Lessons From The Greeks

[CharlesHarris]

Putin would foment internal unrest and engage in covert warfare exactly like his mentor Uncle Joe did in the 1950s, except today the US, UK and NATO probably would do nothing and permit the coup de tat to succeed.

[Mortblanc]

The last coup de tat was financed and organized by the CIA !

Like has been said, I am sure the present administration does not have the stones for such an endeavor.

[CharlesHarris]

Yes, Bill Casey is dead. Too bad.....

[River Song]

Tuesday 0846

"Awaiting the Greeks further proposals"

Strange - I thought that the Eurocrats had already told the greeks to go f.... themselves if they voted No.

But no - They still want to kick the can down the road a bit longer. They will renegotiate and come to some solution which may mean 25% of their debt is wiped out. (Which means Euro Rax Payers bear the brunt). GReece couldnt possibly pay anyway - they have to do something!

What makes me angry is the way that the Greeks are dealing with it --- "We cant pay some give us some more money" --- no sense of "please help us"

[Mortblanc]

An entire nation with an entitlement view of life.

And now you see what happens when socialists run out of other people's money!

[Steve]

(7 July 2015, 16:09)Mortblanc Wrote: An entire nation with an entitlement view of life.

And now you see what happens when socialists run out of other people's money!

Greek politics is far from straightforward, they had a military dictatorship until the 70's, then loads of coalition governments, comprised of all flavours of parties, promising more and more to the voters.

It's ironic that the birthplace of democracy should be ruined by it.

The "entitlement view" is going to get more common I fear - young people are saying " I didn't spend the money....", whilst conveniently forgetting that they have grown up benefitting from massive infrastructure.

I wonder what other countries are thinking the same way.

[Tarrel]

A street-level view of economic collapse:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2...kets-video

[bigpaul]

oh well, that's socialism for you.

[Steve]

(8 July 2015, 07:22)bigpaul Wrote: oh well, that's socialism for you.

You can hardly blame the socialists, they only took over from the conservatives in January.

[iaaems]

Many years ago I had a fortnights holiday in Greece. Spent a week in Athens and then a week on one of the islands.
From an historical angle I was totally fascinated by everything I saw. To see all this stuff in the raw was really good.
Obviously had to travel by boat to the island. While on the boat I noticed that the attitude of the everyday folk towards me, and those I was with, had changed somewhat. In fact one of the locals actually spat on me when I was talking to one of the crew on board. English is a second language in Greece and very many locals can understand you.
We later found out that the Greek Colonels had been overthrown and that, seemingly, if you spoke English then it was very likely that one was taken as American and your popularity rating had hit rock bottom because the Americans had been supporting the Colonels. There was, apparently, a huge Military base on the mainland somewhere. It became necessary for us to establish that we were English and on Holiday and therefore not the 'enemy'.
I came away from this experience with very mixed feelings, it has to be said.
My overall feeling was that here was an economy that really had nothing to back it up - tourism and a few boats seemed to be all that there was. As long as someone provided the cash to keep it all going then everything was fine - bring on the ouzo and let's have a good time.
It would appear that the time has come for someone to dig deep and start paying for this lifestyle.