Sheldon Adelson, a casino tycoon, is expected soon to choose between Madrid and Barcelona for a €16 billion ($21 billion) gambling resort. The euro-zone turmoil does not faze him: “It will take us four to five years,” he told Forbes magazine. “By then everything will be solved.” Mr Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands (LVS) hopes to create a “Euro Vegas”, capable of attracting the 1 billion people who live in the 50 countries within a five-hour flight from Spain. He chose the country because of the weather and because its unemployment rate, now at 23%, “assures us the support of the government”.Let's assume this piece of news is true. In my opinion, it's pure insanity.
It doesn't seem to bother him that under his communist utopia, most of the philosophy, books and movies he adores would never have been made.Yes, obviously anyone who critiques capitalist excess is in love with Stalin. If you're not in favor of Goldman sachs alumni running your fiscal union currency zone then you're totally the same as Mao, and would definitely be censoring pop culture and everything else.
As a Greek, I am a bit ... concerned that this Zizek dude is apparently one of the "spiritual fathers" of our new main left party (the quote is from the YT clip, from Mr. Tsipras himself.Oh, a bunch of out of context clips. And captions in a language I can't read! Compelling footage!
How about stopping to beg for money from the eeevul European establishment then? I mean, you can't really be at war with someone and at the same time have them bankroll your schools, hospitals, police, government officials, etc. It makes you look .... wimpy.There are a lot of strings that come with that money. Here's the thing: If Greece had it's own currency, it could devalue. In that case, banks, schools, hospitals, police and government officials would instantly become much cheaper. So would factory workers, exports and tourism for foreigners. That would make the economy grow. People would lose wealth initially, but unemployment would drop, solving a lot of the social problems.
AElfwine, I'm sorry, but the problem is very simple: money. I'm all for standing for social rights and justice, but ultimately somebody has to pay the salaries of teachers, nurses and university professors. The Greek government has had to ask for a lot of moneyYeah, and as I said, those people would cost less if they were paid in Drachma and the government devalued the currency.
delmoi, Tsipras is not proposing to leave the euro. He isn't doing it because 70% of Greek voters want to remain in the euro.Perhaps that's their preference, but they are clearly unhappy with the "deal" that they got, which is why they kicked out the leaders who agreed too it. If the Eurozone wants to Greece to stay in the zone, then they have to offer the people who live there a deal they would be willing to accept.
I can't remember where I saw it, but it turns out that lack of infrastructure actually adds to the GPDYeah... that sounds like BS to me.
Also, if you think that François Hollande and his French Socialist Party are "far left", you are very much deluded.I'm sure he would be far left by US standards. Thus the quotes.
Saying the politics of austerity that have caused Greece’s predicament as the author does gets it totally backwards. Why is austerity necessary? Because Europeans, and Greeks more than anyone else, have for years lived well beyond their means, with vast, unaffordable social safety networks and deep-rooted senses of entitlement fueled by debt. In Greece's case, the government outright lied for years about the size of its deficits, but in all cases Europeans are collectively guilty of looking the other way as every country violated its deficit targets.Public debt as a percentage of GDP in the EU is lower than that of the US, and roughly the same as Canada. Scandinavian countries, which are known for the size and comprehensiveness of their welfare, typically have percentages less than half that of the US. If austerity is not needed in the US, then it's certainly not needed in the EU.
From The Guardian, Is Žižek the Borat of philosophy?Well, it's fairly obvious that a lot of the time the guy is obviously joking. Very dry and long-winded jokes that are funny in full but are easy to take out of context in order to make him sound like a lunatic, for people who are politically opposed to him.
It also seems to me that switching to a devalued drachma, as opposed to sticking with the Euro and part-defaulting and letting (1) (2) and (3) settle themselves out, would mainly penalize Greeks with savings. Are there enough Greeks with savings that pickpocketing all of them would help Greece recover more quickly?The problem with "letting "1 and 2 work themselves out" is that lowering salaries in real terms is extremely difficult, and takes years and years, while devaluation is instantaneous.
Actually, all three stories are true.No, greeks work more hours per year then Germans. Their government was certainly irresponsible, and there is clearly a lot of tax dodgers. But they are less lazy then the Germans.
From the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s, which was a direct response to the horrors of WWII, to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, which was a direct response to the end of the Cold War, and the introduction of a single currency and the European Constitution which became the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, the history of the EU is one of progressively tighter integration, not just in an economic sense but in a political or world-historical sense as well. To allow Greece to 'exit the Euro', whatever that means, since there is no legal foundation or precedent for such a thing, would reverse this trend and sow lasting distrust, which will immediately impact Italy, Spain, and Portugal and feed the the largely populist Euro-skepticism in countries like France, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, and thereby undermine and perhaps wholly dismantle the vision of a unified Europe, free from war and strife.Well, the problem here is the pursuit of a political ideal by imposing an economic system that causes mass suffering. How can that possibly work? How can you pursue political ideal of unity by calling your fellow Europeans lazy scumbags that need to suffer for their sins, and then cause this to happen to the poorest and weakest in their society? It's clearly insane.
The first concern of any investor, in particular in the current climate, is certainty. The Democratic Republic of Congo offers really low real wages, yet investors (except the most exploitative, least scrupulous sort) don't exactly queue at the door. Merely promising high returns isn't enough in there are unpredictable risks involved. Put yourself in the shoes of an investor and ask yourself: would I bet on that horse?That's not actually true. Raw wages may be so low, but in a lot of these severely fucked up countries you have to pay so many bribes that the end costs end up being higher then high wage countries.
By completely ignoring the economic situation that Greece is in at the moment, Žižek comes off as a little facile, no? So Greece is being held down by a Brussels technocracy that they finally have a chance to cast off due to the crisis situation. Well, great, but who gets stuck with the bill?Former creditors? Or tax payers in other countries, the same way tax payers in rich US States pay for people in poor US states, decades over decades. This works fine in the US, why do people think it's somehow impractical in the EU? If you're not willing to do that, then you have to give up on the euro, or else the eurozone is over.
This isn't the source I had in mind, but Wikipedia says this: "For example, government-provided clean water confers substantial benefits above its cost. Ironically, lack of such infrastructure which would result in higher water prices (and probably higher hospital and medication expenditures) would be reflected as a higher GDP."Clean drinking water is a public health issue. Obviously if everyone had to buy bottled water, those costs would be part of the GDP. But on the other hand it not having it would raise the cost of any job that requires clean water to operate (such as food processing) You'd need to buy a water purifier, which would increase investment costs.
Or take public transport: If everyone and their Grandma has a car or two and drives around a lot, that is reflected by higher GDP. More efficient modes of transportation (mass transit) on the other hand lead to lower GDP.
See, delmoi, this is where your reasoning is wrong. So, so wrong. There is a very good reason, and that is namely that otherwise all Greek banks would become automatically insolvent.How much of the assets of greek banks are actually greek government bonds? It seems like the government bonds in the eurozone are spread around all over the place, with lots of greek debt being owned by banks in other euro countries, which is why there are so many problems now.
How is such an exit carried out, then? Well, you have mentioned Argentina in previous threads. Let me tell you what happened in Argentina in 2001: all bank accounts were frozen overnight, and withdrawals severely limited. Before they were unfrozen again, all dollar-denominated accounts were forcibly converted into devalued pesos.The fact that something happened in the past doesn't mean the same thing has to happen in the future.
In the case of an exit from euro the Bank of Greece predicted, about 15 days ago, a depression of 22% and a reduction in the average income of at least 55%The problem is, Greece is already in the middle of a depression, the unemployment rate is 21%. Compare that to 16% in the US, in 1936 (or 19% in 1938).
Paying government employees in worthless scrip, while they'd still have to pay their food, utility bills, mortgages, rents, etc. in euros doesn't exactly strike me as the acme of social justice.It's Happened in California Nobody died.
In any case, your question isn't even an hypothetical. Tourists are already scared off.Which actually proves that not exiting won't somehow make things better.
And that exactly is the calculation that millions of Greeks are doing right now, and taking their money out of the country, bringing the economy close to a collapse.Right, which means it won't be a problem for the people who have done so. So you must have been pretending that hadn't been happening happening when you wrote some of your comment about how Greeks all had their money in Greek banks. If a Greek bank has most of it's assets in Greek government debt, then it's already insolvent. But those banks could be based in any country. Look at MF Global, which was based in the US but went belly up due to various eurobonds. On the other hand, it's entirely possible a Greek bank might have assets from other countries.
You see, printing money isn't a problem. I can print money. You can print money. The Greek government can print money. The problem is convincing anybody that that money is worth anything.I realize there is more tax evasion in Greece then other places, but the value of a government's currency comes from it's tax base. You need to acquire currency to pay your taxes.
You see, I've been to Cuba. There, you have two parallel currency systems: regular pesos and convertible pesos...What does that even have to do with anything? You said yourself, in Cuba the convertible currency has value, so if the Greek government printed a convertible currency, it would have value, just like every other country in the world.
I consider the argument that wages should be lowered specious. Big part of the Greek economy was inwards-focused and wage reductions, in addition to uncertainty about further cuts and fees, have struck a severe blow to demand.Well that's what the EU is demanding. The thing about a devaluation is that for locally produced stuff the rate is the same So your groceries, fruits and vegetables, rent, mortgage, etc don't change. Only the relative value of imports changes, and then maybe over time relative prices changes.
Even the troika admitted that the second wage cuts had no effect, but the last agreement still demands further cuts. After all the story will always be about the failure of Greece, not about the failed plans of its 'advisors'.Right, see, the demand is for further wage cuts which will of course continue the current depression and make it worse (I'm assuming '15% depression' means a 15% loss in GDP?)
it's difficult to see how a Greek exit would be anything short of cataclysmic.Please. Define "Cataclysmic". The current situation is already a cataclysm. suicide rates spiked 40% in 2011.
"It's never just one thing, but almost always debts, joblessness, the fear of being fired are cited when people phone in to say they are contemplating ending their lives," said Eleni Beikari, a psychiatrist at the non-governmental organisation, Klimaka, which runs a 24-hour suicide hotline.What exactly do you think would happen, dollar for dollar, with a greek exit?
Klimaka received around 10 calls a day before the crisis; it now gets more than 100 in any 24-hour period
"Most come from women aged between 30 and 50 and men between 40 and 45 despairing over economic problems," said Beikari. "In my experience it's the men, suffering from hurt dignity and lost pride, who are most serious."
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posted by Damienmce at 9:45 AM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]