Greece...

wotsthat

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Whether you agree or disagree with the Government. They most certainly aren't crazy. In fact highly intelligent. As they've exposed the total weakness and fallability in the Euro project. Politics has driven the plans forward not common sense. Too fast too soon.

Being crazy and highly intelligent aren't mutually exclusive.

I assume you thought the Euro project was fallible before the latest Greek government was voted in and didn't need the genius Tsipras to enlighten you.

I've not fully bought into the argument that the Greek government are composed of Mensa members pretending to be incompetent whilst persuing a separate unknown agenda.

Carl31

padington wrote: »

If I'm honest, I'm rooting for the Greeks to leave just to to see what happens.

If they do go, i think they will make a success of it, and others will follow, which will be the start of the end of the EU.

Moby

antrobus wrote: »

By promising to restore the Constitution of the Republic?

And then reneging on that promise, instigating a Communist dictatorship, and becoming a Soviet client state. I don't think that's the kind of parallel anyone would like to make.

I was actually referring to the reasons he came to power ie the effect of American capitalism on Cuban society that led to the revolution........... not your version of what happened next.

mystic_trev

The sense of panic among civil servants that their perks may be coming to an end was reflected in figures yesterday which showed that 6,000 public sector employees applied for early retirement last month, compared with the normal monthly figure of 450 to 600.

I'm not surprised.

remorseless

Thrugelmir wrote: »

It's €60 a day and on the basis of 30 days in a month. That's €1,800 (£1,300) of cash a month.

I still don't get the queues at the ATMs, can't they pay by card in shops if they have a card to cash out? I barely use £50 a month in cash...

ChiefGrasscutter

No they cannot - cards are starting not to be accepted - as one might expect in such circumstances.

remorseless

well that would make it difficult then... hopefully they will have their drachma back next week!

padington

Carl31 wrote: »

If they do go, i think they will make a success of it, and others will follow, which will be the start of the end of the EU.

No one can make a success of anything by letting the workforce work very little when you have China to compete with.

The left keep forgetting, it's not what's fair that makes people richer, it's what is more competitive ( longer hours, better idea's, employed by more enthusiasm etc ).

Until global open competition is killed, competition is the kingmaker.

Greece are showing no signs of understanding any of that.

Saying that the EU was one attempt to make a union where the competition was regulated a little fairer, a blue print to take to the world. It's was pushing in moderate way to counter some of the worst excesses of competition ( pollution, products that harm, unproductive inequality). Sadly this one new opportunity for the world has been essentially attacked by Greece failing to play its part in that community.

Feel for the Greek people by all means but the role their governments have played leading up to this hasn't been praiseworthy.

It's been selfish, actually no, it's been suicidal and shown a complete disregard for the obvious economical laws governing success today.

ChiefGrasscutter

The problem is that Greece is not itself a functional economic unit.
.....not unlike say a village in the UK
Most of what it produces is available cheaper elsewhere - eg Turkey for holidays.
Unlike Iceland with fish and geothermal cheap power it does not have extensive natural resources to sell.

So either
It has to have a perpetually depreciating independent currency.
Or like my village under a single currency regime it has to have a continual source of external income/capital transfers in with no expectation of it ever being paid back.
The single currency for Greece has locked in permanent uncompetitiveness where others (both in and out of the euro) now have a total and absolute competitive advantage over it.

antrobus

Moby wrote: »

I was actually referring to the reasons he came to power ie the effect of American capitalism on Cuban society that led to the revolution....

I'd have thought it was more to do with the effect of Cuban capitalism; specifically the endemic corruption of the Batista dictatorship.

Moby wrote: »

............. not your version of what happened next.

It's not my 'version' of 'what happened next', it's the historical one.

Fidel "I am not a communist" Castro did indeed promise to "restore the legitimate Constitution of the Republic". It's in the 'manifesto' of the 26th July Movement (aka M-26-7), being the actual group that overthrew Batista. It was only after they'd seized power, that Castro went all Marxist-Leninst, at which point those members of M-26-7 who were weren't communists, such as Huber Matos, got arrested and imprisoned.