churches were, if possible, always built on a hill (even a small hill) or in places with higher elevation. It is possible that you’ve seen a couple of them that used a similar paradigm. But I don’t remember anyone attributing their elevation to a top soil erosion. That’s novel. I think you are applying the “bowing to a porcelain god” principle here.
I’m not particularly filled with warm fuzzies for Germany, but lessee now (barely simplifying): Greece has been behaving irresponsibly, and wants Germany to bail it out. In fact, it is demanding that Germany bail it out, while refusing to reform its own behavior. Germans are understandably not particularly enchanted about this. But if any German parliamentarians dare voice this disenchantment and facetiously propose a money for islands deal, then let’s attack them for being juvenile.
As an alternative, how about they take the podium at the Bundestag and sing?
re: France’s fiscal health.
It’s interesting decoding EDF’s balance sheets and financial reporting. It appears they have 10s of thousands of government employees on the payroll, and overall employment far beyond a U.S. electrical utility even when the Los Alamos Laboratory mission is included (French strategic weapons), and they have claimed they are teetering on insolvency even though their ~60 nuclear power plants (and a few dams) cost only a few 100M$ each when built in the 70s. So they are generating power at well under 1 cent a kilowatt hour – and selling it at 10 cents to themselves and most of Europe. Call it 10-20B$/year in what appears to be off the books gain.
Maybe this is why when I wander around France I seldom see the decay I see in Britain, esp. given the broad equivalence otherwise in population, education and GDP.
113. Fletcher Christian
I believe several of your responders understood exactly what you meant, they were just making a different point, which you apparently did not understand:
Across large parts of the USA, there is idle land and there are people tough enough to work it. They will be able to produce enough food to feed themselves and those willing to trade with them. Those in large cities will mostly die in the coming food riots, or just starve.
This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
On the subject of limiting franchise to property owners… I think net worth may be a better measure (if you have assets of any kind you are obviously productive and care what happens to them). But if you are gonna insist on property ownership you may as well go the whole way and insist that it be owned free and clear, but if you do you’ll want to also completely abolish the death tax so property (and franchize) can pass from one generation to the next without difficulty (as long as the recieving generation doesnt screw it up with a mortgage).
While we are at this let’s mentally give consideration to what has come from womens suffrage and what might happen if it were repealed. Seriously, aside from the knee jerk PC responses and cries of “mysoginist”, what have been the results of womens suffrage and what might be different if it were eliminated.
For one womens suffrage was a necessary mental precursor to the 2 income household & no fault divorce which can be seen to demonstrably damage society in general and children in particular. Early feminists won the right to vote and instead of seeing it as a finish line they kept right on going. And I bet if women were barred from voting that more men would see it as their duty to consider the interests of and vote on behalf of the women in their lives (wives, mothers and sisters) which may add up to an increased sense of duty to participate in the political process and increased voter participation (on a percentage basis of course).
Another idea that I have been thinking about that relates here would be to limit voting to only those eligible to run for a given office. 25 & up for the house, 35 & up for the senate (though the 17th amendment needs repealed IMO), and 35 & up plus evidence of “natural born” status to vote for President.
Wow look! I’m an elitist, a mysoginist and a bigot … all in the in the same post even. LOL
I also favor neutralization of public sector unions. Someone a few days ago suggested a 10 year “term limit” for government employment, thats a stellar idea too. Governemnt employment should be seen as a form of service, not a meal ticket for life.
wws @82:
Did you read my comment @46? I explicitly stated that land ownership alone isn’t a valid basis for determining who should be allowed to vote in the 21st century. There are many people who earn great money, pay lots of taxes, and make significant contributions to society but who don’t own real estate.
I believe that people who contribute more to society than they take from it should be allowed to vote. Determining that is difficult. In an ostensibly capitalist society, money is a logical metric to use. If the total value they pay into the system through work, taxes, fees, etc. exceeds the value of money and services they receive from the government by $2500, I believe they should be allowed to vote.
Even poor people could become eligible to vote through deciding to “donate” more money when they fill out their tax return. You may have seen my comment @97. Any poor person who really feels the need to vote as newly eligible 21 year old could join the military, and be instantly eligible to vote on the day they raise their hand and take the oath.
In order to protect the interests of retired folks who may no longer have an income, anyone who owns $30,000 or more worth of real estate would be eligible to vote. Most retired folks have at least $30,000 of equity in their home or other real estate property.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I believe our current universal suffrage is destructive to our republic, and was never intended by the founders. A sizable part of the U.S. population has realized they can vote larger and larger spoils from the treasury at the expense of our productive citizens and enterprises. An entire political party edifice now exists to shovel ever more confiscated plunder into the parasite’s trough.
Unless corrective action is taken it’s a steeper and steeper downhill slide from this point onward, right up to the point we go over the edge of the cliff!
123. Armageddon Rex:
I agree wholeheartedly. The Founding Fathers, from their study of history, knew that pure democracy would lead to ruin. The Republic they gave us has been whittled down step by step through the years and today we do in fact have a nearly pure democracy. We can see the destruction playing out before our eyes, in real time.
The franchise must be restricted to productive people if we are to have any chance of surviving. It is the only thing that matters in the long run. All else is hand-waving. Universal suffrage will lead to our doom. It cannot lead anywhere else.
wws @116:
Saying “Draft” leaves a bitter taste on the tongues of baby-boomer apparatchiks. Reading it likewise causes their eyes to sting and smart.
The apparatchiks have relabeled the unspeakable thought and deed. It’s now called “Selective Service”. It was one of the original false labeling politically correct fibs. All young men of U.S. citizenship must register for “Selective Service” when they turn 18 or be in violation of U.S. law.
“Selective Service” is registration for the D—t! And, it currently doesn’t include women, even though they make up 57% or more of U.S. enrolled college students.
I should have been more careful in my choice of phrase and said something like:
“…do away with the Selective Service system.”
My apology to you, and to nitpicking English teachers and literature baccalaureates everywhere.
“Everything’s bigger in Texas, and the pig population is no exception. They aren’t cute porkers, either—wild boars wreck crops and cause some $52 million in annual damages in the state. For some, that means an opportunity for heavy-duty huntin’, but the solo efforts aren’t enough to slow a wave of some 2 million hogs.”
That just made me smile. I remember two stories about wild boars when I was in Germany. One was from a friend who was in a radio jeep one night–noone dared move all night because they heard a boar rooting around. The other was a friend who actually saw a boar running from something–that something turned out to be a German Leopard tank, with half of the crew hanging out of their hatches to cheer on the show….
Marie-Claude,
you’re unpleasantly predictable and resentful, as well as, at best, half-informed.
As a German, I have been wondering of late: Are the other European peoples and nations who are supposed to pay for the Greek bailout — prominently including France — all that happy about the burdens they are suddenly expected to shoulder? Are the French, but also the Dutch, Austrians, Swedes etc. happily giving away their money in order to prop up a nation that has self-avowedly cooked the books over many years (to name just one of their financial offenses)? And all this more or less clearly perceiving that all this extra expenditure hardly will have an effect in the long run since the Euro system is based on premises that defy reality itself.
Lastly, let me suggest that you treat yourself to some Robert Gernhardt poems. This reminds me that I should read some Braudel again.
El Jeffe-while a regular visitor to Wretchard’s excellent log, I rarely comment.
However, I would like to address your comment about a ten year limit on federal employment.
There are many federal jobs where such a term limit wouldn’t work due to the nature of the work. For example, my husband is a federal firefighter. In order to reach the level where you can successfully manage large scale incidents (fire and other natural disasters), you need many years of hands on experience and training. At ten years in, you might be a captain, but most are certainly not at the level required to take on large incident management responsibilities, where many lives and much property can be at risk. For example, a large incident in southern California is incredibly complex in terms of logistics, terrain, and population.
You could argue instead that firefighting should not be a federal responsibility, rather it should properly be returned to the states.
As for the public union issue, well, there are bad and abusive managers in federal service as well as in private industry. Employees in both private and public institutions deserve protection from these bad actors.
I have to admit, though, that I have been appalled at some of the public union behaviors I have seen lately as states and municipalities run into financial hardship. It has been humiliating to think that my family and some of the great people my husband works with will naturally be categorized with those bozos.
Beth – point taken on complex work. Perhaps this could be tempered into an “up or out” type of an arrangement (like the military uses) with a mandatory retirement after a service interval that varies based on the job.
As far as public sector unions protecting public servants from bad public sector managers; I can see how that can be argued, but I suspect that the union’s bad actors (in leadership) probably out number and/or have a greater overall negative effect in the in the long run on society and public finances than the bad managers. how about we neutralize the unions AND force bad managers out… either on a case by case basis or with a federal employment “term limit”.
There is quite a sub-thread going on about restricting the franchise to those who don’t pay a certain level of taxes. Much is being made of this statistic being tossed out that 57% or so of the US population does not pay net income taxes. I don’t trust that number, why restrict attention to net income tax paid in?
We have property taxes, even if someone rents surely the landlord figures in taxes into the rent? Sales tax, nearly every state has a sales tax, employment tax, maybe person X does not pay taxes but their employer pays taxes on their employment. Then there is social security and medicare taxes. There are taxes on taxes, there are taxes on gasoline…
Old McDonalad had a government, with tax tax here and a tax tax there, here a tax, there a tax, everywhere a tax tax Old McDonald had a government E-I E-I I OWE.
I said it a long time ago, tax increases are going to transform from funding luxuries to funding national sovereignty/survival.
Jamie Irons @ 106:
I think that you know, even if our Easternward colleagues may not, but Northern and Central California have big wild bore populations. Big problem anywhere around the hills or wooded areas. You don’t see them much, because they are smart and wary, but you see where they have been rooting up places, including lawns, gardens, vineyards and fields. They have prospered as hunting in California has declined.
Similar story with wild turkeys. Growing up, we never saw or heard them. Now the hills are lousy with them. Like the bores, they don’t get hunted much because so much land is closed to hunting. Californians who hunt are often more likely to buy out of state licenses and go hunt elsewhere.
Neither boars nor turkeys would make much difference in California if things get tough: too many people out here.
RWE @78,
Now as for running out of oil and having to use Labrador Retrievers or whatever to till the land – I am convinced that given the advances being made in coal to fuel conversion (Univ of Texas for example) and making liquid hydrocarbon fuels from cellulose and so forth that we can produce all the fuel we need to grow food or do anything else.
Nobody’s arguing that there’s not a 100-year-plus supply of hydrocarbon fuels in the US proper, nor that we wouldn’t use it to prevent starvation. But the argument was made that you can produce food even w/o petroleum, and contra that silly assertion we pointed out some real-world cautions about growing and processing and transporting food to market by hand, or hand-and-animal, labor.
Individuals in small communities can practice subsistence agriculture, under favorable conditions, on somewhere between .25 and 10 acres per capita. But producing and transporting a sufficiency for urban consumption without machinery is preposterous, with modern populations.
But reality is always different than wafty theories. Focus on Al Gore, who lives a baronial life while preaching poverty for the rest of us, to better honor his environmental God…
Marcus (#130):
“There is quite a sub-thread going on about restricting the franchise to those who don’t pay a certain level of taxes … why restrict attention to net income tax paid in?”
Presumably because we are discussing the effects of evident tax-paying on voting, with an emphasis on “evident”.
“I said it a long time ago, tax increases are going to transform from funding luxuries to funding national sovereignty/survival.”
Well yes. The more of our tax money goes to non-essentials, the more we will need tax increases to pay for essentials.
Sensitive (#132):
And nobody was arguing that everything would be peachy keen if we didn’t have petroleum (or rather, if we had somewhat reduced access to outside petroleum.) Rather, the argument was being made that within the context of an entire-world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket scenario, we would be relatively better off than most everyone else, including even the major oil exporters. If what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t be too blase about the fact that we will “merely” suffer less horribly than others, duh.
Again, keeping in mind the context of the discussion, I fail to see why you felt the need to object to:
(Note: the above paragraph clearly implies that absent petroleum, food production gets massively downscaled. (And that ain’t too good [/hendrix].))
The financial comedy by which Greece is dragging the EU into the cesspool puts me in mind of a grotesque incident from thirty years ago.
In November of 1983, Captain George Tsantes, USN, military attache to the US Embassy in Athens, was murdered along with his driver by members of Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη (Revolutionary Organization 17 November.)
My memory of the occasion may be flawed, but because I knew George Tsantes through his family, and from attending the same church, the events made a vivid impression.
My recollection of news reports is that the day after the murder, the wife of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou marched in the vanguard of a parade through Athens streets, chanting Anti-American slogans, leading the crowd in denouncing the USA.
The first irony is that Margaret Papandreou was an American herself.
The greater irony is that decades later, when the ex-P.M. found a much younger woman — 34-year-old Dimitra Liani, former talk show hostess and flight attendant — and abruptly divorced Margaret, she returned to the United States.
Somehow, the whole episode seems to encapsulate the attitudes of 20th Century Greek elites, who sneer at the US, embrace the socialist model when it suits them, but come crawling for help and rescue when they f**k up their lives.
Clearly, between the ravages of the NAZIs and the decades of subversion, kidnapping, murders, and thuggery of the COMMUNISTS after WWII, Greek politics turned to insanity.
I don’t hold out much hope of any amount of indulgence and aid from the EU changing that.
It’s classic “toxic co-dependency.”
I’m not a farmer, but my fore-fathers were…
The MOST energy intensive fertilizer is Ammonia… WHICH COMES FROM NATURAL GAS.
Tragically, we have a one-century supply of said methane.
———
It is Ammonia-based fertilizers that doubled crop yields…
Check the introductory period of 1947 and there after.
Why then?
Natural gas was a glut and the Texas Railroad Commission INSISTED that the gas not be flared.
A mega-industry was born.
—–
BTW, America STILL produces TWICE the oil she did at the height of WWII.
Air travel sure is nice… but it consumes a lot of liquid fuel… railroads still work… and electric railroads can run on uranium, coal or the sun-water-cycle. ( hydro-electric )
It is of note that Britain was STARVING in WWII without Canada and America and Australia and New Zealand.
Food rationing continued YEARS after the war. Total elimination of rationing in ALL things occurred in 1953, IIRC. ( It takes quite a while to replace livestock losses.)
Full bellies = political stability. Hence Congress has to be insane to throttle down unemployment insurance or food stamps. As the French aristos can tell you, it’s your neck that’s on the line.
Herzog
I’am fed up of the EU being at the service for Zwitzerland !
half informed ? uh, of course, I’m french, not German !
Yet, the money, that we blindly left to the eurokleptocracy is still in my throat, and the Greek problem is the symptom of the EU mismanagement of a administration that leads us to a global governation, where Germany is the big brother !
Time to watch for our backs, I suppose UK is on my waves, hope the right party wins !
Herzog, again
you’re lecturing me, though you are more educated than the “Bild” readers !
“Ratings agencies have been strongly criticized”
Clearly the solution is to allow only government-approved ratings companies. Every service inside the government and none outside. It’s the only way the government can be assured that the results of any process can meet government standards.
Ari Tai
re: France’s fiscal health.
It’s interesting decoding EDF’s balance sheets and financial reporting. It appears they have 10s of thousands of government employees on the payroll, and overall employment far beyond a U.S. electrical utility even when the Los Alamos Laboratory mission is included (French strategic weapons), and they have claimed they are teetering on insolvency even though their ~60 nuclear power plants (and a few dams) cost only a few 100M$ each when built in the 70s. So they are generating power at well under 1 cent a kilowatt hour – and selling it at 10 cents to themselves and most of Europe. Call it 10-20B$/year in what appears to be off the books gain.
what you ignore is that EDF opened its capital to private investments (according to the EU liberal recomendations, that enterprises in the space of EU must be opened to concurrence)
So what you read as globally EDF is a multiplication of societies that covers diverse services and sites, ie each nuclear site is autonome as far its gestion, maintenance is generally made by external and private companies, ie Areva, Hendel, Ponticelli…
Development is another autonome society,as so Researches…
Also EDF, as a globality, but under different autonome societies, has participations in many foreign countries electricity industry.
So, globally, the result, through these diverse societies, might appear negative, though not under the threat of bankruption.
Also the diverse social and retirement specific system of the french EDF employees passed under the general french system of the social assurances, and where the unions are complaining, it’s because it’s less avantageous for them, also each site employees “comité d’entreprise”, that used to manage entertainments, vacations, luxuous training conventions… depends on the results and of the number of employees of the given site and or society.
So there isn’t that such a announced bankrupcy for EDF
tehag,
I agree
#133 Bob,
I will add, it is silliness to note that 57% of the voting public pays not net income taxes and expect the 57% to demand out of that clique. Further, I think people need to understand the pervasive presence of taxes even if they are in that 57% club. When I was in the Middle East a good Indian sit down dinner for my to-be-wife and I set us back at most $12.00. Over here, we are lucky if we get out for less than $40.00, the glass of shiraz I usually have here does not explain the difference no where near as well as taxes.
Also on the last point of mine you note, I have said a number of times in the last year we could be looking at a pivot, that raising taxes could become the default conservative position because of the wrecking ball of out of control spending being swung around right now. Not because the government is underfunding certain vital and truly national interests, but to preserve the currency and credit of the nation.
Sure enough, after Obamacare is passed we are hearing of studies the administration sat on and all of a sudden Obama & his advisers start talking of VATs.
Bob @134,
Rather, the argument was being made that within the context of an entire-world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket scenario, we would be relatively better off than most everyone else, including even the major oil exporters.
Relatively? Relative to what, mass extinction? I didn’t see ‘relatively’ @20. And I note that he said ‘you’ can produce food. Spoken like a true community organizer. We furnish the grand concepts, you furnish the work and the land and the tools.
Whoever asserted that you can produce food even w/o petroleum should not have blithely skipped off whistling kumbaya, but rather taken a crack at how it would be done, and how many would dine rather than die after conversion to zero-petroleum agriculture in the US.
tehag @139 & Marie @ 141:
“Clearly the solution is to allow only government-approved ratings companies. Every service inside the government and none outside.”
There was once a bold, resourceful, charismatic politician in Italy who popularized a system of government that sought to be all-inclusive. A system that “…politicizes everything spiritual and human”. Where the government concerned itself with crime, business, healthcare, regulation, the general satisfaction of the people, and if the trains ran on time or not…
He was famously quoted: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
His name was Benito Mussolini. The form of government he is credited with popularizing he called “Totalitarian”, which was, as far as he was concerned a boast, not a term of derision or denunciation.
Aside from providing for the common defense, breaking up trusts and monopolies, and setting some standards, I just want my government to adhere strictly to the U.S. Constitution as written and leave me the Hell alone!!! I’ll look after myself, thank you very much.
You both can keep your fascist ideas about the proper role of government. I want no part of it!
Jefferson would be ashamed of both of you!
Armageddon
you only took the word as its first meanings out of context
but if you read my comment before, it takes another lightening !
t@139: Clearly the solution is to allow only government-approved ratings companies. Every service inside the government and none outside. It’s the only way the government can be assured that the results of any process can meet government standards.
I sense a modicum of tongue in cheek.
This is where I usually respond to my inner Peter principle and yield the floor to experts, but I will say this about the regulatory agencies and their position/role within the trading industry. The agencies can be strengthened by simply ensuring more “grey hair” in upper management and by providing better career opportunities within the regulatory environment as one way of at least reducing the angular speed of the revolving door. At present, entry level jobs are considered mere preludes to more lucrative employment in the private sector, with all the attendant “good will” that implies. There are measures that can be taken bring some bite to the regulatory process that fall well short of either making the regs so complicated that traders just bribe their way out of lawsuits, or making the government enforce it’s own juice (although it’s nice to day dream about consequences landing in the right place for a change.)
As an addendum, when one considers the compromised role of the regulatory agencies, the thought of permitting synthetic derivatives as investment hedges seems not too far removed from handing the car keys to a drunk teenager (as someone once noted). I am breaking with my conservative Squawkers on CNBC (and joining the blert camp) by favoring a complete ban of these “weapons of mass destruction.”
One further thought on FinReg. If I got this right, a current provision in FinReg calls for increased collateral requirements for EXISTING derivatives contracts. This provision is being loudly opposed by a fairly large group of companies headed by Berkshire Hathaway as an infringement on contract – something like $600T of existing contracts that would have to be recollateralized. Here is where I will let my inner Peter Principle kick in again but that seems to me like it could take down the whole economy again.
Perhaps somebody could explain to me why the Idea of Germany taking a bunch of Greek islands in exchange for bailing out the prodigal Greek government. Why should the German taxpayers pay out billions of dollars it will take to protect the foolish bankers or the profligate Greeks without getting anything in return? Surely it would be nice to have some part of Germany that is not cold and gray and the Greeks should certainly experience some sort of penalty for electing people who engaged in deliberate fraud in order to build up a debt load as large as they have.
The alternative seems to be to throw Greece out of the EU as a warning to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland that they should take the austerity recommendations seriously.
tehag @139…
Moodys, Standard & Poors and Fitch WERE government approved rating agencies — THEY AND NOBODY ELSE.
The rules anointing them were codified into law over ten-years ago.
As a true oligopoly they were the magic stamp that permitted counterfeit-credit to trade as AAA.
“Britain was STARVING in WWII” blert@136.
The final end of food rationing was actually in 1954, but you are correct to remember Britain’s vulnerability compared with the US, Canada or Australia.
Britain became dependent on food imports late in the 18th century, but was at the same time rising to naval supremacy and empire, so that dependency had a fix.
In 2010, Britain imports around 40% of it’s food, and no longer controls the sources of production of that food, nor the sea-lanes on which it is carried. The population is 62 million, compared with 47 million in 1945, and much good agricultural land has been built over or otherwise polluted.
Rationing could be made to work, or just about, in WW2 Britain because it was a society of relatively low expectations, generally inured to hardship, and used to “making do” with what little it could get it’s hands on. It was also a society in which more people still lived on the land, or had grandparents who had done so, and so knew how to scrimp and save, preserve and bottle, make and mend.
Nowadays, those reserves of character are not completely lost, but they are much harder to find and more thinly spread, the balance of the population has been further changed through uncontrolled immigration, and personal observation does not leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about how most of the country would handle any real crisis.
Several have quoted “no taxation without representation” and I agree that this is an important principle. Where I might differ is that I think there is an equally important principle; “no representation without taxation”. Said taxation does not absolutely have to involve money, by the way.
It is far too easy for many in the USA (I believe) and the UK (I damned well know) to vote in governments that will spend like a drunken sailor, in the certain knowledge that they will never personally have to pay for their decisions.
IMHO voting rights ought to be conditional on one or more of several qualifications. One is paying tax. Another is paying others who pay tax – this allows for the depressingly large number of small business owners who work their arses off for very little reward and employ others. And the last is those who put their lives on the line for the country in which they live.
One more thing. Tax paid under the above rules ought to be net. Given that everyone employed by government has a net negative tax bill (they may be paying tax, but they also get money from government), this means that anyone in government service (other than those covered by the third case) would be ineligible to vote. This is a feature, not a bug.