Greece? What gives?

[Clinton Huxley]

"I hate these Greeces to pieces!" - Angela Merkel.

[Coito ergo sum]

"I hate these Greeces to pieces!" - Angela Merkel.

I want to read that with a Snaggletooth affect....and add, "...heavens to mergatroid."

[klr]

"I hate these Greeces to pieces!" - Angela Merkel.

I want to read that with a Snaggletooth affect....and add, "...heavens to mergatroid."

[Svartalf]

What gives is that those morons balk at taxing the riches land and business owner in the fracking country : the orthodox church.

[Svartalf]

I think the whole thing is a disgrace. Greece is being reduced to penury to save the pride of those Eurocrats idealogically wedded to the idea of a single currency. They are perfectly prepared to sacrifice Greece and the Greeks to save the Euro. Germany and Holland whine about having to pay for Greece but Germany in particular has greatly benefited from the single currency, in terms of its exports.

I look at it like this. Greece is, in effect, a "European Treasure". From her stem democracy, western philosophy, science (not to mention saving our asses from those pesky Persians).

If Westminster Abbey was falling down, the UK taxpayer would expect to foot the bill for repairing it. Europe should recognise its debt to Greece, stop whining and pay up. Sure, Greece needs reform but what is going on smacks of kicking someone while they are down.

During World War II, Churchill was asked to consider cutting subsidies for the arts, so more money could go to the war effort. His response - if we don't protect the arts, what exactly are we fighting for?

Merkel, Sarkozy, wouldn't give you tuppence for 'em.

Sheeze, I'll give you a shilling to take our whole government, and a guinea on top if you take our parliament too.

[Svartalf]

yah, he does. : )

Woot! our loveliest arseist is back

[Svartalf]

I've seen a proposal that the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece, as a show of solidarity. I don't normally support that kind of thing but would make an exception in this case. Little boost for Greek morale.

That would be the greatest stupid move in all time when it comes to conservation of ancient treasures.
Giving them the stuff back might improve their morale, but it would be hideous for the marbles themselves, since we'd be sending them the lot at a time when they have no money to arrange proper conservation of it, if they can even guard it from art thieves in the first place.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think the whole thing is a disgrace. Greece is being reduced to penury to save the pride of those Eurocrats idealogically wedded to the idea of a single currency. They are perfectly prepared to sacrifice Greece and the Greeks to save the Euro. Germany and Holland whine about having to pay for Greece but Germany in particular has greatly benefited from the single currency, in terms of its exports.

I look at it like this. Greece is, in effect, a "European Treasure". From her stem democracy, western philosophy, science (not to mention saving our asses from those pesky Persians).

If Westminster Abbey was falling down, the UK taxpayer would expect to foot the bill for repairing it. Europe should recognise its debt to Greece, stop whining and pay up. Sure, Greece needs reform but what is going on smacks of kicking someone while they are down.

During World War II, Churchill was asked to consider cutting subsidies for the arts, so more money could go to the war effort. His response - if we don't protect the arts, what exactly are we fighting for?

Merkel, Sarkozy, wouldn't give you tuppence for 'em.

Sheeze, I'll give you a shilling to take our whole government, and a guinea on top if you take our parliament too.

At the risk of sounding parochial, isn't the Parliament part of the government? What's all this then?

[Svartalf]

Greece is a basket case. It massively over-borrowed, and should never have been allowed to do so. Blame all around.

It should not even be in the eurozone, they cooked the book to make it look like they qualified.

The bankers who helped them do it should be boiled alive medieval style for debasing the currency.

Greece is a basket case. It massively over-borrowed, and should never have been allowed to do so. Blame all around.

Should never have been allowed into the Euro in the first place. Was encouraged to do so for ideological reasons, resulting in the possibility of cheap borrowing.

Greece needs to put its house in order. Doesn't alter the fact that Germany and Holland are acting like a pair of auditors demanding a starving man sell one of his kidneys to pay off his credit card bill before they will consider giving him a jelly-bean.

One thing Greece DOES need to do is cut its military budget which currently runs at twice the NATO average.

, though given their location at the outskirts of Europe, dangerously close to the Russian sphere and the Muslim East, maybe they do need the military, if only as a deterrent.

[Svartalf]

I think the whole thing is a disgrace. Greece is being reduced to penury to save the pride of those Eurocrats idealogically wedded to the idea of a single currency. They are perfectly prepared to sacrifice Greece and the Greeks to save the Euro. Germany and Holland whine about having to pay for Greece but Germany in particular has greatly benefited from the single currency, in terms of its exports.

I look at it like this. Greece is, in effect, a "European Treasure". From her stem democracy, western philosophy, science (not to mention saving our asses from those pesky Persians).

If Westminster Abbey was falling down, the UK taxpayer would expect to foot the bill for repairing it. Europe should recognise its debt to Greece, stop whining and pay up. Sure, Greece needs reform but what is going on smacks of kicking someone while they are down.

During World War II, Churchill was asked to consider cutting subsidies for the arts, so more money could go to the war effort. His response - if we don't protect the arts, what exactly are we fighting for?

Merkel, Sarkozy, wouldn't give you tuppence for 'em.

Sheeze, I'll give you a shilling to take our whole government, and a guinea on top if you take our parliament too.

At the risk of sounding parochial, isn't the Parliament part of the government? What's all this then?

You forget the We French run under a presidential regime, the legislative and executive are more tightly separated than up north, though possibly less so than your side.

Of course, since chirac's shananigans, and from 2002 onward, executive/legislative/gummint have been more or less in lockstep, since the president and reps have the same mandate length and the 577 are elected right after the one.

Government ministers are called to serve at the whim of the president, and don't get voted in, even though the prime minister usually is from the same party as the speaker.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think the whole thing is a disgrace. Greece is being reduced to penury to save the pride of those Eurocrats idealogically wedded to the idea of a single currency. They are perfectly prepared to sacrifice Greece and the Greeks to save the Euro. Germany and Holland whine about having to pay for Greece but Germany in particular has greatly benefited from the single currency, in terms of its exports.

I look at it like this. Greece is, in effect, a "European Treasure". From her stem democracy, western philosophy, science (not to mention saving our asses from those pesky Persians).

If Westminster Abbey was falling down, the UK taxpayer would expect to foot the bill for repairing it. Europe should recognise its debt to Greece, stop whining and pay up. Sure, Greece needs reform but what is going on smacks of kicking someone while they are down.

During World War II, Churchill was asked to consider cutting subsidies for the arts, so more money could go to the war effort. His response - if we don't protect the arts, what exactly are we fighting for?

Merkel, Sarkozy, wouldn't give you tuppence for 'em.

Sheeze, I'll give you a shilling to take our whole government, and a guinea on top if you take our parliament too.

At the risk of sounding parochial, isn't the Parliament part of the government? What's all this then?

You forget the We French run under a presidential regime, the legislative and executive are more tightly separated than up north, though possibly less so than your side.

So what? Separate branches "of" government doesn't appear to me to mean that one branch is not part of the government.

Perhaps we are defining terms differently.

Hux got all pissy on another thread about the affront of equating the British "State" with the British "Government," the two being somehow different (I think perhaps only rhetorically or definitionally different, and not different in reality, but perhaps I don't yet fully appreciate the distinction). So, it interested me that your statement implied that the Parliament wasn't part of the government. I thought legislative functions were governmental functions, as were administrative, executive and judicial. Perhaps not under the Euro systems.

Of course, since chirac's shananigans, and from 2002 onward, executive/legislative/gummint have been more or less in lockstep, since the president and reps have the same mandate length and the 577 are elected right after the one.

Government ministers are called to serve at the whim of the president, and don't get voted in, even though the prime minister usually is from the same party as the speaker.

Sure - government ministers are analogous to US "Secretaries" - Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of State. But, that doesn't mean that the Senate and the House of Representatives are not part of the government.

Maybe it's a difference in usage of "government." Like - in the UK, the winning party "sets up a government" and a vote of no confidence can "topple the government," and whatnot. Note: I'm not saying that a different usage is "wrong" -- I'm trying to make sure I understand the distinction completely.

[Seth]

Coito, I know the finances of some US states are in a parlous mess. Supposing a US state had a Greece-sized problem - what would the Federal Govt do?

That's a real conundrum, and it's not a distant one at all. California is our Greece. It's mired so deeply in socialism and redistributionism and entitlements that it's on the brink of bankruptcy. I think many people think it should be allowed to fail and go bankrupt because that's the only way for the people of California to get out from under the absolutely unsustainable and unpayable pension obligations of its public employee unions.

Bankruptcy would kill the unions and clear the decks, leaving retired public employees without pensions, but it's not at all clear that the people of California, who are by and large of a socialist bent, would want to do that.

So, California may end up with the highest tax burden in the nation, driving its inhabitants into penury and more likely OUT of California, as is currently happening, and it'll end up defaulting anyway because there won't be enough business or industry in the state to pay the outrageous pensions anyway.

It's highly likely that the federal government would bail out California, unfortunately, to the ire of the rest of the nation who will end up having to pay for it. But the one thing that the federal government cannot do that the Eurozone nations can do is to dictate austerity measures going into the future that will prevent Californians from citizen-initiativing themselves right back into their current plight. You see, it's not the legislature that's done it to Californians, it's Californians who have done it to themselves by installing constitutional requirements by citizen initiative that mandate social welfare spending that the liberal nutcases in California want, but can't pay for.

But due to the Separation of Powers Doctrine, the federal government can only give California money, it can't act as a receiver for California and direct its spending to ensure it stays within it's means as would be the case with, for example, a city or town IN California, which can be taken over by the state if it bankrupts itself.

So, what will likely happen (but should not) is that 40 billion will be poured down the rathole of California, to be followed by another 40 billion in another decade as California keeps spending more than it can afford.

[Svartalf]

Well, if you think that the queen is part of the british state, that's saying that the fleas and ticks are part of the dog.

and to us, "government" strictly means the executive, the legislature being a separate entity.

[PsychoSerenity]

California? Really, Seth? I thought California was one of the more productive states.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

Because the USA is not a real country (created simply as a tax dodge), when the money runs out it will fracture. Some States will be big enough to go it alone, others will have to form Federations. or down south Confederations .

Already lots of noise about defacto secession from the Federal Govt. Full blown split is only a numbers $$$$ game.


Either that or the whole lot goes down the Mexican capitalist route - including the locals mostly being brown. and sitting by the roadside wearing Sombreros.

My prediction is by 23rd Feb 2012.