It’s All Greek To Me!
I like Greece and the Greek people for that matter, even if they do smoke too much!
I also like the euro and on the whole think it is a good thing and we should have joined, just like we should have joined Schengen.
The trouble with Greece is that they don’t like rules and especially those imposed by others on their economy. One Greek told me that’s why they all smoke in restaurants despite it being against the law.
So perhaps their economy wasn’t strong enough for Greece to join the single currency, but for a few years it gave them a lot of cheap money, just as it did Ireland. So now that the lenders want it back, there’s problems all round. Robert Peston of the BBC analyses it all here.
I’m no economist, so where it will all end, I do not know. But I am a qualified control engineer and I do know that the Greek economy has all the stability of a bicycle with the handles stuck either turning to the left or right.
Just like the bicycle, the Greek economy will have an awful crash.
The villians really are not the Greeks here, but the politicians who wanted a single currency and didn’t really think through about how to make it work properly. If the right rules had been in place from the first day, then there would have been no need for a bailout of Greece, Ireland or Portugal.
I suspect now, that if it was that stable, then we would have joined the euro. Or we would have at least tried to!
Waking Up In Cloud-Cuckoo World
I woke at about five this morning and put the radio on to listen to the news. One of my favourite books is The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
I felt that I’d woken up in a world where everyting was being run by idiots, who had lost their sense of where they were supposed to be, but were still of course getting all of their perks and salaries. Or in the case of various dictators were still milking all their subjects for ever cent they’d got.
The first story was the problems in Syria, where all sane people agree that President Assad must go. The president used to be an opthalmologist, which in my book is a sort of doctor, so why is he blinding some of his people and killing others in an effort to cling to power? And why were we still supporting this despot until recently?
Then there was the story about Greece having a referendum on cuts. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind. Of course they’ll vote yes to the cuts!
The Germans are supposed to be efficient. But they can’t seem to find the source of their e-coli outbreak. So what does the EU do about it, have a meeting?
I could add other stories, where those in charge are going one way and doing their utmost to keep their high-salaried jobs.
Don’t get me going on the NHS, where at present I just need a repeat prescription and it seems to take days at my GP. At the previous one, I sent in an e-mail and either collected the drugs or the signed prescription on the next working day. How many highly-paid civil servants does it take to not impliment that very simple policy?
And now to cap it all, BBC Breakfast is talking about the lack of cuckoos this year. They’re all alive and well and living in politics and government, all over the world!
Bedbugs In New York
Two stories from New York catch the eye today; Bedbugs bite into the US economy and the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The latter of course would have like to be a bedbug, but didn’t go about it in the right way. As he was one of the most important of the wunch of the great and good trying to sort out Greece, we’re all going to pay for his indiscretions. I do hope the man gets a sentence in jail, even if it is less than what the prosecutors seem to be demanding, as he seems to be rather a serial whatsit and we don’t want people like him in public life, if all the stories are true. After all, how can he make a proper decious, if all he’s thinking about is the next legover.
But then the French see things differently and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair could all lead to some serious problems between the United States and France.
What is so stupid about all this, is that several times in my life, when I’ve stayed in top-class hotels alone, I’ve been offered serious ladies by the staff for my pleasure by the concierge or other staff. I’ve never taken them up on their offer, as I’m not that sort of person. I say person, as once in the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston, I was having a late night drink and talking to the barman, as one does, when he discretely fixed-up the lady at the other end of the bar, with someone twenty or so years her junior. All it took was one quick phone call on his part. And this was in a pre-mobile age. That lady incidentally was French and the barman said she was a regular customer.
So the French do do things differently.
Greece Melts
I like the Greeks, but it would appear that the rest of Europe will soon lose patience with them.
They had yet another General Strike yesterday and it wasn’t peaceful and quiet.
The Times today says that a Greek default could provoke another banking crisis. Certainly, the amount we’ve lent to Greece borders on the suicidal.
There was also another report last night, where it was said that Greeks were drawing out their money in cash and sending it abroad to safer countries.
I think we should all beware of giving gifts to Greeks.
After Greece and Ireland, It’s Now Portugal!
There is a lot of opposition to bailing out Portugal in the UK. We should always remember wha happened to the British economy when Denis Healey went to the IMF in the 1970s. We got the money we needed, but we had to bring in some very unwelcome policies under IMF supervision.
So shouldn’t the same rules apply to Greece, Ireland and Portugal? Isn’t there an old phrase about the person paying the piper calling the tune?
I’ve just returned from Greece and it is a country in turmoil. But then I’ve hardly ever been to Greece without suffering some form of labour dispute. Because of its history and weather, it has a lot going for it. But a lot of it requires investment in infrastructure for which it doesn’t have the money.
I must ask the question as to whether the money that has been pumped into Greece has been used wisely?
I have had no experience of Ireland in the last few years, but the Irish still seem to find the money to spend on racehorses. They want to renegotiate the bail-out conditions on the one hand and on the other they still have a low rate of Corporation Tax, to which many countries object. So perhaps the most important condition in the bailout of Ireland hasn’t been applied.
In some ways loaning money to Ireland is in our interests, as a lot of it will come back in the purchase of goods and services, as our two countries are very economically entwined. But again we didn’t seem to apply any obvious pressure on Corporation Tax.
With respect to Portugal, which used to be known as our oldest ally, we don’t really have any great economic interests in the country. I suppose the one problem we do have in Portugal and Spain is the large number of ex-pats, who have bought properties there. So if either went bust and we didn’t help, then there might be quite a few votes down the drain.
After all, the only reason we bailed out the stupid people, who put their money in Icelandic banks, was to buy votes.
So on balance we should probably help with Portugal. But only on our terms. After all, if China or the United States was to bail out any country, they wouldn’t do it without a lot of self-interest.
Ektos City
My mobile phone was showing this for a lot of the time in Greece.
But on searching I found this page.
Which gave this explanation.
On the Telestet mobile phone network, your handset may display “Ektos City”. This isn’t a real place, it just means “Outside the city” i.e. away from one of the metropolitan areas. They use the English word “City” because it sounds cool.
Very simple really.
A Fast Ferry Home
It may have been run by a company called Fast Ferries, but it still took four hours to get me from Tinos to Rafina on the Greek mainland.
A Fast Ferry
I hadn’t eaten any food since a very good moussaka on the Sunday at lunch time and as I left early for the ferry, I didn’t get any breakfast. At least a supermarket was open on Tinos, at which I was able to purchase a couple of bananas. Where would coeliacs be without them?
On the ferry it was just coffee and chocolate and there weren’t even any Greek salads.
It didn’t get any better at the airport either, as there wasn’t anything in the cafes which didn’t have a large slug of gluten. No Greek salads and not even any of those sesame snacks you usually find in Greece.
So I had a choice of either getting the midday easyJet flight or retreating to Athens and getting a flight on the next day.
I chose the flight, as it appeared there were quite a few seats and as it turned out, two of us had three seats for the journey to Gatwick.
So the flight was good value because of the extra room.
I was also back home in good time.
There are Brass Washers on Tinos
This new seat has been made using the size of washer I need for my stairs.
Brass Washers in a Seat on Tinos
I didn’t have any chance to search for a hardware shop on my trip, so I didn’t buy any. But at least they exist.
How to be Really Penitent
Penitents like to crawl up to the Panagía Evangelístria church at the top of this hill on Tinos.
The Climb to the Panagía Evangelístria
Note the rubber carpet to help their knees.
The church is rather grand, although I didn’t go in.
The Panagía Evangelístria
The climb was worth it though for the view alone.
Cuban Cigars on Mykonos
Really! I thought the Americans had banned Cuban cigars everywhere. So perhaps they’ll invade Mykonos next!
Cuban Cigars on Mykonos
Don’t the Greeks smoke enough anyway?
After all, one of the reasons I left Mykonos, was because there was just too much smoking. And in quite a few restaurants too!
The Anonymous Widower 