You're having me on ?

The deals done were at the suggestion of Goldman Sachs and also JP Morgan. They came up with ideas similar to sub-prime and other such financial instruments to hide Greek debt. One of them just after entry into the Eurozone in 2001 was helping Greece to borrow billions which was hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan!

So they met the rules on borrowing because at the suggestion of Goldman Sachs they found a way to hide it.

When a firm of the type who you would expect to audit government accounts are complicit in the ruse to hide borrowing I don't think "Only as good as the figures they are given" has the same meaning as you intended above.

When the Greeks got the bailout they had to agree to be ruled economically by the troika (European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank) and so embarked on a Austerity program and the usual [umassive[/u selling off of state assets. The IMF predicted after the Greek economy had crashed to the extent it had, they would as a result of the measures imposed experience a 25% (yes twenty five percent) growth in the economy as it bounced back from the very bottom of the pit.

It has not happened. Geek youth unemployment is at 60% for example. It remains a basket case.

So all the Austerity imposed has failed yet the Greek people have suffered the consequences. They took the medicine but there is no cure in sight. Their living standards have already dropped through the floor.

So given the bailout package has not revived the economy is it any surprise they have voted the way they have?

What the new Greek government has said is paying the debt back in full is unrealistic. They want to halve it and stay in the Euro. That will obviously go down like a lead balloon as I believe the Germans lent 22bn Euros as part of the 110bn package but really this is small beer and writing half that off does not seem to be unrealistic, especially since they have made a big profit as a direct result of the Greek crisis anyway.

As to Germany, they profit massively from this. German companies have bought up a lot of Greek state owned assets. The bailout package earns Germany interest on the loans and as you mentioned there are low interest rates which means Germany's own debt is cheap (but this is not new, the Euro has been undervalued for years as weaker economies keep it low).

Yep. I find the Germans anger on Greece bizarre. They have benefitted hugely from the Euro and are principal movers in the expansion of the Eurozone, including the stupid rules that mean a new entrant to the EU has to become part of the Eurozone.
Germany has to realise if it wants the benefits of the expanded Eurozone it has to take the downsides too, including sometimes bailing out less productive areas of the currency union. The same as the UK has to, just in a different, more integrated way.

I think we really do need to stop using jargon such as "austerity" and start calling it for what it has always been - just another means of wealth redistribution.

The goal is to exchange the assets of the state (ALL states) for the debt of trans-national capital. Breaking the power of states has been the goal since the death of FDR's "New Deal". States are the only entities with the power (legal and military) to curb the excesses of capital. A state saddled with crippling debt has no power.

The final stage will be the privatization of the military. Once that happens - the game will be up.

Germany might have an argument if they ever get around to repaying the [url=http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/11/germany-owes-greece-11-billion-euros-from-the-nazi-occupation-loan/money loaned to them by Greece during WW2[/url

Quite staggering hypocrisy

The USA has crippling debt but still huge power, which it wields internationally in an almost Orwellian way in order to benefit its businesses.

The US admittedly possesses the most powerful army on the planet. Indeed, it now spends more on defence than at any point during the Cold War - when the opponent (if significantly overblown by the US' own analysts - see Paul Wolfowitz and Team B) really could deliver a smack in the mouth. However, in order to finance these pork barrel projects successive administrations from Reagan have had to cut further and further into the bone. Americans are poorer now than they've been since before the depression.

It doesn't take a genius to realise that this is totally unsustainable. At some point investment will have to fall. And fall in a big way - unless a miracle occurs and somehow they can refloat American manufacturing with all the money they've syphoned out of the country over the last twenty years.

When Donald Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon for his first day as secretary of defence he corralled the staff into the central meeting room and then stunned them with the claim that they were facing a new and insidious threat the likes of which they had never seen. Bottom lips soon smacked off the floor tiles when they discovered this new "enemy" was themselves. Rumsfeld was openly declaring war on the Pentagon! From the outset he slashed whole groups of jobs claiming that the Pentagon was drowning in a sea of bureaucracy. He then opened the military up to the opening round of privatisation. First there came small tactical support units (mostly paramilitary spec-ops). Next to be replaced was the support infrastructure - gleefully picked up by his Halliburton chums (because a Big Mac bought from a Halliburton unit is cheaper than a Big Mac bought from the US Army - or not). Then came "Blackwater" and host of abuses that followed. Then a multi-phased rollout of "off the books" black operators (the history of which you can find between the works of the now sadly - and conveniently - deceased Rolling Stone columnist, Michael Hastings, and "Dirty Wars" creator - Jeremy Scahill). Today privatisation has eaten a good deal out of the US military. And let's not forget the host of para-military police units roaming the streets with the kind of weaponry which might give the Germans defending the Normandy beach cause for concern. This is despite the demonstrable fact that violent crime has been falling in the US for years.

Was Rumsfeld aimlessly reacting to the political realities of the time - or did he have a plan from the outset?

If you have the nerve, and the desire and an open mind (hard for some, but then you never know) read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (ISBN 978-0-141-02453-0).

We live in interesting times.

I've read it. I agree with her on the broad points. But Klein is another one of these weird faux-liberals who on the one hand think the likes of Rumsfeld & Cheney are perfectly capable of deliberately fomenting civil war in Iraq, pitting Shia against Sunni in a classic divide-and-conquer tactic straight out of the Julius Caeser handbook (resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and American servicemen) and yet finds the idea that the very same might have engineered 9/11 in the first place completely inconceivable.

It appears one of the problems of the Greek economy is the lack of a meaningful manufacturing base.

I struggling to see how the new government will correctly address this dire situation? The days of most citizens - government big wigs excluded - being happy with a Moskvich etc. appear to be a distant memory.

As a percentage of GDP Greek manufacturing was 14% of GDP (ours is 12%). They are the third largest manufacturer of marble for example so they do have some manufacturing.

They also have the worlds largest merchant navy and account for 15% of the world's tonnage shipped.



Well like us they don't rely on manufacturing to drive the economy but services (which includes the shipping). If they are stuffed so are we.

No, the major problem with the Greek economy is the systemic corruption at the top of society and the reluctance of the oligarchs to contribute to their own society through taxation.

Not too dissimilar to our own problems really

...and the pleasure that many individuals take in not declaring at least some income for tax, particularly those based in tourism, especially those based in cash transactions, and frankly I don't blame them.

Whatever Greece was doing wasn't working. You get the feeling that the newly elected leadership are genuinely going to try something else. It's an interesting concept, elect a government that will actually do something different, not effectively claim it can do exactly the same as the last one but just a bit better.

If I were an ordinary Greek I would tell the Germans to go **** themselves. They only bankrolled the Greek bailout to protect their f*****g stupid Euro anyway. A single currency with the same value across vastly different economies is frankly rediculous. It's right the Germans should pump money into Greece, if you want a single currency then you should have a single economy- and that means they all stand or fall together.

Should be interesting.

Agree with your last point certainly no trickle down here - the skill is to get a more even spread of wealth without killing the goose that lays the golden egg i.e. Capitalism.

Only if the capitalism is responsible.

That means no Double Irish, or other transfer pricing mechanisms to offshore tax liabilities to cheaper jurisdictions. When capitalists can be shown to be responsible and not systemically duplicitous, then I'll revisit your argument

Don't rule out a silver bullet: Tsipras is the first Greek PM to have NO connections to old Greek money. I hope he's got a kevlar wardrobe

Plane crash. Unknown mechanical failure.

When you absolutely, positively need to rub out pesky nationalist politicians opposed to god-fearing Free Market Capitalism - accept no substitutes.

The vast majority of capitalists are responsible you have a minority who abuse the system. Bankers are a very isolated group of greedy arrogant people whose behaviour needs to be controlled. Unfortunately they are in a fortunate position where very few banks can be let go to the wall, they have it all ways and they know it.

The point of any business is to deliver returns to shareholder/s - where you have differing tax regimes around the world you will encourage a culture of shifting profits to where it can be taxed the least. If it were my business I would do the same and I suggest so would most people given the opportunity.

What is the alternative, no other system has been proved to deliver the overall benefits of Capitalism - yes it has its abuses but so does every other economic system out there but it delivers far greater benefits than any of it rivals

Are you saying that you're comfortable with a multi-national making profits from selling products or services in the UK, using a UK workforce to deliver those services or products and then booking profit to Luxembourg to take advantage of a 1% CT rate?

Transparent, country by country reporting is required and a commitment to pay tax on profits in the country those profits were earned.

A recent example of what can happen when a company's primary focus is on delivering shareholder returns is Tesco: systematically screwing suppliers and employees, offshoring profit and creative accounting principles - all to seemingly keep "the City" happy.

Now that didn't turn out to well did it?

Am I comfortable not really but I understand why its done and until you change the rules then what can you expect. Would you rather that than they take all their business elsewhere and do nothing in the UK?

Agree with your second point and strict IFRS rules about transfer pricing and apportionment of HO costs

Tesco is having a hard time now - it will recover, this has been a good business that has paid huge amounts of CT in the UK. On suppliers nobody forces them to sell to Tesco. Perhaps if all the milk producers got together and set up a co-op then perhaps they would be better off - Tesco et al have to have milk. Most consumers have sympathy for the them I wouldn't mind paying extra as long as the producers got it. Problem is somebody would break the agreement.

Capitalism = Greed.
Capitalism = Something for nothing.
Capitalism can only survive with inflation and be a constant increasing upward spiral with increasing prices.
Capitalism can only work with "credit" i.e imaginary finance that just dosn't exist except as a concept/idea
Capitalism can never be "efficient" to lower costs and improve employees living standards, the desire is to increase profits for the few .
Shareholders are just like the people who go into the bookies. They take a gamble, but have rigged the rules in such a way that their losses, if any, are minimised.
Shareholders sit at home all day watching 40" plasma TV's or out playing and drinking, being subsidised by those who actually do the work.
Shareholders are like people on benefits, wanting something for nothing.
If businesses are making "excessive" profits, then either their prices are too high or they they are not paying the people who create the products enough.
At best it's a crazy system, but it "works" because the "educational system" ensures it works.
Like most, I can live and work within the current system, but that is not to say I condone the current system and cannot say it isn't in the best interest of human beings on the only planet we can all live on.
It's simply greed is the biggest motivator on the planet.
Caring about your fellow human beings? Nah that's some elses job.
We live in interesting times.

Maybe, but I really don't see why HMRC don't just look at the profits in the accounts, and land them with a whopping great tax bill, on the basis if they want to enter into artificial schemes involving associated companies based in an attic in Luxembourg then that's fine, but does not affect their tax. They would have to pay that tax, and if they wanted to appeal through the courts and persuade a judge that it really was all genuine, and not at all an associated companies scam for no purpose other than to save tax, well, crack on, and good luck with that.

"...and the screams of torment at the next shareholders meeting could be heard from every vantage point in the land, and those screaming the loudest were the very ones who had once thought that their job in parliament would lead to riches untold when they took the pension out."