Virgil

[Virgil]

First.
Here’s the source I forgot to cite. All you had to do was c&p the title.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/latest-tsipras-personal-speech-admits-214024030.html

Second.
There’s no sense in discussing anything related to Greece’s debt for a while. Everything we know about it in an illusion only now being dealt with. It seems they paid Goldman Sachs $500 million to help them conceal the real debt before they were accepted in the EU. Now the Greek government may be suing G&S.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-debt-crisis-goldman-sachs-could-be-sued-for-helping-country-hide-debts-when-it-joined-euro-10381926.html

But it’s been “known” for five years.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html

The past two “austerity plans” were put together with political agendas/favoritism over financial common sense and were predicted for doom from the beginning. Example here in a quote:

….the politics of the plan is too timid. It avoids taking on powerful lobbies who benefit from wasteful public spending. For example cuts in medical spending of €310m are promised this year. That might sound like a lot, but Greece’s over-generous markups to pharmacists add something like €1.5 billion a year of extra spending to its drugs budget alone. The government also seems to lack the stomach to see its plan through. It has said that it will cut civil-service jobs—but the suspicion is that those on temporary contracts, not the expensive and virtually unsackable people on permanent contracts, will go. Even the railways, which are down for privatisation, may well be sold with guarantees protecting jobs and services.

from June 2011

http://www.economist.com/node/18897415

In the video Davis linked to Guy Verhofstadt outlines…
Lack of reforms undertaken on the political level while saddling the citizens with all the burden
Lack of a sincere long range plan
Lack of legislation to stop cronyism
Lack of efforts to downsize the 24% of Greeks working for the government
Lack of reform to end privileges, exemptions and political favors to special groups, cities and islands.

Listen to the 2 minute response by Tsipras. He mentions cracking down on people avoiding taxes through Swiss banks.

Meanwhile with a Black Market economy estimated at 25% the size of the GNP….. There’s talk that the problem is due to the high number of ‘self employed’ Greek citizens without mention of the politicians and bureaucrats who are not only turning a blind eye to it but profiting from it. No mention of organized crime in the black market. Every item that is profitable for the black market is so because of the taxes put upon it. PREDICTION.: Watch for Greece to crack down on self employed people and no others in a lame effort to curtail their black market economy.

http://www.havocscope.com/tag/greece/

[Virgil]

I just found this at the head of my news page.

The latest: Tsipras, in personal speech, admits mistakes

12:35 a.m.
In a speech with a strongly personal tone, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says he negotiated as hard as he could and admits his government had made mistakes during his barely six-month tenure as he fought to win bailout funds for his debt-ridden country.
Speaking in a late-night parliament session, Tsipras described the last few months as a war in which difficult battles were fought and some were lost. “Now I have the feeling we’ve reached the demarked line. From here on there is a minefield,” he said.
He added that he doesn’t have the right to hide from the Greek people that the measures Greece must take are far from his left-wing party’s pre-election pledges.

In other words he was lying to the people before they voted on the referendum when he said a majority NO vote on it would give Greece a stronger bargaining position… Or he didn’t know WTF he was talking about…

[Virgil]

Hi Strega! Long time no see!

Not having a position to defend is exactly the point. Now that same sex marriage has prevailed in the US there’s no need to defend it… The time is here to help people heal.

[Virgil]

I’ve been staying up on the Greek issue for some months now. I read everything you wrote and read the article you linked to and watched the videos you linked to. Not one thing you cited backed up the opinion you’re putting forth. In fact the article cited completely misrepresents 50% unemployment for people under 25, the number of children in poverty and the number of Greeks who have lost their homes as being the fault of the EU. But what’s a little bit of distortion of the truth to get things to fit into the ideology you embrace, right?

And Austerity has not failed in Greece because it’s never been attempted without partisan implementation and distortions to solidify the political power of Alexis Tsipras and his cronies. In his stammering reply video at the EU he admits as much as admits they’ve not really done what they could to have corrected the problems way before now…

• This reply was modified 11 years ago by Virgil.

[Virgil]

As a guy marrying his guy tomorrow afternoon I think I ought to speak out on this.

You really got pissed about a stupid comment about Pizza and marriage? Really?

The OP’s numero uno mistake is having a facebook account and expecting crap like that not to happen.
Facebook = infectious drama. You’ve contaminated a forum with it.

His 2nd mistake was responding to a stupid comment with anger.

His 3rd was bringing facebook drama into a forum expecting people to rally around his behavior.

Great Job. Let’s evaluate your accomplishments.
You publicly lambasted a guy for his callousness and degrading comment….
You redundantly expressed your indignation…
You called a few people “fuck faces”…

It sounds to me that you could be a gold medalist in the next US Olympic Internet Drama Team… Oh wait.. That doesn’t exist… In fact no one gets a trophy for drama, do they? There’s probably a good reason for that if you think about it.

Sorry for the sarcasm if it offends you. Now on to the other side of this.

You accomplished nothing with your actions and words. All you did was alienate a guy who you say is sometimes unreasonable by acting unreasonable yourself. In fact what you did and said was counterproductive in the long run.

Same sex marriage became legal across the US June 26th 2015. Do you know what’s really important about that date to me an my guy? The debate is over. There’s no reason to do anything to keep hostilities going. Nothing gained by rubbing our victory in the faces of the adversaries. Let the healing begin… In fact do everything we can to promote the healing.

There’s nothing you or I or anyone can do to change how >>> a rapidly dwindling minority <<< use their religion to whitewash their ignorance and hate towards a nameless face group called “gays”…. But I can and do make it hard as hell for them to be able to hate me on a personal level. Before you know it they start quietly and slowly re-evaluating things and changing their own minds. I know it works because I’ve been doing it over 4 years now in a rural town of 1500 (472 registered voters. The rest are mostly kids) When I moved here and bought a house they tried to scare me into leaving… Now they won’t let me or my guy leave.

I bet you made a long lasting impression of the “fuck face” you publically lambasted. He probably had some choice things to say about your behavior… You can’t plead “doing right” because you weren’t… You let your ego have the wheel to set off to “be right.”… Try to find anyone anywhere who’s ever won a trophy for that in an argument or misunderstanding.

I’m done.

[Virgil]

You pretty much scent marked the this thread in your first sentence. “…….Belgian Prime Minister now resident nut case of the EU parliament blabbed on about Greece citing the most panfully cliché nonsense……”

[Author]

Posts