Greece: Euro crisis

[SpineyNorman]

Obviously not, but Sky would go, cut down on beer & fags etc . . .

I'm perfectly happy for us to cut unnecessary spending. Trident, foreign wars, hell, if I were the head of a household who had just cleared its savings bailing out an irresponsible wealthy son, who was now raking it in again (bonuses) I'd make sure the ungrateful little shit paid some of my debt.

What I wouldn't do, however, would be to stop buying the tools and petrol I need to get to work. Equally, heating to grandma's bedroom, support for the disabled son and education for the kids would be VERY low down on my list of things to cut back on.

That you consider things people depend on for their livelihoods and general welfare to be analogous to "Sky, beer & fags" tells me a great deal about how you look at the world tbh.

 

[ayatollah]

I'm perfectly happy for us to cut unnecessary spending. Trident, foreign wars, hell, if I were the head of a household who had just cleared its savings bailing out an irresponsible wealthy son, who was now raking it in again (bonuses) I'd make sure the ungrateful little shit paid some of my debt.

What I wouldn't do, however, would be to stop buying the tools and petrol I need to get to work. Equally, heating to grandma's bedroom, support for the disabled son and education for the kids would be VERY low down on my list of things to cut back on.

That you consider things people depend on for their livelihoods and general welfare to be analogous to "Sky, beer & fags" tells me a great deal about how you look at the world tbh.

Yup, Nice demolition job on the nonsensical "a country's economic activity and budget is like your personal household budget" argument of the economic Right. He's the Class Enemy, SpineyNorman... You've got a much stronger stomach than me, or you are just a much nicer person, sparing time from your life to debate with such parasites. Doing a good job though !

 

[A Dashing Blade]

. . . That you consider things people depend on for their livelihoods and general welfare to be analogous to "Sky, beer & fags" tells me a great deal about how you look at the world tbh.

Please show the relevant post to back this statement up or retract this.

 

[A Dashing Blade]

Yup, Nice demolition job on the nonsensical "a country's economic activity and budget is like your personal household budget" argument of the economic Right.

You really really think so?

He's the Class Enemy, SpineyNorman... You've got a much stronger stomach than me, or you are just a much nicer person, sparing time from your life to debate with such parasites. Doing a good job though !

That bit genuinely made me laugh out loud.

 

[extra dry]

This is about Greece and the stuff going on over there...I can for see Europe crash, like a deck of badly stacked bricks the kid on youth training (if they even still have anything, what is was, in the 80-90's like an extra tenner a week for building stuff..like big walls...long trenches and it rained..oh crash in 2012..I think the main winners here are the people things...could it get really that bad?...I mean the west has turned a blind eye it seams to Syria at the moment.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Please show the relevant post to back this statement up or retract this.

What are the cuts being made that are analogous to beer, sky and fags then? You made the analogy, not me. I'm not going to retract it either, I don't take orders from the likes of you.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What are the cuts being made that are analogous to beer, sky and fags then? You made the analogy, not me. I'm not going to retract it either, I don't take orders from the likes of you.

Even then it doesn't work. We live in capitalism. The economy relies on churning out all kinds of unnecessary crap to keep us all in jobs.

DB, the capitalist by profession, appears not to understand at all what it is that keeps capitalist economies running.

 

[butchersapron]

Greek power workers occupying printers and stopping printing of power bills...early hints at self-reduction?

 

[butchersapron]

Anyone got any further info?
Foreign riot police now operating in Greece.

Did you know that the EU has its own riot police that can operate in any European country but is answerable directly to none of them? No I didn’t either.

They are called the European Gendarmerie Force (Eurogendfor) . They are based in Italy but funded and staffed by six signatory nations who are France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Romania. However, according to the Treaty which established Eurogendfor they can operate in any EU country and are available to others who invite them to do so. The country which invites them in is refered to as the ‘Host’.

The Gendarmerie are specifically set up to deal with riots and civil unrest and as the treaty spells out they are to be

"…exclusively comprising elements of police forces with military status"

 

[gosub]

that was in the treaty that wasn't the constitution iyswim,

 

[butchersapron]

The article doesn't say it was the Treaty of Lisbon - the treaty referred to is the Treaty of Velsen - that's the one linked to.

 

[gosub]

yep lisbon was the tidying up of all existing treaties, we aren't covered by Velsen but is covered by Lisbon and Mr Brown signed that saying there was nothing significant in it. Search for EUrogendfor will pull up euroskeptic blogs on Lisbon

 

[butchersapron]

What?

 

[Lo Siento.]

they evidently had a bit of a trial run in Haiti last year... http://www.eurogendfor.org/egfpages/egfparticipationtoMINUSTAH.aspx

 

[gosub]

our Gorvenment, can only endorse the deployement of Italian (or whereever) riot police in Greece. That's the way treaties work. Personally I think it will be inflamatory, as I imagine a lot of people will. You won't find anyone in Government saying that though. HMG don't talk down contracts entered into. And last HMG endorsed the existance of EUro riot police

 

[Belushi]

Bloody hell, they slipped that one under the radar.

 

[butchersapron]

our Gorvenment, can only endorse the deployement of Italian (or whereever) riot police in Greece. That's the way treaties work. Personally I think it will be inflamatory, as I imagine a lot of people will. You won't find anyone in Government saying that though. HMG don't talk down contracts entered into. And last HMG endorsed the existance of EUro riot police

No one mentioned our government though.

 

[gosub]

nobody mentioned the Greek government either if check it out on wiki, signatories of Velsen supply the plod to any signatory of Lisbon, which was according Mr David Milliaband "a tidying up exercise"

 

[butchersapron]

Hence the word Foreign in the articles headline...

 

[elbows]

I'm not convinced its true that they have been deployed to Greece. Need to keep an eye on it but also be wary that the use of foreigners to suppress populations is a reasonably common rumour, a variation of which was very visible in Libya with all the mercenary talk.

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/20...with-rumors-on-eurogendfor-hit-men-in-greece/

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2011/10/14/eurogendfor-hit-men-took-off-their-riot-helmets/

 

[gosub]

Not showing up in any of the Google news feeds either nor have they put out any press release either. So unfounded they haven't been deployed - yet.
Makes me wonder what the point of them is. Aren't enough of them to have decicive impact and their deployementwill always have an inflammatory aspect - akin to busing met police in to qwash striking miners.
Even the beeb saying strikers have majority support: bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15304972

 

[_angel_]

I'm perfectly happy for us to cut unnecessary spending. Trident, foreign wars, hell, if I were the head of a household who had just cleared its savings bailing out an irresponsible wealthy son, who was now raking it in again (bonuses) I'd make sure the ungrateful little shit paid some of my debt.

What I wouldn't do, however, would be to stop buying the tools and petrol I need to get to work. Equally, heating to grandma's bedroom, support for the disabled son and education for the kids would be VERY low down on my list of things to cut back on.

That you consider things people depend on for their livelihoods and general welfare to be analogous to "Sky, beer & fags" tells me a great deal about how you look at the world tbh.

Also, if a family actually treated it's disabled members and elderly in the neglectful way that the government seem to want to or actually do, they would be done for neglect.

 

[elbows]

Not showing up in any of the Google news feeds either nor have they put out any press release either. So unfounded they haven't been deployed - yet.
Makes me wonder what the point of them is. Aren't enough of them to have decicive impact and their deployementwill always have an inflammatory aspect - akin to busing met police in to qwash striking miners.
Even the beeb saying strikers have majority support: bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15304972

Well the point of them to date appears to have more to do with EU objectives in countries outside the EU, than as a paramilitary force for internal EU use. This includes EU contribution to wider regional or global issues, via NATO, UN, etc. Eg Bosnia, Haiti. In future that could change, but yeah there are implications with inviting this sort of force in, including ones that can be highly counterproductive. Its also an admission of weakness so I only see it being done as a last resort. Like what Bahrain did by getting in GCC troops.

 

[Daniel Navarro]

I've been told Greece has had a awful public system, like old socialist countries; for example 300 guys to tidy up one normal garden. It was when Greece was allowed to debt; but right now it cannot carry on...

 

[Pickman's model]

I've been told Greece has had a awful public system, like old socialist countries; for example 300 guys to tidy up one normal garden. It was when Greece was allowed to debt; but right now it cannot carry on...

you've been told: but have you simply taken someone's word as gospel or actually bothered researching it? it seems the former's the case.

 

[Daniel Navarro]

you've been told: but have you simply taken someone's word as gospel or actually bothered researching it? it seems the former's the case.

My uncle told me about the disaster of greek public system and gave me the example of the 300 gardeners.

By the way, Greece is only the 0,4% of GDP and is making a lot of trouble because globalitazion effects.

 

[Pickman's model]

My uncle told me about the disaster of greek public system and gave me the example of the 300 gardeners.

By the way, Greece is only the 0,4% of GDP and is making a lot of trouble because globalitazion effects.

greece is only 0.4% of the gdp is a meaningless comment.

have you any supporting evidence for your anecdotal evidence?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

This is an interesting article on the state of the southern Mediterranean countries:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/21/europe-breadline-blame-culture-corruption

It's the system, they say. It sucks you in, makes you complicit. You really have very little choice. It's everywhere, in every corner of your life.

"I thought I knew what to expect," said Vangelis Sgouras, 55, a council worker in Thessaloniki, who returned to his home town more than 20 years ago after spending the first half of his adult life in Australia.

"But I had no idea of the extent. It's staggering. You want the electricity fixed, it's in a month, or tomorrow if you slip someone a note. The lawyer, the same. The doctor costs €50, or €80 if you want a receipt. So what do you do? Thirty euros is a lot of money to my family. You pay €50, and you become a part of it."

 

[sihhi]

This is an interesting article on the state of the southern Mediterranean countries:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/21/europe-breadline-blame-culture-corruption

It's an article that somehow makes out that little tips and gratituties by the people are the cause of the crisis not the rich in Greece and elsewhere attacking the social model and welfare state - constitutional right to attend university, free school meals across the board.

What about corruption in British plc in foreign business deals? It's huge, massive far bigger than the small fry under consideration here.

This does not tally with opinion polling within Greece at all.

The fact that so many families own their own homes, and that household debt is comparatively low, may be cushioning the blow more than in Spain and Portugal, but that won't last for ever. Not even for very long; living standards in Greece are plummeting. So what almost everyone here tells tell you that the only way forward is for the system to be dismantled root and branch, replaced with something – in Tsaliki's words – "clean, competent, conscientious, trustworthy".
The problem is, nobody knows how; this is about more than the "new way of doing politics" sought by Spain and Portugal's Indignados. Remarkably, Sgouras, council worker, unionist, patriot, is prepared to contemplate some kind of foreign supervision, a temporary administrative occupation, to get his country back on track.

 

[frogwoman]

how do you embed videos from youtube on here?