What the words "Greece" and "Greek" mean today

[Vangelovski]

Yes that's right Risto. The English word 'blueprints' is extracted from the ancient Greek flag, which apparently the East India Company stole the blueprints for in the late 17th century.

Most countries have copied the blueprints of the Greek flag - some even centuries before the Greeks even developed them!

[EgejskaMakedonia]

Most countries have copied the blueprints of the Greek flag - some even centuries before the Greeks even developed them!

Needless to say, a lot of blueprints have been stolen from the Greeks over the years!

[TrueMacedonian]

Another Krugman article;

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/goldbugs-greece-and-affinity-fraud/

Goldbugs, Greece, and Affinity Fraud

Joe Weisenthal tries to understand why Barron’s, which he describes as a “quiet financial newspaper”, has a hysterical cover story about Obama turning America into Greece, Greece I tell you.

[momce]

Someone just pull the plug...

[TrueMacedonian]

This topic can blow up to 500 pages but I want to keep it short and sweet.

http://www.moneynews.com/Markets/Mauldin-Japan-France-Greece/2013/02/05/id/488894

John Mauldin: France Is the New Greece
Tuesday, 05 Feb 2013 07:40 AM

By John Morgan

Money manager John Mauldin has a dark view of the economic future of France and says he has placed a big short bet on the Japanese market, according to an interview with The Globe and Mail.

Mauldin, noted for his often-bearish take on global investments, believes France has emerged as a significant threat to the eurozone because of its mounting economic and fiscal ills.

“France is going to be a basket case within two years,” he told The Globe and Mail. “France is the new Greece. The markets will start recognizing it later this year or next year. … They’re going to keep promising, just like Greece was promising.”

[momce]

Yes, France, all the southern Europe are fu&$cked. The US is still the currency reserve of the world so its debt problem is not as bad. Of course those are generalities, depending on the case analysis. Parts of the US are clearly screwed and large parts of China and the Third World. Think of Albania 1990 and that is greece basically etc. I think at some point there will be a new global migration or exodus to survival points. Thats just how economics works. Personally, I do all my planning from using inflation as a reference point so I can know what is workable and what is not and take appropriate action.

[Phoenix]

I think the Catholic Church is mired in it's own 'greek' scandal at the moment.

[Phoenix]

Tasmania is being cast as Australia's Greece

Date February 23, 2013

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/pol...#ixzz2LhgtWr8q

''DOES Tasmania need an intervention?'' So reads the headline on a recent article or ''provocation'' by Natasha Cica, director of the centre for civil society at the University of Tasmania, in the online academic magazine The Conversation.

The article comes with this precede: ''Is Tasmania at a tipping point? While it is known to many of us through seductive tourism brochures showcasing the state's pristine wilderness, gourmet magazine articles celebrating its burgeoning food culture and newspaper stories gasping at a world-leading art museum, the recent devastating bushfires serve as a stark reminder that all is not as it seems. For most Tasmanians, a darker reality lies beneath the glossy surface.'' (My italics).

I assume Cica did not write the headline or the precede but, in suggesting that a bushfire might alert us to the need for intervention, they illustrate the shallowness of what is to follow.

Cica takes us into the ''darker reality''. Having led with a couple of items from Tasmania's colonial past, she relates an old Tassie folk story about incest at a place called Black Bob's. No source is given. She then proceeds to detail two of Tasmania's grislier murders in recent times before moving to Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur massacre.

Imagine an article headlined: ''Does Victoria need an intervention?'' The precede touches on a couple of the state's virtues, then says the bushfires of Black Saturday served as a stark reminder that all is not as it seems. Then the ''darker reality'' - the Hoddle Street massacre, Carl Williams, the fact that in 2010 Melbourne had two more homicides than the whole of New South Wales plus a couple of horror folk tales from the country etc.

Cica's article is a swirl of near-random connections during which she mentions Tasmania's low level of school retention and high levels of teenage pregnancy, child abuse, unemployment and welfare dependence before eventually concluding by saying she is sustained in her darkest Tasmanian days by all the ''gentle, crazy and amazing people'' who live there - at which point, the article moves beyond parody.

By comparison to Cica, Jonathan West, another contributor to the series, is a model of intellectual rigour. He says Tasmania is a mendicant state incapable of change, not only because of its internal politics (upon which his views are reasonable), but also for cultural reasons. He writes: ''A recent study undertaken by an educational foundation unearthed the startling conclusion that a large proportion of Tasmanians specified not being educated as an important aspect of a 'true Tasmanian'.''

Really? I was born in Tasmania and lived there for 28 years; I never encountered this attitude. West continues: ''Educated people were regarded as 'less Tasmanian', and probably worse people.'' Never met that one either.

The Tasmanian middle class, writes West, value education ''up to a point'' since their aim in life is a safe job in the government. What's next? An article on ''Tasmania and the case for eugenics''?

Tasmania has always been the play within the play as far as Australia is concerned. It's the place where the dark side of our national origins cannot be ignored in the way it is elsewhere, and the current discussion about Tasmania may well foreshadow our emerging national politics.

Tasmania represents the horror of the Right - a series of coalition governments involving the Greens. It also echoes an emerging political mythology within the European Union. Writing last month in The Guardian, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang said that whereas the rich of Europe once feared the revolutionary, mob they now fear ''the army of lazy bums, whose lifestyle of indolence and hedonism, financed by crippling taxes on the rich, is sucking the lifeblood out of the economy''.

Tasmania is being fitted as Australia's Greece. Germany is Western Australia. Watch this space.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/pol...#ixzz2LhfuFxS8

[momce]

Anyone who lives and works in a large modern state today is being taken to the cleaners. 40 years of bloated budgets and debts will destroy alot of things when the inevitable inflation comes. Private offshore is the wave of the future.

[Phoenix]

... Private offshore is the wave of the future.

What do you mean exactly, momce?

[momce]

Thats where you should stash all your valuables, before government, banks and stock markets get them, esp if youre a middle income or upper middle income earner the sharks from below and above will be swarming all around your income, assets etc net worth. Now I personally dont know exactly whats going on in the world economy so thats the best safe haven as far as I know re safety from confiscation both direct and indrect. Like I said in an earlier post think inflation across the board(tax, prices etc) and work from there. I personally have no time for govts or other crooks or normative analysis of markets which are all loaded(usually just try to get my piece of the trading so I can finance more important things). The corruption, nepotism etc is just too deep seated and you have to adapt to it. Eventually, you might want to follow your wealth offshore and drink cocktails.

[TrueMacedonian]

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=308316

Lapid: I won't let Israel become Cyprus or Greece
“I’m not prepared for us to turn into Greece or Cyprus on my watch,” Lapid wrote in a lengthy Facebook post, saying that covering the country’s NIS 30 billion “overdraft” would require difficult choices.

Even Israel knows going "Greek" means going broke.

[George S.]

thank goodness macedonia hasn't had a chance to go for broke like greece.That's the access to the eu will do that.

[SirGeorge8600]

Lapid: I won't let Israel become Cyprus or Greece
“I’m not prepared for us to turn into Greece or Cyprus on my watch,” Lapid wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.

Even Israel knows going "Greek" means going broke.

Oh please. Israel and Greece have so much in common. They require billions in foreign aid for survival. They bloat about being a liberal democracy while they persecute their neighbors and steal their lands based on "ancient history" Also if it weren't for German "reparations" they would be in serious economic troubles. Also they both seem to whine about Turkey and Erdogan the "anti-semite" and "anti-greek" lol.


But in all seriousness, Greece means a country. It was similar in fashion to label Japan or Poland as bankruptcy in the 90s, the US in the 20's, Germany in the 30's, Iceland in the early 00's. If these euphemisms to bankruptcy are ever-changing then they are not set in stone as you imply TrueMacedonian. Greece just means another Balkan country...that's all. Not the superior European nation that dumb nationalists Greeks make it out to be, and not the forever bankrupt state that ignorant observers make it to be. History has shown that all economic crises no matter how bad move on and so does history. Truth is Greece is a not so significant state like the Balkaners in the EU and Merkel has made the mistake of putting *way too much* money into saving this not so significant state.

For the record I am Greek.