Monday 20 February 2012

Greece economic crisis:update


Dear firends,
If you read this blog quite often, you may have noticed that I have some time to write about Greece's current economic issues and our own finacial straights.
The thing is, we have the bank statements piling up, right on my desk as I type, the bills piling up, bank people bullying us, a bank seasing our few savings, the shop's turnout being 1/4 of that of the same period last year.
So, why are we open yet? Why am I posting beautiful clothes and interiors?
Because that is the best for my sanity and the sanity of my family.
Because after the trial of being for the first time in your life faced by issues a respectable and lawful citizen such as your parents and grandparents never had to face, and having to face ever changing laws, one bill after the other after the other, you have one choice: 
keep walking, keep living.
We put our faith in God, we put our lives into God's hands.
In better financial times it seamed an exageration to my rational mind. We will work hard, we will manage. Now, I totally believe there is nothing more to be done about the ever added taxes and special contributions we are being asked to pay. 
We keep walking, we keep doing our bit and hope that God will provide.

If you have missed the issue before or rely totally on mainstream media, I post the links to two recent articles, one in Vogue Italia, one in The Guardian, that are worth reading, plus some readers' comments.

When all is said and done, good beats evil and light beats darkness. 


"Europe without Greece is like a child without a birth certificate"
(VALÉRY GISCARD-D'ESTAING)



Outside, a little higher, the Parthenon towered over the strong walls, like a bright and eternal miracle, that continuously dialogues with the wonderful sculptures that originally decorated it, through the glass structure that interweaves the Acropolis Museum. Greece must be saved at all costs. It treasures so much about all of us: the basic and timeless idea of aesthetics, the wonderful fragrance of the concept of democracy, the cradle of thought, of philosophical speculation. Life goes on in Athens, despite a thousand difficulties...


Read more on Vogue.it here.


Shame on Europe for betraying Greece

Capitalism is triumphant as EU states sacrifice the Greek people in a desperate attempt to appease the gods of speculation
Read more in The Guardian here.



 The EU's terms do not begin to match the altruism the United States showed to the defeated Germans after 1945. America did not pauperise West Germans as many in France and indeed Washington wanted. America guaranteed their security, then gave them loans from the Marshall Plan that allowed the West German economic miracle to begin. Greece has invaded no one and committed no crimes against humanity. Yet the EU, which boasts that solidarity is its founding principle, is forcing it into destitution and chaos.
...

The EU cannot take responsibility for what it has done and be magnanimous for reasons British readers may not grasp. Raised in a Eurosceptic country, we do not understand how an absolute commitment to the European project was a mark of respectability on the continent. Like going to church and saying your prayers for previous generations, a public demonstration of commitment to the EU ensured that the world saw you as a worthy citizen. If you wanted to advance in Europe's governing parties, judiciaries, bureaucracies and culture industries, you had to subscribe to the belief that ever-greater union was self-evidently worthwhile.
Currency union is – self-evidently – a disaster. Admitting that would bring a loss of face too great for the European elites to bear. To take the most discreditable example, Germany and Holland have benefited enormously from the single currency holding down the exchange rate for their goods, while imposing effective tariff barriers on southern Europe.


The French economist and consultant to the French government Jacques Delpla stated on July 2, 2011, that Germany owes to Greece 575 billion Euros from Second World War obligations (Les Echos, Saturday, July 2, 2011). On September 18, 2011, the German newspaper Die Welt admitted that Germany owes to Greece many billions of Euros at least from obligations arising from a forcibly obtained loan from Greece during World War II.



"Bailing out" Greece is doublespeak for bailing out the foreign banks that negligently lent to her, and that are disparately needed by the euro elite to finance their failing Euro experiment - hence the bail out. (And then you will be all surprised when those bankers next award themselves bonuses). Were it not for that symbiosis between the banking and euro elite, there would be no bailout. But what is good for them is bad for Greece.
Sure, Greece, or rather its hopeless socialist government and privileged bureaucracy, would do better in the short term under a "bail out" than under a default. But this would be at a cost of condemning innocent Greeks who had no part in this to a life time of tribute, extracted to support all the aforementioned. Worse, their propped up economy would never be able to properly liquidate the malinvestment mistakes from the Euro bubble years - which would condemn their society to lingering depression and all that entails.
In short, Greece should follow Iceland (which has just become "investment grade" again" - not the eurocracy. In any case, the second the eurocracy calculates their life-support crony banking system can withstand a Greek default, Greece will be dumped. This will, ironically, be the best thing that could happen for her.

love, Irene

2 comments:

LindyLouMac said...

Thinking of you in these difficult times. Take Care.

millefeuilles said...

Irene,

Thank you for leaving a comment on my blog tonight. I am very touched to see that you are from Greece. I lived in Athens for two years as I worked as a teacher there in my mid-twenties. I have left a part of my heart in your country and I shall miss it for the rest of my life.

A bientôt,

Stephanie

Best buys