This is the only route to resolve issues properly. That is speaking as a, broadly speaking, pro-European. Well that’s my opinion anyway. What do you think?
Greece – the right result
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It’s only a complex issue because those in charge have made it a complex issue.
I’d like to add to bricameron’s masterly summation by saying that, when all the factors have been taken into consideration, the outcome is now a foregone conclusion whereas before, when all the factors were not at our disposal, it was anything but.
I fear the Greek people having been convinced by successive governments to shoot themselves repeatedly in one foot, have now finished the job by shooting themselves in the other one.
Wonder if they have already done a deal behind the scenes with the Finance Minister having resigned and apparently being told they would have better chances with him not being around?
Good on them. The Brussels Cartel needs standing up to.
Gives them a stronger bargaining position. As far as I can see from my family connections, Greeks see IXO as being no worse than the status quo (to mix 2 ancient languages). Don’t see how they’ve been shot in the foot by anyone.
It’s not the right result. Or the wrong one. It’s another machination on the route of exegesis via hubris to nemesis with only remote hope of catharsis.
Cor. That’s an impressive sentence.
Not being sarky, by the way – I just liked it in a Leonard Sachs kind of way.
It is, by some way, the best sentence ever to appear on the blog.
Afterword monolith.
Brilliantly, the sentence also works as an extremely succinct and on-point review of Terminator: Genisys.
I’m going to use it wherever a great sentence is required. After all, it’s another machination on the route of exegesis via hubris to nemesis with only remote hope of catharsis. And you can quote me on that.
It’s a good synopsis of the thesis for those who dismiss the in-extremis crisis hypothesis of the genesis of the exodus.
Thanks chaps
We also need to weave in a penis to this mimesis.
Moose?
Sheer prosetry. Respect.
Allow me to honour you with Freedom Of The Yurt, Fincat.
Weavers!
Have you had an accident at work?
Wallop!
As the crisis reaches its climax, kudos to whoever is able to solve such a systemic dilemma.
Hello, Arch! Slow down at the beach today?
I’m working, I’ll have you know. Beach is this affy.* This is not so much a heatwave as a heatfullpetetownshendwindmill.**
_______
*That’s Oldpeoplesglish for “arvo”.
** Needs work.
Readers should be aware of Archie’s deckchair and donkey-ride concession on the world’s most windswept beach. He spends most of his time pegging everything down (including the donkeys).
It’s for their own good, although I expect Brian May will be on my back any day now.
The kids couldn’t hurt Arch
They tried and tried and tried
They dropped things on his back
And lied and lied and lied and lied and lied
I think Fin has coined the afterword t-shirt slogan of all time, but probably only if you need one in XXL!
XXLegesis?
I think there’s a direct link between defaulting and humidity. See, humidity makes one cranky and snappy (I know I am at the mo, phew! gasp!) and Greece is very humid (I know as I’ve been there) so one is more likely to take umbrage at the slightest thing when it’s humid like it is here in the SS Bowl. I’m going tom phone the bank and default on my overdraft.
Here we go – don’t you just love the democratic EU ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11719974/Greece-news-live-Banks-to-remain-shut-for-another-two-days-as-creditors-squeeze-country-after-No-vote.html
….and Yanis Varoufakis puts on his black crash helmet, gets on his motorbike and rides off with a blonde bird riding pillion.
Whatever you think of him, that was way cool.
I found this characteristically hilarious:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/06/yanis-varoufakis-motorbike-greece-finance-minister
Apparently Varoufakis was sidelined from the negotiations because the other participants were unsettled by his plain-speaking every-man style, his raw manliness and his vastly superior intellect. Not because he kept leaving the negotiating room and immediately telling the media that the other side were a bunch of bloodthirsty wankers then?
Baffled by how the Guardian can continually proclaim victory for Syriza when Greece is currently on the verge of running out of food and medicine and the outcome of this whole game is still very much up in the air. I think they may have their West Wing goggles on.
“It’s his substance I’ll remember” …. hurrrrrr
Suzanne Moore, one of this country’s great political thinkers, and yet another reason why the Guardian cannot be taken seriously as a newspaper any longer. Varoufakis is a Viz character brought to life.
Maxus “Taxes? We don’t need no stinkin’ taxes!” Varookafaris?
I don’t know if it’s the right result because I haven’t a fucking clue what’s going on or what the consequences are. I suspect that’s true of a minimum of 99% of the population, including the Greek electorate, Angela Merkel and most of the people directly involved in the talks.
Either everyone confidently asserting away on this subject is a lot, LOT brighter than me or they’re winging it. (I know which one my drachmas are on.) At any rate, I have no opinion. It’s too complex and I don’t understand the issues.
Nobody has a clue what’s going on. You can tell this, because the markets aren’t really moving – they’re doing what everyone else is at the moment: scratching their noggins and asking themselves where all this is leading and when some of the Greek negotiating team will finally PUT A FUCKING TIE ON.
And yet half my social media friends and a number of people on this thread are happily proclaiming that it’s all terribly simple and obvious. It’s ok not to get it, surely?
West Wing goggles. Simple as that.
WWBD?
He’d say “See the whole board, Angela.”
What he’d actually do is kick his staff around for a week or two, make the entire crisis about him (speeches to God, gallons of self pity), eventually do what Leo has been telling him to do all along, and then make it all OK by gathering his team at approximately 3am, dispensing some down home wisdom and then inferring to at least one of them that they are like a son/daughter to him.
Worst. Boss. Ever.
LEAVE BARTLET ALONE. LEAVE. HIM. ALONE.
Leave him alone the way he left his supposed best mate to die on his todd in the woods?
Worst. Mate. Ever.
I don’t get it. I think it’s got something to do with cashpoints and flags.
It is terribly simple and obvious : Someone in this dreadful business needs to take a haircut.
Robert Peston.
True.
And Varoufakis has evidently already taken more than his share, the poor, oppressed fella.
Look on the bright side.
When they get kicked out of the Euro and their own currency tanks we’ll be able to pick up the Parthenon cheap. It’ll go nicely with those marble sculptures we have in the British Museum.
Well, we’d better cop it quick before ISIS turn up.
Will you stop going on about Bob Dylan?
I had to look that up.
I’m telling you, he’s like the Pope round here.
More infallible.
Prometheus
Narcissus
Sisyphus
Tantalus
Take your pick as to which mythopoeic archetype is being played out.
You’ll note, of course, that none end what you might call well.
I dunno: Sisyphus does manage to get that big rock up the hill. That must have felt pretty good.
More Fred The D?
I suspect a variation on this scene is going on behind various serious and important doors.
There isn’t a wrong or right result. Either option leaves Greece f**cked over but keep kicking the can down the road does not solve the problem. Greek citizens are being shafted to appease the egomaniac EU elite who are unwilling to face up to their responsibility in helping to cause this mess. Throwing more money at Greece is simply throwing a bucket of water at a drowning man.
The only thing that G Brown got right in his entire time in office was not joining the Euro club. As for the vow Gordon, we’re still waiting.
Never in the field of politics was so much screwed up for so many by so few.
It’s good of you to take some of the work on, Arch.
“It’s for their own good, although I expect Brian May will be on my back any day now.”
Good of you to take on some of the work load, Arch.
is Oxi the plural of Oxo?
No.
It’s the Banks,Stupid!
it’s the inevitable result. The Greeks should not have been punished and humiliated – shades of the Treaty of Versailles (and we all know how that ended up).
From where I type, the least-worst result seems to be some sort of messy, heavily-negotiated compromise whereby the Greeks are obliged to make structural reforms in return for some/all of the debt being written off.
But, like Disappointment, I’ll confess I don’t enough to be sure either.
I’ve phoned the bank. I told them to bog off. I think they’re having a crisis meeting at head office as we speak. Tensions must be running high.