For what it's worth Sky, I completely agree with you in the need to go back to back to basics, although perhaps not quite as far as local markets selling only to local towns, but certainly trade within nations needs to be strengthened at the cost of trade between nations. Not just because of financial reasons but because of security reasons, if anything were to affect our ability to import items, just how many countries have a back-up supply of food? Since the end of the Cold War, how many stockpiles of food are kept?
Nothing, nada, zilch, everything is ordered Just In Time, food, clothing, materials, even electricity in some cases. There are no fail-safes and no back ups. It would be a disaster.
Your frustration is understandable, as is that of many Germans, to see their government poring billions of dollars into a seemingly bottomless pit, and to have no gratitude for that. Unfortunately it's a situation which has embittered both sides and has made people in both nations very angry with each other, but equally there are many in both nations which are doing their best to help.
There was a good bit on Panorama by Jon Humphries on the situation in Greece which aired a few months back:
You can see both sides of the story there, those who want to get Greece back on track, who recognise what went wrong, and those who just don't want to face the facts.
What worries me, is the rise of extremism under such circumstances, not just because of race, but also because of situations, the rich creating gated communities for the poor. You can already see things like this happening with the poorer people no longer able to live in the cities where the jobs are, being pushed out by the rich into the far suburbs and slummy-like estates were crime and antisocial behaviour is rife. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen and there is an inbuilt anger against...everything...in young people which was shown last year in the UK riots, so much hatred, and so much anger...it has to vent somewhere, in fear against race, anger against the economic divide, and the politicians will struggle to control it, and will have to ride with it, or...more likely...exploit it for their own benefit.
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