Money, money, money

[nineveh_uk]

I have been following the current outbreak of the ongoing global financial crisis, i.e. the events in Greece, with horrified fascination. I have little to say about how to solve the current situation beyond my standard "I wouldn't start from here". By this point, there is surely no short-term outcome that isn't going to very painful for many of the Greek population. The only possible positive outcome is to be found in identifying the course that works for the country in the long-term. What that is I have no idea, and I'm clearly not alone, but it is going to be very, very complicated. We have got here not simply with faults on both sides, but faults on dozens of sides. When would finding a solution ideally have started - 1910 or so? Certainly no later than 1945.

It's a lovely evening and I'm going for a walk. I wonder what will have changed by the time I get back. And what this is like to follow when it's your own life at stake.

ETA: Wednesday, and it goes on.

Comments

[antisoppist]

I no longer have digital radio so instead of 6 Music at breakfast, it is Radio 4, which I have forgotten to rush to turn off before Thought for the Day. So the other morning I got someone explaining to us that the Euro crisis is all because Angela Merkel (and Germany and most of Western Europe) has a Protestant world-view which sees the suffering of the Crucifixtion as the most important part of Christianity, and hence focuses on the repayment of debt in order to attain atonement and redemption aspect, whereas the Greeks are Orthodox and think the Resurrection is much more important than the Crucifixion and that you can just magically come back to where you started with everything forgiven without having to do anything or suffer at all.

Not being an expert in comparative theology, I couldn't at the time decide whether this was an earth-shattering insight or utter bollocks.

*can't spell crucifixion. Was trying for *not* "crucifiction" and failed.

ETA No I didn't. That is how you spell it. Need lunch.

[nineveh_uk]

No world more than 6 letters long can be spelled without lunch.

I think that this is probably a theory of utter bollocks, befitting TFTD*. Admittedly I know absolutely nothing about Greek Orthodoxy, so the religious bit could be correct, but insofar as it applies to forgiveness of sins IRL, surely no group is keener on "We said sorry, now you have to forgive us and agree that we have never done anything wrong, and also you can't sue us because that would be refusing God's power to forgive" than the leaders of US fundamentalist protestant churches who get caught with their hand in the till/trousers down!

*An enterprising engineer ought to come up with a button that can be retrofitted to radios that automatically switches off/turns the volume down at TFTD.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

One could go back to the 1820s and the establishment of the modern Greek state and the traditional hostility of its people to taxation, associated as it is with the Ottomans... There was a piece by Paul Mason in The Guardian today arguing that there is no Greek state in the sense the state exists in Britain, only oligarchs and parties. Where this leaves the civil servants who retire at 55, I don't know.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I saw that piece and thought that it was really fascinating - I knew that there were issues around the state/civil society, but not how Mason describes it. And I certainly didn't realize that the taxation issue went back to the Ottomans! And to some extent I understand the incentive not to pay: if everyone is avoiding tax, you're a mug if you don't too, if you can*. But you can't sustain a state on it, and you have to find a way to start reform.

*Alternatively, you might have some principles, unlike the advert for an accountancy firm in Summertown that read "Paying tax is optional".

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The church dedicated to 'Our Lady of the Pirates' speaks volumes...

...but at the same time I'm very sympathetic to the plight of the Greek people and the Greek state, who feel they are being blamed for loans offered irresponsibly in the first place.