Life and Debt: A Greek Tragedy (merged)

[STEED]

First link is more to do with Germany.

Soros calls on Berlin to contribute more to save euro

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/soros-calls...195025760.html

Second link Euro.

Euro crisis has entered a more lethal phase, says Soros

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/eur...005600456.html

As I recall he bet against the pound back in 1992 just before Black Wednesday.

Over to Skybird...

[Skybird]

Over to Skybird...

The dark Sith Lord is on the dancefloor again. Having ripped of Britain, he now tries the same with Germany - he has bought 2 billion in liabilites from critial Euro-countries like Greece and Spain, for which he now wants Germany to bail them out so that his bet wins and he can make a profit from it. His hitting the drum on the Germans since months. Debts, debts, more debts - in principle he just wanst to keep the snowballing chainmail-system staying alive a bit longer. Germany can happily bite the dust after he made his profit.

What is money? Money was a tool to exchange goods more easily without needing to carry said goods in reality with you. But then somethign bad happened, money turned from being a tool for trading to being the object of trade itself. It was taken out of the cycle where in needs to fow to keep business-makign alive, it was saved and stockpiled and became the target of the trading intewtiuon, not just a tool to ease trading. It became an item, a good. And that was bad. The poorer ones need to lend money, for which they need to pay interests. The interests represent money that has no real value in goods, items or commodities. It started to became abstract value only. The rich started to accumulate this abstract value, and traded it as if it were real, material items and goods. The pooro needed to serve their inteerests moreand more, since the credit they took to serve the former credit, accumulated to their existing debts. In toher words: the poor's debts rise, due to rising interest obligations, and the rich whith their stockpiled money become wealthier over nothing. Even more - more and more money is in circulation that is "uncovered" by real materiual asset, value, goods. It is abstract value, that is leased away, priodcues real meterial interest and thus sucks m aterial wealth from the poor to those having had abstract wealth, but by this afflus become wealthier in real value as well.

The monetarian system and finacial maerkets we have, are sick and rotten to the bone. They are the core of the problem themselves.

This is the misery we see in Greece currently. The interests for their debts is strangling them, and saviong more and more is killing what is remainign fo their small economy. My anger with them is not so much over interests and being poor,. but about their fingerpojnting at otzhers, that they hold others responisble for their own failings, the criminal selfishness of their corrupt political establishement (I say: shoot their politicians on sight in thre streets), and calling Germany a Nazi regime.

The problem of today'S financial misery are people like Soros himself: the wealth of the one, needs the debt of the other - and somebody else except the welathy< one to bail the debtor out if he cannot serve his interests anymore. The whole current financial system guarantees a financial redistribution on a massive scale.

Interests is the price you have to pay in order to buy money. Again: money has become a trading item itselt today, which is part of the explanation why things went so terribly wrong recently.

What this means for states? Take Germany. From 1970 to 2009, Germany trook debts in the range of 1596 billion Euro. In the same time, it had to pay interests for old credits and credits taken during this time, totalling 1562 billion euros. Only 34 billion of these ammounts of mony were spend on general public purposes and circulated in the general financial economy. The remaing 1500+ billion ended up in the hand of creditors who lend these moneys and earned interests for doing so, they gained a profit for - doing nothing. The public debts meanwhile skyrocketed, which means guarantee for future profits of creditors.

This puts Soros' demands into relation, I think. He wants to make more money, that'S why he is saying what he says.

In a book from 2011 ("Geld - Der vetrackte Kern des Kapitalismus"), financial journalist Lucas Zeise gave this nice anecdote:

There was a village, that lived by tourism until the financial breakdown 2008. Suddenly, tourists stayed away, and the people living in that vilage had to lend money from each other to survive. But then, one foreigner entered the localo hotel, and demanded a room. He payed in advance with a 100 Euro note. The hotel owner took the note to the butcher becasue he owed him 100 Euros. The butcher took the 100 Euro to the farmer whose cattle he still needed to pay. The farmer took the money to the whore in the village, whom he still did owe 100 Euros. The whore took the 100 Euros to the hotel owner, because she occassionally rented a room in his hotel, and still owed him 100 Euros. When she put the note on the table, the tourist came down the stairs, fetched the 100 Euros off the table, said he had changed his mind, and left. - Well, nobody in the village had won money, nobody had lost money, there were no gains and no losses for anyone. But for some reason everybody was suddenly free of debts.

The big ammounts of mony owned by the few, are a big problem for the money not having money, becasue the money of the rich is missing in the financial cycle. We see it in every richer nation in the West: more and more wwelath gets acucmulated in fewer and fewer hands, more and more parts of the population owqn smallwer and smaller ammouints of the avilable wealth. The spread between decreasing rich and increasing poor is widening, and with growing pace. That is true inside nations, but on a global stage as well. Helmut Creutz wrote in the mid-90s, that the 4000 million dollar in developing aid that were collected in the industrial nations at that time, were enough only for serving the interest obligations of the third world for a meager 12 days. In oher words: since the poor states need to finance themselves all by themselves for the remaining 353 days of the year, inclducind making new debts, the developement aid that the industrial nations payed, was back with them after 12 days.

The richest 10% of the German people own 60% of all national properties and wealth. The richest 20% own over 80% of the wealth, while the remaining 80% of the Germans share the remaining 20% of wealth. The poorest 50% of the population even need to share just 2% of the German welath.

On a global scale, these relations are even worse: by numbers from 2006, the richest 2% of the world'S population own more than 50% of the global welath, the richest 10% of the world's population own 85% of the global wealth, the poorer half of the world population (50%), ownes only 1% (World Institute for Developement Economics Research, Decembre 2006)

And lets face it, the rich elites cannot compensate the lack of buying power in the huge majoirty of the population. Stockpiling this money and excluding it from the economic cylce, does damage to the whole, also it devalues the money in circulation by inflation that is the inevitable consequence of borrowing money to pay old interests, paying interests for the new debts, and by this incrasing the ammount of money without increasing real values to compensate and to balance the monetarian increase. This is what esopecially in America is not being understood, and is underestimated in danger. The damage done by this, is struczural, and thus much, much harder to be adressed in the future. The Fed without doubt is one of the most stupid or most desperate institutions on this planet. Look at the numbers for 1st quarter, propagandists said there is a rise in Us economy and jobs. But that Amwrica for the I think 42nd month in sequence had to increase its debtsa and increaing its budget deficit, and that these proclaimed gains were "acchieved" at the cost of making more debts and milking the tax payer - this they forgot to mention.

It'S all FUBAR, I think. I have no idea how the world could ever get out of this self-destructive trap. We are too deep in it.

And people like Soros - still cannot get enough. For a short while, some time ago, I fell for him when reading his website and his revolutionary propaganda there. Thankfully I have the ability to recognise and to correct mistakes I made, sometimes.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The dark Sith Lord is on the dancefloor again. Having ripped of Britain, he now tries the same with Germany - he has bought 2 billion in liabilites from critial Euro-countries like Greece and Spain, for which he now wants Germany to bail them out so that his bet wins and he can make a profit from it. His hitting the drum on the Germans since months. Debts, debts, more debts - in principle he just wanst to keep the snowballing chainmail-system staying alive a bit longer. Germany can happily bite the dust after he made his profit.

Sounds like another jamie diamond of JPMorgan Chase, wants to rip off people.

Thanks Sky.

[Diopos]

Actually my friend (or not) Skybird you know s***t about how the Greeks feel and who they blame, other than what the media say. In the early days of the crisis when there was talk about """technical help""" from Europe and more specifically Germany there were many people here who thought "great bring in the germans and maybe we'll put some order in the place". The mood shifted when parts of the german media started to routinely portray the whole nation in a derogative manner.
For the moment people here are leaving the country, others are putting guns on their heads and pulling the trigger. Don't worry, eventually someone will decide to aim the gun elsewhere. By the way, some of those leaving are finding jobs in Germany. Are you hiring lazy thieves with a tendency to live beyond their means?

.

[Catfish]

It is certainly à la mode to bash the Euro, but if you look behind the especially anglo-saxon stage, astonishingly just of all those agencies like Standard and Poors, Fitch or Moody's always downsize the Euro, while english and US banks and currencies gloriously make their way into the future lol.

As usual it is important to think about who gains the most out of a situation and its own actions ... despite all the public hogwash the european currency is competition and an enemy of the US one, plain and simple. What do you think will happen when oil will be payed in Euro or Yen, instead of US dollars ?
We are in a hot industrial and currency war if you did not realize that before, and american money rating agencies will act accordingly.

Also please to all greeks, you do not really believe what the german Bildzeitung writes is what germans really think, or does anyone believe Silvio Berlusconi's or Rupert Murdoch's media, the "Sun", or even "Fox news" ?
Really

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

It is certainly à la mode to bash the Euro, but if you look behind the especially anglo-saxon stage, astonishingly just of all those agencies like Standard and Poors, Fitch or Moody's always downsize the Euro, while english and US banks and currencies gloriously make their way into the future lol.

As usual it is important to think about who gains the most out of a situation and its own actions ... despite all the public hogwash the european currency is competition and an enemy of the US one, plain and simple. What do you think will happen when oil will be payed in Euro or Yen, instead of US dollars ?
We are in a hot industrial and currency war if you did not realize that before, and american money rating agencies will act accordingly.

Also please to all greeks, you do not really believe what the german Bildzeitung writes is what germans really think, or does anyone believe Silvio Berlusconi's or Rupert Murdoch's media, the "Sun", or even "Fox news" ?
Really

Anglosaxon traditions of economy and finance is a branch of its own. The Dollar-run and the Euro-run economies are two totally different philosophies. The difference is that the anglosaxon tradition reaches stellar debt levels earlier, while the Eurppean sphere reaches the same debt levels - just with a delay. Both result in collapses sooner or later, because both are snowballing systems.

If you look at statistics putting into relation the ammount of circulating money and abstract value bookings to the real value of the real economies, you see a still growing bubble spanning from the East to the West and from the South to the North, and most "experts" are busy with trying to pump more air into it. Guess how it will end. It's all bubble-games played by bubble-heads, and 19 out of 20 do not have a smallest clue, are tunnelviewed, unable to see contexts and feedbacks, they are Fachidioten who cannot think beyond their tight, narrow horizons that end at the rim of their table at the latest.

[Skybird]

P.S. I am wondering sometimes: is it really like that the career inside the establishment corrupts people, do they get corrupted by success and blinded by money - or couldn't it be that only certain character traits have a chance from beginning on to make it the ladder upwards, is it that a corrputed mind already is needed to be successful inside the established system, must you have an blinding fixiation on money: else they would not even let you enter the club on entrance level?

I think it is the latter. Now figure what this tells about our education systems. Our cultural values. Our mental sanity in general. Our education of the young regarding ethics and humanism.

Not really a compliment for our greatness, I would say. Bildung and Ausbildung are two very different things.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Diopos

Actually my friend (or not) Skybird you know s***t about how the Greeks feel and who they blame, other than what the media say. In the early days of the crisis when there was talk about """technical help""" from Europe and more specifically Germany there were many people here who thought "great bring in the germans and maybe we'll put some order in the place". The mood shifted when parts of the german media started to routinely portray the whole nation in a derogative manner.

That was no start - that was a provoked reaction.

For the moment people here are leaving the country, others are putting guns on their heads and pulling the trigger. Don't worry, eventually someone will decide to aim the gun elsewhere. By the way, some of those leaving are finding jobs in Germany. Are you hiring lazy thieves with a tendency to live beyond their means?

Well, you Greeks seem to vote them into power time and again. Since 40 years and more.

And your guns that somebody will aim elsewhere, hm. You maintain the largest battke tank armada in European NATO, only the Yanks have more MBTs, and most of these tanks you ordered voluntarily, only on the latest tranch the German government demanded you stick to the deal. But most of your tanks are unarmed because your voted politicians managed to not order the needed ammunition. So no matter where you aim your guns - it probably fails to leave a lasting impression.

Your finance minister, btw, has just demanded a third bailout, just days ago. Obviously his former claim that now, finally, all numbers are true, are honest and are brought to light in full, once again was a lie. And whom do you expect to agree to according payments? Us stupid Nazis here in Nazi Germany who are respon sible for all your woes and worries and who stgarted to balk back when you started to call the crminals and Nazis.

As I said in the posting earlier, I fully understand the cataclysmic nature of the international finance system and how it wreaks havoc, and you can see in my remarks that I do not like it one bit, and do not defend it. I also said that what pisses me about Greece was not it's debts, but it's unwillingness to see its own share of respiksnibility, and always pointing fingers at others, and expecting those hands to help that it spits on at the same time. In other words, what pisses me is the attitude that you just once again has demonstrated. I hold German voters responsible for the votes they cast. I do the same for Greek voters who happily arranged themselves with he corruption and dilettantism since decades.

The stupid leadership, the dysfunctional structure of a society - always is an image of the stupidity of the people who voted for this system, and tolerated the structures of society so long that they could turn dysfunctional. That is true for all the Western nations. And it is true for Greece as well. And the merits of Greece in the past, millenia ago, are history lessons only. No Greek alive has any right to claim credit for what was done in culture and philosophy by foreign people who have lived 80 generations ago. So save me with the pride and greatness of Greece. That is just dead ruins and dust in the wind.

Leave the Euro. Get your own currency, and are free to manipulate your currency to your liking. This step would do punishing damage to the ECB, no worry, we are not in for getting a cheap ride when letting you go - quiotew the opposite. Stop being a lamenting burden for ewverybody, and stop calling others responsible for your very own egoism and your very own failures. Nobody forced you to join the Euro, nobody forced you to vote your fraudsters into office, nobody forced you to gain entrance into the Euro on the basis of lies and forged statistics. Your elected leaders did it, you voted for them, and when they did you all aplauded becasue you thought you had married the big money that from then on you could suck in like babies drink milk. Agreed, many others did think this way, too. But for your decisions, others are not responsible, but only you yourself are.

So, save me your laments and accusations.

BTW, if you have a qualified education and profession that is in need, you are welcomed in Germany still. German business says they are seeking employees with qualification in several branches. Just Greeks lecturing us on why it is our duty to pay for Greece and that we are Nazis if we don't - that is something you better do not do over here currently. Could upset people quite easily, could maybe even get you into trouble here and there. Because especially in the working class many people are fed up with such kind of talking.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Skybird

That was no start - that was a provoked reaction.


Well, you Greeks seem to vote them into power time and again. Since 40 years and more.

And your guns that somebody will aim elsewhere, hm. You maintain the largest battke tank armada in European NATO, only the Yanks have more MBTs, and most of these tanks you ordered voluntarily, only on the latest tranch the German government demanded you stick to the deal. But most of your tanks are unarmed because your voted politicians managed to not order the needed ammunition. So no matter where you aim your guns - it probably fails to leave a lasting impression.

Your finance minister, btw, has just demanded a third bailout, just days ago. Obviously his former claim that now, finally, all numbers are true, are honest and are brought to light in full, once again was a lie. And whom do you expect to agree to according payments? Us stupid Nazis here in Nazi Germany who are respon sible for all your woes and worries and who stgarted to balk back when you started to call the crminals and Nazis.

As I said in the posting earlier, I fully understand the cataclysmic nature of the international finance system and how it wreaks havoc, and you can see in my remarks that I do not like it one bit, and do not defend it. I also said that what pisses me about Greece was not it's debts, but it's unwillingness to see its own share of respiksnibility, and always pointing fingers at others, and expecting those hands to help that it spits on at the same time. In other words, what pisses me is the attitude that you just once again has demonstrated. I hold German voters responsible for the votes they cast. I do the same for Greek voters who happily arranged themselves with he corruption and dilettantism since decades.

The stupid leadership, the dysfunctional structure of a society - always is an image of the stupidity of the people who voted for this system, and tolerated the structures of society so long that they could turn dysfunctional. That is true for all the Western nations. And it is true for Greece as well. And the merits of Greece in the past, millenia ago, are history lessons only. No Greek alive has any right to claim credit for what was done in culture and philosophy by foreign people who have lived 80 generations ago. So save me with the pride and greatness of Greece. That is just dead ruins and dust in the wind.

Leave the Euro. Get your own currency, and are free to manipulate your currency to your liking. This step would do punishing damage to the ECB, no worry, we are not in for getting a cheap ride when letting you go - quiotew the opposite. Stop being a lamenting burden for ewverybody, and stop calling others responsible for your very own egoism and your very own failures. Nobody forced you to join the Euro, nobody forced you to vote your fraudsters into office, nobody forced you to gain entrance into the Euro on the basis of lies and forged statistics. Your elected leaders did it, you voted for them, and when they did you all aplauded becasue you thought you had married the big money that from then on you could suck in like babies drink milk. Agreed, many others did think this way, too. But for your decisions, others are not responsible, but only you yourself are.

So, save me your laments and accusations.

BTW, if you have a qualified education and profession that is in need, you are welcomed in Germany still. German business says they are seeking employees with qualification in several branches. Just Greeks lecturing us on why it is our duty to pay for Greece and that we are Nazis if we don't - that is something you better do not do over here currently. Could upset people quite easily, could maybe even get you into trouble here and there. Because especially in the working class many people are fed up with such kind of talking.

Hmm sorry to bump up this thread-I do tend to avoid these as I am sick of attitudes and stereotypes on both sides, the last part seems a bit like a threat. I do acknowledge your attitude is not sparing of any nation or group including your own-I just want to say I disagree with the bold part. At least, this might be a good point for another thread. You cannot I think expect people to ignore their heritage-both the good and the bad. We cannot take credit or blame-but have a special responsibility to highlight the dark spots and the light and learn from both-and this of course applies to taking care of physical heritage.

In terms of today's crisis well, the recent past is of more import here. I am not optimistic but can only hope something better can be built over the long term.

[Skybird]

That was something I gave as a reply in an earlier thread, and did again here. It is due to the fact that some weeks ago there were Greek poltiicians raising complains and criticism of the ge rman by explicitly pointing out what a great history Greece has, and that this pride resulting is something that forbids the german arguments and demands. I agree that it had a great past culture, and that it had massively influenced Europe. My own thinking is basing fundamentally on philosphical and intellectual traditions and principles whose roots were founded by Greek philosophers.

Bad news is: they all are dead. Since millenia. Can'T ask them anything today anymore. Can't give them a public office.

History is just this: history. The facts were formed back then - today's people have no merits in having participated in their creation, for it happened nbefore today's people's times. And living with one'S head stuck in the far away past, never is a good thing. Because the present does not go away.

What there is in merits and resources today is what decides Greece's fate in the present. For the gold medal at the olympic games at the times of Rome you cannot buy Greek relief today anymore. Plato'S fame does not earn present Greece any respectability today anymore. And ancient ruins are just this: ruins of something long since gone.


Also, the history of Greece is not that shiny in completeness at all. I read historians commenting like that the past of Greece is the best hint so far why Greece does not function as a state in the present, and in the forseeable future. I mean its administration is hopelessly dysfunctional, there are no registers, not even legal taxes can be collectd and overwtched in final totals, npobody knows what is happening, and the bureaucracy is hopelessly blown up in size. It just does not function, and nthat'S why things are today like they are. It has no tradition of being a functioning state.

If you understand German, I can try to find an according essay again from maybe half a year ago, from a German newspaper I think. But I need to find it first, and have clue by whom it was and where I had found it. Also, the ancient era of Greece also showed how democracy in the Greek city states went wrong time and again, corruption taking over and messing things up. Critical historians would replace the label of Greece as "cradle of democracy" with "cradle of corruption and dysfunctional state administration". The problems Greece has today, have a tradition that reaches back centuries and centuries and centuries. The EU suffers from extremley heavy wishful thinking here.

Which is another reason why I am very pessimistic about Greece.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Skybird

(I say: shoot their politicians on sight in thre streets), and calling Germany a Nazi regime.

Ok it's my birthday and Orthodox Easter but verdamit YOU ARE RIGHT!!!

not only the Greek politicians bw.

P.S. I don't consider the Germans Nazi-but the EU...

[Onkel Neal]

You really showed the Man. Your mindless activism and senseless violence snuffed out the lives of decent people.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/02/world/...html?hpt=hp_c1

Looking forward to someone coming along and throwing blame on the bank.

[the_tyrant]

Well they aready are.

Seriously, charging the people at the bank, but not the people fireboming it?

Further, he said, the bank was confident the courts would rule in favor of the executives and there was "surprise" those who caused the incident remained free.

seriously, an extra layer of glass can't do much, when even armed police can't stop it

[Jimbuna]

Terribly tragic

I wonder if the photographer who followed the firebombers part of the way has any photographic evidence that might help the authorities identify the arsonists/murderers?

[Stealhead]

I imagine so but anarchists are known to cover their faces when they do their thing so it might be hard to identify someone.