BansheeOne Posted January 26, 2015 Author Posted January 26, 2015 Both main contenders in the Greek elections seem to have done slightly better than projected, as has the radical right "Golden Dawn" which came in third (Syriza 36.3, Nea Dimocratia 27.8, Golden Dawn 6.3 percent by current count). Just now it was reported that the leftist Syriza will form a government with the "Independent Greek" (4.7), which are described as right-wing populists here. Quick, somewhat peculiar but really not too diverse, as the left and right fringes tend to agree on a lot of things, particulary Euro-scepticism. Reactions are rather relaxed here; as noted, PM-designate Alexis Tsipras has moderated his statements on sticking it to creditors the closer he has been coming to actually having to take responsibility, and there are imminent deadlines on getting new help while repayment of EU aid debts is not scheduled to start before 2020. The next government might not even be in power then even if it survives a full term, not a sure thing given recent political volatility. It is possible that for everybody to have something to show from purported new negotiations, repayment will be further stretched - which is largely inconsequential since it already runs until 2054 at minimal interest rates. Nobody really expects earthshaking change, as long as Tsipras can reign in the radicals in his own party.
Murph Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 I did not know then that they were serious. I really like a Walker-Palin, Walker-Cruz, or vice versa. Romney, Bush, Huckabee, Graham, etc make me want to sit out an election. I would love a Palin-Cruz ticket, that would get me fired up. And over here the Republicans have nothing but worn out retreads to offer the voters. Not sure if I'd call Cruz and Walker "retreads", Murph. The GOP field is starting to shape up to be something interesting. Especially now that Lindsay Graham is talking up entering the mix. In past nomination cycles the more establishment GOP candidate has won because there are several Conservatives running and they split the Conservative vote. Giving the establishment candidate a win via plurality. This can be seen as good, in some ways, because it helps verify Reagan's continued legacy within the Party. Otherwise you wouldn't have as many Conservatives running. So, in a hypothetical field of Romney, Bush, Christie, Graham (decidedly lower tier, but a vote-sucker nonetheless), Paul (keeps his Dad's groupies from going elsewhere - assuming he even runs this time around), Cruz and Walker there's a decided advantage to the more Conservative candidate(s). Especially if Cruz or Walker decide to bow out early, leaving the other as the sole darling of the Tea Party/Conservative Wing.
Harold Jones Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 I did not know then that they were serious. I really like a Walker-Palin, Walker-Cruz, or vice versa. Romney, Bush, Huckabee, Graham, etc make me want to sit out an election. I would love a Palin-Cruz ticket, that would get me fired up. I think having Palin, Romney, Bush, or Hukabee on the ticket will pretty much ensure Hilary's victory.
Simon Tan Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 Ausgang.....Greece might as well get out. They are simply unfit to be in Eurozone.
sunday Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 Then we will have the umpteenth Greco-Turkish war in not so much time. Seems we are going back one hundred years and a bit.
Simon Tan Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 Why? Greece has actually nothing to offer even the Turks. Perhaps the equilibrium level for Greece will be closer to Romania and Albania.
Mistral Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 Both main contenders in the Greek elections seem to have done slightly better than projected, as has the radical right "Golden Dawn" which came in third (Syriza 36.3, Nea Dimocratia 27.8, Golden Dawn 6.3 percent by current count). Just now it was reported that the leftist Syriza will form a government with the "Independent Greek" (4.7), which are described as right-wing populists here. Quick, somewhat peculiar but really not too diverse, as the left and right fringes tend to agree on a lot of things, particulary Euro-scepticism. Reactions are rather relaxed here; as noted, PM-designate Alexis Tsipras has moderated his statements on sticking it to creditors the closer he has been coming to actually having to take responsibility, and there are imminent deadlines on getting new help while repayment of EU aid debts is not scheduled to start before 2020. The next government might not even be in power then even if it survives a full term, not a sure thing given recent political volatility. It is possible that for everybody to have something to show from purported new negotiations, repayment will be further stretched - which is largely inconsequential since it already runs until 2054 at minimal interest rates. Nobody really expects earthshaking change, as long as Tsipras can reign in the radicals in his own party. The probability of your last sentence is practically zero. People who have money have voted with their cash right out of the country. Its not the gov. that will collapse first but the banks, which is a stated goal of said radicals.
BansheeOne Posted January 26, 2015 Author Posted January 26, 2015 Well, that's certainly something to consider.
mnm Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 The Brits are safe already as they have been holding bits of the Parthenon, the oodles of craterae in the Ashmolean etc as collateral for ages already. A good possibility might be to have the Italians invade Greece again, but I don't mean the 1940 frooty tootsy version, the Lucius Aemilius Paulus way worked much better. There's always the possibility that a few Orthodox monasteries may have something worth pillaging still.
Mikel2 Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 The first public act of the new Greek PM has been to lay flowers on the monument to the Greeks killed by the Germans in the war. Sending a message?
Mikel2 Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 And over here the Republicans have nothing but worn out retreads to offer the voters. Forgive my ignorance of US politics, but is there no other political groupings that can offer a potential President? We hear a lot of the tea partyists.... There is no such thing as the Tea Party. There are probably 2 dozen different TEA groups in the USA, TEA itself is an acronym meaning Taxed Enough Already. A TEA party is a protest action against higher taxes. Contrary to left mainstream media reports to the contrary "TEAism" is not a construct of corporations, KKK, Koch bros..... etc...... First recorded TEA party happened in 1983 when a small group of people got together and held tea bags in the air in protest against Reagan agreeing to raise taxes. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1291&dat=19830714&id=OBNUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=y4wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5905,3315449 Not to mention that the KKK was overwhelmingly democrat... How soon people forget.
Corinthian Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) Off topic, and I know it's juvenile, but every time I see this thread's title, I mentally say it in Japanese Engrish "Erection erection erection" Edited January 27, 2015 by Corinthian
nabqrules Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Off topic, and I know it's juvenile, but every time I see this thread's title, I mentally say it in Japanese Engrish "Erection erection erection"Your dysfunction is contagious, Thanks for sharing.
toysoldier Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Yay! He said it first! Its been a very long 18 pages, man... resisting the compulsion!
Simon Tan Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Really....please name one thing in your home that is Made in Greece. I have nothing.
rmgill Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 You haven't seen funny until you've seen your high school Japanese Teacher (all of 5 feet of her) asking the class about "erection day" on the usual tuesday in november...
Mr King Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Really....please name one thing in your home that is Made in Greece. I have nothing. Well I have some olive oil sold by a Greek family here in town that was supposedly made back in Greece from olives grown on their family farm, but I always have my cynical doubts about that kind of stuff. That is about it.
Mr King Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Danish get out the vote ad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIbvyTaIZqw
urbanoid Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Off topic, and I know it's juvenile, but every time I see this thread's title, I mentally say it in Japanese Engrish "Erection erection erection" Same here, Polandball syndrome:
BansheeOne Posted January 27, 2015 Author Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) There is a popular school of thought in Greece that they are still owed compensations for WW II by Germany. The harder point is about a forced credit, repayment of which would amount to about 11 billion Euro in today's money - coincidentally, about the sum Syriza wants to spend on reinstating various public benefits cut in the previous austerity program. A larger sum of reparations totals to somewhat over 150 billion IIRC. In all cases, the German position is that Greece agreed to the 1953 London Debt Agreement which suspended payment of most German debts until regulation by a peace treaty, and the 1990 Two-plus-Four Treaty which is considered to have taken the place of the latter did not consider this issue. Of course there is a certain moral quandary in the mere fact that Greece agreed to suspending German debt 60 years ago to allow economic recovery in Germany. BTW, the German Left Party, which has been cheering the success of their Greek friends like it was their own, woke up with a bit of a headache and incoming sarcasm about Syriza forming a government with the right-wingers who sit in a European Parliament caucus group with the German Alternative für Deutschland, which the Left brands as racist fascists ... Danish get out the vote ad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIbvyTaIZqw For some weird reason, that one was a bit controversial in Denmark as I recall. Edited January 27, 2015 by BansheeOne
lucklucky Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 Wasn't there any debts of Greece towards Germany ? i know they bought several weapons from Germany just before WW2.
Simon Tan Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 A debt moratorium is useless for Greece since it still needs to borrow to live. Greek restructuring is a joke and the government has raised virtually nothing through privatization. Is joke of course....why would anyone buy Greek stuff when it will be worth less in a year.
Mikel2 Posted January 27, 2015 Posted January 27, 2015 A debt moratorium is useless for Greece since it still needs to borrow to live. Greek restructuring is a joke and the government has raised virtually nothing through privatization. Is joke of course....why would anyone buy Greek stuff when it will be worth less in a year. Remember, it's always somebody else's fault.
BansheeOne Posted January 28, 2015 Author Posted January 28, 2015 (edited) Wasn't there any debts of Greece towards Germany ? i know they bought several weapons from Germany just before WW2. No idea, but the issue of German reparations to Greece is somewhat convoluted. I found some old press coverage of an inner-Greek mudslinging contest about this ahead of their 1952 elections which brought Marshal Alexander Papagos to power. One of his partisans, a Greek businessman living in Germany, started publishing reports about the alleged shenanigans of the Greek reparation commission which was still operating in the country at this point while those of all other nations had already left two year earlier; one of the charges was they were sticking to the cushy job (the government press, not to be outdone by the political contenders in exposing the supposed corruption, claimed several high school graduates employed for menial tasks were paid as much as a career consul, and the porter of commission head Georg Lavdas almost twice that). At the center however were 30,000 tons of dismantled industrial equipment that made up the bulk of reparations for Greece then. These were transported to Hamburg for shipping in 1948, but lay there in the open rusting away for a year before even being properly stored. 11,500 tons were finally shipped to Piraeus in 1950, but per complaints of Greek shipowners not by their vessels which were lying idle, but by foreign shipping at higher prices. 16,000 tons were eventually sold to the British Iron and Steel Corporation at basically scrap value of 60 Dollar per ton, though a dozen companies from Germany and Italy had made better offers; an agent for Fiat complained he had offered 96 per ton, but was not accepted. Of the rest, 2,000 tons were sold to a German company in Salzgitter in 1952. Government press stated that the suspicious practices of the commission had cost Greece more than 2.5 billion Drachmae overall - 167 million Dollar by a direct conversion rate I found for that time, though it seems way to high to me; a contemporary "Spiegel" report translated it to 700,000 Mark, which equaled 167,000 Dollar then and seems low as even the difference between 60 and 96 Dollar per ton for 16,000 tons comes out to 576,000. I think somebody misplaced some decimal or other. Edited January 28, 2015 by BansheeOne
Simon Tan Posted January 28, 2015 Posted January 28, 2015 (edited) I just can't see what Greece can do, except maybe sell more of Greece to the dirty foreigners. It's no like you can sell Greeks, which would of course be ideal. Edited January 28, 2015 by Simon Tan
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