About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unread


Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 0

Saturday, July 18, 2015 - 11:24amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

Fun article, Paul (Sam)   

 

(Let me know if Texas starts moving that direction.... I'm willing to leave Arizona :-)

 

[I'm reminded of you every now and then when I look at my new credit and debit cards with their embedded electronic chip - it reminds me of your scheme for embedding a tiny bit of gold in a piece of plastic or weaving it into the cloth/paper to make a small quantity of actual gold available as part of the 'currency.']



Post 1

Saturday, July 18, 2015 - 10:06pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

Just wishful thinking. It would take a heroic leader to ever get this to happen. 😔

 

Sam



Post 2

Sunday, July 19, 2015 - 1:57pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

One thing missing from the proposal of 'Tsipras':  Repudiation of euro-denominated debt which is unsustainable regardless of how good the new politico/economic policies are.  Unsustainable means there is no way to service or repay it, even if all state-owned property is privatized.  The best Greece could do for its creditors is hand over their assets as collateral.

 

Western powers probably would not tolerate this - a free country where tax 'cheats' might escape to. Nor would they tolerate a country whose businessmen had the 'unfair' advantage of no regulation.  NATO would bribe Greece's generals to oust Tsipras with a coup.



Post 3

Monday, July 20, 2015 - 7:27amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

With gold at a five-year low, it certainly is a good time to buy. However, declaring Greece to be the new Switzerland is not going to solve the problem of the Greek Debt Crisis. The cause of the problem is two-fold. First, they have the most generous retirement system in Europe, all of it a government expense. Second, they do not collect enough tax revenue to support the government. That could be remedied by your fourth bullet point. Last week on NPR, I heard an under-minister-of-something say that billions of dollars worth of public funds were stolen by oligarchs who put the money in Swiss banks. Last weekend, I ran that past an older European couple we socialize with and they did not doubt it, and began naming names. So, executing the rich might be the most workable part of your agenda.

 

Put "greek bailout goes to banks" in your search engine and you will find the same story on ZeroHedge, The Guardian UK, and Aljazeera. 

 

If Greece became the new Switzerland by Paul's plan, it would do nothing to change the fundamentals of Greek culture. Much of human culture in general and Western culture in particular is about cattle-raids and bride-prices. But, in modern times, that changed. Capitalism did not spring from the head of Zeus, but it was a relatively rapid development if you consider the broad sweep of human history. In Greece, it never caught on. They threw out the Turks in 1830 and failed to embrace the industrial revolution. The world's first democracy was rebranded as a kingdom - with foreign kings on the throne of Greece. ("The House of Wittelsbach held the Greek Crown between 1832 and 1862, when it passed to the House of Glücksburg." -- Wikipedia.)

 

The fact of the matter is that very little in Greek culture encourages enterprise as we understand it. Greece is a kleptocracy. 



Post 4

Monday, July 20, 2015 - 9:45amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

 

 

I most certainly didn't advocate executing the rich merely because they are rich. The intent was to deter anyone from debasing the currency in any way such as diluting the purity of the gold, counterfeiting gold certificates, etc. It is actions such as these that can lead to mass starvation, civil unrest and wars, i.e. crimes against humanity.

 

Sam



Post to this thread


User ID Password or create a free account.