Is the world becoming a better place?

[BillyStubbsTears]

You often hear folk moaning that the world is going to Hell. That there are more bestial wars than ever. That the world is less safe than ever.

Interesting article here. Looks like we've rarely been less at risk from a violent death in the past 600 years.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years

On a day when it seems like the EU is determined to commit suicide by chucking Greece over a cliff whilst forgetting that Greece is chained to the rest of the EU, it's worth considering how many of the wars on those graphs occurred between antagonistic European nations - and how the EU was designed to prevent those tensions from leading to the battlefield. It's worked spectacularly well for 60 odd years, but it's not changed the fundamentals of human nature. If the Grexit causes a wave of other indebted countries to collapse, and leads to the unravelling of the EU, we're all going to be living in a far more dangerous world.

[Bentley Bullet]

Impeccable topic timing - unless you're a family member of one of the Tunisia victims.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

If anyone here is related to anyone connected with the Tunisia atrocity, they have my sympathy. But particular events like that don't change the facts of the matter.

[Savvy]

Bill, I think Greece is the least of our problems at the moment what with beheadings, people getting shot on their holiday etc, wouldn't you agree?

[neil grainger]

It would be difficult to think of a less appropriate thread than this given the events of the last 48 hours.

Have some respect BST.

[IC1967]

Just admit you've made a huge mistake and displayed a breathtaking lack of empathy and delete this thread.

[Underwood]

The man hasn't got any respect. Obviously. I suggest deleting your post.

[Iberian Red]

The man hasn't got any respect. Obviously. I suggest deleting your post.

But maybe he sold a few tickets.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It would be difficult to think of a less appropriate thread than this given the events of the last 48 hours.

Have some respect BST.

Neil

As I said, I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who has been personally affected by what has happened over the past few days. However, I have no reason to suspect that anyone on here has been personally affected. If they have, I'd have thought that this is the last place they would be.

For the record, this post was not in any way whatsoever intended to reflect on what had happened in Tunisia. It was simply flagging up what is (to me) a genuinely interesting piece of research that shows that, for all the horrific things that do happen, the world is far, far safer than it has been for most of the past few hundred years. I am genuinely bemused that people would take offence at that. If you believe that we should amend our discussions because of atrocities committed by lunatics who want to change our way of life, you're kind of doing their job for them. (And again, if YOU have been personally affected, that wasn't meant as an insult.)

Savvy: No, I think that in the very long run, what's happening in Greece is much, much scarier for our futures. Whilst the atrocities that IS commit are disgusting and appalling, they are tiny compared to the things that have regularly occurred during history (and I'll re-iterate - if anyone reading this has been personally affected by what has happened recently, my heart goes out to you and there is no slight intended on your grief). But if things start to break down in Europe, there's no knowing where it will lead to. Historically, the very worst crimes against humanity have been committed by Europeans either against each other, or against others. The EU has been instrumental in making that unthinkable. Who knows what people will start to think and do if the EU starts to break up. It's only 20 years since 100,000 people were killed on the very borders of the EU when people were let off the leash.

Finally, if anyone on here HAS been affected by what has happened over the past couple of days and is genuinely upset by what I have written, please PM me and I will take down the OP immediately.

[Savvy]

Fair play to you for clarifying your point regarding Tunisia, perhaps the thread title could have done with a bit of work with the benefit of hindsight. As for the Greeks, sorry but I don't share your concern its all been a self fulfilling prophecy that is about to come to its natural conclusion.  If they can't sort out their own tax system to the point where the business fraternity just rip up tax demands and use the money to purchase luxury items such as yachts why should the rest of europe be expected to prop them up! They've certainly been a net user of funds rather than a provider....the games up!!!

[Filo]

Fair play to you for clarifying your point regarding Tunisia, perhaps the thread title could have done with a bit of work with the benefit of hindsight. As for the Greeks, sorry but I don't share your concern its all been a self fulfilling prophecy that is about to come to its natural conclusion.  If they can't sort out their own tax system to the point where the business fraternity just rip up tax demands and use the money to purchase luxury items such as yachts why should the rest of europe be expected to prop them up! They've certainly been a net user of funds rather than a provider....the games up!!!

When the single currency was introduced member countries were locked into the fiscal policies of the European Central Bank, based in Germany. The ECB should have reigned Greece in before it came to this, the allowed Greece's debt to spiral out of control instead of addressing the problem early. Greece has it's hands tied by the ECB because they refuse to raise interest rates for fear of upsetting the Germans and the French, thank god we never joined the Euro!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Savvy

Greece. "If they can't sort out their own tax system..."

You DO realise that Greece has turned round it's fiscal position faster than any country in the world don't you? They've reduced their deficit something like 3.5 times faster than we have done. And the consequences have been devastating.

In 2010, they had a deficit of something like 16% of GDP. By last year, they were running a surplus. That is pretty much unheard of.

Yes, there were kleptocrats in Greece who had corrupt fortunes. But they are not the ones who are being punished. It is ordinary folk. Pensioners. Kids who have no future (60% youth unemployment). Ordinary people who have seen their salaries reduced by 1/3rd on average.

But actually, that wasn't what I was talking about. What scares the living shit out of me is what happens of Greece does leave the EU. Firstly, there's a serious danger of it becoming a failed state with a the internal horrors that that will entail. Breakdown of societal structures. Potential for civil war or the further rise of very extreme politics such as Golden Dawn.

That might not give you pause for concern. Personally, it deeply depresses me because we are talking about human beings here. I know several Greek people through my work, who are noble, caring, intelligent, hard-working and thoughtful. I have a huge amount of respect for them (hear that Frosty?) and I fear for their futures.

But even that wasn't what I was talking about. The real nightmare is if the contagion spreads and brings down Portugal, Spain and Italy, and the EU really starts to unravel. History says that an embittered, unequal and divided Europe is the most dangerous place on earth. And THAT is what I find truly scary.

[eastender]

The ECB has stopped it's emergency liquidation loans to Greek banks as from today.
I can't see the Banks opening for business any time soon unless they ditch the Euro.

[RedJ]

Why are the Cricket Board getting involved?

[Savvy]

Savvy

Greece. "If they can't sort out their own tax system..."

You DO realise that Greece has turned round it's fiscal position faster than any country in the world don't you? They've reduced their deficit something like 3.5 times faster than we have done. And the consequences have been devastating.

In 2010, they had a deficit of something like 16% of GDP. By last year, they were running a surplus. That is pretty much unheard of.

Yes, there were kleptocrats in Greece who had corrupt fortunes. But they are not the ones who are being punished. It is ordinary folk. Pensioners. Kids who have no future (60% youth unemployment). Ordinary people who have seen their salaries reduced by 1/3rd on average.

But actually, that wasn't what I was talking about. What scares the living shit out of me is what happens of Greece does leave the EU. Firstly, there's a serious danger of it becoming a failed state with a the internal horrors that that will entail. Breakdown of societal structures. Potential for civil war or the further rise of very extreme politics such as Golden Dawn.

That might not give you pause for concern. Personally, it deeply depresses me because we are talking about human beings here. I know several Greek people through my work, who are noble, caring, intelligent, hard-working and thoughtful. I have a huge amount of respect for them (hear that Frosty?) and I fear for their futures.

But even that wasn't what I was talking about. The real nightmare is if the contagion spreads and brings down Portugal, Spain and Italy, and the EU really starts to unravel. History says that an embittered, unequal and divided Europe is the most dangerous place on earth. And THAT is what I find truly scary.

Bill, whatever they've done has been reactive, perhaps if they'd have had their house in order and managed their affairs appropriately before they allowed themselves to get into this mess we wouldn't be having this discussion.  As for history, it is just that, we used to drag women into caves with clubs, but fortunately the world has evolved from this issue! Just because something happened years ago doesn't necessarily mean its going to happen again, so I've no worries about the EU breaking up, its a busted flush already, and as Nietzche stated "Out of Chaos comes order".

My biggest concern is the Muslim faction who are becoming dis-enfranchised from the rest of the world in the same manner that provided a platform for that German nutcase in the 1930's/40's!!!!

[eastender]

Why are the Cricket Board getting involved?

Because Greece are playing on a sticky wicket. 

[Filo]

Why are the Cricket Board getting involved?

Something to do with KP sending dodgy txt's about Greece, apparently

[BillyStubbsTears]

Savvy

It's not that wars and social breakdown have happened before in Europe. It is that they have happened regularly and repeatedly throughout the past few centuries. What gives you such confidence that we have changed so much over the past few decades? Go and have a look at what people were saying in 1900, after 80 years without a major European war. People thought that peace was here to stay.

Are we more sophisticated now? Are we less likely to stumble into war? I work with a bloke from the ex-Yugoslavia. He is among the most intelligent, sophisticated and cultured people I have ever met. A model of humanity. Didn't stop his people butchering 100,000 of each other 20 years back.

I'm merely pointing out that we shouldn't lose sight of the original purpose of the EU. It was to make war unthinkable by making countries realise that if they were all in it together, they had far more to lose than to gain by fighting. It has been spectacularly successful in that aim. Let's hope that it's changed people permanently because I sense that this is the start if the EU project unravelling.

[BillyStubbsTears]

For what it's worth, Euro-sceptics should be rejoicing at what is happening.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2015/06/27/europes-moment-of-truth/

This whole episode has undoubtedly been a deeply undemocratic obscenity and has brought to the fore the craziness of monetary union without the accompanying fiscal angle. If you have monetary union, you HAVE to have shared responsibility for fiscal issues as well. Greece was told in 2010 that if it followed austerity as prescribed, it would have a mild 12-18 month recession then bounce back strongly. It has followed the rules that were imposed on it and the result has been a 5 year Great Depression. 25% loss of GDP. Unemployment across the whole country at the level that the Dearne Valley briefly experienced when the pits were closed.

It didn't have to be like this. They could have defaulted in 2010. They would have had a horrendous Depression for 12 months but then had a way forward. But if they had done that, they would have brought the whole Eurozone down. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland would have collapsed, along with the idiotic British, French and German banks that financed their debt. By taking the medicine, Greece has given the whole of Europe a chance to get firewalls in place. And now they are being sacrificed. 


Germany has been trying to have all the benefits without the fiscal responsibility. They are now going to end up picking up the tab because if Greece leaves the Euro, they will simply default on their E300bn of debts and leave their creditors massively out if pocket. No-one wins in that situation and that is the stupidity of it.

I am still a big believer in the fundamental purpose of the EU (as opposed to the Euro which has been managed disastrously) but it is being horrendously damaged by the catastrophic mistakes being made here.

Fingers crossed that I'm being too pessimistic.

[Filo]

A bit of a backtrack by the ECB today


They're going to end funding

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33303105


And then they're going to maintain funding

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33304674



I reckon the Greeks are winning the game of bluff

[BillyStubbsTears]

Major game of bluff Filo. The ECB and the Greek National Bank behaved disgracefully last week, sending out press releases that appeared designed to provoke a run on the banks to pressurise Syriza into backing down. That was an obscene abuse of power and raised the ante massively. Syriza have called their bluff and gone all-in.

The Euro Zone and the ECB have been saying that everything will be containable if Greece exits the Euro. We'll see now if they were bluffing.

It's a shocking situation though. Politically, the northern EZ countries can't back down because they have spent 5 years misleading their electorates on the true issues in Greece. And if they do back down, not only will their home electorates hit them, but equivalents of  Syriza across the Med will gain strength, asking for similar deals. Like Podemos in Spain.

And the EZ can't face a successful Grexit with Greece's economy rebounding strongly. Because then, why should Spain and Italy continue to take the pain of staying in.

So on one level, it's in the EZ interest to make life as hard as possible for Greece pour encourager les autres as Napoleon said. (He line to shoot an incompetent General every once in a whole to "encourage" the others.)

But on the other hand, they have no idea if the whole Euro will collapse if Greece exits. So it's a massive, massive game of high stakes and bluffing.

[BobG]

Just a couple of poin to to add:

1) if Greece is chucked over a cliff, what is the single most obvious course of action the Greek government will then have? enter Mr Vladimir Putin. And THAT ought to give everyone the shakes. Did you not see that the Greek PM went to Moscow about 3 weeks back for a meeting with the man? Why would Putin bother with the PM of a tinpot little place like Greece eh?

2) It's quite funny that Billy has detailed a position I've held for decades. I'm quite impressed! i am a historian. Something like 90% of the major wars in the world, ever. have started in Europe. That is plain scary. And It's a fact. The only major ones that haven't, that I can immediately recall, are the Korean and Vietnamese wars - and they were both down to western imperialism anyway. I also happen to believe that nationalism is one of the most evil forces that the world has ever seen. It causes wars. (Religion is the other major cause of wars by the way. What we are seeing today with ISIS is simply an extension of what has gone on back to the time of the Crusades - where it was us that were the aggressors). So, for me, the Common Market, the EEC, the EC were, and are, forces for peace, human understanding, conversation and community. That means that, in the final analysis, I really don't give a stuff how inefficient the EC might be. I want it to work well.  But I want it to be there more - and I'll pay whatever price is neccesary to ensure it stays there. Can you seriously imagine what would happen if France and Germany stop talking to each other again?! Russia would have an absolute field day. And we don't have a navy to save us now.

3) The Greeks have done everything, and more, that was demanded of them. They have, as Billy said, achieved an unprecedented feat in the scale of their financial turnaround. So now we have moved the goalposts. The depth of the economic depression caused by tyhe scale of cuts we demanded has delayed the economic recovery upon which revenue forecasts were based. So, to make the numbers balance again, the number crunchers want a whole new round of yet more cuts. It's the economics of the mad house. Oh for a Maynard Keynes to be alive today!

I cannot understand the stupidity, the pig headedness, the blindness to historical fact and current evidence of those charged with leading us all. On its showing over this last 20 years the West in general, and the USA and the United Kingdom in particular, does not deserve to lead or be seen as the paragon of anything.

BobG

[Donnywolf]

Why are the Cricket Board getting involved?

Something to do with KP sending dodgy txt's about Greece, apparently

You have me stumped !

[BillyStubbsTears]

Back to Greece. There are many economists who aren't on Greece's side. Jeffrey Sachs is hardly a bleeding heart pinko. He wrote a reasonably supportive article about Osborne's Chancellorship just before the Election. So he's scarcely a wild lefty. But look what he has to say about Greece.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-endgame-eurozone-default-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2015-06

What Germany and the other Northern Europeans are doing to Greece is a crime of monstrous proportions. They deserve to rot in Hell for it.

[Bentley Bullet]

Do you think the Greeks could be struggling because of their food export market, whatwith all the world wide health scare mongering about eating food cooked in grease?

[The Red Baron]

Back to Greece. There are many economists who aren't on Greece's side. Jeffrey Sachs is hardly a bleeding heart pinko. He wrote a reasonably supportive article about Osborne's Chancellorship just before the Election. So he's scarcely a wild lefty. But look what he has to say about Greece.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-endgame-eurozone-default-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2015-06

What Germany and the other Northern Europeans are doing to Greece is a crime of monstrous proportions. They deserve to rot in Hell for it.

I think he makes a valid point. Greece, along with several other countries, should not have been allowed to enter the Euro when they did. However, having let them in when they failed to achieve the conditions, there was then some obligation on other EU states, Germany particularly, to ensure that Greece could stay in during difficult times.

Let's face it, the Euro is a political project dressed up as an economic one. It is no good the northern Europeans now turning round to Greece and effectively forcing them to leave the club on economic grounds.

I still think that the best option for Greece and some other southern European countries was an orderly exit from the Euro, but that particular ship sailed some time ago. Namely about the time these countries were forced to accept the alternative of serious austerity measures.

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

Greece has been sacrificed for two reasons
1) if they had left the Euro and defaulted in 2010, the whole European banking system would have come down and there would have been a Great Depression across Europe.

2) they CANNOT have an orderly exit. That would give other countries a way out in troubled times and undermine the whole Euro project. So they HAVE to suffer as a lesson to the others.

It is a disgrace on both counts. 

[The Red Baron]

BST. Your first point is true, but that is surely a reason for cutting them some slack now.

On the second point, a so-called orderly exit would have been possible if the Euro was seen as an economic project. So it would have been for, say, Portugal. The Eurozone would then continue but only for those northern European countries whose economies were broadly in sync. But the idea of a pan-EU currency would be dead. Hence any orderly exits are ruled out on political grounds.

Anyway, it looks like the Greek government might have blinked...

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

I think there are also economic reasons why the central countries would want to not have an orderly exit. Once the principle of exit is established, if it appears that it can be managed in an orderly way without unnecessary economic hardship for the exiting country, it suddenly becomes a seductive way out for other countries in fiscal trouble. So the markets then query whether everyone else really is in in for all eternity. And there would be bond market hell for Italy, Spain, Greece and possibly Ireland, leading to the need for further debt refinancing.

So Greece has to be seen to be going through Hell. Pour encourager les autres.

A disgraceful end point for a currency that had these internal inconsistencies built into it from the off. But, it serves Germany's purposes.

[Savvy]

Entirely predictable though Billy when you consider Greece has spent 90 years of its 194 years as an independent country in default or involved in debt restructuring, that’s nearly 50%.

Seems like they've learnt nothing throughout the years!!!