A looming low point in the long history of the Greek empire
It seems the EU is considering whether to bail out Greece, in danger of defaulting on its loans, so high is its debt.
Athens
A spokesman has been quoted as saying “it is unthinkable” that Greece should default and that “something would have to be done.”
I imagine the rest of the EU countries (their citizens at least, those who actually pay the taxes) are not exactly slavering over the prospect of their money being used to bail out yet another organism living beyond its means.
And this is the point, we ALL have to start living within our means: individuals, countries, the planet. ANY other course leads to doom. And as an EU taxpayer I feel very hesitant about bailing out ANY country. Not though lack of fellow-feeling (it could be us next time) but because IF you bail them out then they WON’T change their habits. We bailed out the banks; have you seen THEM change their habits? I certainly haven’t, except that they won’t lend small businesses (the TOTALLY INNOCENT VICTIMS of all this) any money. The obscene fat-cat “bonuses” are starting up all over again like mushrooms in the meadow. No, let them go bust; only that will concentrate their minds.
And let us not forget that Greece LIED about its finances in order to qualify for the EU in the first place! An end to lies! An end to the easy option. An end to my taxes bailing out an indisciplined over-spender!
The Prize for “Understatement of the Century” has just been awarded to the following statement, even though the century has barely begun. The Awarding Committee decided that no other comment could ever possibly be made that could come close to beating this one from the leader of North Korea.
Kim Jong II
That being said, there was one other entry that had the judges briefly interested: “Gordon Brown is the worst Prime Minister in British History”, but in the end the NK leader won out, since the committee felt that Ethelred the Unready was worse, even if he was usually more ready than Gordon Brown.
Last month Mr Kim said: “We have already reached the status of a strong country in the military field, let alone politics and ideology, but there are still quite a number of things lacking in people’s lives.“
Well done, Sarko. If France and the US, those progenitors of freedom and democracy, cannot get on then what hope is there for us?
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, praised the “essential role” of the US, moving to defuse tension between the US and other countries in the confusing scramble to co-ordinate the enormous relief effort. Sarkozy said France was “fully satisfied” by the co-operation between the US and France, and acknowledged the “exceptional mobilisation of the United States on Haiti’s behalf.”
Harriet Harman in the Commons last month: 'The retirement age is arbitary,' she told the Daily Mail today; 'it bears no relation to people's ability.' Photograph: PA
And in this vein of bonhomie credit also goes to Harriet Harman, British “Equality Minister”. Even if I think she is generally potty she was right on the nail this time in saying that older people should work on if they wished and could be an invaluable part of the workforce.
Too right … there is too much ageism, especially in France, where your chances of getting a job after 50 are pretty remote (except for politicians of course).
Some of the greatest thinkers and artists have been over 70, even centuries ago. We should always judge people by what they DO, not who they ARE, how PRETTY they are or how OLD they are ….
Our American friends may not all be aware that momentous events are taking place in London. Momentous for us, I mean ….. nothing much of what happens over here is momentous for you of course, though interesting perhaps!
We have an enquiry going on into the 2nd Gulf War , an enquiry which Premier Gordon Brown set up in an untypical
Sir John Chilcott
and in fact reckless fit of statesmanship but which looks is as if it might be the final nail in his coffin. For a whole series of witnesses are parading in front of Lord Chilcot to give their five penn’worth about the reasons for the invasion.
Now the British public is a magnificent beast, but not particularly famed for long-term memory and just when Iraq was beginning to fade a bit from the radar here it is all surging up again and reminding us what a divisive business it was and how the then government – so it is said – blatantly lied about the reasons for sending our young men to die.
Well, that it all very interesting but here is not the place to go into this enquiry in depth. I did wonder, though, how George Bush seems to have escaped any threat of an enquiry!! You folks sure do things differently over there!
No, what particularly interests me is all the talk about the “legality” of the war, but nobody has explained to me how it can be illegal to attack a mass-murdering gangster, which is all SH was. The “law” only works if ALL are involved. If someone murders our fellow-humans and sets himself up as leader then he or she can’t have recourse to “the law”, can they? You cannot hide behind legality when you murder all your opponents and hundreds of thousands of others, can you?
Now we Anglo-Saxons – and even the French – profess to believe in “democracy”, even if this sometimes throws up complete idiots as leaders (but I won’t mention any names ….) Yet we trade with despots, we take them seriously, we even kow-tow to them on occasion.
But they are just gangsters, aren’t they? Where is their legitimacy? Nobody voted them in, did they? In Sadaam Hussein’s case, there was a party conference at which his rivals were pulled out of the audience and taken away to be summarily shot. Yet this mass-murderer was supposed to be given the respect of a “leader”? We even had a British MP going out to Iraq to shake him by the hand! It is of course surreal.
The UN Charter – which all members sign up to – has clauses on human rights, freedom of speech, of assembly and all that stuff, yet a large proportion of members are dictatorships! What a humungous LIE to base the government of the world on! Yet the UN is the body that is supposed to make “international law”!! You couldn’t make it up.
So while the case for the invasion of Iraq is extremely complex and controversial, I for one will certainly dismiss any claptrap about it being “illegal”. How can it be illegal to bring down a man responsible for the deaths of over ONE MILLION of our fellow-humans, including the use of gas to destroy a whole village of 5,000 in Kurdistan?
It is often said that “the law is an ass”. Well, in this case I cannot but agree.
“Gordon Brown was ‘marginalised’ by Tony Blair in the build-up to the Iraq war”, former International Development Secretary Clare Short has said.
“The then chancellor neither opposed nor supported the invasion but was ‘preoccupied’ by other concerns,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
Frankly, it is surreally ludicrous. Is she really saying that while the country was preparing to go to war in extraordinarily-controversial circumstances, with hundreds of thousands marching in protest and all the rest, that
Clare Short
Brown had “other concerns”? And during the whole process these “other concerns” prevented him from AT ANY TIME having an input or indeed an opinion?
Is this some sort of attempt to disassociate him from responsibility? Whatever one thinks about the rights or wrongs of the invasion it was in the end a COLLECTIVE DECISION. Blair could NOT have done it without the support of the British Cabinet, especially Brown and Straw. If they had felt strongly enough about it, they could have resigned, or more likely have told Blair they WOULD resign if he pressed on, and thereby thwarted him. Now, it isn’t easy to resign, or even threaten to – your bluff could always be called and your career go down the spout – but if you can’t do it when it is a matter of your country going to war when the hell CAN you do it?
Gordon Brown
As for “neither supported nor opposed” the invasion, what a PATHETIC verdict on someone who went on (without an election) to “lead” the country.
“Well, I’m neither supporting nor opposing it since that way I can take either position later depending on how it pans out.”
I can’t recall having seen a more pathetic, fumbling, cowardly shambles. You may love or – more likely – hate Tony Blair, but as with Margaret Thatcher, you certainly knew where he stood.
President Obama’s proposal to freeze parts of federal government spending over the next three years is a lot like a smoker buying a truckload of cigarettes one year before promising to “freeze spending” on cigarettes the next. He can keep smoking for years to come without spending another dime.
Federal government spending has increased so much over the last year — by some estimates at a rate of 34% — that in December of 2009 the debt limit had to be raised to $12.4 trillion to help absorb a record-shattering $1.4 trillion deficit.
The promise to freeze spending is actually a guarantee that spending will remain at record high levels for the next three years. It effectively prevents a reduction in federal spending.
I worked for 10 years at ISUGA, a school in Quimper, France dedicated to multi-cultural understanding and international co-operation in business. This was an extremely rich experience at a school where the majority of the foreign students were Chinese.
The campus at ISUGA, Quimper, France
It is also, incidentally, the place where I had to good fortune to meet Jon Lavin and Paul Handover, fellow authors on Learning from Dogs.
I like to think that I have always been sensitive to the cultural differences between different nationalities. Having lived abroad for long periods in both France and Germany, the idea of living in a sort of English enclave somewhere, jealously guarding such cultural practices as endless burgers and fish and chips, is totally anathema to me.
I am human first and English second and if I live in Germany, France or anywhere else I want to live like the natives as far as possible …
This also means making an effort to understand and accept their “culture”. Now this normally poses no problem, but with my Asian friends there is one aspect of their culture that I could not accept. And of course, if one DOES put one’s humanity first, then there is always the risk that the culture of one’s hosts – in some respect – may have to take second place. The “culture ” of Germany in the 1930s was fascist, and I certainly could not have lived with that.
No, what causes me problems with Asians (and particularly Chinese) is this question of “FACE”. One is supposed – and one learns this on “cultural-understanding” courses for businessmen (which of course I organised at my school!!) – to so arrange things that EVEN IF the Asian negotiating counterpart is a complete fool and/or makes the most idiotic errors one must ALWAYS find a way to avoid humiliating them in any way.
Well, “humiliating” is too strong a word in fact … one is supposed to arrange things that they never seem to be in an “inferior” position in any way.
My problem with this is that it is in fact the antithesis of everything this site stands for, which is integrity, truth and honesty. Now if a negotiating partner does in fact make some sort of mistake then to pretend otherwise just to preserve their “face” is dishonest, isn’t it? And what are we in fact preserving? An IMAGE and not the reality.
Claudia S
It is, in fact, totally AGAINST the Human Spirit. We are all fallible. I know of no perfect men or women (though Claudia Schiffer comes close 😉 ). It is simply DISHONEST to deny this to preserve “FACE”.
The current British government could have done with learning this lesson. For YEARS there was never ANY acceptance that, yes – perhaps – they might have got some things wrong. Funnily enough, this is coming now in short bursts, but not enough to be convincing – shame!
“FACE” is of course a FACADE. I no longer am interest in facades, but the truth. But the worse aspect of this Asian FACE thing is that it is so totally accepted by them (and by us, but that’s our fault) as being “normal” and acceptable. No, it is NOT acceptable.
The stimulus for this post came from the recent execution of a British drug-smuggler in China. Now it is quite clear from what has been revealed that this guy was A) not fully compos mentis and B) was set up as a mule by a handler. He was caught, tried, sentenced to death and executed by the Chinese. No, I have no sympathy for drug-smugglers, but Mr “Big” he was not.
What muddied the waters even more was that the British Prime Minister made a special plea for clemency, which might very well in normal cases have been granted. But these were not normal circumstances. Just before this incident the British had severely criticized the Chinese for their stance on Global Warming at the Copenhagen Conference. Now, ANY criticism of the CPP (Chinese Communist Party) is likely to be taken as a “loss of face”. One suspects – but there is no way to know – that the Chinese refusal to listen to Prime Minister Brown’s very strong plea for clemency was the CPP’s way of putting the British government in its place and restoring its “face”.
The point is, BEING WRONG is HUMAN. Pretending to be RIGHT all the time is NOT HUMAN. It is IMPOSSIBLE. We should accept this and learn humility. Sadly, the words “humility” and “Chinese Communist Party” are unlikely bedfellows.
By Chris Snuggs
[When Chris wrote this Post, he was unaware of one that I had written that was published on the 28th. Interesting parallels! Ed.]
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet. The Fed recently announced that it has appointed a long-time staffer with the New York Fed to head a newly created branch to oversee the the parts of its balance sheet acquired in efforts to bail out firms like AIG.
These massive asset purchases, orchestrated by Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury Secretary and former New York Fed official, ballooned the Fed’s balance sheet from $800 billion in primarily government bonds to $2.3 trillion in toxic assets.
Now the New York Fed is overseeing the assets brought into the Fed by the Treasury Secretary as he moved from the New York Fed to the Treasury. All while the Treasury functions are supposed to be isolated from the Federal Reserve’s role in its implementation of monetary policy.
Keep in mind, even as the number of first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose again recently, that the 10% U.S. unemployment figure understates the actual number of unemployed. Even the 17% underemployment figure, which includes those who are either unemployed or who are working part-time but would like to work full-time, fails to include many of those who have lost their jobs but, because they fail to qualify for unemployment, are not being tracked. I know several such people personally; one has been unemployed for over a year.
My point? Structural unemployment is a serious economic issue. But the solution is not to funnel more unemployment benefits to the unemployed. The best thing the government can do is to reduce the barriers it has erected to a vibrant economy, including oppressive taxes, fees, paperwork, bureaucracy, and regulations that repress business productivity and raise prices. By reducing these explicit and implicit costs, there is absolutely no doubt that the private economy will be able to employ more workers as it produces more output at lower prices.
The best thing we can do as private citizens and neighbors is to treat each other right. Keep the economy moving. Put in a good day’s work. Volunteer or learn a new skill if you can’t find a job. Fill a need. Buy smart. And, finally, elect business-friendly local and national politicians. It matters.
Maybe it’s me but there must be better ways to manage foreign relationships!
Ahmet Oguz Celikkol
Most people in their private and business lives find that a genuine interest in, and respect for, those that one engages with leads to better outcomes. Surely that is just common sense.
So a recent report from Stratfor telling of an ‘incident’ between Israel and Turkey leaves me, frankly, speechless. Here’s how the report reads:
Last week a small crisis with potentially serious implications blew up between Israel and Turkey. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish Ambassador to Israel Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to a meeting Jan. 11 to protest a Turkish soap opera that depicted Israeli agents kidnapping Palestinian children. When the ambassador arrived, he received a lower seat than Ayalon — and was photographed in that position, making it appear that Ayalon was speaking to an inferior. Ayalon wouldn’t shake hands with him during the televised parts of the meeting, and had an Israeli flag visible on the table. Topping it all off, Ayalon told an Israeli cameraman in Hebrew that the important thing was that people see Celikkol sitting down low “while we’re
Danny Ayalon
up high.”
Turks saw the images as a deliberate Israeli insult, though Ayalon argued that the episode was not meant as an insult but as a reminder that Israel does not take criticism lightly. While it is difficult to see the relative height of seats as an international incident, Ayalon clearly intended to send a significant statement to Turkey. The Turks took that statement to heart, so symbolism clearly matters. Israel’s intent is not so clear, however.
Learning from Dogs 