France and Greece Election results!

Just wanted to say that the mainstream press is not inclined to make it clear that the Poles, Hungarians and indeed the Latvians have all been out on the march. There seems to be almost a blackout on the news. Will be back later with some info.

The capitalist class are very good at ensuring that only "good news" or rather news that suits them is conveyed. Can you imagine the political class and the media wanting every citizen in every country to actually see that the left are on the march and it's international. In what way would that serve the interests of the media?

Very valid point richmanpoorman. There are two options or Greece, neither of which are good options.

There is a massive amount of corruption in Greece and every government that this country has had (all two families!) has royally fucked this country further and further into despair. There were many people that benefited from avoiding tax and corruption and as was pointed out earlier things do have to change in Greece. Public sector workers never should have got the pay, pensions and early retirement that they are so used to. However you have to remember that this is a fraction of the Greek people. Not everyone works/worked in this way. The majority of Greek people that are suffering now never had all these benefits to start with. Cost of living rose dramatically with the euro and wages never really increased to keep up with this. Greece is and was a poor country with a poor economy. It never should have been allowed into the euro in the first place.

The majority of Greek people want to revert back to the drachma...is this the best idea in the long run for Greece? I really don't know.

I dont see a good way back for Greece

• If they do default on the austerity agreement, there's a very high chance they'll be forced out of the Euro and I doubt the other Euro members will be inclined to make it pleasant for them. Once out of the Euro, they will be a pariah nation which is going to struggle to attract investment, as the government debt will have junk status, and thus all loans in Greece will have junk status (private company cant have a credit rating higher than the government of the country in which it is based).

• If they don't reject austerity, it's a slow death by a thousand cuts

I see the first scenario as a V shaped disaster and the second as a Ushaped one, so I think under 1., things will bottom out at a lower point than in 2., but they will get back to a reasonable position, within, say, 1 generation rather than 2.

Doubt it. Maybe the Generals will take over again. Doubt that too.

The third attempt has now officially failed. BTW, that article has a useful chart which shows current state of the parties.

The President now has to make an appeal to all parties to form a government of national unity. It's not going to work, is it?

Greeks still get better pensions than Hungarians or Poles and yet theses Poles and Hungarians are not rioting or refusing to pay for the public transport and services. Even in Spain the refuse to pay culture is starting amongst the left and not because they don't have money but just because they feel it is up t the state to provide.

But from where is the state to get this money? They have spent it all already. If the left stat widespread non payment then they are inviting anarchy.

i am not sure its is as simple as not repaying the debt helps the Greek people....

if they end up outside the EU, they will still have corruption, politicians who cannot balance the books and poor tax collection.

personally i would rather be in the euro dealing with the above than outside, having burnt bridges.

Good.

Go Syriza!

BBC reporting that the current attempt to form a coalition seems to have reached a stalemate. Unless there is a remarkable breakthrough, the expectation is that the attempt will be called off tomorrow. The President must then ask all parties if they want a go. If, as expected after the likelier contenders have tried and failed, there are no takers, new elections could be announced on Monday.

My understanding of the Greek political sitiuation at the moment is that the latest opinion polls show that if they have an other relection, as now looks likley, the Syriza party that came second will win by a large margin.

This party is very definitely anti austerity and has said publicly it will suspend all debt repayments and wil not implement the austerity meausres agreed by the previous Govt.

I see this as a prediction of the future for many European countries. Ireland to me should always have rejected austerity and defaulted on its debts and still should in its upcoming referendum. Spain, Portugal and Italy should too.

It's not rumours, here's the BBC on the latest attempt at coalition building. The first two attempts, with more favourable numbers and attuned attitudes between parties, failed. This has the whiff of a desperate long-shot.

After this, there may be one more attempt (basically to appeal to anyone/everyone to have a go), and if that fails, fresh elections.

go to youtube and google him. I hadn't heard much of what he says, except on Question Time etc. But I think he tells the truth about this issue, unlike many other politicians. People are committing suicide and living in despair and he understands it and foresaw it and explains it.

I still believe it has all been done deliberately to force through this closer political union, but I may be wrong. We will have to see if the phoenix of a closer union rises out of the ashes.

Yep, I get that impression too sadly. Either that or the Germans will get their fiscal pact and the closer political union will follow shortly.

I will have a look at the links up thread to farage, although I'm guessing I might not like his politics I'm still interested to see what he is saying.

wishing Greece to go bankrupt

No, I don't think it is right. It has been described by some people as being the biggest daylight robbery of the people by the banks in history.

If you google Farage you will hear some of his interviews where he says that what is being done to Greece is a scandal, and that there may well be some people rubbing their hands, wishing Greece to go back, so that they can then buy up all its assets for pennies, but he says, at what cost?, at what social cost to the people?

But that is how the world works. It is about power and wealth and countries and people are just pawns on a chessboard to the players.

I knew I had heard it somewhere, it wasn't a made up name or term.

Claig, in your opinion, is this right, this is the largest redistribution of wealth since the 30's and the money is all travelling in one direction?

The way I see it, governments are in hock, banks are set to go into another credit crunch????? I'll see if I can find what I was reading and link it later. Businesses and corporations and some wealthy individuals still have a lot of surplus capital. So surplus capital and unemployment and a shrinking economy devalues assets which these same capital rich individuals will at some point start to buy up. At what cost though to the rest of us.

I think there have been such debt writeoffs in history. There would be some big losers, but the people would not end up paying for something they did not create. However, it is all about power and the powerful will not agree to that, so the powerless lose out, which is the way of the world.

That's my understanding of it too. It's little better than the leveraging of the banks in the first place. Money needs to be fixed against real assets or just carry on printing it until it has no value! Its the banks that lent 30 to 50x what they actually held in capital. We bail them out and then we still owe them. God I wish there was a switch where you could turn off all the power, all over the globe and wipe out all debt. I wonder what would happen in the morning