I wish people would stop saying Greece is having austerity forced upon them. They've run out of money and want others to bail them out, nobody is forcing anything on them.
I'm off, feeling as though I have really failed to explain my point even with thousands of words, dispiriting. One last try.
Demands on Greece may be unreasonable, may not, but are irrelevant to moral grandstanding of Greek government about will of their people being ignored as all sides have the right to try to get the best deal for those to whom they are accountable. Therefore syrizia has the right to spout off about a failure to do what they want as undemocratic, but that does not make it make sense, except as political cover and distraction, as the others have no obligation to do what syrizia want even assuming syrizia were right that it would be sensible to do so.
Well, if you think Merkel has the right to say "I'll do this deal with you but I won't do the identical deal with the other fellow" your case stands up. A private citizen has exactly that right. But international law is different.
International law is a joke. Final comment I promise.
Oh, and a word to kle4: I always reckon that if I can't explain my point succinctly then I can't explain it at all.
In my defence I have been writing while lying horizontal in bed, not the most conducive locale for developing an argument onthe fly, but on the whole I would agree with that statement. That said, I tend to use PB to express unfiltered thoughts as it helps me develop them through debate, not a final place for my completed masterworks, so I do not, usually, attempt brevity as I normally would. Throw at the wall and see what sticks
Would you believe my job is all about condensing lengthy words and other information into concise and easily digestible junks?
You really are missing the point Richard. The EZ works on a whole series of rules. When Greece had support from the stability fund it was compliant with those rules and, as such, was entitled to utilise the facilities of the club including the liquidity services of the ECB which allowed their banks to operate.
That is no longer the case. The support scheme ended on Tuesday. The drawing rights have been capped at what has already been borrowed. The Greeks are technically in default (people are being pusillanimous about actually calling it) with the IMF. This means that it would be open to the ECB not to accept the security that Banks have to offer to get liquidity. Greece is de facto out of the Euro right now. The only question to be determined is whether that exclusion is temporary or permanent.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
I am not missing the point at all. I am certainly not supporting Greece in what it is doing because it is pursuing a policy that cannot be resolved without huge pain for the Greek population. But the bottom line is that if you read the treaties they do not allow for Greece to be kicked out - nor to voluntarily leave - the Eurozone. As Philip pointed out there is a get out clause if Greece wanted out which would be for it to leave the EU entirely but even there it can only be a voluntary act. They cannot be pushed out against their will.
The ECB wrote a long paper on this very point back in 2009 which I linked to a few days ago and which highlighted exactly these issues. The express conclusion of that paper was that a country cannot be forced out of the Eurozone nor the EU against its wishes.
Of course there are de facto considerations but they will not be legally enforceable and the only way this can be resolved if the Greeks do not vote YES on Sunday is for there to be a new Eurozone treaty. Any other course of action that leads to Greece being 'expelled' will be in breach of the treaties.
The Eurocrisis has been the beginning of the end of the Delors-era EU
Goodness how many more times will we hear versions of this tired formulation?
'The EU is moving our way', 'Maastricht puts the break on Federalism' (remember that one), 'The wider EU will have to be a looser one' etc. etc....people parroting these lines are the ones who are deluded, not the Greeks. Or just being disingenuous.
You really are missing the point Richard. The EZ works on a whole series of rules. When Greece had support from the stability fund it was compliant with those rules and, as such, was entitled to utilise the facilities of the club including the liquidity services of the ECB which allowed their banks to operate.
That is no longer the case. The support scheme ended on Tuesday. The drawing rights have been capped at what has already been borrowed. The Greeks are technically in default (people are being pusillanimous about actually calling it) with the IMF. This means that it would be open to the ECB not to accept the security that Banks have to offer to get liquidity. Greece is de facto out of the Euro right now. The only question to be determined is whether that exclusion is temporary or permanent.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
I am not missing the point at all. I am certainly not supporting Greece in what it is doing because it is pursuing a policy that cannot be resolved without huge pain for the Greek population. But the bottom line is that if you read the treaties they do not allow for Greece to be kicked out - nor to voluntarily leave - the Eurozone. As Philip pointed out there is a get out clause if Greece wanted out which would be for it to leave the EU entirely but even there it can only be a voluntary act. They cannot be pushed out against their will.
The ECB wrote a long paper on this very point back in 2009 which I linked to a few days ago and which highlighted exactly these issues. The express conclusion of that paper was that a country cannot be forced out of the Eurozone nor the EU against its wishes.
Of course there are de facto considerations but they will not be legally enforceable and the only way this can be resolved if the Greeks do not vote YES on Sunday is for there to be a new Eurozone treaty. Any other course of action that leads to Greece being 'expelled' will be in breach of the treaties.
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
David, why do you presume that Syriza will lose the election that will follow a "yes" vote? I presume the opposite (unless it's a landslide). The Greeks want both the Euro and Syriza.
But the Euro isn't the Euro, really. It's a form of German imperialism, an E-mark, less bloody than Panzers and stormtroopers, no doubt, but designed to achieve the same outcome. So let me ask you, David (and others of your kidney): which would you prefer to govern Greece - a democratically elected Syriza or a dictatorship (colonels, perhaps) that followed economic policies you like the look of?
There are a few reasons, which interlock. If the Greek electorate have voted Yes then that is a recognition of the reality that Syriza's policies are not viable. You can't force other countries to keep you in a style to which you wish to be accustomed. Voting Yes is a slap in Syriza's face and an endorsement - grudging perhaps - of the previous ND-Pasok regime. It ought to prompt a swing in voting intention to mirror the endorsement of the centre and the rejection of the extremes.
At the same time, a Yes would badly damage Syriza's internal unity. The party only came together as such within the last few years, being a coalition of independent groups before that. Nor are their members that used to the disciplines of office; they are largely campaign politicians who found themselves in power. People on here have said Britain has no equivalent. That's true, although Respect in the post-Iraq years wouldn't be a million miles off - but look what happened afterwards. If Tsipras' and Varoufakis' tactics fail, what will keep their coalition together? For that matter, can either survive at the head of their party.
Finally, given the almost certainty of Syriza resigning office in the face of a Yes, there'll be a new government in place. That might be ND-led or might be a caretaker one as after May 2012. Either way, I'd anticipate the EU coming quite quickly to terms on a new agreement - provisional perhaps, depending on ratification after the election, for the simple reason that it wouldn't be in their interests not to. That would further strengthen the centrists' hands.
Re your second question, I dispute your assertion about the intent of German dominance. Germany is dominant because (1) it is big and (2) it is successful. No-one else could perform that role and so it has to assume it. But having lent getting on more than anyone else, it's inevitable that it should take the lead of the creditor states. But to answer you directly, I generally believe in democracy. The colonels might be better for people's pockets in the short term but a nation's success can only be delivered by the people themselves and so a dictatorship working against a national culture will have little more success than a democracy. What needs to change is the culture, not the system of governance.
I'm also on "no" for various reasons. Metron Analysis who have conducted the most extensive polls found that the "yes" vote had momentum up to Thursday but from then on the trend seems to be halted, if not reversed. The outcome will most certainly depend on turnout with pensioners most inclined to vote "yes" and other social groups voting overwhelmingly "no" - one poll has 87% of students voting "no."
This assertion is not correct: "Furthermore, at the last election, the main parties actively, if independently, advocating No polled 52.8% between them (you can’t call as disparate a group as the communist KKE, the radical leftist Syriza, the populist-nationalist ANEL and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn a ‘coalition’ or ‘alliance’). By contrast, those advocating Yes, the conservative New Democracy, centrist Potami and social democrats Pasok only polled 38.5%. (The rest of the 2015 vote went to parties who failed to make it to parliament)."
The communist KKE is actively campaigning for people to spoil their ballots. They're portraying it as a choice between austerity by Tsipras and more austerity by the creditors. You can check for yourself here:
It is true that polls are showing that their supporters will largely back "no" but that isn't the party's official position. At the end of the day, the KKE isn't that relevant (anymore) but in a tight election, any vote may make a difference so let's get the facts straight.
My apologies. I'd seen a report that had the KKE as supporting No, which given what you've said was perhaps a misinterpretation on their part of their being opposed. (It would admittedly be quite unusual for the KKE to actually support anything). I was aware that they were opposed to the referendum being held at all but then so were Pasok and Potami on the grounds of it being unconstitutional (or perhaps because they didn't want to have to campaign for the wrong side of the dividing line - if the Lib Dems were smashed by coalition with the centre-right, just look what it's done for Pasok!). Still, as the centre has accepted the decision of the courts, I assumed the report on the KKE's referendum stance was similar, though obviously on the other side.
What would we say if German had said of the EU negotiations, that they were only prepared to negotiate if a) the LDs formed the government or b) Ken Clarke was the leader of the Conservatives ? I suspect we might tell them to sod off, and who we chose to elect was none of their business.
Yes but we wouldn't have said "give us more money" at the same time. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Not always. As the old adage goes, owe the bank a thousand, and you have a problem. Owe the bank a million, and the bank has a problem.
Like a family having a vote on what they wanted to watch on the box the week before, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the TV schedule is actually determined by the bosses at the broadcaster, hundreds of miles away.
Slightly imperfect because for the big bosses are actually going to listen to the result of the vote, but that certainly doesn't mean they feel under any obligation to deliver what is being asked for.
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
And so will entrench anti-EU feeling even more in Greece.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU? And what about when the Greeks decide to use their veto on every piece of EU legislation not covered by QMV?
The amount of pain that the Greeks can cause for the EU if they decide they have nothing left to lose is immense. It might seem outlandish but no more than the idea of the Eurozone trying to starve a country into regime change which is in effect what you are advocating.
I'm off, feeling as though I have really failed to explain my point even with thousands of words, dispiriting. One last try.
Demands on Greece may be unreasonable, may not, but are irrelevant to moral grandstanding of Greek government about will of their people being ignored as all sides have the right to try to get the best deal for those to whom they are accountable. Therefore syrizia has the right to spout off about a failure to do what they want as undemocratic, but that does not make it make sense, except as political cover and distraction, as the others have no obligation to do what syrizia want even assuming syrizia were right that it would be sensible to do so.
kle4, I understand what you are saying. They can whinge all they like but nobody has to keep lending them cash just because they ask for it and whine. They are at the end of the rope.
"Furthermore, there’s a real risk of Greece not only leaving the Eurozone but the EU itself."
Again as I have been asking all along, exactly how do you expect this to happen given that there is no legal way under the current treaties that Greece can be expelled either from the Eurozone or the EU?
Any attempt to push Greece out of the EU would be in breech of the TFEU given that it would need Greece itself, as a signatory, to agree to leave under article 50.
There is not even a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, either voluntarily or being forced out.
There is a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, which is to leave the EU itself. You're right that the EU can't expel a member. However, if a member were causing such disruption and so disregarding of the Union's rules - and also in desperate need of the EU's help - that it would be a relatively easy matter to encourage that member to jump. There would be no need to push. The choice would be simple: play by the rules or leave.
Now, you can argue that the rules aren't fair, are being disproportionately applied or that they're causing misery across Greece but that's all beside the point. My impression is that patience has worn out in the creditor countries with the Greek government. In the event of a No, that lack of patience would probably transfer to being with the Greek people too.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:
The only specific policy he mentioned was that there would be no role for Lord Rennard. He then went into a rambling defence around his failure to deal with Rennard, the extract below exudes incompetence and goes along way to explaining why the LibDems are in such trouble:
" On Lord Rennard , Mr Farron blamed a "lack of professionalism and a naivety in dealing" with the allegations. That, he said, "let everyone down, that includes Chris Rennard and that includes certainly the women". But, he added: "I would not be appointing him to any position of any kind whatsoever should I be leader. "
He said he believed in forgiveness, "But I also believe that the women involved are the people who - it is not for me to forgive, it is for them to forgive. It's not been done to me. " A party inquiry by an independent barrister concluded last year that while the women's claims were "broadly credible" they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. "
"Furthermore, there’s a real risk of Greece not only leaving the Eurozone but the EU itself."
Again as I have been asking all along, exactly how do you expect this to happen given that there is no legal way under the current treaties that Greece can be expelled either from the Eurozone or the EU?
Any attempt to push Greece out of the EU would be in breech of the TFEU given that it would need Greece itself, as a signatory, to agree to leave under article 50.
There is not even a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, either voluntarily or being forced out.
There is a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, which is to leave the EU itself. You're right that the EU can't expel a member. However, if a member were causing such disruption and so disregarding of the Union's rules - and also in desperate need of the EU's help - that it would be a relatively easy matter to encourage that member to jump. There would be no need to push. The choice would be simple: play by the rules or leave.
Now, you can argue that the rules aren't fair, are being disproportionately applied or that they're causing misery across Greece but that's all beside the point. My impression is that patience has worn out in the creditor countries with the Greek government. In the event of a No, that lack of patience would probably transfer to being with the Greek people too.
The choice of 'play by the rules or leave' is incorrect. Greece would be perfectly entitled to not play by the rules and stay. It would be stupid perhaps but it would be possible and at this point 'stupid' seems to be the direction of choice for almost all the players in this crisis.
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU?
It would be pretty easy to make entry extremely difficult for anyone bearing a Greek passport or Athens issued Visa. 'See you in Court' would be the response to any whining.
Countries bordering Greece would be installing security fences pretty swiftly.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Hmm, not very impressive so far. The banks are shut and his country has run out of money. Hardly a winning hand.
It's like the chap in the first Indiana Jones movie, who made a big show of his fancy sword swinging, only to be shot by the star of film as soon as he'd got to the end of the routine.
I'm off, feeling as though I have really failed to explain my point even with thousands of words, dispiriting. One last try.
Demands on Greece may be unreasonable, may not, but are irrelevant to moral grandstanding of Greek government about will of their people being ignored as all sides have the right to try to get the best deal for those to whom they are accountable. Therefore syrizia has the right to spout off about a failure to do what they want as undemocratic, but that does not make it make sense, except as political cover and distraction, as the others have no obligation to do what syrizia want even assuming syrizia were right that it would be sensible to do so.
Well, if you think Merkel has the right to say "I'll do this deal with you but I won't do the identical deal with the other fellow" your case stands up. A private citizen has exactly that right. But international law is different.
No it's not. Any country is free (in theory) to choose who it treats with. As with banks, who a country lends to has to take into account the reliability and record of the borrower.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Hmm. The banks are shut and his country has run out of money. Hardly a winning hand.
And that nice Mr. Putin would like access to a major European port.
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
And so will entrench anti-EU feeling even more in Greece.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU? And what about when the Greeks decide to use their veto on every piece of EU legislation not covered by QMV?
The amount of pain that the Greeks can cause for the EU if they decide they have nothing left to lose is immense. It might seem outlandish but no more than the idea of the Eurozone trying to starve a country into regime change which is in effect what you are advocating.
Sure, but the argument that it is not the Greeks themselves who have made that choice is fatuous.
I really fear for what will happen next. I have, in a slightly alarmist way, been speculating on here that the EU may well have over 1m Greek refugees to deal with, let along refugees from anywhere else.
I fear we are about to see the collapse of an economy in an advanced modern state for the first time with not only no banks but no fuel, no food (they import 50%), no medication, no wages for public services such as transport and airports, no one turning up at sewage plants and, increasingly in a country where so much is pumped, no water.
Greece threatening to veto legislation is the least of the EU's problems. We should also think about how many Greeks second language is English.
Was it a golfer (or a cricketer?) who said 'the more I practice, the luckier I get.' The more Cameron persists in doing the right thing, the 'luckier' he gets' The left will howl and moan at the changes in IHT rules and the changes to housing benefits and tax credits - they will continue to play petty short term politics and pick 'unlucky' leaders - but as long as the tories do the right thing then they will weather each storm as it arises.
Your comments Mr Herdson about the right thing to do re the EU is apt. Cameron has been consistent and he is right about his approach to the EU.
Was it a golfer (or a cricketer?) who said 'the more I practice, the luckier I get.' The more Cameron persists in doing the right thing, the 'luckier' he gets' The left will howl and moan at the changes in IHT rules and the changes to housing benefits and tax credits - they will continue to play petty short term politics and pick 'unlucky' leaders - but as long as the tories do the right thing then they will weather each storm as it arises.
Your comments Mr Herdson about the right thing to do re the EU is apt. Cameron has been consistent and he is right about his approach to the EU.
The Eurocrisis has been the beginning of the end of the Delors-era EU
Goodness how many more times will we hear versions of this tired formulation?
'The EU is moving our way', 'Maastricht puts the break on Federalism' (remember that one), 'The wider EU will have to be a looser one' etc. etc....people parroting these lines are the ones who are deluded, not the Greeks. Or just being disingenuous.
Why it is different this time is that it is not politicians' agreements that are shaping events but that politicians are having to react to events forced on them by bigger forces.
Now, I accept that the logical consequences of that may take some time to sink in in the Commission but policies that have had to be adopted to cope with the events of 2008 and after have so completely undermined the social regulation programme that it too has no choice but to move in the same direction, not least because member states having to cut their cloth will require it.
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU?
It would be pretty easy to make entry extremely difficult for anyone bearing a Greek passport or Athens issued Visa. 'See you in Court' would be the response to any whining.
Countries bordering Greece would be installing security fences pretty swiftly.
Agreed. But it again emphasises the hand grenade Greece can throw into the EU.
Either way, I'd anticipate the EU coming quite quickly to terms on a new agreement - provisional perhaps, depending on ratification after the election, for the simple reason that it wouldn't be in their interests not to. That would further strengthen the centrists' hands.
Although making ratification conditional on the results of the election would lead the supporters open to the accusation of being Germany's stooges
I'd expect a government of national unity (basically all of the opposition), even, if a minority to assume power and sign an agreement PDQ. Then have the election and if SYRIZIA is re-elected (which, a la Scotland, I'd see as a real possibility assuming they don't fall apart) and if they go back on their promises after the election...well, they already have the money...
What needs to change is the culture, not the system of governance.
My understanding - although it's a long time since I've discussed Greek politics with my contacts down there, and they have a very international mindset so aren't really representative - is that the civil war was never really resolved, but was only an uneasy truce. Effectively the 25% of population who supported the junta were allowed to redomicile all their money to Switzerland to avoid tax. And the 25% who supported the Communists were promised jobs and pensions for life, paid for by the state. All of this cost was borne by the 50% in the middle who were neither rich or connected enough to one side or the other to benefit.
Of course, a system where 50% of the population leeches off the rest - even before you consider the normal government spending - is not sustainable in the long term. I'm just impressed they managed to keep the balls in the air for so long!
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Don't make me laugh. Game theory? Yet another subject in which PB know-alls like to rabbit on about nodding sagely as they go. http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory ''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
Not so. All that will happen if they vote No is that they will continue to be excluded from the ECB facilities because they do not comply with the rules for using them.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
And so will entrench anti-EU feeling even more in Greece.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU? And what about when the Greeks decide to use their veto on every piece of EU legislation not covered by QMV?
The amount of pain that the Greeks can cause for the EU if they decide they have nothing left to lose is immense. It might seem outlandish but no more than the idea of the Eurozone trying to starve a country into regime change which is in effect what you are advocating.
Sure, but the argument that it is not the Greeks themselves who have made that choice is fatuous.
I really fear for what will happen next. I have, in a slightly alarmist way, been speculating on here that the EU may well have over 1m Greek refugees to deal with, let along refugees from anywhere else.
I fear we are about to see the collapse of an economy in an advanced modern state for the first time with not only no banks but no fuel, no food (they import 50%), no medication, no wages for public services such as transport and airports, no one turning up at sewage plants and, increasingly in a country where so much is pumped, no water.
Greece threatening to veto legislation is the least of the EU's problems. We should also think about how many Greeks second language is English.
Sounds like yet another good reason to leave.
And do think it is interesting to look back at the 1953 London Conference on German debt when the creditor nations agreed to half German debt and, more importantly, to limit repayments to a percentage it to 3% of their export earnings. Greece was one of those creditor countries.
"Furthermore, there’s a real risk of Greece not only leaving the Eurozone but the EU itself."
Again as I have been asking all along, exactly how do you expect this to happen given that there is no legal way under the current treaties that Greece can be expelled either from the Eurozone or the EU?
Any attempt to push Greece out of the EU would be in breech of the TFEU given that it would need Greece itself, as a signatory, to agree to leave under article 50.
There is not even a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, either voluntarily or being forced out.
There is a mechanism for a country to leave the Eurozone, which is to leave the EU itself. You're right that the EU can't expel a member. However, if a member were causing such disruption and so disregarding of the Union's rules - and also in desperate need of the EU's help - that it would be a relatively easy matter to encourage that member to jump. There would be no need to push. The choice would be simple: play by the rules or leave.
Now, you can argue that the rules aren't fair, are being disproportionately applied or that they're causing misery across Greece but that's all beside the point. My impression is that patience has worn out in the creditor countries with the Greek government. In the event of a No, that lack of patience would probably transfer to being with the Greek people too.
The choice of 'play by the rules or leave' is incorrect. Greece would be perfectly entitled to not play by the rules and stay. It would be stupid perhaps but it would be possible and at this point 'stupid' seems to be the direction of choice for almost all the players in this crisis.
No-one has a choice to not play by the rules and then insist that those same rules apply to others.
In any case, it doesn't matter. The EU and ECB have enough sanctions available to force the matter if the Greek government or people insist on playing silly beggars.
Was it a golfer (or a cricketer?) who said 'the more I practice, the luckier I get.' The more Cameron persists in doing the right thing, the 'luckier' he gets' The left will howl and moan at the changes in IHT rules and the changes to housing benefits and tax credits - they will continue to play petty short term politics and pick 'unlucky' leaders - but as long as the tories do the right thing then they will weather each storm as it arises.
Your comments Mr Herdson about the right thing to do re the EU is apt. Cameron has been consistent and he is right about his approach to the EU.
Gary Player I think.
Yes. I had to cut that reference too (and a Napoleon one).
Fact is that luck is only half the equation which is why there can be world champions in bridge and poker and the like. What you do with the hand you're dealt matters a good deal more. And as in sport, being in the right position to capitalise on luck when it comes your way is a significant prerequisite to that - and being there is a matter of skill.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Hmm. The banks are shut and his country has run out of money. Hardly a winning hand.
And that nice Mr. Putin would like access to a major European port.
Seems like a good hand to me.
The Russians do not have the money to spare, no matter what Mr Putin might like. Tsipras' trip to Moscow was more game-playing. If he were serious about raising cash elsewhere he'd be touring the Middle East and China.
The mood of the German electorate means Merkel has no other choice
Merkel has hardly covered herself in glory during this affair. She is capable of being indecisive indefinitely.
To put some comments on the thread in perspective, the German electorate aren't reacting strongly - indeed, their voting intentions remain remarkably unchanged since the last election (the right hand column is the previous result, all the others are recent polls, pink ones most recent): It's hard to look at those numbers and get the impression that anything is happening at all.
Let us not forget also that Angela Merkel has said that she will not accept any deal with Syriza - even one that its political opponents would agree to. She'll only negotiate with a Greek government she likes the look of. It isn't only the Greeks who are playing with fire.
I dion't think she's said that - link? She merely said she didn't want to resume talks till after the referendum.
No-one has a choice to not play by the rules and then insist that those same rules apply to others.
In any case, it doesn't matter. The EU and ECB have enough sanctions available to force the matter if the Greek government or people insist on playing silly beggars.
I am talking simply in treaty terms. The EU (mistakenly) relies upon everyone agreeing to the same basic principles within the treaty terms. But it is perfectly possible to remain within the treaty terms and play by a different set of rules and principles. In that case then whole system becomes untenable. It just depends on how desperate one side or the other becomes.
I am not advocating this, simply pointing out that the cosy assumption that everyone will stick to the spirit as well as the letter of the law is flawed. This has been apparent for decades with the way certain countries openly ignore EU and Eurozone rules but it is quietly ignored or fudged. This will only work for so long and it is now becoming apparent that it is untenable but the EU and the Eurozone have no real answer to it.
Either way, I'd anticipate the EU coming quite quickly to terms on a new agreement - provisional perhaps, depending on ratification after the election, for the simple reason that it wouldn't be in their interests not to. That would further strengthen the centrists' hands.
Although making ratification conditional on the results of the election would lead the supporters open to the accusation of being Germany's stooges
I'd expect a government of national unity (basically all of the opposition), even, if a minority to assume power and sign an agreement PDQ. Then have the election and if SYRIZIA is re-elected (which, a la Scotland, I'd see as a real possibility assuming they don't fall apart) and if they go back on their promises after the election...well, they already have the money...
What needs to change is the culture, not the system of governance.
My understanding - although it's a long time since I've discussed Greek politics with my contacts down there, and they have a very international mindset so aren't really representative - is that the civil war was never really resolved, but was only an uneasy truce. Effectively the 25% of population who supported the junta were allowed to redomicile all their money to Switzerland to avoid tax. And the 25% who supported the Communists were promised jobs and pensions for life, paid for by the state. All of this cost was borne by the 50% in the middle who were neither rich or connected enough to one side or the other to benefit.
Of course, a system where 50% of the population leeches off the rest - even before you consider the normal government spending - is not sustainable in the long term. I'm just impressed they managed to keep the balls in the air for so long!
I agree that there'd be risk involved in making an agreement dependent on ratification after an election but it's hardly coercion when one side would be entering the election intent on reneging on the conditions. Any lender would demand security against their loan and a Greek government facing imminent elections couldn't provide it. A week-to-week deal could keep thing ticking over until a new government was in place.
Interesting comments re the Civil War but that's decades ago now and what might have been a tactical necessity at the time looks to have become entrenched privilege and entitlement. Time for it to change.
I am not advocating this, simply pointing out that the cosy assumption that everyone will stick to the spirit as well as the letter of the law is flawed. This has been apparent for decades with the way certain countries openly ignore EU and Eurozone rules but it is quietly ignored or fudged. This will only work for so long and it is now becoming apparent that it is untenable but the EU and the Eurozone have no real answer to it.
That's because the whole thing is utterly mad and always had been!
And so will entrench anti-EU feeling even more in Greece.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU? And what about when the Greeks decide to use their veto on every piece of EU legislation not covered by QMV?
The amount of pain that the Greeks can cause for the EU if they decide they have nothing left to lose is immense. It might seem outlandish but no more than the idea of the Eurozone trying to starve a country into regime change which is in effect what you are advocating.
Sure, but the argument that it is not the Greeks themselves who have made that choice is fatuous.
I really fear for what will happen next. I have, in a slightly alarmist way, been speculating on here that the EU may well have over 1m Greek refugees to deal with, let along refugees from anywhere else.
I fear we are about to see the collapse of an economy in an advanced modern state for the first time with not only no banks but no fuel, no food (they import 50%), no medication, no wages for public services such as transport and airports, no one turning up at sewage plants and, increasingly in a country where so much is pumped, no water.
Greece threatening to veto legislation is the least of the EU's problems. We should also think about how many Greeks second language is English.
Sounds like yet another good reason to leave.
And do think it is interesting to look back at the 1953 London Conference on German debt when the creditor nations agreed to half German debt and, more importantly, to limit repayments to a percentage it to 3% of their export earnings. Greece was one of those creditor countries.
On that we are in agreement. The ECB has been building up its capital reserves very considerably for no obvious reasons. I had hoped it was to "fund" a much more generous settlement that would cut Greek debt to a sustainable level but there is no sign of it. The deals to Greece to date have been completely pointless because they have not adequately addressed the solvency issue by cancelling adequate quantities of debt.
The Greek leadership have behaved like complete loons but when their Finance Minster said the other day he did not want to sign any deal which did not involve debt forgiveness I think he was right. All it does is kick the can further down a rocky and painful road.
The mood of the German electorate means Merkel has no other choice
Merkel has hardly covered herself in glory during this affair. She is capable of being indecisive indefinitely.
Which is why I name-checked Schäuble rather than her. Schäuble is currently his country's most popular politician, though only a little ahead of the chancellor.
Was it a golfer (or a cricketer?) who said 'the more I practice, the luckier I get.' The more Cameron persists in doing the right thing, the 'luckier' he gets' The left will howl and moan at the changes in IHT rules and the changes to housing benefits and tax credits - they will continue to play petty short term politics and pick 'unlucky' leaders - but as long as the tories do the right thing then they will weather each storm as it arises.
Your comments Mr Herdson about the right thing to do re the EU is apt. Cameron has been consistent and he is right about his approach to the EU.
Gary Player I think.
Yes. I had to cut that reference too (and a Napoleon one).
Fact is that luck is only half the equation which is why there can be world champions in bridge and poker and the like. What you do with the hand you're dealt matters a good deal more. And as in sport, being in the right position to capitalise on luck when it comes your way is a significant prerequisite to that - and being there is a matter of skill.
You need to be doing the right thing the right thing the right thing. As Richie Benaud explained about his leg break bowling - he practiced endlessly against a wall in his yard at home so that he could bowl the standard leg break all the time.
I remember the Marshall Plan. We executed the guilty and helped the innocent. Around about the time of the Marshall plan, we were in Greece intervening militarily in the civil war.
Interesting comments re the Civil War but that's decades ago now and what might have been a tactical necessity at the time looks to have become entrenched privilege and entitlement. Time for it to change.
To put it in perspective, they only renamed it the Civil War in the 1980s. Prior to that it was described as the Communist Uprising...
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:'
A good synopsis.
'"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
I would be more sympathetic to the Greek government (I am very fond of the Greek people) if they needed assistance to transition to a more sustainable economy. At the moment giving Greece more money is like giving an alcoholic another bottle of whisky.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Greece should have been given more money five years ago, it should have defaulted and left the Euro. The money from the EU is not benefiting the Greeks in the slightest, its going to benefit banks that made poor commercial decisions in lending to the Greeks and should pay the full commercial penalty for their poor judgement.
If the Euro cannot survive a few banks going bust for making poor decisions that says much more about the viability of the euro as a currency than it does about anything else. All that has happened is that Greece has increased its debt pile, and devastated its standard of living to support some businesses that rightly should have gone to the wall for the poor decisions they took.
I am a small businessman, I have been for 30 years, if I make a bad decision my business goes to the wall, but it seems if you are a big business your bad decisions are backstopped by the government, and yet you get to keep all the profits of your good (or lucky) decisions.
Congratulations on discovering how capitalism works. Eventually.
Not entirely, Lehmans, Enron, Woolworths, Comet, City Link, HMV all big businesses of some description which have gone bust in recent years
'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:'
A good synopsis.
'"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
I never claim to know much about politics, and in that regard I'm probably a better litmus test than the more informed on here. Sad but true.
The Greeks like Syriza and their leaders because they stand up for Greece, illogical or not. That's the same reason that Bob Crow was popular with his members. The other reason politicians are voted in is image, pure and simple, a fact that the committed supporters choose to ignore.
The British Labour party is a prime example.
A hundred speeches is worth less than a still photo. Michael Foot was renowned as an orator. Fat lot of good it did him – he looked like Worzel Gummidge. Churchill was an orator but in 1945, he looked and sounded like like yesterday’s man.
Gordon did well as a background boy as but once elected to PM, he turned into Mr Bean (Vince was right). Ed didn’t turn into Mr Bean, he was always Mr Bean and the Labour party refused to believe their own eyes.
Corbyn is Michael Foot, Cooper might become PM-like but currently she’s a hectoring mumbler. That leaves Burnham and Kendall. Burnham is a little nondescript but that image did Major no harm. Kendall is a definite runner but as always, Labour will concentrate on the words and not the image., so they’ll make the wrong decision.
Syriza may have illogical policies but they are popular because they have leaders with a good image and they're standing up for their voters.
Politics is much simpler than people make out.
Very good analysis, image is very important in politics and has helped Tsipras. I also agree Burnham and Kendall are the best bets for Labour and the polling backs that up
I think the Greeks should get a lot more debt forgiveness.
And should make a lot more restructuring of their problems in return.
Get it over with and move on.
This is entirely sensible, which means it probably won't happen.
The complicating factor is that, on say, pensions, the Greeks have actually resolved many of the problms for new entrants. But they're sitting on a stock of historical mistakes.
Someone highlighted access to the professions and the state of competition in particular markets before, I don't know about them.
I think the Greeks should get a lot more debt forgiveness.
And should make a lot more restructuring of their problems in return.
Get it over with and move on.
This is entirely sensible, which means it probably won't happen.
If they get debt forgiveness, why would they then reform? On the other hand, if they reform, they don't need debt forgiveness: their debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than several other countries that have recovered and indeed, before Syriza took over, was falling in Greece - if briefly - off the back of the growth that had finally returned.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Don't make me laugh. Game theory? Yet another subject in which PB know-alls like to rabbit on about nodding sagely as they go. http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory ''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
If you read the article you linked to, you will see its first sentence is "Two MSU researchers quashed a spin on evolutionary game theory from 2012 that held coercion as a more favorable action than cooperation."
They didn't debunk game theory but a spin on game theory that favoured coersion rather than cooperation.
A really good introduction to game theory is Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation that has some fascinating real life examples. It is relevant to diplomacy, business negotiations, MAD, biology.
In a one-off game, defection/coercion is the rational strategy but it leads to lose/lose.
In a series of games, tit for tat is the rational strategy and it generally leads to cooperation and win/win after a stuttering start.
Is the EU/SYRIZIA game a one-off game or a sequence of games? We shall see.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
I would be more sympathetic to the Greek government (I am very fond of the Greek people) if they needed assistance to transition to a more sustainable economy. At the moment giving Greece more money is like giving an alcoholic another bottle of whisky.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Greece should have been given more money five years ago, it should have defaulted and left the Euro. The money from the EU is not benefiting the Greeks in the slightest, its going to benefit banks that made poor commercial decisions in lending to the Greeks and should pay the full commercial penalty for their poor judgement.
If the Euro cannot survive a few banks going bust for making poor decisions that says much more about the viability of the euro as a currency than it does about anything else. All that has happened is that Greece has increased its debt pile, and devastated its standard of living to support some businesses that rightly should have gone to the wall for the poor decisions they took.
I am a small businessman, I have been for 30 years, if I make a bad decision my business goes to the wall, but it seems if you are a big business your bad decisions are backstopped by the government, and yet you get to keep all the profits of your good (or lucky) decisions.
Congratulations on discovering how capitalism works. Eventually.
Not entirely, Lehmans, Enron, Woolworths, Comet, City Link, HMV all big businesses of some description which have gone bust in recent years
They didn't have the right friends in government
The critical difference being none of them hold the mortgages of tens of thousands of voters.
How did Syriza go from an electoral mandate, high hopes and much mainstream economic support to this total mess?
On one level, their policy offer always seemed impossible: end austerity, get a debt write down and keep the euro was a combination that always seemed unlikely. But with support for the Euro high, that's what they offered.
Fundamentally this seems to have been a huge strategic miscalculation. Syriza's economic-diplomacy was based on three assumptions. Three assumptions that have all been proved false.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
The single market in the US works because of massive mobility of labour supported by a common language. The US destroys and then creates again more than 5 million jobs a month - with thankfully job creation outstripping job destruction.
The same cannot be said for the EU because it is not a single market. It is a whole series of separate small markets linked - in some cases only in the most fragile of ways - by bridges.
To put it into perspective, the US jobs turnover is about 3.5% per month. The EU jobs turnover is less than 1% per year.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Don't make me laugh. Game theory? Yet another subject in which PB know-alls like to rabbit on about nodding sagely as they go. http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory ''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
If you read the article you linked to, you will see its first sentence is "Two MSU researchers quashed a spin on evolutionary game theory from 2012 that held coercion as a more favorable action than cooperation."
....
Is the EU/SYRIZIA game a one-off game or a sequence of games? We shall see.
I am considering writing a bot, it checks PB for posts that conflict with current Tory policy, puts the key words for that in Google, then pastes the link and the first paragraph for the first couple of entries into PB, what could we call it
There is a good introduction to Games Theory, "Games Theory: A Critical Introduction", written by one Y. Varoufakis (and others)
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Don't make me laugh. Game theory? Yet another subject in which PB know-alls like to rabbit on about nodding sagely as they go. http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory ''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
If you read the article you linked to, you will see its first sentence is "Two MSU researchers quashed a spin on evolutionary game theory from 2012 that held coercion as a more favorable action than cooperation."
They didn't debunk game theory but a spin on game theory that favoured coersion rather than cooperation.
A really good introduction to game theory is Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation that has some fascinating real life examples. It is relevant to diplomacy, business negotiations, MAD, biology.
In a one-off game, defection/coercion is the rational strategy but it leads to lose/lose.
In a series of games, tit for tat is the rational strategy and it generally leads to cooperation and win/win after a stuttering start.
Is the EU/SYRIZIA game a one-off game or a sequence of games? We shall see.
It's a one-off game for Syriza; its a sequence for the EU and IMF.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
The single market in the US works because of massive mobility of labour supported by a common language. The US destroys and then creates again more than 5 million jobs a month - with thankfully job creation outstripping job destruction.
The same cannot be said for the EU because it is not a single market. It is a whole series of separate small markets linked - in some cases only in the most fragile of ways - by bridges.
To put it into perspective, the US jobs turnover is about 3.5% per month. The EU jobs turnover is less than 1% per year.
Edit: posted too quickly. That should have been 'less than 5% per year' for the EU.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
This recent claim that the EU is not a free trade area but a customs Union is an entirely bogus distinction presumably designed to make some anti EU point.
From an internal perspective it is nonsense. For those inside it is a free trade area. The EU is, however, not only a free trade area but seeks to regulate its members external relations as well making it a customs union, a sort of free trade plus. To say it is not a free trade area, however, is false.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Don't make me laugh. Game theory? Yet another subject in which PB know-alls like to rabbit on about nodding sagely as they go. http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory ''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
If you read the article you linked to, you will see its first sentence is "Two MSU researchers quashed a spin on evolutionary game theory from 2012 that held coercion as a more favorable action than cooperation."
....
Is the EU/SYRIZIA game a one-off game or a sequence of games? We shall see.
I am considering writing a bot, it checks PB for posts that conflict with current Tory policy, puts the key words for that in Google, then pastes the link and the first paragraph for the first couple of entries into PB, what could we call it
There is a good introduction to Games Theory, "Games Theory: A Critical Introduction", written by one Y. Varoufakis (and others)
I wonder how many copies the German government own.
Indigo You are right on that (though Lehmans was heavily involved in Credit Default Swaps and had some notable politicians linked to it, including Jeb Bush who joined Lehmans as an adviser in its private equity group in 2007)
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
This recent claim that the EU is not a free trade area but a customs Union is an entirely bogus distinction presumably designed to make some anti EU point.
From an internal perspective it is nonsense. For those inside it is a free trade area. The EU is, however, not only a free trade area but seeks to regulate its members external relations as well making it a customs union, a sort of free trade plus. To say it is not a free trade area, however, is false.
A customs union is a free trade area with a common external tariff. Countries in a free trade area do not have common external tariff but are, rather, free to negotiate their own trading arrangements with the rest of the world. The EU is a Customs Union.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
The single market in the US works because of massive mobility of labour supported by a common language. The US destroys and then creates again more than 5 million jobs a month - with thankfully job creation outstripping job destruction.
The same cannot be said for the EU because it is not a single market. It is a whole series of separate small markets linked - in some cases only in the most fragile of ways - by bridges.
To put it into perspective, the US jobs turnover is about 3.5% per month. The EU jobs turnover is less than 1% per year.
Edit: posted too quickly. That should have been 'less than 5% per year' for the EU.
Are you sure? That would suggest that most people only have time for two jobs in their career.
None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything?
Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this.
etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
The single market in the US works because of massive mobility of labour supported by a common language. The US destroys and then creates again more than 5 million jobs a month - with thankfully job creation outstripping job destruction.
The same cannot be said for the EU because it is not a single market. It is a whole series of separate small markets linked - in some cases only in the most fragile of ways - by bridges.
To put it into perspective, the US jobs turnover is about 3.5% per month. The EU jobs turnover is less than 1% per year.
Edit: posted too quickly. That should have been 'less than 5% per year' for the EU.
Are you sure? That would suggest that most people only have time for two jobs in their career.
Do you have a source for that?
There is a mass of detail to be found on the subject here:
The graph on page 25 has the job finding and job separation rates. Job finding is currently running at about 6% a year whilst job separation rates are running at around 1% a year. Overall the mobility is somewhere under 5%.
Just when Labour might be ale to exploit Heathrow/tax credits/whatever everything the public already fears about Labour is going to hit the headlines.
Corbyn speaks with authority, speaks clearly and moderately and has a certain presence, all good points for a leader - except what comes out of his mouth on economic matters is ill-thought and unrealistic dream-like garbage. Still those two unions do give a lot of wonga to Labour.
Just when Labour might be ale to exploit Heathrow/tax credits/whatever everything the public already fears about Labour is going to hit the headlines.
It would obviously mean Corbyn would be easy prey for the Tories if he wins, but if one of the other 3 win it could actually help them put some distance between Labour and the Unions
In a series of games, tit for tat is the rational strategy and it generally leads to cooperation and win/win after a stuttering start.
Only in an infinite series.
Otherwise the incentive is for both parties to cheat in the last round. And if you know your opponent is going to cheat in the last round, why wouldn't you cheat in the round before?
Let's not kid ourselves. The ECB is making up the rules as they go along. Good article here:
"The issuer of the Euro is, of course, the ECB. It decides how much money each of the member states can have. This is not unique to Greece: money creation in all the member states is limited by the ECB. So we have supposedly sovereign states allowing their money supply to be determined by an unelected supranational body that is above the law and accountable to nobody. And that body can freeze or withdraw money from member states’ banks at any time and for any reason.
For the central bank of a currency union to deliberately restrict the money supply in regions within the currency union is bizarre. No other currency union central bank on earth does this. It would, for example, be unthinkable for the Bank of England to deny liquidity to Scotland’s banks. But the ECB has denied liquidity to Greece’s banks, not because they are insolvent (which is a reasonable reason to deny liquidity to banks) but because the sovereign won’t toe the fiscal line. It has taken on a political role that it should not have..."
Varoufakis is right when he claims that the Greeks are being "terrorized." The Greeks wanted to talk about debt relief (that was their mandate) but the other governments refused to budge because it would set a bad precedent. Fact, however, is that Greece today is worse off than the US during the Great Depression. Asking the Greeks to undertake more cuts is like asking a sick man to go on a diet...
Of course, Greece has a lot of homegrown problems and should never have been in the Euro to begin with. Greece remained in many ways a third world country while its politicians introduced first world social benefits for its citizens through a massive expansion of the state financed by debt. The financial crisis brought things to a head and made the debt unsustainable.
Rather than letting Greece default and having investors in Greek bonds take a major haircut, the Europeans stepped in to salvage their banks. As we have seen in many instances before "losses were socialized while the profits were privatized." There was a little bit of tinkering, some debt was restructured and the European institutions acquired most of the debt from the banks. But this was not done on a scale sufficient to enable Greece to get back on track. So Syriza do have a point there: It is pointless to talk about the government making further cuts while Greece is in a worse condition today than the US at the height of the Great Depression.
So the institutions are being just as "ideological" as Syriza when they refuse to address the debt and simply expect the Greeks to undertake further cuts.
I would be more sympathetic to the Greek government (I am very fond of the Greek people) if they needed assistance to transition to a more sustainable economy. At the moment giving Greece more money is like giving an alcoholic another bottle of whisky.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Greece should have been given more money five years ago, it should have defaulted and left the Euro. The money from the EU is not benefiting the Greeks in the slightest, its going to benefit banks that made poor commercial decisions in lending to the Greeks and should pay the full commercial penalty for their poor judgement.
If the Euro cannot survive a few banks going bust for making poor decisions that says much more about the viability of the euro as a currency than it does about anything else. All that has happened is that Greece has increased its debt pile, and devastated its standard of living to support some businesses that rightly should have gone to the wall for the poor decisions they took.
I am a small businessman, I have been for 30 years, if I make a bad decision my business goes to the wall, but it seems if you are a big business your bad decisions are backstopped by the government, and yet you get to keep all the profits of your good (or lucky) decisions.
Congratulations on discovering how capitalism works. Eventually.
Not entirely, Lehmans, Enron, Woolworths, Comet, City Link, HMV all big businesses of some description which have gone bust in recent years
They didn't have the right friends in government
The critical difference being none of them hold the mortgages of tens of thousands of voters.
< None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything? Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this. etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
NAFTA effectively applies common standards as does the EU. This is the inevitable consequences of 'free trade areas'. NAFTA has some movement of labour and there is strong pressure to liberalize it even more. But NAFTA has not stopped mass movement of workers - they are just illegal Mexicans. And the dollars they send home get ready use in Mexico. But the EU does not require a common currency - we still use the £.
It's easy for Americans and Britons to criticise Europe over not giving SYRIZA enough money, when they don't have to do so themselves.
And it's hypocritical for those who call on Britain to elect Conservatives, to call on Europe to give money practically unconditionally to radical leftists.
It's easy for Americans and Britons to criticise Europe over not giving SYRIZA enough money, when they don't have to do so themselves.
And it's hypocritical for those who call on Britain to elect Conservatives, to call on Europe to give money practically unconditionally to radical leftists.
Convenient for anti-Europeans. But hypocritical. "I oppose the EU, but it's disgraceful that Greece isn't getting enough money from them"!
Let's not kid ourselves. The ECB is making up the rules as they go along. Good article here:
"The issuer of the Euro is, of course, the ECB. It decides how much money each of the member states can have. This is not unique to Greece: money creation in all the member states is limited by the ECB. So we have supposedly sovereign states allowing their money supply to be determined by an unelected supranational body that is above the law and accountable to nobody. And that body can freeze or withdraw money from member states’ banks at any time and for any reason.
For the central bank of a currency union to deliberately restrict the money supply in regions within the currency union is bizarre. No other currency union central bank on earth does this. It would, for example, be unthinkable for the Bank of England to deny liquidity to Scotland’s banks. But the ECB has denied liquidity to Greece’s banks, not because they are insolvent (which is a reasonable reason to deny liquidity to banks) but because the sovereign won’t toe the fiscal line. It has taken on a political role that it should not have..."
@calum 'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:' A good synopsis. '"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
The Herald, eh? So of course it would be an objective report......
There is a lot that Miss Sturgeon´s government is getting wrong in Scotland and Tim Farron is quite right to criticise it. If the Herald does not like the criticism, that should count in Tim´s favour, not against him.
< None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything? Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this. etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
NAFTA effectively applies common standards as does the EU. This is the inevitable consequences of 'free trade areas'. NAFTA has some movement of labour and there is strong pressure to liberalize it even more. But NAFTA has not stopped mass movement of workers - they are just illegal Mexicans. And the dollars they send home get ready use in Mexico. But the EU does not require a common currency - we still use the £.
"The country's arch-critic - Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - said Greece would remain part of the eurozone whatever happened, but could temporarily lose the single currency."
< None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything? Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this. etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
NAFTA effectively applies common standards as does the EU. This is the inevitable consequences of 'free trade areas'. NAFTA has some movement of labour and there is strong pressure to liberalize it even more. But NAFTA has not stopped mass movement of workers - they are just illegal Mexicans. And the dollars they send home get ready use in Mexico. But the EU does not require a common currency - we still use the £.
@Chris123 Varoufakis is right when he claims that the Greeks are being "terrorized." The Greeks wanted to talk about debt relief (that was their mandate) but the other governments refused to budge because it would set a bad precedent. Fact, however, is that Greece today is worse off than the US during the Great Depression. Asking the Greeks to undertake more cuts is like asking a sick man to go on a diet...
This is the dilemma facing the Greek people. Do they take their medicine from their own government ( vote no) or from foreign powers and banks ( vote yes). The most sympathetic and in my view efficient route of course would be with their own government running their own currency.
The alternative is of course little of no control of monetary policy and unsympathetic terms and conditions. Either way the medicine is going to taste very bad it's a matter of how long the Greeks are willing for the treatment to continue?
Outside the Euro Greece stands more chance of rebuilding quickly but this does depend a stable currency and the multiple fluctuations that are likely to occur as the drachma finds a level may well put off future investors just when they need them. Tourism may be there way out to a point but only if they could peg a new currency to the Euro as opposed to being within the euro system because tourists would be even more susceptible to short term currency fluctuations.
No route looks good for Greece at the moment but if we were faced with this dilemma then I feel that I would cast my vote as a no. Better you deal with this in house rather than by some unknown bureaucrat from what would effectively be in all but name an "occupying power"
@calum 'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:' A good synopsis. '"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
The Herald, eh? So of course it would be an objective report......
There is a lot that Miss Sturgeon´s government is getting wrong in Scotland and Tim Farron is quite right to criticise it. If the Herald does not like the criticism, that should count in Tim´s favour, not against him.
This was an interview Farron gave to the Herald they just reported what he'd said without passing judgement either way. Here's my original post as it got snipped:
Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:
The only specific policy he mentioned was that there would be no role for Lord Rennard. He then went into a rambling defence around his failure to deal with Rennard, the extract below exudes incompetence and goes along way to explaining why the LibDems are in such trouble:
" On Lord Rennard , Mr Farron blamed a "lack of professionalism and a naivety in dealing" with the allegations. That, he said, "let everyone down, that includes Chris Rennard and that includes certainly the women". But, he added: "I would not be appointing him to any position of any kind whatsoever should I be leader. "
He said he believed in forgiveness, "But I also believe that the women involved are the people who - it is not for me to forgive, it is for them to forgive. It's not been done to me. " A party inquiry by an independent barrister concluded last year that while the women's claims were "broadly credible" they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. "
< None of this is non compliant with the treaties. It is completely compliant. The rights Greece has as a EZ member are subject to rules, rules they have broken. Unless they accept the terms on which the other members are willing to support them they will remain a non member of the EZ without access to the ECB.
Does that apply to everything? Say Spain decides not to implement some farcical rule, just for example sake the light bulb directive section 1, sub-section 283, index 42b, are they then out of the EU?
If countries do not comply with directives they can be and are taken to the ECJ or CJEU as it is now apparently called. They can be fined for non compliance and have to pay compensation to those that have lost out as a result of this breach of the Single market. A single market cannot work without rules and an ability to enforce them. We, along with every other country in the EU, signed up to this. etc snip Many thanks for your reply, which to me demonstrates that a Single Market is completely unworkable.
Well thats good news - it helps explain why the single market of the USA is such a disaster and why NAFTA will never work.
NAFTA is a free trade area, the EU isn't. NAFTA doesnt have free movement and the EU does. The NAFTA countries don't have a common currency, most of the EU does. Apart from that completely comparable.
NAFTA effectively applies common standards as does the EU. This is the inevitable consequences of 'free trade areas'. NAFTA has some movement of labour and there is strong pressure to liberalize it even more. But NAFTA has not stopped mass movement of workers - they are just illegal Mexicans. And the dollars they send home get ready use in Mexico. But the EU does not require a common currency - we still use the £.
Just as the EU is doing now. Destroying the livelihood of Africans so they have no alternative but to try and seek a better life in Europe.
Africa-Caribbean-Pacific countries have preferential trade terms with the EU under the Cotonou Agreement. The main losers from ag tariffs are big ranchers in North and South America, and poor African peasants would lose in a no-tariff situation.
I'm not sure that the Eurocrat reaction to a big fat Greek divorce is predictable. It might inspire a huddling together for safety. It might make them feel blooded in the act of standing firm. It might make them more receptive to a less rigid EU. Or it might make them decide that what they stand for now is the tariff for continued membership of the EU.
We have heard a lot about the emotional style of the Greek government. More about the emotional responses of Eurocrats would be more helpful.
In game theory, an irrational player has a big advantage over a rational player.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
The person leading the Greek delegation is one of the world experts in game theory...
Hmm. The banks are shut and his country has run out of money. Hardly a winning hand.
And that nice Mr. Putin would like access to a major European port.
Seems like a good hand to me.
The Russians do not have the money to spare, no matter what Mr Putin might like. Tsipras' trip to Moscow was more game-playing. If he were serious about raising cash elsewhere he'd be touring the Middle East and China.
Isn't it for the Greeks to decide? They, like the Pope who gave a peace medal to Putin, are very concerned at the plight of Christians in Syria, Palestine and throughout the Middle East.
The Russians do have the money but they aren't interested in buying friends like the US has to. Of course a natural gas pipeline will be highly lucrative in transit fees and lower energy costs for Greece. Certainly Germany has decided to expand Nord Stream which means Germany now controls transfer shipment of Russian gas into Europe, a lucrative and powerful position to be in. Hopefully Shell will build the propsed link to Britain with their new partner Gazprom. Yet another win win for Eurasian integration, the neoconservatives in DC are fuming.
Just when Labour might be ale to exploit Heathrow/tax credits/whatever everything the public already fears about Labour is going to hit the headlines.
On the other hand, this election might demonstrate that being declared favoured candidate by one union or other is irrelevant to the outcome. In fact, it seemed to me at the start of the campaign that Burnham was doing everything he could to avoid the loving embrace of Big Len.
@calum 'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:' A good synopsis. '"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
The Herald, eh? So of course it would be an objective report......
There is a lot that Miss Sturgeon´s government is getting wrong in Scotland and Tim Farron is quite right to criticise it. If the Herald does not like the criticism, that should count in Tim´s favour, not against him.
This was an interview Farron gave to the Herald they just reported what he'd said without passing judgement either way. Here's my original post as it got snipped:
Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:
The only specific policy he mentioned was that there would be no role for Lord Rennard. He then went into a rambling defence around his failure to deal with Rennard, the extract below exudes incompetence and goes along way to explaining why the LibDems are in such trouble:
" On Lord Rennard , Mr Farron blamed a "lack of professionalism and a naivety in dealing" with the allegations. That, he said, "let everyone down, that includes Chris Rennard and that includes certainly the women". But, he added: "I would not be appointing him to any position of any kind whatsoever should I be leader. "
He said he believed in forgiveness, "But I also believe that the women involved are the people who - it is not for me to forgive, it is for them to forgive. It's not been done to me. " A party inquiry by an independent barrister concluded last year that while the women's claims were "broadly credible" they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. "
Re. Farron on Rennard, his comments seem fair enough to me. I should add I'm on record as saying that Lamb is unquestionably the superior candidate for the leadership.
@calum 'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:' A good synopsis. '"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
The Herald, eh? So of course it would be an objective report......
Yeah, that would be the Herald that was against independence and is on the whole more critical than supportive of the SNP. I applaud your recognition of their lack of objectivity in these matters.
Amusingly dim Tim shoots his mouth off about 'authoritarian' Edinburgh City Council for proposing to extend its CCTV system, all the while seemingly unaware that LD councillors supported it.
@calum 'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:' A good synopsis. '"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
If I were a LibDem this interview would be enough to sway me to vote for Lamb and that's not just because I'm betting on him !!
The Herald, eh? So of course it would be an objective report......
Yeah, that would be the Herald that was against independence and is on the whole more critical than supportive of the SNP. I applaud your recognition of their lack of objectivity in these matters.
Amusingly dim Tim shoots his mouth off about 'authoritarian' Edinburgh City Council for proposing to extend its CCTV system, all the while seemingly unaware that LD councillors supported it.
Africa-Caribbean-Pacific countries have preferential trade terms with the EU under the Cotonou Agreement. The main losers from ag tariffs are big ranchers in North and South America, and poor African peasants would lose in a no-tariff situation.
No the main losers are people like the fishermen of the Atlantic coast of Africa who have seen their governments sell fishing rights to the EU so preventing them from earning a living.
Africa-Caribbean-Pacific countries have preferential trade terms with the EU under the Cotonou Agreement. The main losers from ag tariffs are big ranchers in North and South America, and poor African peasants would lose in a no-tariff situation.
No the main losers are people like the fishermen of the Atlantic coast of Africa who have seen their governments sell fishing rights to the EU so preventing them from earning a living.
This has nothing to do with the EU per se. It is a privatisation that redistributes welfare internally. Minus for fishermen, plus for whoever gets the privatisation revenues. Presumably, Spain (say) would have purchased these rights absent the EU.
Brand offers to relocate to Syria. Might be worth a PB whip round to buy him the ticket?
An offer too good to refuse? Russell Brand says he'll move to Syria if someone buys him a first class ticket
Russell Brand made a string of sick jokes about Tunisian beach massacre Comedian said he would move to Syria - but only if he can fly first class This comes after he denounced the minute's silence as 'total bulls***' Brand blamed Seifeddine Rezgui's murderous rampage on UK Government
"The country's arch-critic - Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - said Greece would remain part of the eurozone whatever happened, but could temporarily lose the single currency."
Hmmm. Ok. So that's alright then.
The EU going for the old Hotel California ploy - you can check out, but you can ever leave...
Comments
Would you believe my job is all about condensing lengthy words and other information into concise and easily digestible junks?
A pleasant day to all.
The ECB wrote a long paper on this very point back in 2009 which I linked to a few days ago and which highlighted exactly these issues. The express conclusion of that paper was that a country cannot be forced out of the Eurozone nor the EU against its wishes.
Of course there are de facto considerations but they will not be legally enforceable and the only way this can be resolved if the Greeks do not vote YES on Sunday is for there to be a new Eurozone treaty. Any other course of action that leads to Greece being 'expelled' will be in breach of the treaties.
Goodness how many more times will we hear versions of this tired formulation?
'The EU is moving our way', 'Maastricht puts the break on Federalism' (remember that one), 'The wider EU will have to be a looser one' etc. etc....people parroting these lines are the ones who are deluded, not the Greeks. Or just being disingenuous.
The lack of a central bank, a lender of last resort and the inability to print money may well, probably would, result in Greece issuing its own currency fairly quickly. An advanced economy cannot operate without such things. But the EZ don't need to do anything. They certainly don't need to kick Greece out. They simply apply the rules.
At the same time, a Yes would badly damage Syriza's internal unity. The party only came together as such within the last few years, being a coalition of independent groups before that. Nor are their members that used to the disciplines of office; they are largely campaign politicians who found themselves in power. People on here have said Britain has no equivalent. That's true, although Respect in the post-Iraq years wouldn't be a million miles off - but look what happened afterwards. If Tsipras' and Varoufakis' tactics fail, what will keep their coalition together? For that matter, can either survive at the head of their party.
Finally, given the almost certainty of Syriza resigning office in the face of a Yes, there'll be a new government in place. That might be ND-led or might be a caretaker one as after May 2012. Either way, I'd anticipate the EU coming quite quickly to terms on a new agreement - provisional perhaps, depending on ratification after the election, for the simple reason that it wouldn't be in their interests not to. That would further strengthen the centrists' hands.
Re your second question, I dispute your assertion about the intent of German dominance. Germany is dominant because (1) it is big and (2) it is successful. No-one else could perform that role and so it has to assume it. But having lent getting on more than anyone else, it's inevitable that it should take the lead of the creditor states. But to answer you directly, I generally believe in democracy. The colonels might be better for people's pockets in the short term but a nation's success can only be delivered by the people themselves and so a dictatorship working against a national culture will have little more success than a democracy. What needs to change is the culture, not the system of governance.
Like a family having a vote on what they wanted to watch on the box the week before, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the TV schedule is actually determined by the bosses at the broadcaster, hundreds of miles away.
Slightly imperfect because for the big bosses are actually going to listen to the result of the vote, but that certainly doesn't mean they feel under any obligation to deliver what is being asked for.
What next? Do the EU seal the borders of Greece when the Greeks decide they cannot cope with the tens of thousands of Mediterranean refugees and so give them all visas and send them off across the EU? And what about when the Greeks decide to use their veto on every piece of EU legislation not covered by QMV?
The amount of pain that the Greeks can cause for the EU if they decide they have nothing left to lose is immense. It might seem outlandish but no more than the idea of the Eurozone trying to starve a country into regime change which is in effect what you are advocating.
They are at the end of the rope.
Now, you can argue that the rules aren't fair, are being disproportionately applied or that they're causing misery across Greece but that's all beside the point. My impression is that patience has worn out in the creditor countries with the Greek government. In the event of a No, that lack of patience would probably transfer to being with the Greek people too.
"I'll blow us both up if you don't agree with me". A rational player wouldn't be believed but an irrational player might be and get their way.
The Greek negotiating style which appears to be emotional and irrational might be very calculated.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/tim-farron-says-snp-doing-the-worst-and-darkest-things-that-people-suspec.130990528
The only specific policy he mentioned was that there would be no role for Lord Rennard. He then went into a rambling defence around his failure to deal with Rennard, the extract below exudes incompetence and goes along way to explaining why the LibDems are in such trouble:
" On Lord Rennard , Mr Farron blamed a "lack of professionalism and a naivety in dealing" with the allegations. That, he said, "let everyone down, that includes Chris Rennard and that includes certainly the women". But, he added: "I would not be appointing him to any position of any kind whatsoever should I be leader. "
He said he believed in forgiveness, "But I also believe that the women involved are the people who - it is not for me to forgive, it is for them to forgive. It's not been done to me. " A party inquiry by an independent barrister concluded last year that while the women's claims were "broadly credible" they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. "
Countries bordering Greece would be installing security fences pretty swiftly.
It's like the chap in the first Indiana Jones movie, who made a big show of his fancy sword swinging, only to be shot by the star of film as soon as he'd got to the end of the routine.
Seems like a good hand to me.
I really fear for what will happen next. I have, in a slightly alarmist way, been speculating on here that the EU may well have over 1m Greek refugees to deal with, let along refugees from anywhere else.
I fear we are about to see the collapse of an economy in an advanced modern state for the first time with not only no banks but no fuel, no food (they import 50%), no medication, no wages for public services such as transport and airports, no one turning up at sewage plants and, increasingly in a country where so much is pumped, no water.
Greece threatening to veto legislation is the least of the EU's problems. We should also think about how many Greeks second language is English.
The more Cameron persists in doing the right thing, the 'luckier' he gets'
The left will howl and moan at the changes in IHT rules and the changes to housing benefits and tax credits - they will continue to play petty short term politics and pick 'unlucky' leaders - but as long as the tories do the right thing then they will weather each storm as it arises.
Your comments Mr Herdson about the right thing to do re the EU is apt. Cameron has been consistent and he is right about his approach to the EU.
Now, I accept that the logical consequences of that may take some time to sink in in the Commission but policies that have had to be adopted to cope with the events of 2008 and after have so completely undermined the social regulation programme that it too has no choice but to move in the same direction, not least because member states having to cut their cloth will require it.
I'd expect a government of national unity (basically all of the opposition), even, if a minority to assume power and sign an agreement PDQ. Then have the election and if SYRIZIA is re-elected (which, a la Scotland, I'd see as a real possibility assuming they don't fall apart) and if they go back on their promises after the election...well, they already have the money... My understanding - although it's a long time since I've discussed Greek politics with my contacts down there, and they have a very international mindset so aren't really representative - is that the civil war was never really resolved, but was only an uneasy truce. Effectively the 25% of population who supported the junta were allowed to redomicile all their money to Switzerland to avoid tax. And the 25% who supported the Communists were promised jobs and pensions for life, paid for by the state. All of this cost was borne by the 50% in the middle who were neither rich or connected enough to one side or the other to benefit.
Of course, a system where 50% of the population leeches off the rest - even before you consider the normal government spending - is not sustainable in the long term. I'm just impressed they managed to keep the balls in the air for so long!
http://www.capx.co/the-disgraceful-humiliation-of-greece-shames-europe/
http://statenews.com/article/2013/08/msu-researchers-debunk-game-theory
''In an evolutionary setting, these zero determinant strategies (those using coercion) will go extinct,” said Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “You might succeed for a short time, but in the long run it can’t sustain.'' Did your greek 'expert' read this?
http://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/13/whats-wrong-with-game-theory/
'' it’s unlikely, in most cases, to yield definite and reliable predictions.''
And do think it is interesting to look back at the 1953 London Conference on German debt when the creditor nations agreed to half German debt and, more importantly, to limit repayments to a percentage it to 3% of their export earnings. Greece was one of those creditor countries.
In any case, it doesn't matter. The EU and ECB have enough sanctions available to force the matter if the Greek government or people insist on playing silly beggars.
Fact is that luck is only half the equation which is why there can be world champions in bridge and poker and the like. What you do with the hand you're dealt matters a good deal more. And as in sport, being in the right position to capitalise on luck when it comes your way is a significant prerequisite to that - and being there is a matter of skill.
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/ I dion't think she's said that - link? She merely said she didn't want to resume talks till after the referendum. Exit polls at 6, results coming in by 8, final results about 11.
I am not advocating this, simply pointing out that the cosy assumption that everyone will stick to the spirit as well as the letter of the law is flawed. This has been apparent for decades with the way certain countries openly ignore EU and Eurozone rules but it is quietly ignored or fudged. This will only work for so long and it is now becoming apparent that it is untenable but the EU and the Eurozone have no real answer to it.
Interesting comments re the Civil War but that's decades ago now and what might have been a tactical necessity at the time looks to have become entrenched privilege and entitlement. Time for it to change.
Can't wait until I have the chance to vote OUT in 2017!
The Greek leadership have behaved like complete loons but when their Finance Minster said the other day he did not want to sign any deal which did not involve debt forgiveness I think he was right. All it does is kick the can further down a rocky and painful road.
'Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:'
A good synopsis.
'"Tim Farron sounds like a small boy saying rude words to attract attention from grown ups.'
I think the Greeks should get a lot more debt forgiveness.
And should make a lot more restructuring of their problems in return.
Get it over with and move on.
This is entirely sensible, which means it probably won't happen.
Someone highlighted access to the professions and the state of competition in particular markets before, I don't know about them.
They didn't debunk game theory but a spin on game theory that favoured coersion rather than cooperation.
A really good introduction to game theory is Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation that has some fascinating real life examples. It is relevant to diplomacy, business negotiations, MAD, biology.
In a one-off game, defection/coercion is the rational strategy but it leads to lose/lose.
In a series of games, tit for tat is the rational strategy and it generally leads to cooperation and win/win after a stuttering start.
Is the EU/SYRIZIA game a one-off game or a sequence of games? We shall see.
The critical difference being none of them hold the mortgages of tens of thousands of voters.
How did Syriza go from an electoral mandate, high hopes and much mainstream economic support to this total mess?
On one level, their policy offer always seemed impossible: end austerity, get a debt write down and keep the euro was a combination that always seemed unlikely. But with support for the Euro high, that's what they offered.
Fundamentally this seems to have been a huge strategic miscalculation. Syriza's economic-diplomacy was based on three assumptions. Three assumptions that have all been proved false.
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-33139218
The same cannot be said for the EU because it is not a single market. It is a whole series of separate small markets linked - in some cases only in the most fragile of ways - by bridges.
To put it into perspective, the US jobs turnover is about 3.5% per month. The EU jobs turnover is less than 1% per year.
There is a good introduction to Games Theory, "Games Theory: A Critical Introduction", written by one Y. Varoufakis (and others)
From an internal perspective it is nonsense. For those inside it is a free trade area. The EU is, however, not only a free trade area but seeks to regulate its members external relations as well making it a customs union, a sort of free trade plus. To say it is not a free trade area, however, is false.
Betting PostSurprise bet, because the odds just seem too long. Backed Rosberg for pole at 3.65, hedged at 1.8.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/united-kingdom-pre-qualifying.html
Countries in a free trade area do not have common external tariff but are, rather, free to negotiate their own trading arrangements with the rest of the world.
The EU is a Customs Union.
Good explanation here by Dan Hannan: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100186074/the-eu-is-not-a-free-trade-area-but-a-customs-union-until-we-understand-the-difference-the-debate-about-our-membership-is-meaningless/
Do you have a source for that?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11717428/Unite-and-GMB-join-forces-to-back-Jeremy-Corbyn-to-teach-party-a-lesson.html
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/european_economy/2013/pdf/ee6_en.pdf
The graph on page 25 has the job finding and job separation rates. Job finding is currently running at about 6% a year whilst job separation rates are running at around 1% a year. Overall the mobility is somewhere under 5%.
Otherwise the incentive is for both parties to cheat in the last round. And if you know your opponent is going to cheat in the last round, why wouldn't you cheat in the round before?
It resolves into prisoner's dilemma.
"The issuer of the Euro is, of course, the ECB. It decides how much money each of the member states can have. This is not unique to Greece: money creation in all the member states is limited by the ECB. So we have supposedly sovereign states allowing their money supply to be determined by an unelected supranational body that is above the law and accountable to nobody. And that body can freeze or withdraw money from member states’ banks at any time and for any reason.
For the central bank of a currency union to deliberately restrict the money supply in regions within the currency union is bizarre. No other currency union central bank on earth does this. It would, for example, be unthinkable for the Bank of England to deny liquidity to Scotland’s banks. But the ECB has denied liquidity to Greece’s banks, not because they are insolvent (which is a reasonable reason to deny liquidity to banks) but because the sovereign won’t toe the fiscal line. It has taken on a political role that it should not have..."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2015/07/03/the-road-to-grexit/2/
Varoufakis is right when he claims that the Greeks are being "terrorized." The Greeks wanted to talk about debt relief (that was their mandate) but the other governments refused to budge because it would set a bad precedent. Fact, however, is that Greece today is worse off than the US during the Great Depression. Asking the Greeks to undertake more cuts is like asking a sick man to go on a diet...
Of course, Greece has a lot of homegrown problems and should never have been in the Euro to begin with. Greece remained in many ways a third world country while its politicians introduced first world social benefits for its citizens through a massive expansion of the state financed by debt. The financial crisis brought things to a head and made the debt unsustainable.
Rather than letting Greece default and having investors in Greek bonds take a major haircut, the Europeans stepped in to salvage their banks. As we have seen in many instances before "losses were socialized while the profits were privatized." There was a little bit of tinkering, some debt was restructured and the European institutions acquired most of the debt from the banks. But this was not done on a scale sufficient to enable Greece to get back on track. So Syriza do have a point there: It is pointless to talk about the government making further cuts while Greece is in a worse condition today than the US at the height of the Great Depression.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/greece-may-be-worse-than-us-great-depression-2015-6?r=US
So the institutions are being just as "ideological" as Syriza when they refuse to address the debt and simply expect the Greeks to undertake further cuts.
It's easy for Americans and Britons to criticise Europe over not giving SYRIZA enough money, when they don't have to do so themselves.
And it's hypocritical for those who call on Britain to elect Conservatives, to call on Europe to give money practically unconditionally to radical leftists.
Convenient for anti-Europeans. But hypocritical.
TR @mdenaxa #GreeceCrisis
https://mobile.twitter.com/northaura/status/617277594334031872/photo/1
It's easy for Americans and Britons to criticise Europe over not giving SYRIZA enough money, when they don't have to do so themselves.
And it's hypocritical for those who call on Britain to elect Conservatives, to call on Europe to give money practically unconditionally to radical leftists.
Convenient for anti-Europeans. But hypocritical. "I oppose the EU, but it's disgraceful that Greece isn't getting enough money from them"!
There is a lot that Miss Sturgeon´s government is getting wrong in Scotland and Tim Farron is quite right to criticise it. If the Herald does not like the criticism, that should count in Tim´s favour, not against him.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/fast-tracking-tpp-the-danger-of-informal-immigration-deals-and-the-need-for-treason-trials
http://www.vdare.com/posts/immigration-flood-unleashed-by-nafta
"The country's arch-critic - Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - said Greece would remain part of the eurozone whatever happened, but could temporarily lose the single currency."
Hmmm. Ok. So that's alright then.
Varoufakis is right when he claims that the Greeks are being "terrorized." The Greeks wanted to talk about debt relief (that was their mandate) but the other governments refused to budge because it would set a bad precedent. Fact, however, is that Greece today is worse off than the US during the Great Depression. Asking the Greeks to undertake more cuts is like asking a sick man to go on a diet...
This is the dilemma facing the Greek people. Do they take their medicine from their own government ( vote no) or from foreign powers and banks ( vote yes). The most sympathetic and in my view efficient route of course would be with their own government running their own currency.
The alternative is of course little of no control of monetary policy and unsympathetic terms and conditions. Either way the medicine is going to taste very bad it's a matter of how long the Greeks are willing for the treatment to continue?
Outside the Euro Greece stands more chance of rebuilding quickly but this does depend a stable currency and the multiple fluctuations that are likely to occur as the drachma finds a level may well put off future investors just when they need them. Tourism may be there way out to a point but only if they could peg a new currency to the Euro as opposed to being within the euro system because tourists would be even more susceptible to short term currency fluctuations.
No route looks good for Greece at the moment but if we were faced with this dilemma then I feel that I would cast my vote as a no. Better you deal with this in house rather than by some unknown bureaucrat from what would effectively be in all but name an "occupying power"
Interesting interview with Tim Farron in today's Herald, the usual SNP bad rhetoric with no clear message or vision as to why anyone should be voting LibDem:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/tim-farron-says-snp-doing-the-worst-and-darkest-things-that-people-suspec.130990528
The only specific policy he mentioned was that there would be no role for Lord Rennard. He then went into a rambling defence around his failure to deal with Rennard, the extract below exudes incompetence and goes along way to explaining why the LibDems are in such trouble:
" On Lord Rennard , Mr Farron blamed a "lack of professionalism and a naivety in dealing" with the allegations. That, he said, "let everyone down, that includes Chris Rennard and that includes certainly the women". But, he added: "I would not be appointing him to any position of any kind whatsoever should I be leader. "
He said he believed in forgiveness, "But I also believe that the women involved are the people who - it is not for me to forgive, it is for them to forgive. It's not been done to me. " A party inquiry by an independent barrister concluded last year that while the women's claims were "broadly credible" they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. "
The Russians do have the money but they aren't interested in buying friends like the US has to. Of course a natural gas pipeline will be highly lucrative in transit fees and lower energy costs for Greece. Certainly Germany has decided to expand Nord Stream which means Germany now controls transfer shipment of Russian gas into Europe, a lucrative and powerful position to be in. Hopefully Shell will build the propsed link to Britain with their new partner Gazprom. Yet another win win for Eurasian integration, the neoconservatives in DC are fuming.
Amusingly dim Tim shoots his mouth off about 'authoritarian' Edinburgh City Council for proposing to extend its CCTV system, all the while seemingly unaware that LD councillors supported it.
Cllr. Andrew D Burns @AndrewDBurns 1h1 hour ago
@traquir ;-)
dear oh dear @timfarron .. *please* do have a read at the relevant report:
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/47404/item_713_-_cctv_investment_project …
Edinburgh Lib-Dems backed it!
An offer too good to refuse? Russell Brand says he'll move to Syria if someone buys him a first class ticket
Russell Brand made a string of sick jokes about Tunisian beach massacre
Comedian said he would move to Syria - but only if he can fly first class
This comes after he denounced the minute's silence as 'total bulls***'
Brand blamed Seifeddine Rezgui's murderous rampage on UK Government
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149281/Russell-Brand-says-ll-Syria.html#ixzz3evVBLmRP