The Greek debt crisis....why?

[InDespair]

cant find another thread about this so.....

Before anyone accuses me of being thick or burying my head in the sand, I can';t always watch the news in full, and I dont read newspapers. (and Im sure others are wondering too).

Who exactly is in debt?

the people?

the banks?

How did they get themselves into this mess, and why and how do they expect a bailout?

what have they spent all their money on?

And what about tourism?

Laymans terms please.

'then a post it note saying: don't leave on plane. See you later, Alexis.'
Have you got a link? Sounds like a comedy of errors, possibly for camera and news bulletins. Would like to see how it is reported.

Vivienne, Latvia and the other Baltics all have their own agenda. It would be lovely if everything were simple honest and straightforward, but it really isn't you sound just like my mum, are you her?

Think it was obvs a joke, one Greek wouldn't write in Eng to another.

I saw it on rolling news, gawd knows where it is now.

twitter.com/Berlaymonster/status/618426533770825728/photo/1

here we go

it was a joke of course

I thought it would be in English, just right for TV news broadcasts and cameras. It was probably the PPE who wrote it. Done to heighten crisis and exasperation of the public with the comedy of errors.

Yep, it is the PPE, Euclid, involved. The twitter account says

"Oops. Can't blame Euclid. He's new."

More comedy, more public exasperation, greater crisis.

What is happening is the European comedy of errors will get worse until it gets to the stage where Obama has to step in and restore some sanity. Germany will have to cave in.

"Tsipras briefs Obama on bid for euro zone loan: Greece"
...
The official said Obama had voiced strong U.S. hopes for a successful outcome to the negotiations. The United States has said it wants an early solution to Greece's debt crisis that keeps Athens in the European currency area."

news.yahoo.com/tsipras-briefs-obama-bid-euro-zone-loan-greece-152750502--business.html

The longer the comedy continues, with the next note of the Greek PPE's plan probably being a single bullet point on toilet paper saying "Oxi", the worse Germany will look as it will be seen as being incapable of sorting this out.

Finally Obama will step in and say enough is enough, end the circus and sort yourselves out!

The strongest word used so far re the Great Satan is "pushed" ie Obama and Merkel. Hilary has weighed in too.

Just in:

The chief of Jean-Claude Juncker’s cabinet, Martin Selmayr, just tweeted a photo of a rainbow over the European Commission - and called it a sign of hope.

Paul Mason's blog just now: contacts say Obama on point of openly breaking with Germany...

'Martin Selmayr, just tweeted a photo of a rainbow over the European Commission - and called it a sign of hope.'

More comedy

"Paul Mason's blog just now: contacts say Obama on point of openly breaking with Germany..."

Yes, classic. The whole world is watching this crisis and pensioners have been queueing for a week for small amounts of money and Germany is starting to look ridiculous to the whole world. The EU and Germany is being shown to be incompetent and it will take Obama to knock their heads together and sort it out. Germany is being taught a lesson and knocked back down to size.

Obama can step in and make Greece the 53rd state and pay of their debts. President Obama is just scared of Putin stepping in. Your Mum sounds like a sensible woman Hully.

And what this shows the whole world is that it is America who are in fact reasonable nd generous as it is they who are supporting Syriza and have said that Germany should offer more debt relief and it was America who funded the Marshall Plan etc.

Germany are looking like austerity is their religion even when people are without medicines and pensions and when the entire disaster was caused by the irresponsible lending of German and French banks which the politicians decided to bail out with public money without asking the public.

The good 'ole USA will step in and sort this comedy and fiasco out for its own interests but also for the Greek people's interests which the EU woukd not do as they are austerity banking maniacs. This will damage the EU.

Oi Viv*, which bit of Greece borrowed money from private banks who included Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Cretit Agricole and others. These debts were then repayed by the ECB and IMF on the insistence of former ECB chair Jean Claude Trichet. That is not Greece's fault, it's Trichet's. If they should enforce austerity on anybody it should be him.^ do you not understand?

Greece borrowed the money, sure. But, the private banks that should've shouldered the risk had that risk taken away by an unelected cabal of idiots who now insist that they should be repaid. In a capitalist system that debt would've stayed with the issuer and be hedged via an insurance company. But since we now guarantee bank losses they know they can make whatever gambles they like and if they win, they win, and if they lose, they win. They've privatised profits and nationalised losses.

The Eurozone has to make an example of Greece because it knows what will happen if Greece win. The only way Greece wins is if it exits the Euro and issues its own currency. It will hurt for a couple of years but even in the short run (2-5 years) they'll be better off

Here we go, the heat on Germany begins

"Barack Obama pushes Angela Merkel to back down as eurozone leaders openly prepare for Greek exit

US President makes his first personal intervention in the crisis for months after European leaders openly plan for Greek exit from the single currency"

and we have our Greek PPE clown doing a deliberate comedy act to make Germany look even more ridiculous to the world. He has obviously been advised by some senior types - most probably more PPEs. This is classic W1A comedy done deliberately for the news reports.

"The phone call came after Greece’s negotiating team - led by new finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos – arrived empty-handed to the first finance ministers’ meeting since the country’s momentous No vote against their lenders’ bail-out conditions.

Mr Tsakalotos, a St Paul's and Oxford educated economist, was photographed leaving a hotel in central Brussels with handwritten notes, reading: “No triumphalism” - an apparent reference to the Leftist government's desire not to openly celebrate its shock referendum victory at the weekend."

claig, I find your fixation on PPE a bit bizarre. It seems a bit like a chip on your shoulder. I'm just wondering what it means to you for people to be part of an apparent elite or club that you are not invited to be part of. Why not pursue a PPE of your own, could that sort it out?

It's not a chip on my shoulder. I just think the whole system is a stitch up where people are promoted because of where they studied and who they know. I highlight PPEs because I do not think they are the best, cleverest, most suitable people but are elevated and promoted because they are part of a club. I liked Thatcher because she broke down the old boys' networks and bowler hat city clubs and made the country a meritocracy. I woudn't care if the PPEs were the best, but clearly Farage can run rings around the lot of them, so they aren't.

I want a meritocratic Britain with social mobility where the best and brightest get to the top on merit because that is best for the people of the country. I don't think the PPEs are that at all. In fact, I think they are promoted and then owe the Establishment that promoted them and that is not the best option for the people.

'I'm just wondering what it means to you for people to be part of an apparent elite or club that you are not invited to be part of.'

It means that we are run by a metropolitan elite who does not serve the people in the best possible way. I don't want to be in the club, I don't want clubs, I want meritocracy. Our country has been mismanaged, we are run by an out of touch metropolitan elite, to such an extent that a party of so-called "fruitcakes" is now our thirs largest political party picling up 4 million votes. That is how bad it has got, that is how incompetent our PPE political class is.

I don't mind elites, I believe in elitism and private schools and grammar schools and Oxbridge and Eton, but I am fed up of incompetent elites who are out of touch. I want our elite to serve the people not the Establishment who promoted them. I am against closed shops, and clubs and nepotism or clientelism oir any other system that prevents Thatcherite meritocratic excellence for the sake of the country.

"How an Oxford degree – PPE – created a robotic governing class

Most of our prominent politicians studied the same subject at Oxford. Is it any wonder we’re so badly governed?"

www.spectator.co.uk/features/9322492/the-politics-of-ppe/

That article is by Nick Cohen, who is a PPE, and so knows something about them.

I am for Varoufakis, a Professor of Economics as Finance Minister, not amateurs with PPE degrees or lawyers masquerading as Finance Ministers. I want excellence and an end to incompetence.

Nick Cohen again

"Most of our prominent politicians studied the same subject at Oxford. Is it any wonder we’re so badly governed?"

I want to be well governed, I want some basic common sense for a change.

Why is studying pure economics good but politics, philosophy and economics together bad?

Irene, Varoufakis has a PhD and is a Professor, not just someone who shipped up to study a generalist degree giving an overview rather than depth.

But it is not even that for me, because I don't think you need a degree to be in power, just as Farage has ni degree. I believe that PPE is a club and I don't believe in people being in power because of clubs because that restricts the talent of the 60 million people in the country who weren't in the club. It's not for me because I don't want to be in that position, but it is for those who would do a better job for the country and the people.

Thatcher made lots of mistakes but she rejuvenated this country through her meritocratic vision of society. That is what I want, not a cabinet of chums from Eton because I think Thatcher was better than the whole lot of them and she was not from Eton.

Stop the privilege, stop the cosy clubs and cartels and set the people free and watch this country boom just as it did under Thatcher when it was a land of opportunity, dynamism and hope because a barrow boy from Essex could strike it rich in the City because of talent and merit rather than where they went to school and who they knew. Make the country more like America, where dynamism rules and meritocracy reigns.

To see Labour candidates dismiss Jeremy Corbyn becaue he is a real socialist is a joke in our society. They are nearly all PPEs and that is why they play safe and don't upset the Establishment and a real socialist like Corbyn, who represents the original roots of Labour is dismissed by Labour grandees as if he shoudn't even stand for the Labour leadership.

Here is Zoe William on the metropolitan elite and the Labour Party.

"The Labour party, by contrast, was set up to represent people who weren’t of the establishment, yet has been colonised by the establishment: it now falls upon its leaders to affect authenticity and glottal stops, play down the PPE degree and play up the football allegiance, to overcome this minor impediment that their understanding of hardship is entirely theoretical."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/20/metropolitan-elite-britains-new-pariah-class

What on earth has happened to the Labour Party? Why are there so many PPEs at the top of it, why as Zoe says has it "been colonised by the establishment" and why until the last two years has nobody mentioned PPEs and the metropolitan elite? Why has it only become common currency in the past 4 years?

It's like something out of a 1950s B movie - Invasion of the PPEs or Planet of the PPEs and no one asks what is going on and why we are misgoverned by an establishment that is out of touch.

"Most of our prominent politicians studied the same subject at Oxford. Is it any wonder we’re so badly governed?"

If we mention it, there is a chance we may end up being better governed. it's worth a try, surely? It can't get much worse, can it? Oh wait, the Labour leadership candidates consist of 2 PPEs, a Cambridge graduate and a real old school socialist who everybody writes off, maybe it will get even worse.

Why are you so keen to think that Zoe Williams, the Jean Rook of the chattering classes, is a political commentator to quote so heavily? Even the Guardian was embarrassed over he insane article about Johnson (which she has, at least, apologised for subsequently).

Labour Leaders have usually been "elite". Harold Wilson, Hugh Gaitskill and Michael Foot all had the degree that exercises you so much, too. Clement Attlee was at the immensely smooth Haileybury, then Oxford, but did Modern History; did PPE exist in 1904? Callaghan is the only postwar Labour leader who didn't go to an elite university and wasn't an alcoholic liar and disgrace to the party (the latter condition is there to exclude George Brown).

I like Zoe Williams becuase she is clever and has a sense of humour. What did she say about Johnson?

Gemauve, I agree that we have always been ruled by this Oxbridge/Eton class. But in the old days, people knew their place and didn't mention it. But things have now got so bad, people are now so disllusioned with our out of touch jokers that they have dared to spot that they are nearly all PPEs and ask why that is

Now they are embarrassed on the Sunday Politics or Daily Politics when the brilliant Glasgow University graduate Andrew Neil who can run rings around the lot of them mentions where they studied.

"it now falls upon its leaders to affect authenticity and glottal stops, play down the PPE degree and play up the football allegiance"

It is sad because there is nothing wrong with elitism and excellence, but there is now a spoken and unspoken feeling that they aren't excellent but are an elite, you only have to lisen to most of them to see what useless spinners they are and how they can't answer a straight question likefarage can and how they spin as if traied by a PPE supervisor. There is a spoken and unspoken feeling that they are only where they are because of where they studied rather than what they know or what they can do.

It's got to change because we can't keep on being mismanaged by the Club.

Why is studying pure economics good but politics, philosophy and economics together bad?

In Steve Keen's words, when you study PPE you only get year 1 economics.