Whew! It's been awhile since I posted. Let's catch up on things....
Greece
So Greece elected a new government and the Germans are being cajoled into relieving some of the pressure on the Greece gov't to repay debt.
Losers!
Doesn't matter who is in charge in Greece. Greece is GONE. I have said this before and I will say it again: GREECE CANNOT RECOVER. Greece refuses to reform its taxation system and refuses to work to balance its budget. These things MUST happen. Oh and by the way, Greece MUST default. There is NO OTHER OPTION. All of the bailouts and any relief they encompass only serve to delay the inevitable. Greece is going broke. All that is happening now is the EU is blindly kicking the can down the road. Greece MUST and WILL officially default. It is absolutely inevitable. The sooner they do it, the sooner they can recover. It is VERY difficult to get statistics about the Greece budget but recently they bought a new missile frigate from France. WHY? The French love it of course, but why would this money be wasted? If you HAVE to buy a warship, there are plenty of obsolete but still serviceable warships being sold by every first world navy for a fraction of the price of the new warship. But even then, this is just an example of the blindness of the Greek government. Recently, as part of the reform of Greece taxation, the EU demanded the Greeks accept German accountants and technocrats to investigate and report on reforms. The Germans could not believe the level of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and so on that they found. They recommended dozens of sensible reforms. The Greeks had them arrested for espionage. There is just too much money to be made by the leaders of Greece for them to allow the tax system to work correctly. Greece is FUCKED. They are not even trying to balance their budget. Without balancing the budget there is no hope of paying off the 150 billion dollars of debt they have accrued. And yet they still want the bailout funds and to stay in the Euro. This is the most insulting and egregious affront to the world by any government since the Russians did whatever they do every week. Insane.
Here is what needs to happen. Greece defaults and says, "sorry we won't be paying back that debt." They leave the Euro. THEN THEY BALANCE THE BUDGET. They have to -- no one will give them a nickel for awhile. The economy will collapse. Perhaps they reform the taxation system even a little. And then -- they NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE PAYMENTS! It's almost like getting free money. Instead of paying interest and principal, they have that money for servicing the country. Will there be pain?
There will be pain like you can't believe. Skyrocketing unemployment. Starving elderly. Suicides. Hopelessness. PAIN.
But it will pass. Once the shock is over, the government can re-structure within its means. They should slash defense spending such that only soldiers get paid. There would be few, if any ships in the navy that leave the pier. No tanks or maintenance. Soldiers would remain on duty because they need an army and these people would not be in the unemployment lines, but they would be relegated to walking instead of driving in trucks and so on. The air force would be slashed. And so on. There would be lots of public employees laid off. The government would have to focus on the essentials - trash collection, water works, insuring communcations and electricity, courts and jails, road repair. Nothing else matters.
But on the plus side, there would growth again. It would take five years to recover. We've seen this over and over in Latin America. Then once growth starts and they manage the budget, then they can re-apply to be in the Euro again. Perhaps they can even take on debt at reasonable levels. But without going broke there is no way they can grow.
Greece needs to go broke.
Europe
Europe is an awesome example of where the US would be if the Confederacy won the Civil War because Europe is a confederacy. In the American Confederacy, states had more power than the central government. Essentially, each state was like a country, just as Europe is. The government has little power to tax, manage the currency, manage budgets, control environmental damage and so on. Sound familiar? It's Europe. In Europe each country is refusing to give up its sovereignty. Until it does so it can never achieve the greatness of the United States. A strong Federal government is necessary to co-ordinate resources, budgets, and impose its will to impact the greater good. The EU is going to eventually collapse or suffer decades of infighting, band-aids and slow growth until they recognize this. The individual countries/states MUST NOT be allowed to run deficits at a minimum. There must be a capital (presumably its Brussels which is hilarious since Belgium is constantly on the brink of civil war) and a strong European leader. Then they can grow like crazy. Currently the main b beneficiary of a weak Europe is Russia -- and they know it. On a small scale, the current problems show the Germans were right during WW2. On a large scale, the Russians win this war again, on a much larger scale than they did in May, 1945.
Syria
HAHAHA. The Arab Spring turns out to be confusing and messy. Syria was always going to be the tough nut. The Russian proxy state and the last Russian base outside of Russia insured this would be true. The emerging Russian powerhouse is not going to let Syria slip away easily and the US cannot aid Syrian opposition openly without directly opposing Russia. Also, there is no co-ordinated opposition in Syria. Alot of the rebels are Al Qaeda and the US certainly can't help THEM. So it's a tough situation. Israel is totally alarmed because they face serious issues in Egypt for the first time since the Camp David Accords. I have thought for a long time that the answer was always Turkey. The US still has some influence in Turkey (though there is a growing resentment against the US there) and Turkey can and has confronted Syria as a result of the shooting down of a Turkish jet by the jittery Syrians. I thought for sure that this would be the entre Turkey needed to land a solid blow on Syria (on behalf of the Americans) without confronting the Russians. But that brouhaha seems to have settled down. I still have hope this will happen but who knows? Assad is finished but I predict we will see Russian combat troops in action there before this is over. And don't think for a minute that when Assad falls, the rebels will not forget the part the Russians played in this affair. When the Russians leave Syria they will be looking for another foothold in the middle east and they will be making lots of mischief there.
Book Recommendations
I just read a great book called "Why Nations Fail". An extra-ordinary compilation and study of successful and failed nations throughout history it offers a new explanation for why nations rise and fall. It needs to be book ended with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which is itself a brilliant discourse on the steps all nations follow to their death. Diamond takes into account the devastating impact of religion and how it helped every major empire to fail while James Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" never mentions religion once. In effect, Robinson says that for nations to succeed there must be a strong central government that is controlled by voters; that innovation is allowed by protecting patents; that contracts and patent rights are enforced; that labor has the right to move freely to jobs and careers and that monopolies are punished. In addition there needs to be a concept that no man is above the law and laws need to be generally fair. The problem is that the elite in any society do everything they can to stay in power by weakening the power of labor, citizenry, laws and business. When this happens there is no incentive for original creation and no profit. It benefits a few at the expense of the many, and eventually there is either collapse or violence, inevitably poverty. This should be read by anyone who wants to see how rich people are undermining the US ability to succeed.
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