Greece and the EU: Why are we not talking about this?

[fredv3b]

Pip,

Greece was running a huge deficit through the economic good times and hiding it through 'creative accountancy'. In those heady days investors did not play as close attention to the Greek Governments books as they should, not anymore. Improvements in the domestic Greek economy would still leave a very large public deficit. If the Greeks are unable, politically, to make cuts in the face of disaster, I doubt they can when the economy is improving.

Also a major debt forgiveness deal is part of the EU bailout package.


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[fredv3b]

I think england should resort back to being a United kingdom and get out of europe...

The Scots may have something to say about that....


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[Bowyn Aerrow]

In the USA it isn't scary enough to be used by the media. That and there is not enough blood.

The Death of a super star is more personal and sells more papers, network air time than some Greeks being beaten or whatever happened.

It is far, far more important to the US people to know who is going to be the republican runner for president. Not some far off ancient country that 60% of Americans can't find on a map.

Priorities - US priorities are not the priorities of the rest of the world.

[Inchante]

In the USA it isn't scary enough to be used by the media. That and there is not enough blood.

The Death of a super star is more personal and sells more papers, network air time than some Greeks being beaten or whatever happened.

It is far, far more important to the US people to know who is going to be the republican runner for president. Not some far off ancient country that 60% of Americans can't find on a map.

Priorities - US priorities are not the priorities of the rest of the world.

Ummm . . . I posted this thread because I kept hearing about it on the U.S. news and was surprised that an international forum, such as this one, that discusses many different issues, such as this one had nothing on it. By the way, I can tell you without looking that Greece is between Turkey and the Ionian Sea and includes several islands; and that in the twentieth century Greece was invaded by Turkey and Germany, and that the capital is Athens, and that one of my favorite poems is by the Greek writer, C.P. Cavafy. So, I guess that shoots those theories to hell. I can tell you much more, but I'll get to the barbarians instead.

Waiting for the Barbarians
BY C. P. CAVAFY
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY AND PHILIP SHERRARD

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.


Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.