Random Politics & Religion #00

I remember hearing Biden was always the best golfer on Capitol Hill.

Its seems the "happiness" of those "leftopaths", that saw in the Greece referendum the victory against the "humillation" imposed by capitalism, didnt last enough to make those "valiants" even more radiant...

Tsipras learned the hard way that ideology will never win against reality. And if his comical referendum was a "NO" to austherity, his panties was a big "YES" to all austherity measures imposed to Greece by Euro.

Unfortunelly, there is no honor when there is no money. And Im not saying if euro decision was the wrong or right decision. But regardless of the matter, if the Leftopaths decide something, normally they are wrong, and everyone (right, left, center, no political alignment) will pay for those error. And normally a high price.

I will not comment on whether agreeing to Germany's terms is right or wrong, but what is the point of holding a referendum if you then proceed to ignore its results? People are quite mad at Tsipras now.

Talking about lefthopaths in a R&P thread, what about the religious side of the left party?

Pope Franscisco has a huge amount of symphatizer due his simple and honest way. He seems a pope more aligned to spiritual matter than political.

But unfortunelly, one side not very knowed about pope Francisco is his left tendency. Like this obscene photo:



This photo is simply disgusting, a bad joke. Comunism was never sympathetic to catolicism. Comunists always saw their dictators above god actually.

Traditionally, Communists regimes are atheist in practice.

I don't know if leaving the Eurozone would have been the right move but Greece had nothing to lose by doing so.

Leaving the Euro would have given Greece an outside shot at pulling an Argentina and getting their economy together again post-default. New debt payments will only ensure recovery becomes even more remote.

In the interest of fairness, everybody is calling Germany the bad guy (which to a large extent they are) but apparently it was Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland that REALLY pushed a hard line; if Greece had been allowed to negotiate better terms, the people of those countries would start asking tough questions about why their own leaders weren't.

Well Greece imports virtually everything, leaving the euro will take a heavy toll on consumer goods prices. As for Germany being the bad guy, they're only the bad guy because it allows the countries that share their viewpoint to be less vocal. If Germany wasn't playing bad cop, other countries would be. The media is doing a decent job of not painting them as heartless number crunchers at least.

Or work 7 days a week like alot of our work force does. Lead by example. Oh wait, he wants 29-32 hour work weeks never mind.


Research will tell you why he resigned rather than face impeachment. Hillary and the other democrats wanted to drag his impeachment thru-out the presidential election to damage the republican image.

Funny she is now crying about almost the same thing. How karma works.

Yes, there would be no penalty if Greece had left the eurozone and defaulted....in what reality?

Greece has been decades in the making of these issues.

Argentina is not doing well and is having trouble attracting foreign investment because they have a historical record of defaulting on their obligations and not honoring past agreements. They've defaulted twice in the last 15 years.

The countries that you listed as pushing a hard line are countries who've been forced to take responsiblity for their actions (poor portugal did everything they were supposed to do -according to EU debt terms- and got screwed on the bond market) and live with the consequences.

Greece has been trying to wriggle out of all their consequences for 7 years while placing the EU (countries in the euro and those with currencies tied to the euro) in a precarious position.

As for not gaining anything by being in the EU, really? Free movement of goods, services, and people is nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention the trade agreements they are apart of that they would never have been able to bargain for had they not been apart of the total 500 million+ consumers that the EU contains. Oh, and who is propping those Greek banks up? That would be the rest of the EU since their banks are basically out of cash.

They should frankly be kicked from the EU, in my opinion. They lied to get into the EU and they have continued to try and wriggle out of their obligations.

Could in 10-20 years time Greece do better than the eurozone? Perhaps, but their history of financial decisions seems to indicate otherwise.

German culture places a fairly unique emphasis on order and rules. They are essentially putting forward the position that actions (or lack thereof) have consequences. And frankly, that position is essential in order to deter stupid levels of risk-taking.

There are many other countries that were in as bad (or worse) financial situations. They took measures (sometimes economically painful) to address their situations, and are almost universally improved against their original starting points.

Greece didn't.

There's a difference between extending aid to someone that is actively trying to improve their condition, and extending aid to someone who is simply frittering away the money. This would be the third time they have received financial support.

What is interesting is how exactly the Greek PM will be able to internally sell agreeing to a worse deal than was rejected in the referendum last week.

Where did Greece’s bailout money go?

If by 'they' you mean Goldman Sachs, then sure.

Greek debt crisis: Goldman Sachs could be sued for helping hide debts when it joined euro

I posted an article about this on p.713 going back to 2010. It was not just Goldman Sachs but a few different wall st. firms and Greek politicians who helped structure these 'deals'.

Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

Reached agreement for Iran's nuclear programme and all sanctions have also been lifted

Link to article

Israel is mad!

Oh yeah there's no doubt some politicians (Greek and otherwise) benefited as well.

the term is 'enabling'

Substantially raise minimum wage and cut welfare benefits.

Interesting concept being floated here definitely worth a try.

What people have been promoting here for years, the UK does it and it's an "interesting concept?"

Believe me when I say that Saudi Arabia (and its GCC allies) is the one that's really mad about this.

Putin says world can breathe a sigh of relief after Iran deal

Hey guise. Obama has brought peace to the middle east.

Oh what a legacy.

Trusting the Iranians on nukes is like trusting Paula dean to make it without butter.

While we are on the topic a few of important things first:
The decission last sunday was about wether there is a basis to start negotiations on a 3rd bailout or not.
This basis requires some 'prior actions' which serve to rebuild trust which must be implemented tomorrow by the Greek parliament.
What is declared as Germany's terms is in fact the stance of 15 EZ countries (out of 19) as confirmed by Renzi (Italy's PM) today. The softer line supporter were France, Italy, Cyprus and Greece.

The referendum was indeed very weird.
Tsipras interpreted it as inner political tool(similar to a motion of confidence) to strengthen his position within the Greek parliament (getting opposition on board) and reducing quarrels within his own party as his recommendation won.
I doubt though it was worth it as it ended the easier second program early and is responsible for a great amount of damage to Greece monetary situation since his party Syriza prevented the election of the Greece president to get new election and become the governing power themselve. (~50bn destroyed in 7months just after the first sights of growth were visible)

Hired by Greece so the main responsibility lies there. I doubt they can be sued for it, but if it is possible I would welcome it.
This needs some reflections, I will use the numbers from the source of the quoted website:
So net profit of around 70bn as the hair cut was worth 107bn.
What this means for the normal Greek Citizen if it didn't happen should be clear. Would be way more desastrous than the capital controls currently in place.
Debt already owned by Greece, what a bankrput of the state means for Greece and its citizen should be clear as well.
Profit for Greece from these restructions of debt since 2012 (not the hair cut which is already mentioned at 107bn) was about 40bn.

The Greek Crisis is a very complex problem because of cultural, regional and global issues which would take quite a while to write them all down. If there are (relativly) specific questions concerning a few issues though, like Seha's question on the motive of the referendum, or to explain some of Greeks shortcomings in its structure, I will try my best to give both the German and the Greek view (and where it is possible an european one).

In the interests of fairness there are few good guys in sight.

The only good guys anywhere close are the former communist territories in the EU who, while being poorer then Greece, and with pensioners receiving far less than those in Greece, are being asked to contribute to the bailout.

And let us remember that this is more a bailout of banks then of a country.

Greece got into this mess by promising generous pensions starting as early as 45 among other outrageous things.

Germany, in the meantime, bought Greek debt at a discount and insists on being paid in full.

Germany is treating Greece rather worse than America's Republicans treat the poor.

Somehow I can't wait till attention turns to Spain and its airports to nowhere.

Oh man. The episode of Top Gear there is wild.

Entire modern airports just abandoned.

Entire new cities abandoned.

for real?

Built, but then no one could afford to stay.

Ciudad Real Central Airport.

Ciudad Valdeluz (Sorry, no English Wiki. Translated the following.)

Anything that you might ever say of actual substance is lost beneath a mountain of constant douchebaggery.

Well that's the point. To the extent we can know how the climate changes we really can't with any certainty say:

1) That the climate is changing outside a "reasonable" rate.
2) That the change that is occurring is due to our emission of CO2.

I mean the climate changes at a faster rate when a volcano goes off, than what the alarmists are claiming man has done.

There is no uncertainty about the fact that greenhouse gases trap heat and increase temperature...so yeah, CO2 is a contributing factor indeed(around 10% I think).

Well duh..hopefully none of your industries pump so much into the atmosphere as a volcanic blast. It was when, last year maybe when the Iceland's impossible to pronounce volcano covered half of Europe in smoke blocking all flights.