Greece to Leave the Euro Zone

[© tweed]

how about increasing border patrol severalfold and banning emigration?  it could double as a public works program

[© tweed]

how about increasing border patrol severalfold and banning emigration?  it could double as a public works program

Banning emigration = leaving EU.

yes, of course.

[© tweed]

the idea for the ECB is to have Greece as an eternally depressed, slave state, and a vehicle for transferring wealth to foreign creditors.  I believe the number is 8 of 9 Euros worth of loan/"aid" to Greece go to foreign creditors.  the idea is to keep this going for eternity.

you'll never push the Troika into some Keynesian-bent economics because they don't want that.  they hate any possibility of inflation.

[© tweed]

the idea for the ECB is to have Greece as an eternally depressed, slave state, and a vehicle for transferring wealth to foreign creditors.  I believe the number is 8 of 9 Euros worth of loan/"aid" to Greece go to foreign creditors.  the idea is to keep this going for eternity.

in this sense Greece's situation is akin to an American's with $200k in 8-11% interest student loans.  they're designed to not be paid back, but to take a cut of your paycheck (including your Social Security check in 40 years -- or even if you get disability payments).

[© tweed]

the idea for the ECB is to have Greece as an eternally depressed, slave state, and a vehicle for transferring wealth to foreign creditors.  I believe the number is 8 of 9 Euros worth of loan/"aid" to Greece go to foreign creditors.  the idea is to keep this going for eternity.

in this sense Greece's situation is akin to an American's with $200k in 8-11% interest student loans.  they're designed to not be paid back, but to take a cut of your paycheck (including your Social Security check in 40 years -- or even if you get disability payments).

Then why did you get those loans? Your friendly local community college, most certainly, did not charge 50 grand a year.

I wasn't speaking in the first person -- but it is telling that you seek to blame the market-sense and rationality of a 17 or 18 year old before you think of the social structures and situation than makes $50k/year loans to 18 year olds widespread.

[© tweed]

the idea for the ECB is to have Greece as an eternally depressed, slave state, and a vehicle for transferring wealth to foreign creditors.  I believe the number is 8 of 9 Euros worth of loan/"aid" to Greece go to foreign creditors.  the idea is to keep this going for eternity.

in this sense Greece's situation is akin to an American's with $200k in 8-11% interest student loans.  they're designed to not be paid back, but to take a cut of your paycheck (including your Social Security check in 40 years -- or even if you get disability payments).

Then why did you get those loans? Your friendly local community college, most certainly, did not charge 50 grand a year.

I wasn't speaking in the first person -- but it is telling that you seek to blame the market-sense and rationality of a 17 or 18 year old before you think of the social structures and situation than makes $50k/year loans to 18 year olds widespread.

17 year olds sign up for loans without talking with their parents?

no, they generally need a "co-signer".  the loan is also immune to bankruptcy protection and collection rates on defaulted loans is close to 90% (compared to a fraction w/credit card debt).

the alternative path for people in the situation is to work a low wage job for eternity.

[© tweed]

Tsipras said he would resign if 'yes' wins, right?  (and Syriza possibly/probably re-elected with a plurality)

[© tweed]

But what would happen? Yes wins, Tspiras resigns, new elections are held, Syriza wins again... and then what?

I assume a different Syriza leader takes office?

Yanis takes over as PM.  brilliant.

[© tweed]

Another thing: if every one in the middle class took ag's advice and only went to cheap state schools (which, BTW, are getting less and less cheap by the year), those expensive private schools would become even more a preserve of the 1% than they already are.  The negative ramifications of that shift for social mobility and society at large are left as an exercise for the reader.

I do not know of many Harvard grads who suffer so much paying out their debts: Harvard degree is money (and, in any case, if you do struggle you are not doing much for social mobility). Most poor souls who paid fortune for college and struggle with debts went to very different kinds of schools. No disparagement intended, but I see no reason to borrow so much in order to attend Hofstras and Adelphis of this world.

right -- and "the market" wouldn't offer an assetless student and his asset-less parent to take out $200k in money over a 4 year span but for the bankruptcy protection exemption.  it is a policy designed to victimize people who have "dreams of college and getting a job"... college is an ideological status symbol in the USA, and I'm sure elsewhere.  viewing the college loans catastrophe as "merely economics at work" without taking in the myriad other factors that lead people to behave, gasp, irrationally, is the height of myopia.

[© tweed]

his appeal is that he is a new-new Left intellectual who is both a man of letters and a man of action.

[© tweed]

so.  looks like "Nein!" has won with over 60% of the vote.  gives Tsipras et al some "democratic legitimacy" as they peer into the abyss and get ready to jump.  fate is cooperating.