Alexandre Delima
Fall-Winter 2015,16
Friday, July 31, 2015
Migrant Crisis
The difficulty for France in this crisis is that these migrants are from warn-torn or dictatorial countries, so that by the terms of internationl law, they cannot be refused asylum. And this particular lot want asylum from Britain.
source: MSN
source: MSN
source: Le Nouvel Observateur
Monday, July 27, 2015
Pricey
Gala magazine approves: Julie Gayet, tall and slim, hired a pricey stylist for her public
appearances '...who brings French know-how to dressing the taller woman' (1,75 meters).
Interesting!
http://photo.gala.fr/le-style-de-julie-gayet-en-10-looks-11803#la-robe-vanessa-bruno-ideale-pour-avignon-209293
appearances '...who brings French know-how to dressing the taller woman' (1,75 meters).
Interesting!
http://photo.gala.fr/le-style-de-julie-gayet-en-10-looks-11803#la-robe-vanessa-bruno-ideale-pour-avignon-209293
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Surprising
Knowledge is power. The France MSN site has information on sharks that's quite
interesting...They don't use their teeth to chew their prey but merely to cut them up; the pieces are swallowed whole.!! They are a very old species family, some 400 million years...
http://www.msn.com/fr-ca/actualites/photos/20-faits-surprenants-sur-les-requins/ss-AAdlnsB#image=1
interesting...They don't use their teeth to chew their prey but merely to cut them up; the pieces are swallowed whole.!! They are a very old species family, some 400 million years...
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Gruesome
Should I translate this piece about a possible disaster on the West Coast into French?
It's pretty gruesome!!
source: The New Yorker
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Greece (2011)
source: Libération 2011-10-29
interview by: Jean Quatremer
of : Nicolas Bloudanis
translation: doxa-louise
The Debt is about Statesmanship
Interview. Already in 1897, the country was under receivership.From the Ottoman period to joining the Eurozone, the historian Nicolas Bloudanis takes us through history to better understand the current bankruptcy.
There is a Greek misunderstanding within the European Community. While no one would think of rciting the Roman Empire in referring to the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, rare are those who do not make a link form Ancient Greece to Modern Greece. As if the glorious past of the Greeks had given them an edge on the present. Thus it is for its 'contribution to European Civilization' that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing obtained, in 1981, the adhesion of this country to the EEC although it met none of the required criteria. In 2002, Athens was admitted to the euro for almost the same reasons while everyone was well aware that it was economically unready. And today, there are no hesitations to invoking Aristotle to justify the expensive bail-out of a bankrupt country. Although, Modern Greece, whose history begins with independence in 1828, has not much in common with Ancient Greece: there have been four centuries of Ottoman occupation since then.
The Greek historian Nicolas Bloudanis, 54, who lives in Patmos (the island where John the evangelist wrote the Apocalypse), has just published Failles grecques:une fatalité historique( éditions Xérolas). he is also the author of Histoire de la Grèce moderne, 1828-2010, mythes et réalités (Xérolas). He puts forward a caustic version of modern Greek history, stripped ot its nationlistic clichés, shedding new light on the crisis of public debt which threatens the stability of the Eurozone.
Is it fair to say that Greece is a country without a state?
There is a state in Greece, but it functions intermittently.This was the case, for example, after the civil war in 1950, at the end of the dictatorship of the Colonels in 1974. But every time the state more or less functioned, it was an authoritarian state where political and civil liberties were limited. Leaving aside the periods of dictatorship, there were periods where the state was managed by a strong personality, such as Elefthérios Venizélos at the beginning of the century or Constantin Caramanlis during the years 50-60. In the Greek collective memory, the state is thus an authoritarian state which one should be wary of.
Greece is currently under European receivership. Yet, this is not the first time it has found itself in this situation...
Indeed, after the bankruptcy of 1893, Greece was put under receivership by its creditors, principally Great Britain, France and Germany, which had a positive effect, even if 10% of its population emigrated. The guardianship of the time, which took the form of an International financial Commission headquartered in Athens and charged with directly controlling the budget of the State, permitted to build a state. The financial and economic situation got better, the misappropriations and abuses characteristic of Greece at the time (between 1828 and 1892, 75% of all loans were misappropriated by the political class) were limited and the country was once more allowed to borrow in order to make large infrastructure projects that were sadly lacking, the Ottoman Empire having left very little behind.
Most importantly, a modern bourgeoisie and a local capitalism were able to finally emerge: it came to power in 1909 with at its head Elefthérios Venizélos, cheif of the Liberal Party. A new constitution permitted cleaning up political life and justice, the administration started to purge itself of its corrupt elements, social reforms were voted in (income tax, land reform, et c). Greek society thus entered the road to modernization.
But war against Turkey stopped this movement dead...
Greece wanted to complete the liberation of certain territories (Macedonia, Epirus, Crete...) and of the Greek populations still under Ottoman control. The Balkan Wars, starting in 1912 and ending with the Treaty of London in 1913, were successful: the territory triples in size and the population goes from 2,5 to 5 million.
The First World War permits one to go further into Thrace and Anatolia (in and around Smyrna), the current Turkish coast. But this 'enlarged Greece' played into Turkish nationalism. A new war ends with a disaster: the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 accepts the lost of Smyrna and of Thrace and 1,2 million Greeks living in Asia Minor since two millennia must migrate to a Greece ruined by ten years of war. Imagine the shock: 1,2 million people on top of a population of 5 million. Further, this torrent of population from Asia pulls Greece back to the oriental traditions of its beginnings, a century earlier; a levantine spirit, emphasizing hability, compromise and finesse but also passivity and political indifference, fruits of the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century, re-enforcing the clientelism and corruption which were starting to disappear.
The political class acquires at this time the traits which characterize it today.
This political class then begins to occupy itself more with the maintenance of its power and the ensuing privileges, than the interest of the State. It acquires its proper 'consciousness', during periods of dictatorship, as with that of Metaxas, in 1936-1040, or of the Colonels, between 1967 and 1974; these regimes in effect constitute strong competition for politicians, especially with respect to privileges and possibilities for enrichment reserved for those in power. As much before the war as during the early 70's, we have witnessed a convergence of interests and a solidarity between political factions hitherto enemy, and who had lost their privileges...
After the return of democracy in 1974, a faction of the Greek left, until then rebuked because of the civil war (1946-1949), also became part of the 'family'. With a few rare exceptions, this situation has not changed. Today still, as we demand huge sacrifices from the population, representatives and politicians of all stripes obstinately refuse to lower their own salaries, although immoderate, or to shed one iota of their privileges.
Was the second bankruptcy, that of 1932, due to this incompetence of the State?
I would not say so. The period 1929-1932 was, economically speaking, much more difficult than what we are living through today and many sate went bankrupt, such as Austria, Bulgaria, or even Germany. Moreover, Greece could not permit itself to dilapidate the totality of the credits it had obtained between 1924 and 1930, because most of these were managed by the League of Nations and served to re-settle the 1,2 million refugees of 1922-1923.
Furthermore, the Greek State remained formally under receivership: the International Financial Commission created in 1897 in effect stayed in Athens until 1936. Few countries under similar circumstances could have managed otherwise. Finally, every year Greek governments would re-negotiate the terms of debt repayment with creditors et paid back between 30 and 45% of the debt. Repayment procedures were then redefined in 1944-1945 and ended in 1969.
America, with the Marshall Plan, also came up against the 'Greek reality'...
In 1947-1949, the United States, as a condition for financial aid, demanded a cleaning up of economic practices and of the social situation of the country. Paul Porter, who was head of the commission charged with evaluating the Greek situation in 1947-1948, described the state of the country in the following terms in his report to Congress: 'The extremely low standard of living of the population is the principal factor of social tension in Greece. The economy is dead, while large amounts disappear in fraudulent financial operations and for the import of luxury goods. The government has no policy other than that of constantly begging for foreign financial aid in order to stay in power and preserve the interests of a clique of merchants and bankers...dedicated to defending their interests with no concern for what this could cost the country.' Quite obviously, Mister Porter was a New Deal man.
Is the shock treatment inflicted on Greece in the last two years by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund adapted to this country?
The economic structure of Greece, largely state-controlled, makes it more like the countries of Eastern Europe coming out of communism at the beginning of the 1990's. One should thus more apply the formulas used on the ex 'People's democracies' in transition, notably by privatizing public enterprises and reducing drastically the size of the public service. One must also attack the fiscal immunity of certain liberal professions and the Orthodox Church. Burdening citizens with new taxes, when the fiscal system works most imperfectly, doesn't get one far if not to foster a sense of social injustice for those who cannot escape taxation. Because a faulty diagnostic was made, the patient receives an inappropriate treatment and his condition worsens inversely to what is happening, for example, in Ireland.
The Greek economy is then not a market economy?
It is not a functional market economy, even if there is, next to the public sector, a large private sector. The problem is that it is largely composed of tiny enterprises ( between one and ten workers), from the tavern to the small factory, not forgetting the artisan. There are also a few large private enterprises which, because they are in contact with the world economy, function efficiently. But these are the exception. Everything else is controlled by the state.
How did things reach this point?
Until the end of the 1970's, Greece was not really an exception in Europe. That was the reign of the 'mixed market economy', the state controlling a large number of enterprises, be it in France or Great-Britain. At the beginning of the 1980's, for good or bad, this model came to be put in question through liberal ideology coming out of Anglo-Saxon countries and this led to a withdrawal of the state from the economic sector.
This movement happened everywhere, except Greece. No doubt because the Greek state had to pinch in throughout the modern history of the country for the lack of native capital which rarely invested locally: it is the state which had to create enterprises or industrial infrastructure.
Worse Greece, a small country totally dependant on its international environment, even went against the grain in making more of its economy state-managed starting in 1981, with the arrival of Pasok (Socialist Party) and Andreas Papandreou, father to the current prime minister. Thus, between 1981 and 1985, no less than 230 enterprises were nationalized. Today, the state employs directly or indirectly 45% of the active population. In France, there were nationalizations in 1982, but one has privatizd anew in 1986.
This state ownership has not been a success...
Indeed it is a stunning failure. Public enterprises are little competitive and innovative: one must add they contain an abundance of personnel paid much better than the salaried of the private sector, but largely incompetent because appointed for political reasons. Worse, they are virtually co-managed by the unions which have their word to say on strategic decisions, but without representatives with much ability. The overall result of Pasok economic policy is catastrophic. The only positive points are that unemployment is down, because the State has created tens of thousands of 'imaginary' jobs, and have put in place a relatively advanced form of social security.
The Socialist Party is thus strongly to blame for the chaos in Greek public finances?
Andreas Papandreou constructed a 'socialism on credit'. But he is not alone responsible: the right is just as state-obsessed as Pasok. Another way of saying that the crisis of public indebtedness does not go back to 2009, even if markets were slow in recognizing a problem. The Greek political class has always confused dramatically revenue and loan. Especially so since entry to the Eurozone , in 2002, allowed Greece to borrow at almost the same conditions as Germany.
rare are those who tried to raise the issue.One has to understand that the political class does not want ot see tis state-oriented approach questioned, because it allows for the creation of political clientelism One doesn't vote for ideologies in Greece, one votes for the one who will help us in a material sense. Indeed, political parties are structured around large families: sons, nephews, followers stay faithful to what is. Thus, one can find within Pasok, the party which has most governed Greece in the last thirty years, people of extreme right-wing sensibility, but who remain faithful out of family tradition. This clientelist system, which forms the basis of Greek society, dates back to the XIXth century and independence.
Thus in 2002, Greece should not have joined the Eurozone?
Objectively, no. But in 2001, Germany and France, who wanted to enlarge the zone with as many countries as possible, put pressure on the Commission so it could join. This being the case, this entry could have been a positive thing for Greece; up until 2005, it would have been possible to turn the situation around. But the right-wing government of Costas Caramanlis ( nephew to Constantin Caramanlis), elected in 2004, did absolutely nothing to displease its clientèle: no privatisation, no reduction in public service, or reform of the State was undertaken.
And when Pasok came back to power in October 2009, it was too late: the budgetary situation of Greece was out of conrtol. Today, the membership of Greece in the Eurozone is a fact: the federal receivership it is subject to, a direct consequence of choosing Europe, can be positive. It will be obliged to create a law-government State, a market economy worthy of this term et get over all the illusions pertaining to the 'Greek reality' which was used to excuse all manner of deviation.
interview by: Jean Quatremer
of : Nicolas Bloudanis
translation: doxa-louise
The Debt is about Statesmanship
Interview. Already in 1897, the country was under receivership.From the Ottoman period to joining the Eurozone, the historian Nicolas Bloudanis takes us through history to better understand the current bankruptcy.
There is a Greek misunderstanding within the European Community. While no one would think of rciting the Roman Empire in referring to the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, rare are those who do not make a link form Ancient Greece to Modern Greece. As if the glorious past of the Greeks had given them an edge on the present. Thus it is for its 'contribution to European Civilization' that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing obtained, in 1981, the adhesion of this country to the EEC although it met none of the required criteria. In 2002, Athens was admitted to the euro for almost the same reasons while everyone was well aware that it was economically unready. And today, there are no hesitations to invoking Aristotle to justify the expensive bail-out of a bankrupt country. Although, Modern Greece, whose history begins with independence in 1828, has not much in common with Ancient Greece: there have been four centuries of Ottoman occupation since then.
The Greek historian Nicolas Bloudanis, 54, who lives in Patmos (the island where John the evangelist wrote the Apocalypse), has just published Failles grecques:une fatalité historique( éditions Xérolas). he is also the author of Histoire de la Grèce moderne, 1828-2010, mythes et réalités (Xérolas). He puts forward a caustic version of modern Greek history, stripped ot its nationlistic clichés, shedding new light on the crisis of public debt which threatens the stability of the Eurozone.
Is it fair to say that Greece is a country without a state?
There is a state in Greece, but it functions intermittently.This was the case, for example, after the civil war in 1950, at the end of the dictatorship of the Colonels in 1974. But every time the state more or less functioned, it was an authoritarian state where political and civil liberties were limited. Leaving aside the periods of dictatorship, there were periods where the state was managed by a strong personality, such as Elefthérios Venizélos at the beginning of the century or Constantin Caramanlis during the years 50-60. In the Greek collective memory, the state is thus an authoritarian state which one should be wary of.
Greece is currently under European receivership. Yet, this is not the first time it has found itself in this situation...
Indeed, after the bankruptcy of 1893, Greece was put under receivership by its creditors, principally Great Britain, France and Germany, which had a positive effect, even if 10% of its population emigrated. The guardianship of the time, which took the form of an International financial Commission headquartered in Athens and charged with directly controlling the budget of the State, permitted to build a state. The financial and economic situation got better, the misappropriations and abuses characteristic of Greece at the time (between 1828 and 1892, 75% of all loans were misappropriated by the political class) were limited and the country was once more allowed to borrow in order to make large infrastructure projects that were sadly lacking, the Ottoman Empire having left very little behind.
Most importantly, a modern bourgeoisie and a local capitalism were able to finally emerge: it came to power in 1909 with at its head Elefthérios Venizélos, cheif of the Liberal Party. A new constitution permitted cleaning up political life and justice, the administration started to purge itself of its corrupt elements, social reforms were voted in (income tax, land reform, et c). Greek society thus entered the road to modernization.
But war against Turkey stopped this movement dead...
Greece wanted to complete the liberation of certain territories (Macedonia, Epirus, Crete...) and of the Greek populations still under Ottoman control. The Balkan Wars, starting in 1912 and ending with the Treaty of London in 1913, were successful: the territory triples in size and the population goes from 2,5 to 5 million.
The First World War permits one to go further into Thrace and Anatolia (in and around Smyrna), the current Turkish coast. But this 'enlarged Greece' played into Turkish nationalism. A new war ends with a disaster: the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 accepts the lost of Smyrna and of Thrace and 1,2 million Greeks living in Asia Minor since two millennia must migrate to a Greece ruined by ten years of war. Imagine the shock: 1,2 million people on top of a population of 5 million. Further, this torrent of population from Asia pulls Greece back to the oriental traditions of its beginnings, a century earlier; a levantine spirit, emphasizing hability, compromise and finesse but also passivity and political indifference, fruits of the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century, re-enforcing the clientelism and corruption which were starting to disappear.
The political class acquires at this time the traits which characterize it today.
This political class then begins to occupy itself more with the maintenance of its power and the ensuing privileges, than the interest of the State. It acquires its proper 'consciousness', during periods of dictatorship, as with that of Metaxas, in 1936-1040, or of the Colonels, between 1967 and 1974; these regimes in effect constitute strong competition for politicians, especially with respect to privileges and possibilities for enrichment reserved for those in power. As much before the war as during the early 70's, we have witnessed a convergence of interests and a solidarity between political factions hitherto enemy, and who had lost their privileges...
After the return of democracy in 1974, a faction of the Greek left, until then rebuked because of the civil war (1946-1949), also became part of the 'family'. With a few rare exceptions, this situation has not changed. Today still, as we demand huge sacrifices from the population, representatives and politicians of all stripes obstinately refuse to lower their own salaries, although immoderate, or to shed one iota of their privileges.
Was the second bankruptcy, that of 1932, due to this incompetence of the State?
I would not say so. The period 1929-1932 was, economically speaking, much more difficult than what we are living through today and many sate went bankrupt, such as Austria, Bulgaria, or even Germany. Moreover, Greece could not permit itself to dilapidate the totality of the credits it had obtained between 1924 and 1930, because most of these were managed by the League of Nations and served to re-settle the 1,2 million refugees of 1922-1923.
Furthermore, the Greek State remained formally under receivership: the International Financial Commission created in 1897 in effect stayed in Athens until 1936. Few countries under similar circumstances could have managed otherwise. Finally, every year Greek governments would re-negotiate the terms of debt repayment with creditors et paid back between 30 and 45% of the debt. Repayment procedures were then redefined in 1944-1945 and ended in 1969.
America, with the Marshall Plan, also came up against the 'Greek reality'...
In 1947-1949, the United States, as a condition for financial aid, demanded a cleaning up of economic practices and of the social situation of the country. Paul Porter, who was head of the commission charged with evaluating the Greek situation in 1947-1948, described the state of the country in the following terms in his report to Congress: 'The extremely low standard of living of the population is the principal factor of social tension in Greece. The economy is dead, while large amounts disappear in fraudulent financial operations and for the import of luxury goods. The government has no policy other than that of constantly begging for foreign financial aid in order to stay in power and preserve the interests of a clique of merchants and bankers...dedicated to defending their interests with no concern for what this could cost the country.' Quite obviously, Mister Porter was a New Deal man.
Is the shock treatment inflicted on Greece in the last two years by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund adapted to this country?
The economic structure of Greece, largely state-controlled, makes it more like the countries of Eastern Europe coming out of communism at the beginning of the 1990's. One should thus more apply the formulas used on the ex 'People's democracies' in transition, notably by privatizing public enterprises and reducing drastically the size of the public service. One must also attack the fiscal immunity of certain liberal professions and the Orthodox Church. Burdening citizens with new taxes, when the fiscal system works most imperfectly, doesn't get one far if not to foster a sense of social injustice for those who cannot escape taxation. Because a faulty diagnostic was made, the patient receives an inappropriate treatment and his condition worsens inversely to what is happening, for example, in Ireland.
The Greek economy is then not a market economy?
It is not a functional market economy, even if there is, next to the public sector, a large private sector. The problem is that it is largely composed of tiny enterprises ( between one and ten workers), from the tavern to the small factory, not forgetting the artisan. There are also a few large private enterprises which, because they are in contact with the world economy, function efficiently. But these are the exception. Everything else is controlled by the state.
How did things reach this point?
Until the end of the 1970's, Greece was not really an exception in Europe. That was the reign of the 'mixed market economy', the state controlling a large number of enterprises, be it in France or Great-Britain. At the beginning of the 1980's, for good or bad, this model came to be put in question through liberal ideology coming out of Anglo-Saxon countries and this led to a withdrawal of the state from the economic sector.
This movement happened everywhere, except Greece. No doubt because the Greek state had to pinch in throughout the modern history of the country for the lack of native capital which rarely invested locally: it is the state which had to create enterprises or industrial infrastructure.
Worse Greece, a small country totally dependant on its international environment, even went against the grain in making more of its economy state-managed starting in 1981, with the arrival of Pasok (Socialist Party) and Andreas Papandreou, father to the current prime minister. Thus, between 1981 and 1985, no less than 230 enterprises were nationalized. Today, the state employs directly or indirectly 45% of the active population. In France, there were nationalizations in 1982, but one has privatizd anew in 1986.
This state ownership has not been a success...
Indeed it is a stunning failure. Public enterprises are little competitive and innovative: one must add they contain an abundance of personnel paid much better than the salaried of the private sector, but largely incompetent because appointed for political reasons. Worse, they are virtually co-managed by the unions which have their word to say on strategic decisions, but without representatives with much ability. The overall result of Pasok economic policy is catastrophic. The only positive points are that unemployment is down, because the State has created tens of thousands of 'imaginary' jobs, and have put in place a relatively advanced form of social security.
The Socialist Party is thus strongly to blame for the chaos in Greek public finances?
Andreas Papandreou constructed a 'socialism on credit'. But he is not alone responsible: the right is just as state-obsessed as Pasok. Another way of saying that the crisis of public indebtedness does not go back to 2009, even if markets were slow in recognizing a problem. The Greek political class has always confused dramatically revenue and loan. Especially so since entry to the Eurozone , in 2002, allowed Greece to borrow at almost the same conditions as Germany.
rare are those who tried to raise the issue.One has to understand that the political class does not want ot see tis state-oriented approach questioned, because it allows for the creation of political clientelism One doesn't vote for ideologies in Greece, one votes for the one who will help us in a material sense. Indeed, political parties are structured around large families: sons, nephews, followers stay faithful to what is. Thus, one can find within Pasok, the party which has most governed Greece in the last thirty years, people of extreme right-wing sensibility, but who remain faithful out of family tradition. This clientelist system, which forms the basis of Greek society, dates back to the XIXth century and independence.
Thus in 2002, Greece should not have joined the Eurozone?
Objectively, no. But in 2001, Germany and France, who wanted to enlarge the zone with as many countries as possible, put pressure on the Commission so it could join. This being the case, this entry could have been a positive thing for Greece; up until 2005, it would have been possible to turn the situation around. But the right-wing government of Costas Caramanlis ( nephew to Constantin Caramanlis), elected in 2004, did absolutely nothing to displease its clientèle: no privatisation, no reduction in public service, or reform of the State was undertaken.
And when Pasok came back to power in October 2009, it was too late: the budgetary situation of Greece was out of conrtol. Today, the membership of Greece in the Eurozone is a fact: the federal receivership it is subject to, a direct consequence of choosing Europe, can be positive. It will be obliged to create a law-government State, a market economy worthy of this term et get over all the illusions pertaining to the 'Greek reality' which was used to excuse all manner of deviation.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Summer Drink
Been making myself a long drink for hot afternoons, and thought I'd share.
It looks fierce, tastes like mud , but only comes in at 50 calories!!
The ingredients: ice cubes, fruit juice, black coffee, soda water. Mix the first three
to taste in a blender (here, with grapefruit juice). Transfer to a large glass, add some
soda water (here, diet Tonic Water). Use a straw and enjoy: It'sa Summertime!
It looks fierce, tastes like mud , but only comes in at 50 calories!!
The ingredients: ice cubes, fruit juice, black coffee, soda water. Mix the first three
to taste in a blender (here, with grapefruit juice). Transfer to a large glass, add some
soda water (here, diet Tonic Water). Use a straw and enjoy: It'sa Summertime!
Greece and Germany
source : Philosophie Magazine, 61 - Été 2012
author: Heinz wismann, philosopher, specialist in hemeneutics
translation form French: doxa-louise
Greece and Germany. A Mimetic conflict
"Why is Germany so intransigent? In what do they find a Greek bankruptcy so fearful?
Behind the problem of this debt, there is a political question: the absence of a State. The Greeks, with whom Germans identify culturally, mirror their own history back to them: that of a people pushed to hell for not having, during a very long time, created a stable territorial State...Greeks represent today what history has taught Germans not to be. Thus, what Germany is reproaching them is not so much having run up considerable debt in a thoughtless manner, but not having created the only tool capable of offering salvation.
Berlin, Athens' heir
During the 1800s, two models are dominant in Europe, Athens and Rome. The Franks have taken the way of Rome: it is on the model of the centralized state and Roman law that kings construct an absolute monarchy. It is on the model of Roman rationality that the French think: the word 'réel'(real) comes from the Roman res which means 'thing', conceptualized as a static reality, delimited, geometric. According to Descartes, thought must apprehend things and itself 'clearly and distinctly'. Heirs to this Roman obsession with delimitating the real, the French found very early - as soon as 1648 with the Westphalie treaties (concluded between the Habsbourg emperor Ferdinand III, France and their respective allies to end the Thirty Years War) - the way to establish themselves as a Nation-State within the confines of natural barriers. In reaction, Germany which is still a patchwork of principalities identifies with the other great cultural model, Greece, scattered in a myriad of City-States. From the point of view of geography alone, the Greek islands are sending back to Germany an image of its institutional fragmentation. but above the Greeks appear to the Germans as that cultured people that has no State, that lets itself be assimilated by Rome...but which nonetheless ends up colonizing the Romans. With Schiller, Goethe and the art theoretician Winckelmann, Germans identify with the Hellenes: they recognize themselves in the language and Greek rationality, the self-affirmation of the City-States reminds them of their own dispersion; they recognize the relationship to nature, to becoming, to self, which were those of the Greeks. The German word to designate reality, Wirklichkeit, comes from the verb wirken which means "to act or produce an effect". Reality is not something which lets itself be circumscribed, but rather that which produces an action. Only that which manifests itself as force or energy exists. It is a dynamic conception of the real. Philosophers well understood this: Hegel opposes the taxonomic rationality of the French, which orders everything into pre-existing categories, to the dialectic rationality of the Germans, interested in their coming-to-be. Heidegger will go so far as to assert that one cannot do philosophy in French or Latin, but only in Greek or German. Literature as well testifies to this cleavage: the German novel, from Goethe's Wilhem Meister to Thomas Mann and The Magic Mountain, is a novel of becoming (Entwicklungsroman), of development of the personality, while the French novel is centered on the social ascent of the hero, who must find his place in an already constituted world. Within this Entwicklungsroman, the individual is called upon to reject all that which hinders him from the exterior, in order to become himself by letting emerge his deeper self, according to the logic of the Greek physis ('nature', a fundamental concept of Greek philosophy). In all areas, then, the Germans have seen themselves as heirs to the Greeks.
Between 1914 and 1945, the Germans who had thought they could develop their particular genius outside of a State framework met with the consequences of this illusion. The Bismarkian enterprise resulted in military defeat, in the political weakness of the Weimar Republic and above all in the economic crisis of the 1920s. Germans lived through one of the most traumatic experiences of their history, inflation. The fruits of their labour would go up in smoke. My father gone to pick up his pay with a wheelbarrow could not, having reached the baker, buy a loaf of bread... This dizzying experience will be linked for a long time, in the mind of Germans, with the fragility of the State. They then become conscious that it is not enough to be an influential cultural power, on the model of the Ancient Greeks. And adventuring as totalitarian, based on the idea of imperial expansion, will have been but another way of not confronting this task.
The Broken Mirror and the curse of the 'Danaides'
Between 1945 and reunification, Germany, for the first time in its history, managed to land itself in a delimited territory. The Germans have received, in defeat, this roman and French territorial comfort, even if they adapted it by operating a synthesis between Greek dispersal and a unitary Roman State: this is the meaning of the federal State. since then, all their energies have been directed within this framework. The Wirk-lichkeit, the free flowering of German reality, cannot expand territorially, but has to operate henceforth through the economy. The Germans today are somewhat appeased: they are more democratic than some of their neighbours, even those more accustomed to the exercise of democracy. This is because they are within legitimate borders, recognized, that will no longer change.
One thus better understands the position of Germany with respect to Greece. The latter is at the moment an indebted nation, without a proper State apparatus; the government is incapable of collection income tax, the very principle of a public Thing to which all are subject is not established, there is clientism and corruption at all levels, public services are either missing or bankrupt, society is dominated by networks of dependencies and opaque solidarity. They are left with but the pride of having been the first Europeans of History. Yet the Germans have battled so mightily to go beyond being a people of culture that they do not wish to contribute to letting this go on. and they are the more touchy to the situation of the Greeks that a long history incites them to recognize themselves in the hellenistic world. They do not want to give Greeks the ability to continues as they have been doing, because Greece appears to them as the deformed mirror to what they have finally achieved in not being. We are in a process of broken identification. In the construction of reality, it is often that one is afraid of what one has been oneself, because of the menace which this represents. The relationship of Germany to Greece is no longer that of a positive and happy complicity, but more like an obsessive fear. At once, the pressure that the Germans are putting on the Greeks has no purpose but to order them to give themselves a State. But can one from the outside force a people to become a State? Where Germany would be plenty happy with a few positive gestures in this direction, Greece is showing no signs of a willingness to change. All indicates that they are attached to their powerless pluralism.
The Eurozone can live without Greece. It is within the logic and structure of this institution, which does not include all European countries. Only it would be a catastrophe for Europe. In fact, if Greece is forced to forsake the euro, it is as if the entire European ideal were being rejected. Conversely, if one continues to come in aid of the Greeks without their taking institutional measures, one risks seeing the common currency disappear in the curse of the 'Danaides'. From which we can see that the historical depth which lends force to the European project is as well what makes it fragile.
author: Heinz wismann, philosopher, specialist in hemeneutics
translation form French: doxa-louise
Greece and Germany. A Mimetic conflict
"Why is Germany so intransigent? In what do they find a Greek bankruptcy so fearful?
Behind the problem of this debt, there is a political question: the absence of a State. The Greeks, with whom Germans identify culturally, mirror their own history back to them: that of a people pushed to hell for not having, during a very long time, created a stable territorial State...Greeks represent today what history has taught Germans not to be. Thus, what Germany is reproaching them is not so much having run up considerable debt in a thoughtless manner, but not having created the only tool capable of offering salvation.
Berlin, Athens' heir
During the 1800s, two models are dominant in Europe, Athens and Rome. The Franks have taken the way of Rome: it is on the model of the centralized state and Roman law that kings construct an absolute monarchy. It is on the model of Roman rationality that the French think: the word 'réel'(real) comes from the Roman res which means 'thing', conceptualized as a static reality, delimited, geometric. According to Descartes, thought must apprehend things and itself 'clearly and distinctly'. Heirs to this Roman obsession with delimitating the real, the French found very early - as soon as 1648 with the Westphalie treaties (concluded between the Habsbourg emperor Ferdinand III, France and their respective allies to end the Thirty Years War) - the way to establish themselves as a Nation-State within the confines of natural barriers. In reaction, Germany which is still a patchwork of principalities identifies with the other great cultural model, Greece, scattered in a myriad of City-States. From the point of view of geography alone, the Greek islands are sending back to Germany an image of its institutional fragmentation. but above the Greeks appear to the Germans as that cultured people that has no State, that lets itself be assimilated by Rome...but which nonetheless ends up colonizing the Romans. With Schiller, Goethe and the art theoretician Winckelmann, Germans identify with the Hellenes: they recognize themselves in the language and Greek rationality, the self-affirmation of the City-States reminds them of their own dispersion; they recognize the relationship to nature, to becoming, to self, which were those of the Greeks. The German word to designate reality, Wirklichkeit, comes from the verb wirken which means "to act or produce an effect". Reality is not something which lets itself be circumscribed, but rather that which produces an action. Only that which manifests itself as force or energy exists. It is a dynamic conception of the real. Philosophers well understood this: Hegel opposes the taxonomic rationality of the French, which orders everything into pre-existing categories, to the dialectic rationality of the Germans, interested in their coming-to-be. Heidegger will go so far as to assert that one cannot do philosophy in French or Latin, but only in Greek or German. Literature as well testifies to this cleavage: the German novel, from Goethe's Wilhem Meister to Thomas Mann and The Magic Mountain, is a novel of becoming (Entwicklungsroman), of development of the personality, while the French novel is centered on the social ascent of the hero, who must find his place in an already constituted world. Within this Entwicklungsroman, the individual is called upon to reject all that which hinders him from the exterior, in order to become himself by letting emerge his deeper self, according to the logic of the Greek physis ('nature', a fundamental concept of Greek philosophy). In all areas, then, the Germans have seen themselves as heirs to the Greeks.
Between 1914 and 1945, the Germans who had thought they could develop their particular genius outside of a State framework met with the consequences of this illusion. The Bismarkian enterprise resulted in military defeat, in the political weakness of the Weimar Republic and above all in the economic crisis of the 1920s. Germans lived through one of the most traumatic experiences of their history, inflation. The fruits of their labour would go up in smoke. My father gone to pick up his pay with a wheelbarrow could not, having reached the baker, buy a loaf of bread... This dizzying experience will be linked for a long time, in the mind of Germans, with the fragility of the State. They then become conscious that it is not enough to be an influential cultural power, on the model of the Ancient Greeks. And adventuring as totalitarian, based on the idea of imperial expansion, will have been but another way of not confronting this task.
The Broken Mirror and the curse of the 'Danaides'
Between 1945 and reunification, Germany, for the first time in its history, managed to land itself in a delimited territory. The Germans have received, in defeat, this roman and French territorial comfort, even if they adapted it by operating a synthesis between Greek dispersal and a unitary Roman State: this is the meaning of the federal State. since then, all their energies have been directed within this framework. The Wirk-lichkeit, the free flowering of German reality, cannot expand territorially, but has to operate henceforth through the economy. The Germans today are somewhat appeased: they are more democratic than some of their neighbours, even those more accustomed to the exercise of democracy. This is because they are within legitimate borders, recognized, that will no longer change.
One thus better understands the position of Germany with respect to Greece. The latter is at the moment an indebted nation, without a proper State apparatus; the government is incapable of collection income tax, the very principle of a public Thing to which all are subject is not established, there is clientism and corruption at all levels, public services are either missing or bankrupt, society is dominated by networks of dependencies and opaque solidarity. They are left with but the pride of having been the first Europeans of History. Yet the Germans have battled so mightily to go beyond being a people of culture that they do not wish to contribute to letting this go on. and they are the more touchy to the situation of the Greeks that a long history incites them to recognize themselves in the hellenistic world. They do not want to give Greeks the ability to continues as they have been doing, because Greece appears to them as the deformed mirror to what they have finally achieved in not being. We are in a process of broken identification. In the construction of reality, it is often that one is afraid of what one has been oneself, because of the menace which this represents. The relationship of Germany to Greece is no longer that of a positive and happy complicity, but more like an obsessive fear. At once, the pressure that the Germans are putting on the Greeks has no purpose but to order them to give themselves a State. But can one from the outside force a people to become a State? Where Germany would be plenty happy with a few positive gestures in this direction, Greece is showing no signs of a willingness to change. All indicates that they are attached to their powerless pluralism.
The Eurozone can live without Greece. It is within the logic and structure of this institution, which does not include all European countries. Only it would be a catastrophe for Europe. In fact, if Greece is forced to forsake the euro, it is as if the entire European ideal were being rejected. Conversely, if one continues to come in aid of the Greeks without their taking institutional measures, one risks seeing the common currency disappear in the curse of the 'Danaides'. From which we can see that the historical depth which lends force to the European project is as well what makes it fragile.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Stiglitz
The economist, Joseph Stiglitz, is very critical of this latest deal for Greece. It will be
recalled that he was a prominent Clinton advisor, and is a well known advocate of
reform of the international monetary system (or lack thereof). His theoretical work
is to the effect that there is rarely a true market situation because information is incomplete.
source: Libération
recalled that he was a prominent Clinton advisor, and is a well known advocate of
reform of the international monetary system (or lack thereof). His theoretical work
is to the effect that there is rarely a true market situation because information is incomplete.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The Problem
Began mucking around Eurtostat statistics, which are really well presented. For example, below shows me that Greece has been sending a decreasing percentage of its exports to other European countries. Don't know what this means, but it is interesting. Doubt if I can make sense of it all in a day or two, though.
Someone reported acnecdotally this morning that Greece now imports food where it used to produce it itself. If that is true, might this mean people are eating some of the better European foodstuffs!!?
What is really troubling about this debt drama is that Greece borrows by itself, and not the Eurozone (which shares the one currency). Thinking about it, it is odd. The Us is part of the IMF as one member, so is Canada. Percentage of voting right varies, but membership rules appear quite clean, except for Europe. Is this not part of the problem? Europe as a whole might be profiting from more money in Greece, but how would we know? They feel obligated to control things in Greece; it might make more sense if it was all from the same pot. Just saying...
Pluto
The following image is of Earth, Pluto and its moon Charon showing relative sizes:
source: le Figaro
Monday, July 13, 2015
For the Record
source: Huffington Post; Les Blogues
author: Marc-André Pharand, masters candidate at Laval University, International Relations
translation: doxa-louise
Four Things to Know about Austerity...and Greece
In the last few days, social media have been inundated with self-proclaimes experts on Greece, or more specifically on the question of austerity. Yet, any serious researcher on the subject knows that the Greek situation is eminently complex and that each camp is partly responsible for the current crisis. I would hesitate to call myself an expert, even after having spent over one year studying specifically the Greek situation, and its possible impact on the Eurozone. In the world of social media, however, having spent ten days in Athens makes one an instant expert. Ridiculous.
But that is not the purpose of this text. After the recent victory of the referendum and a victory for the 'no', many think that the austerity question is settled. Not quite.
A 'no' victory heralds an important moment for Greece and the Eurozone, but not the end to austerity. In effect, the referendum was not about austerity, but a vote on a set of proposals by Brussels to end the current impass. It is a rejection of European heavy-handedness. Not austerity.
To better understand the current situation, one must be clear about what one means by austerity. Here is a list of things to know (and which are often omitted):
1-There is no scientifically accepted definition of the concept
Indeed, very few authors even try to define the concept formally. Thus, and as a function of various texts, austerity can became quite encompassing and become a label for a certain kind of policy; or alternatively, austerity takes on a well delimited sense within which one can distinguish what is austerity from what isn't.
For my purposes, the second school, because a generic term has little value in a scientific context. My preferred definition is that used by the IMF, that is that austerity is a governmental policy aimed at reducing the deficit ou indebtedness of a State through the lowering of public spending or an increase in taxation.
2-There are two kinds of austerity
Even if these are not mutually exclusive, it is usual to distinguish between two types of austerity.On the one hand, there is budgetary austerity which a government applies on spending and the other, one that government puts in place through taxation. In reality, a government need not choose between one and the other because it can control spending and its income at the same time. Yet the effects of each type of policy are very different.
Thus, most studies have shown that it is fiscal austerity which has the most effect on a country's economy. In other words, the one most leading to recession. According to data from the IMF and other independent sources, upping taxes by 1% of GDP leads to lowering real GDP by 1,29%! Case studies have confirmed the recession effects of austerity by fiscal means. This is in part what lead to the failure of the first aid effort on Greece between 2010 and 2012.
As for the effects of budgetary austerity, the debate is open. Many studies show that is has virtually no effect on the rest of a country's economy, and many studies show that exact opposite.
Thus, the heart of the problem resides with the evaluation which scientists make of the multiplier effect of public spending. In brief, more the multiplier is high, more expenses have an effect on the economy, and vice versa. It is precisely on this point that the IMF admitted its error in 2013, declaring it had underestimated the importance of the multiplier, which lead to not foreseeing the potentially negative effects of austerity. (See document link below).
3-Structural reforms are not austerity
Even if structural reforms were an essential element of Greece's various bail-out packages, these form no part of what we call 'austerity'. In effect, we have seen that the objective of an austerity package is to reduce the deficit or indebtedness of a country. These are policies that are essentially short-term. In the Greek case, for example, proper austerity policies had objectives such as bringing the public deficit to 2,6% of GDP for 2014, or again lessening the indebtedness ratio of Greece starting in 2013 (examples form the 2010 bail-out package).
Alternatively, structural reforms have quite different objectives.In effect, the objectives were more general and oriented to the mid and long term, such as ameliorating the credibility of Greek authorities or bettering the competitive stance of the Greek economy. it is as a function of this last objective that we saw the government adopt painful reforms of the labour market, in effect a generalized diminution of salaries. Undeniably, such reforms had an impact on the country's public finances but in an indirect fashion. Their objectives were really to affect profound reforms to the Greek economy; more the affair of a long-term political stance for the country than urgency measures such as austerity.
And let us note, such policies have often been imposed to developing counries by the World Bank or the IMF without mentioning austerity as such.
4-Austerity produces mixed results
After close to 5 years of austerity policies in Greece, it is apparent that austerity did not work, at least not at first glance. Looking more closely, one notices that the country's economic situation was showing encouraging signs in 2014. For example, the year 2014 closed on a real positive growth. Certainly, at 0,8% nothing to party about, but after six consecutive years of recession, a return to growth can be seen as a victory for Greece in itself. Other economic indicators were equally hopeful, notably a primary positive budget, a commercial surplus and the employment rate. But all that...was before the political party Syriza.
Yet, if one looks at the global portrait, things ar less cheery. For example, as a result of cuts in the health budget, a study has shown that at lest 60 000 people aged over 65 were deprived of medical assistance since the beginning if the recession.. The HIV infection rate exploded (close to 200%) and infectious illnesses such as malaria came back.
Moreover, the Gini index - which serves to compare the misery of nations - went from 49,1 in 2010 to 61,6 in 2013, which shows that income inequality went up sharply. Certain authors have even argues that the election of Syriza is a direct consequence of policies pursued in those years, an analysis which I share.
* * *
We thus see that Greece underwent austerity policies for the last 5 years. And that austerity is not the only culprit in the current situation, structural reforms having played a role in the evolution of the Greek problématique (everything to do with unemployment and the exodus of young Greeks, for instance).
...
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1301.pdf
Eurostat, the European statistical agency for data
author: Marc-André Pharand, masters candidate at Laval University, International Relations
translation: doxa-louise
Four Things to Know about Austerity...and Greece
In the last few days, social media have been inundated with self-proclaimes experts on Greece, or more specifically on the question of austerity. Yet, any serious researcher on the subject knows that the Greek situation is eminently complex and that each camp is partly responsible for the current crisis. I would hesitate to call myself an expert, even after having spent over one year studying specifically the Greek situation, and its possible impact on the Eurozone. In the world of social media, however, having spent ten days in Athens makes one an instant expert. Ridiculous.
But that is not the purpose of this text. After the recent victory of the referendum and a victory for the 'no', many think that the austerity question is settled. Not quite.
A 'no' victory heralds an important moment for Greece and the Eurozone, but not the end to austerity. In effect, the referendum was not about austerity, but a vote on a set of proposals by Brussels to end the current impass. It is a rejection of European heavy-handedness. Not austerity.
To better understand the current situation, one must be clear about what one means by austerity. Here is a list of things to know (and which are often omitted):
1-There is no scientifically accepted definition of the concept
Indeed, very few authors even try to define the concept formally. Thus, and as a function of various texts, austerity can became quite encompassing and become a label for a certain kind of policy; or alternatively, austerity takes on a well delimited sense within which one can distinguish what is austerity from what isn't.
For my purposes, the second school, because a generic term has little value in a scientific context. My preferred definition is that used by the IMF, that is that austerity is a governmental policy aimed at reducing the deficit ou indebtedness of a State through the lowering of public spending or an increase in taxation.
2-There are two kinds of austerity
Even if these are not mutually exclusive, it is usual to distinguish between two types of austerity.On the one hand, there is budgetary austerity which a government applies on spending and the other, one that government puts in place through taxation. In reality, a government need not choose between one and the other because it can control spending and its income at the same time. Yet the effects of each type of policy are very different.
Thus, most studies have shown that it is fiscal austerity which has the most effect on a country's economy. In other words, the one most leading to recession. According to data from the IMF and other independent sources, upping taxes by 1% of GDP leads to lowering real GDP by 1,29%! Case studies have confirmed the recession effects of austerity by fiscal means. This is in part what lead to the failure of the first aid effort on Greece between 2010 and 2012.
As for the effects of budgetary austerity, the debate is open. Many studies show that is has virtually no effect on the rest of a country's economy, and many studies show that exact opposite.
Thus, the heart of the problem resides with the evaluation which scientists make of the multiplier effect of public spending. In brief, more the multiplier is high, more expenses have an effect on the economy, and vice versa. It is precisely on this point that the IMF admitted its error in 2013, declaring it had underestimated the importance of the multiplier, which lead to not foreseeing the potentially negative effects of austerity. (See document link below).
3-Structural reforms are not austerity
Even if structural reforms were an essential element of Greece's various bail-out packages, these form no part of what we call 'austerity'. In effect, we have seen that the objective of an austerity package is to reduce the deficit or indebtedness of a country. These are policies that are essentially short-term. In the Greek case, for example, proper austerity policies had objectives such as bringing the public deficit to 2,6% of GDP for 2014, or again lessening the indebtedness ratio of Greece starting in 2013 (examples form the 2010 bail-out package).
Alternatively, structural reforms have quite different objectives.In effect, the objectives were more general and oriented to the mid and long term, such as ameliorating the credibility of Greek authorities or bettering the competitive stance of the Greek economy. it is as a function of this last objective that we saw the government adopt painful reforms of the labour market, in effect a generalized diminution of salaries. Undeniably, such reforms had an impact on the country's public finances but in an indirect fashion. Their objectives were really to affect profound reforms to the Greek economy; more the affair of a long-term political stance for the country than urgency measures such as austerity.
And let us note, such policies have often been imposed to developing counries by the World Bank or the IMF without mentioning austerity as such.
4-Austerity produces mixed results
After close to 5 years of austerity policies in Greece, it is apparent that austerity did not work, at least not at first glance. Looking more closely, one notices that the country's economic situation was showing encouraging signs in 2014. For example, the year 2014 closed on a real positive growth. Certainly, at 0,8% nothing to party about, but after six consecutive years of recession, a return to growth can be seen as a victory for Greece in itself. Other economic indicators were equally hopeful, notably a primary positive budget, a commercial surplus and the employment rate. But all that...was before the political party Syriza.
Yet, if one looks at the global portrait, things ar less cheery. For example, as a result of cuts in the health budget, a study has shown that at lest 60 000 people aged over 65 were deprived of medical assistance since the beginning if the recession.. The HIV infection rate exploded (close to 200%) and infectious illnesses such as malaria came back.
Moreover, the Gini index - which serves to compare the misery of nations - went from 49,1 in 2010 to 61,6 in 2013, which shows that income inequality went up sharply. Certain authors have even argues that the election of Syriza is a direct consequence of policies pursued in those years, an analysis which I share.
* * *
We thus see that Greece underwent austerity policies for the last 5 years. And that austerity is not the only culprit in the current situation, structural reforms having played a role in the evolution of the Greek problématique (everything to do with unemployment and the exodus of young Greeks, for instance).
...
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1301.pdf
Eurostat, the European statistical agency for data
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Grexit
Le Figaro is curently running some interesting background pieces on the Greek situation.
One: How would a Grexit be accomplished concretely? It would be difficult.
Clearly a new money would need to be printed. A new design, sure to be unfalsifiable,
takes one year to develop. On the assumption of a July 20th payment breach, the
government could start printing IOUs for internal payments, and stamp the euros
they have for new money. It would take years to disentangle Greece from all the
various payment mechanisms currently in place with European institutions.
Two: The other worry is the parallel economy, currently acounting for 30 to 40% of
GDP. Things would get worse, spreading to everything from houseclesaning to
liberal professions. And, the expectation is that Greece would keep the Euro as the
currency for the dark economy!!!
Three: The tourist industry is extremely vulnerable to the economic health of Europe.
A recession in Europe and Greece's leading industry takes a hit. Worse, there has
not been much investment in tourism for a while, and now other European countries
are accessible, at lower cost, for example Turkey, Croatia etc.
I can't say I'm surprised that the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers cannot agree. A
committee that size couldn't agree on lunch, in the best of cases. Perhaps the night
will bring new ideas...
* * *
Sunday
Some interesting tidbits from reading the German press: apparently, there is a document, some 1
000 pages, that defines how an exit from the eurozone should proceed. It is in a vault, somewhere,
accessible to Eurocrats although as yet unopened...
As well, many Eurozone partners are making plans to reinforce the Eurozone after a departure by
Greece, defining mechanisms making sure that 'this doesn't happen again'.
Finally, many feel the current prime minister is a gambling man, who says one thing in Brussels and
another in Athens. His right-wing predecessors had made progress, although they were refusing
to end clientism when this government came in.
Are these really insoluble problems? Personally, I would be curious to know why the 'never again'
scenario cannot include Greece. As for the morals of politicians, say what? I credit the people of
Greece with the foresight to have voted in someone young and idealistic who could jump the
cronyism hurdle. And - he's an engineer - kinda smart and a quick learner, to boot.
One: How would a Grexit be accomplished concretely? It would be difficult.
Clearly a new money would need to be printed. A new design, sure to be unfalsifiable,
takes one year to develop. On the assumption of a July 20th payment breach, the
government could start printing IOUs for internal payments, and stamp the euros
they have for new money. It would take years to disentangle Greece from all the
various payment mechanisms currently in place with European institutions.
Two: The other worry is the parallel economy, currently acounting for 30 to 40% of
GDP. Things would get worse, spreading to everything from houseclesaning to
liberal professions. And, the expectation is that Greece would keep the Euro as the
currency for the dark economy!!!
Three: The tourist industry is extremely vulnerable to the economic health of Europe.
A recession in Europe and Greece's leading industry takes a hit. Worse, there has
not been much investment in tourism for a while, and now other European countries
are accessible, at lower cost, for example Turkey, Croatia etc.
I can't say I'm surprised that the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers cannot agree. A
committee that size couldn't agree on lunch, in the best of cases. Perhaps the night
will bring new ideas...
* * *
Sunday
Some interesting tidbits from reading the German press: apparently, there is a document, some 1
000 pages, that defines how an exit from the eurozone should proceed. It is in a vault, somewhere,
accessible to Eurocrats although as yet unopened...
As well, many Eurozone partners are making plans to reinforce the Eurozone after a departure by
Greece, defining mechanisms making sure that 'this doesn't happen again'.
Finally, many feel the current prime minister is a gambling man, who says one thing in Brussels and
another in Athens. His right-wing predecessors had made progress, although they were refusing
to end clientism when this government came in.
Are these really insoluble problems? Personally, I would be curious to know why the 'never again'
scenario cannot include Greece. As for the morals of politicians, say what? I credit the people of
Greece with the foresight to have voted in someone young and idealistic who could jump the
cronyism hurdle. And - he's an engineer - kinda smart and a quick learner, to boot.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Dirt Bike!
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Onward!
A lot of people are feeling concern about the current Greek problematique. Even the Russian government has made it known that they are 'not adding kindling to the fire'. Make it right, please! seems to be the concensus.
But I am troubled - and I think a lot of Eurocrats are as well - that we need to arrive at a true resolution, and not create a situation that will re-open the same dilemna in a few years. So forging on...
Governments acting as creditors are out of their depth. They merrily loaned to Greece at rates higher than those at which they themselves were borrowing to do so. And lo and behold, there are now repayment problems. Any investor who works at high risk loans expects to loose some of the time; it's part of that particular game. But no, our governmental amateurs then insist that austerity be applied, and overnight at that. And surprise, the level of economic activity nosedives. At least, let us learn from past mistakes.
I have also found the argument that Greece's current left government are nutters. Hard to tell from a distance, but there are indications that the left got in because they were taking care of people in difficult circumstances, through various associations and projects. Greece is currently recycling meds from the recently dead, as an example. Perhaps Greece's left intellectuals need to realize that - forget the theory - they are in a socialist economy of sorts already, a managed economy. Marx, to my mind, gave himself English lessons through his writings, articulated that particular form of humanist concern because English society initiated the Industrial Revolution and its problems. Let's move on, shall we?
As for the government, do collect those taxes where they are due. That is absolutely necessary in a European country. Worry about raising them later; for now, that is argument to evade. Paying taxes is sexy!!
I have read that the ministry of Defense went to the Right-wing allied party. Entirely an internal judgement call. If one spends there, one sacrifices elsewhere. Voilà!
But I am troubled - and I think a lot of Eurocrats are as well - that we need to arrive at a true resolution, and not create a situation that will re-open the same dilemna in a few years. So forging on...
Governments acting as creditors are out of their depth. They merrily loaned to Greece at rates higher than those at which they themselves were borrowing to do so. And lo and behold, there are now repayment problems. Any investor who works at high risk loans expects to loose some of the time; it's part of that particular game. But no, our governmental amateurs then insist that austerity be applied, and overnight at that. And surprise, the level of economic activity nosedives. At least, let us learn from past mistakes.
I have also found the argument that Greece's current left government are nutters. Hard to tell from a distance, but there are indications that the left got in because they were taking care of people in difficult circumstances, through various associations and projects. Greece is currently recycling meds from the recently dead, as an example. Perhaps Greece's left intellectuals need to realize that - forget the theory - they are in a socialist economy of sorts already, a managed economy. Marx, to my mind, gave himself English lessons through his writings, articulated that particular form of humanist concern because English society initiated the Industrial Revolution and its problems. Let's move on, shall we?
As for the government, do collect those taxes where they are due. That is absolutely necessary in a European country. Worry about raising them later; for now, that is argument to evade. Paying taxes is sexy!!
I have read that the ministry of Defense went to the Right-wing allied party. Entirely an internal judgement call. If one spends there, one sacrifices elsewhere. Voilà!
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Tsipras
I am not worried about Alexis Tsipras; he's been a teenager and knows what to do: lie like heck. Because that is the truth of the situation he is facing, isn't it. Parents who just don't have a clue as to what is possible and what isn't.
He is being praised for that clever referendum. Commentors fail to notice that he is heading a minority government, in alliance with a few from the far right. That referendum was necessary to give himself political legitimacy. Which he got.
What commentators are getting right is the silliness of the present debt dilemna Greece is facing: borrowing ever more to pay back the same creditor, with conditions a little worse each time because it is, well, indebted. The underlying truth here is that the financial system is inherently opportunistic, and European governments are letting all this happen to bolster their own internal economies (some say, restabilize banking after 2008).
So who speaks for Europe, for the dream of Europe. Because it is necessary and beautiful thing. Just the other day, at the bottom of those web pages on the Greek crisis, a little article on how they had quite possibly found life on Tchouri, an incredible breakthrough in our scientific undersdtanding.
I am leaving the last word to Pierre, a Le Monde reader who has obviously travelled to Greece:
I would think yes; if not from one pocket than the other.
He is being praised for that clever referendum. Commentors fail to notice that he is heading a minority government, in alliance with a few from the far right. That referendum was necessary to give himself political legitimacy. Which he got.
What commentators are getting right is the silliness of the present debt dilemna Greece is facing: borrowing ever more to pay back the same creditor, with conditions a little worse each time because it is, well, indebted. The underlying truth here is that the financial system is inherently opportunistic, and European governments are letting all this happen to bolster their own internal economies (some say, restabilize banking after 2008).
So who speaks for Europe, for the dream of Europe. Because it is necessary and beautiful thing. Just the other day, at the bottom of those web pages on the Greek crisis, a little article on how they had quite possibly found life on Tchouri, an incredible breakthrough in our scientific undersdtanding.
I am leaving the last word to Pierre, a Le Monde reader who has obviously travelled to Greece:
Monday, July 6, 2015
Incredible!
From the New Yorker:
...
...
Years of such corruption and tax evasion, coupled with reckless expenditure—as a share of G.D.P., for instance, Athens spent almost twice the E.U. average on military purchases—pushed the Greek state into massive budget shortfalls, prompting the government to borrow heavily. In late 2009, the government announced that it had racked up enough debt to be running a deficit of almost thirteen per cent of G.D.P., sparking fears of a default. Greece’s creditors were mostly European banks, which had, in part, used public bailout money following the 2008 credit crunch to scoop up Greek bonds. For example, French and German banks were on the books for thirty-one and twenty-three billion euros, respectively. The troika stepped in during the spring of 2010, and again in 2012, to orchestrate bailouts of the Greek government, offering two hundred and forty billion euros in loans in exchange for a drastic reduction in government spending and other measures to make the Greek economy more competitive. “Understand that this debt is symbolic,” Theocharakis said. “It’s simply too much to ever be paid back fully.”
Across the hall from his office, there is a poster announcing a lecture on the bailout that bears a depiction of the famous con artist Charles Ponzi. The implication is not subtle: the troika and other creditors raised most of the bailout tranche from capital markets through low-interest bond issues, and then loaned the money to Greece at much higher rates. Close to ninety per cent of the money returns directly to the original creditors, or goes to recapitalize Greek banks; most of the funds don’t even touch the Greek government’s hands, landing instead for a few days in an escrow account, until they are transferred to bond holders.
* * *
Tuesday, 9 07 15.
Still on the Greek question this morning. Seems Greece has consistently maintained high military spending. Which makes it an odd kind of place : tourists and the military. Because military societies tend to be ... Spartan, like North Korea. Found a link:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-greeces-military-budget-is-so-high-2015-6
source: Wikipedia.
* * *
Tuesday, 9 07 15.
Still on the Greek question this morning. Seems Greece has consistently maintained high military spending. Which makes it an odd kind of place : tourists and the military. Because military societies tend to be ... Spartan, like North Korea. Found a link:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-greeces-military-budget-is-so-high-2015-6
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Varoufakis
Just found an interesting article from Greece's Minister of Finance
before he entered politics in 2013. Hoping to translate it to French before
the end of the day, but it's a beast. On the fun side, I now know
what a nogood-er being slammed by someone on the Left is: a spiv!!
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist
Spent part of yesterday's rainy Canada Day watching a film on
fashion industry workers in the developing world. Couldn't get
through it, felt too guilty. Yet somehow they go together.
http://ffilms.org/tag/2015/page/5/
before he entered politics in 2013. Hoping to translate it to French before
the end of the day, but it's a beast. On the fun side, I now know
what a nogood-er being slammed by someone on the Left is: a spiv!!
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist
Spent part of yesterday's rainy Canada Day watching a film on
fashion industry workers in the developing world. Couldn't get
through it, felt too guilty. Yet somehow they go together.
http://ffilms.org/tag/2015/page/5/
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
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