Greece? What gives?

[Clinton Huxley]

I hope the Bank of England is keeping the "Euro-meltdown" contingency plans to hand.

You see what happens when you let the French and the Germans design a "Continental System"....

[JimC]

I hope the Bank of England is keeping the "Euro-meltdown" contingency plans to hand.

You see what happens when you let the French and the Germans design a "Continental System"....

I suspect migration from old Blighty will increase soon...

Fine, as long as you swear allegiance to the Australian cricket team, forswearing all others...

[Clinton Huxley]

I hope the Bank of England is keeping the "Euro-meltdown" contingency plans to hand.

You see what happens when you let the French and the Germans design a "Continental System"....

I suspect migration from old Blighty will increase soon...

Fine, as long as you swear allegiance to the Australian cricket team, forswearing all others...

Not so, Blighty will soldier on in its traditional role of saving Europe from itself.

[JimC]

I hope the Bank of England is keeping the "Euro-meltdown" contingency plans to hand.

You see what happens when you let the French and the Germans design a "Continental System"....

I suspect migration from old Blighty will increase soon...

Fine, as long as you swear allegiance to the Australian cricket team, forswearing all others...

Not so, Blighty will soldier on in its traditional role of saving Europe from itself.

Usually requiring the bodies of vast numbers of dominion cannon fodder...

Or sometimes Generals to save you from yourself, like the urbane Melbourne Jew, General Monash...

[Clinton Huxley]

Across the South East of England, the young economists and accountants of Accountancy Command, Group 11, stand ready to protect us from the coming financial storm. We have before us an ordeal of the most grevious kind. What is our goal? Financial stability. Stability at all costs. Stability in spite of all terror, until we pass through the storm into the
broad, sunlit uplands of a balanced economy.

[Svartalf]

I hope the Bank of England is keeping the "Euro-meltdown" contingency plans to hand.

You see what happens when you let the French and the Germans design a "Continental System"....

Unless they have secretly stored half the world's gold reserves, you won't be able to do much about your main trade partner (set of) sinking into the doldrums.

Especially now that your manufacturing has gone the same way as ours... you rely on providing financial services and a platform for import/export of goods... let's see what happens to that when demand goes down because nobody has money to invest, put in a safe place, or buy foreign goods with.

[Clinton Huxley]

UK manufacturing sector same size as France (despite what Sarko said) and I think we still export more per capita than a lot of countries.

We need to persuade Mongolia to buy more shortbread.

[Svartalf]

Translate, ridiculously small for a so called 'industrialized' country.

[Clinton Huxley]

Translate, ridiculously small for a so called 'industrialized' country.

"Post-industrial"

[Atheist-Lite]

Translate, ridiculously small for a so called 'industrialized' country.

"Post-industrial"

A service enomoy and unlike the US the blow jobs over here have been socialised.

[Clinton Huxley]

Greece now, Portugal next, Italy, then France and maybe Blighty could become members of an unenviable club, the "de-developing" nations, as wealth, expertise and hope are sucked out of them and civil society fractures under the cosh of austerity without end.

Bleak - I'm turning into Crumple!

[Atheist-Lite]

Greece now, Portugal next, Italy, then France and maybe Blighty could become members of an unenviable club, the "de-developing" nations, as wealth, expertise and hope are sucked out of them and civil society fractures under the cosh of austerity without end.

Bleak - I'm turning into Crumple!

You haven't got upto the extinction phase yet....this world after humans....they can't survive what's coming: nuclear winter.

[Clinton Huxley]

They can survive! I've seen Mad Max, you just need enough leather trousers, make-up, hairspray and pointy implements.

[Svartalf]

Translate, ridiculously small for a so called 'industrialized' country.

"Post-industrial"

A service enomoy and unlike the US the blow jobs over here have been socialised.

damn, that's more advanced than what we have down south.

[Coito ergo sum]

Seems to be a situation any country population could find themselves in, depending on circumstances, in striving to scale that capitalist ladder (not a comment on my views on that, just an observation).

I don't get how this can be pinned on "capitalism" -- LOL.

It seems more of a function on too much government spending - a very low number of hours in the work week, an exceedingly high minimum wage, a very early retirement age, huge government benefits and payouts creating a dependent society which is not producing enough to sustain the expenditures.

In other words - stuff costs money, and the Greek economy isn't producing enough to pay for the stuff. The thing spiraled out of control, and now they can't get anyone to accept that they can't have free stuff.

So, everyone is losing. Socialized misery.