Peter Lyon
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New Zealand is in the same boat, just a smaller one. As Australia relies on minerals, NZ relies on primary exports (meat, wool, dairy etc) and is facing the same issues. The latest Fonterra auction of dairy products was down 6%, making a 41% since the peak last year. This is what happened in 2008/9 as the world economy tanked, and now it could be worse. It hurt NZ then, and it will do it again, but most people here don’t get the big picture. They think what happens is Europe, China and the US is “over there” and don’t see the connection. I suspect it is the same sort of story in Australia.
All these ideas for Greece are very nice but ignore two basic problems. First, Greece does not have a government that can make any decisions about anything, and might not in June either when the next round of austerity is meant to be decided. Secondly, most of the people of Greece don’t accept that they are part of the problem, instead they blame the government for the whole thing. If they don’t accept they are part of the problem, they won’t support any solutions that require personal sacrifice (EG paying the taxes they are required to in order to support the system). And there is not enough time for any of these ideas to go through a shakedown and be implemented. In short, it is going to be messy.
“Looks like there’s gonna be a gunfight”. I can almost hear the chink of spurs and creak of leather.
Did anyone think this was about helping Greece? It is now painfully obvious it was all about trying to buy time to save the other Euro economies, and Greece was the sacrificial bull. And it still won’t work.Greece’s Death by a Thousand Cuts continues, but for how much longer? And stop calling it a recession, five years of contraction is a depression. The economy is contracting faster than the deficit reductions, so the debt vs GDP is actually growing due to the austerity. At some point, maybe soon after the upcoming elections, somebody in power will say enough is enough and challenge the EU to pull its funding and watch what happens. Maybe the economy will collapse further, but it cannot escape as long as it is tied to the Euro, so it is nearing time to reintroduce the Drachma and take some modicum of control back. It is like watching the Titanic, but with no lifeboats.
There is something that you are all missing by just concentrating on the electricity savings for payback time on double glazing, and I will use myself as an example. I am a labour contractor – if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I am more likely to get sick and miss work in a cold house over winter; every day off work sick is a lot of money, and if I get sick once each winter say, and miss a day or two of work, that could be even more than the value of the electricity saved. So “comfort”, while it sounds a vague and silly measure, can be real. Maybe not so much for those on wages, if you get paid for time off sick, but just to show there is more to it than just the electricity you save, especially as you get older.
Good post. Maybe I am already one of your “oldies” because I do get it. We just spent $300 on some draught and other improvements (especially a thermal wrap on our old-style hot water cylinder) that I hope will reduce our winter power bill by 5-10%, which will be a 1-2 year payback). On the other hand we are also retrofitting double glazing, which will cost a lot more and take many years to pay for itself, but that is another side of the equation: money on that now is going to help our health as we get older, and also adds to the capital value of the house, so is worthwhile for those reasons rather than any reasonable payback time.
“Let me reiterate, it does not add to our deficit or national debt. It is not money that could otherwise be spent on public services, and no country has ever lost any money lending to the IMF.” A great example of Doublespeak; a statement that is literally true when looked at as individual parts, but as whole is utterly wrong.
If the sovereign ends up taking the risk as banks fail, then the sovereign should get whatever benefit comes out of it. Nationalise banks that fail, THEN bail them out. If they still fail, the nation loses, but then they would anyway if the bank failed in private hands. Stop the moral hazard. Same for the US and elsewhere.
His reasoning is pretty clear and plain to me, though I hope to never be in a position to really understand it. He saw he was going to die one way or another: he could slowly starve to death and hope somebody would find his body before the dogs did; or he could choose the time and place and method of his own death. Taking your own life is a big deal, for whatever reason, so he made it into a political statement as well, so the media (and hence the world) would hear about it, and maybe it would embarass the politicians into doing something about it before more old men (and others) starve to death. If not, he stills ends his own suffering on his own terms.
