follyhunter

11 November 2013 3:19pm

Isn't it about time to kick the Greeks out the European Union? Or to downgrade
them to some some sort of apprentice status, like Turkey?
follyhunter
12 November 2013 2:58pm
Response to pastendgame, 12 November 2013 2:29pm
You Greeks are funny people.
follyhunter
12 November 2013 8:25pm
Response to pastendgame, 12 November 2013 6:21pm
You Greeks are sooo funny!
follyhunter
12 November 2013 8:29pm
Fakelaki ("little envelope")
In Greek, fakelaki means "little envelope" but is also used in Greek popular culture as
a jargon term referring to the bribery of public servants and private companies by
Greek citizens in order to "expedite" service.
According to this practice, sums of money are stuffed in the files and passed across
the desk to secure appointments, documents approval and permits.
follyhunter
13 November 2013 3:39pm
Response to pastendgame, 13 November 2013 2:57pm
Cheaper Euro?
So the Greeks can export more feta cheese to Uganda, as you suggested in an
earlier post?
LOL
follyhunter
16 November 2013 11:54am
Response to pastendgame, 16 November 2013 4:06am
Kick the Greeks out the EU...
Results: 124
follyhunter
18 November 2013 12:41pm
Europeans'd be stupid to grant the Greeks a debt relief, even partialy.
Let the Greeks tap into their gas resources money first.
follyhunter
20 November 2013 11:08am
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 20 November 2013 9:01am
Thanks to the Greeks for starting this financial mess in Europe...
follyhunter
23 November 2013 11:05am
Response to DonJuan, 22 November 2013 9:12pm
Dijsselbloem has just announced another labour reform in Spain. Video
in English here.
About time.
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and France need many such reforms.
follyhunter
23 January 2014 11:28am
Response to kizbot, 23 January 2014 11:15am
Those poor innocent Greeks...
follyhunter
03 February 2014 1:32pm
Greek factories report first growth since August 2009
So those Greeks have got a couple of factories after all.
What are they complaining about all the time?
follyhunter
17 February 2014 3:01pm
Response to Seaandshells, 17 February 2014 2:45pm
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College has released a report on
the Greek economy with damning conclusions for the troika mandated
policies of austerity which have been a spectacular failure on all fronts
and especially with regards to the debt to GDP ratio which is projected
to rise to 208% in 2015. Greek industry has suffered effects similar to
those of a major war.
That's what happens when you base your economy on borrowed money.
follyhunter
18 February 2014 5:05pm
ATL:
A protest by school guards in Athens against government plans to sack
thousands of civil servants as part of its austerity commitments to
bailout creditors.
Greeks keep firing these civil servants at a snail's pace.
follyhunter
25 February 2014 9:00am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 25 February 2014 8:38am
More Greek navel gazing.
follyhunter
25 February 2014 2:36pm
Response to usacitizen, 25 February 2014 2:03pm
How dare you talk like that to Greece's most prominent intellectual?
follyhunter
26 February 2014 1:29pm
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 26 February 2014 12:59pm
Greece's most prominent intellectual has spoken to us once more.
follyhunter
28 February 2014 11:58am
EU January youth unemployment 23.4%
Greece 59%
Spain 54.6%
Italy 42.4%
Poland 27.4%
France 25.4%
UK 20%
Germany 7.6%
Indicator of a society's functionality.
follyhunter
28 February 2014 7:04pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 28 February 2014 6:09pm
New case of corruption in military procurement Greece
A new case of corruption in Greece?
I'm shocked.
follyhunter
03 March 2014 6:13pm
Meanwhile in Spain, Christine Lagarde has sparked a row by telling an
event in Bilbao that the Spanish labour market requires further reform.
That's for sure.
And so does the French, the Italian, the Greek and the Portuguese.
follyhunter
04 March 2014 3:32pm
The Greek manufacturing PMI (based on interviews with purchasing
managers) rose to a 66-month high of 51.3, up from 51.2 in January.
That indicates another rise in activity.
But while new orders and output rose, employment continued to drop.
Yup.
Greek productivity is still far too low.
follyhunter
04 March 2014 4:02pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 04 March 2014 3:58pm
Greece might be broke, but, it has tremendous military resources,
hundreds upon hundreds of tanks, modern fighter jets, missiles, what
have you. Is that not "material resources"? Or do you think they're
irrelevant in the context of an invasion and potential peacekeeping
operations?
Ha, ha, ha, ha......
follyhunter
07 March 2014 9:47am
Response to Seaandshells, 07 March 2014 9:40am
Costas Lapavitsas
He isn't Greek by any chance?
follyhunter
07 March 2014 10:06am
Response to Seaandshells, 07 March 2014 9:51am
Are you seriously suggesting that a leading professor in economics at a
top university is not entitled to an opinion or to participate in a debate
simply because of his ethnicity?
I didn't suggest anything of the kind.
But I think you're pushing him here, not because he's such a great expert, but that
he's a Greek like you.
You seem to have got an ethnicity complex.
BTW he's part of the the African studies department. Not such a super expert as you
make him out to be.
follyhunter
07 March 2014 10:27am
Response to DonJuan, 07 March 2014 10:23am
He's an Australian Greek then.
follyhunter
12 March 2014 4:40pm
Response to Seaandshells, 12 March 2014 3:10pm
And you're not a Greek?
follyhunter
13 March 2014 11:36am
Response to kizbot, 13 March 2014 11:30am
It's not our fault that you moved to Greece and are now stuck there.
follyhunter
13 March 2014 5:41pm
Response to Seaandshells, 13 March 2014 5:31pm
European Monetary Fund
There aren't going to be any Euro Bonds for the Greeks under current conditions. So
keep on dreaming.
follyhunter
14 March 2014 2:49pm
Response to kizbot, 14 March 2014 11:11am
It's not our fault that you moved to Greece and are stuck there now.
follyhunter
14 March 2014 3:59pm
News is that the Troika won't give the Greeks the next tranche of rescue money,
unless they actually do some serious overhauling of their corrupt system.
follyhunter
17 March 2014 2:45pm
Response to zerozero, 17 March 2014 2:32pm
What Varoufakis doesn't say is where this is going. He seems to be
correct in that Greece is already a failed state, and all the economic
indicators are dire, but this also looks like a continuing decline. Nothing
in capitalism stands still.
Greece's always been a mess (except maybe a brief period during the bronze age) no
matter what kind of economic system made the world go round.
Greece was a failed state, is a failed state and very likely will remain a failed state in
the future.
follyhunter
18 March 2014 12:23pm
Response to Seaandshells, 18 March 2014 10:20am
Article from The Press Project.
Subheader says: Greek news for a global audience.
That says it all.
follyhunter
19 March 2014 9:55am
It's not our fault that you moved to Greece and are stuck there now.
follyhunter
26 March 2014 6:31pm
Prime minister Antonis Samaras shaky two-party coalition has made a
return to markets a priority despite opposition from lenders who have
cautioned against such a move.
The Greeks can't bear the interest of their present debt pile and want to return to the
markets???
follyhunter
31 March 2014 2:09pm
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 31 March 2014 1:45pm
Is Greece an island?
follyhunter
02 April 2014 9:12am
Response to IfigEusLannuon, 02 April 2014 9:07am
Greek government is planing to issue a 2 billion bond over 5 years in May.
follyhunter
02 April 2014 2:59pm
Response to Typist11, 02 April 2014 11:36am
Without the Eurozone membership Greek yields would certainly be around 15-20%.
BTW same goes for Spain or Italy or Portugal.
follyhunter
02 April 2014 4:36pm
Response to follyhunter, 02 April 2014 3:44pm
Unless with "we" you meant the Australians and not the Greeks.
follyhunter
03 April 2014 10:32am
Response to Seaandshells, 03 April 2014 10:18am
Transparency International still ranks Greece as the most corrupt nation in Europe and
Transparency is a left leaning organization.
In that regard Greece is like all the other corruption ridden countries like Uganda. You
want to do business there, officials and people on the ground expect to be bribed.
follyhunter
03 April 2014 12:10pm
Response to Seaandshells, 03 April 2014 10:56am
You have to open a new thread for this.
Alright, than get at least your facts straight.
Transparency ranks Greece on its worldwide corruption index at #80 one place behind
China and Tunisia and just before Swaziland and Burkina Faso.
That makes Greece the most corrupt nation in Europe. Even Romania and Bulgaria do
better than Greece.
follyhunter
04 April 2014 1:51pm
While protests take place in Brussels, there is a clean-up operation
underway in Athens as the Greek government tried to make its capital
look its best.
With EU foreign ministers starting a two-day meeting today, workmen
have been sprucing up Syntagma Square. Athens correspondent Helena
Smith sends a photo:
Wow, two people at work. Some clean-up operation.
Where's the rest of them? Forging for food in bins or holding siestas?
follyhunter
04 April 2014 8:06pm
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 04 April 2014 3:20pm
I don't know what you Greeks put into your drinking water, but hey, I want some of
that.
follyhunter
07 April 2014 3:01pm
Response to MAKRAKOMI, 07 April 2014 12:38pm
Is it compulsory for Greek internet users to post comments on the Guardian business
blog?
follyhunter
08 April 2014 8:36am
We'll also be watching Greece, where anti-austerity protests are
expected today ahead of tomorrow's general strike, along with all the
main events through the day....
Why always this blog's emphasis on Greece, Guardian? This is really beginning to feel
weird.
If the Eurozone crisis is the focus, why not report with the same vigor what's going on
in Portugal for a change?
Or Spain?
Or Italy?
Or France?
Or Belgium?
Or Germany?
Or Austria?
Or Finnland?
Or Slowenia?
Or Bulgaria?
Or Romania?
Or Ireland?
Or Netherlands?
Or Estonia?
Or Luxembourg?
Or Slovakia?
follyhunter
08 April 2014 10:21am
Response to Balaam89, 08 April 2014 9:46am
It is time for an exit, a reinstatement of the drachma
Remember Greek debt is in Euros! Devaluing the Drachma would do nothing to dig
them out of pit dug in Euros. Greeks would get little value out of their new printing
press.
The Drachma, from a bussiness perspective would be a disaster. Who would want to
make deals based on a currency that is expected to go through wild changes in
valuation? Why would other Eurozone nations expose their transactions to increased
hassel and risk to trading with Greece?
follyhunter
08 April 2014 5:41pm
Greece prepares for general strike and possible bond sale
Translation:
Greeks prepare to take the day off and create new debt.
follyhunter
09 April 2014 9:25am
Bond sale during Greece's National Holiday General Strike.
Only country in the world that has got a national holiday 24 times a year.
follyhunter
10 April 2014 9:57am
Response to CefimarPark, 10 April 2014 9:35am
Terrific news - Greece is borrowing 'again'.
Terrific.
Like handing a 4 year old child a loaded handgun.
follyhunter
10 April 2014 5:06pm
Response to Abertawe, 10 April 2014 2:03pm
What do you expect from a Greek business blog?
follyhunter
11 April 2014 9:22am
A car bomb went off outside the Bank of Greece building in central
Athens early on Thursday.
There are rumors it wasn't a car bomb after all, but the prototype of a Greek car
called, Pony, (produced by the Greek car manufacturer company, Namco ((didn't know
something like that existed)) that drove through central Athens yesterday and
suddenly blew up.
follyhunter
11 April 2014 11:10am
Who cares about Merkel's visit to Greece? What's next? Albania?
follyhunter
14 April 2014 10:59am
Response to ElvisInWales, 14 April 2014 10:32am
I have seen more intellect in a dead dingo's donger ffs grow the fuck up!
It's a Greek business blog. What do you expect?
follyhunter
14 April 2014 2:28pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 14 April 2014 2:19pm
Greek bookkeeping.
What else is there to say.
follyhunter
14 April 2014 4:48pm
What we can do is to ease debt, which is what we have done before
through offering lower interest or extending the maturity of loans, Dutch
Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the group of euro
finance chiefs, said yesterday. Those type of measures are possible
but under the agreement that commitments from Greece are met.
Good luck with that last one boys.
Greece is still the same over-bureaucratized corrupt swamp it was prior to the
bailouts. There will be a deep freeze in hell before the 'commitments are met'.
follyhunter
15 April 2014 10:24am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 15 April 2014 9:41am
Why should the Guardian write another article in an endless seeming stream of
articles on crooked Greek bookkeeping?
Just another attempt by Greece to fix the books.
They must think the EU is stupid.
After the European elections the Greeks will surely be punished for it and punished
very serverely.
follyhunter
15 April 2014 11:03am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 15 April 2014 9:41am
Yes, like another Greek government would do their bookkeeping differently.
Very funny.
follyhunter
15 April 2014 1:59pm
Of the 27 regions that reported unemployment above 21%, 13 are in
Spain, 10 in Greece, one in Italy, as well as three French outposts.
Of the 49 regions with jobless rates of 5.4% or lower, 23 are in
Germany, 8 in Austria, 3 in the Czech Republic, followed by Romania
(3), Belgium (2), Holland (1) and Italy (1).
So without Greece and Spain, the EU's unemployment report would be almost
spotless.
follyhunter
22 April 2014 2:55pm
Austerity in Greece caused more than 500 male suicides, say
researchers
I guess the personal debt those 500 males piled up were the real cause and not
austerity.
follyhunter
23 April 2014 9:12am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 23 April 2014 9:05am
Greece booked 83bn general government revenue and 106bn general
government expenditure in 2013, i.e. a deficit of 22% or 28%, but you
wouldn't call its savage austerity Keynesian policy, would you now?
No. I'd call it stupid.
follyhunter
23 April 2014 10:57am
Helena add that the total number of Greeks applying for the "social
dividend" (an allowance promised once the primary surplus had been
achieved), has shot up to 312,000, according to finance ministry
officials in Athens. That's up from 225,000 yesterday.
Over a 100.000 Greeks applying for money handouts in 24 hours and the Greek
bureaucracy able to handle that and give an exact figure?
Who's surprised by that I wonder?
follyhunter
23 April 2014 1:39pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 23 April 2014 12:59pm
Why don't you post your comments in a Greek paper?
follyhunter
23 April 2014 5:03pm
Response to totallymad, 23 April 2014 4:53pm
The Greeks would not have done a damn thing without pressure from the Germans
and the ECB.
follyhunter
24 April 2014 9:52am
Response to jonsnow92, 24 April 2014 9:35am
corrupt Greek government
It'll be difficult to find a Greek government that is not corrupt in Europe's most corrupt
nation.
follyhunter
25 April 2014 10:52am
Response to kizbot, 25 April 2014 8:39am
But the German press? Why so quiet and accepting? It beggars belief
that the Germans are just going to lie down and bankroll this madness
without a peep.
Maybe the Germans don't give a toss about what is going on in Greece. Until the
crisis struck, Greece was just another Balkan country next to Albania for the Germans
and about as equally important to them.
follyhunter
25 April 2014 12:42pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 25 April 2014 12:36pm
Greeks fixed their books to get in the Eurozone and now they're fixing their books to
stay in.
What's so surprising about that?
follyhunter
25 April 2014 3:49pm
Response to Grishnakh, 25 April 2014 3:47pm
Could we get some comment on this from those people on here who
proclaimed in no uncertain terms back when the Cypriot bailout was
announced that the evil EU had thereby 'destroyed the Cypriot
economy'?
They're too busy uncovering the great Greek/EU surplus conspiracy.
follyhunter
28 April 2014 1:08pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 28 April 2014 11:57am
More on Greece cooking the books.
A never-ending story.
follyhunter
29 April 2014 10:57am
Greece: Stop unlawful and shameful expulsion of refugees and migrants
Amnesty Internationals report Greece: Frontier of hope and fear contains new
evidence of the ongoing, persistent and shameful treatment by the Greek authorities
of people risking their lives to find refuge in Europe. This is in direct violation of
Greeces international human rights obligations. The report calls on the EU to use its
power to start legal proceedings against Greece for failing to uphold its obligations.
follyhunter
07 May 2014 3:01pm
Response to nuspeak, 07 May 2014 10:41am
We agreed on a strong currency regime. That is the deal.
follyhunter
08 May 2014 9:30am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 08 May 2014 8:50am
Greece now has a balanced current account quite an achievement after double-digit
deficits (as a percentage of GDP) a few years ago. But, in contrast to other
economies on the eurozone periphery, this improvement was achieved entirely
through import compression.
Lack of export growth has made the recession in Greece much longer and deeper than
it would have been otherwise. If Greek exports had increased at the same rate as
those of Portugal (or Spain), the recession would have ended by now.
follyhunter
12 May 2014 3:14pm
Response to BabyBoomer55, 12 May 2014 2:33pm
Germans can't play as bad as the Greeks, just so that the Greeks don't feel bad.
The EU should be glad that it got at least one last global player left in its team.
follyhunter
12 May 2014 3:54pm
Response to BabyBoomer55, 12 May 2014 3:47pm
This is nonsense.
How about making the other players improve their game?
Ever done any business in Italy, Spain or Greece? Probably not, or you'd know why
they're in such bad shape.
follyhunter
12 May 2014 4:24pm
Response to BabyBoomer55, 12 May 2014 4:08pm
Germany could help here by ensuring all eurozone SME's can borrow at
the same rate as they do - they haven't.
The other countries get pretty good rates. Actually without the German EZ
membership, Italy, Spain or Greece would probably borrow at around 12-15%.
follyhunter
14 May 2014 3:32pm
Response to IfigEusLannuon, 14 May 2014 3:13pm
Yes, probably, but I was just having fantasies of UK citizens going into
the "Other passports" queues at airports in France and Spain, with all
immigrants from Africa and Asia. A kind of immanent justice for UKIP
supporters; having to live through the life of third world immigrants will
be enlightening, if only for the few months needed to find an agreement.
That comment is a bit racist, isn't it?
follyhunter
14 May 2014 3:40pm
Response to Seaandshells, 14 May 2014 3:19pm
Timothy-Geithner-reveals-Schaubles-plan-to-kick-Greece-out-of-the-euro-
and-terrify-the-rest-of-Europe
Sounds like a good plan.
follyhunter
14 May 2014 5:17pm
Response to BabyBoomer55, 14 May 2014 4:35pm
several are already in a deflationary spiral
They're not, except for Greece maybe.
follyhunter
15 May 2014 4:32pm
Response to windguy, 15 May 2014 3:52pm
I don't know how undervalued the Euro should be for you Greeks.
Even with an undervalued Euro, there wouldn't be anything of substance Greece could
export.
follyhunter
22 May 2014 11:13am
You can always tell not much going on in the world of business when the Greek
cleaning ladies pop up.
follyhunter
22 May 2014 12:20pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 22 May 2014 12:15pm
jonsnow92 was talking about the EZ, not the EU.
Besides that thing was published in 1996 and nobody knew back then, that Greece
would go on a spending spree and make that goal of convergence unattainable for
decades to come.
follyhunter
23 May 2014 12:48pm
What are the Greek cleaning ladies doing today?
follyhunter
27 May 2014 9:48am
UKIP's triumph in the UK, the National Front's surge in France, and even
the prospect of Greece's Golden Dawn sending MEPs to Brussels, isn't
spooking investors, yet anyway.
Why should that spook anyone?
Bunch of incompetent nationalists and socialists = incompetent national socialists.
They'll sit there for 4 years boring each other with boring speeches and then won't be
reelected.
follyhunter
28 May 2014 8:45am
Response to kizbot, 28 May 2014 8:42am
Ah, crap.
You hate him, because he was chief of the Euro group and he didn't pay off your
Greek debt.
follyhunter
28 May 2014 3:31pm
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 28 May 2014 3:23pm
but Germans still want to be and buy Greece,
I guess the Germans go there for the sun, despite the Greeks.
follyhunter
28 May 2014 4:01pm
Response to Thomas Varmaxizis, 28 May 2014 3:42pm
They have to learn the Greek language....to respect locals and their
traditions....and to be integrated to Greek society.
You ask a lot for a 14 day holiday.
follyhunter
30 May 2014 10:43am
Tsipras calls Farage monstrosity created by austerity
That Tsipras guy should better stick to Greek issues, for he obviously knows nothing
of British issues.
follyhunter
03 June 2014 3:49pm
I only come here for the Greek cleaning ladies soap opera.
follyhunter
05 June 2014 3:44pm
Response to Rolex44, 05 June 2014 3:29pm
Yep the EU economy is up shit creek.
Most of the EU economy is doing pretty good.
Italy, France and Greece are 'up shit creek'. And that won't change for a long time.
Inside or outside the EU or Euro.
follyhunter
05 June 2014 4:34pm
Response to Optymystic, 05 June 2014 4:08pm
Spain and Portugal don't count.
They do and they are undertaking structural reforms and will come out on top of
France, Italy and Greece.
Greece is such a mess, I shouldn't even mention that country in relation to the others.
follyhunter
06 June 2014 12:07am
Response to jonsnow92, 05 June 2014 6:53pm
Let me guess...you're a Greek.
follyhunter
06 June 2014 9:39am
Response to finnja, 06 June 2014 9:22am
You're wasting your money for a good cause...to make the Greeks and Italians and
the French feel better.
The ECB gave the South more time to postpone any serious reform efforts.
follyhunter
06 June 2014 4:20pm
Response to Optymystic, 06 June 2014 2:21pm
The currency that could serve the need of the Greeks does not exist, never existed
and will never exist.
Blame it on the Euro as long as you like, Greece is mess. She was a mess before
she joined the Euro and will be a mess, long after Greece left the EZ.
follyhunter
16 June 2014 1:55pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 16 June 2014 11:43am
How will foot cream help Greece?
follyhunter
17 June 2014 3:08pm
Response to TheThistle, 17 June 2014 2:47pm
Greece will only exit if those who matter (IMF + Germany) tell it to do
so.
So sit quiet and wait until you're told by the grown ups.
follyhunter
17 June 2014 3:11pm
No pics of the Greek cleaning ladies today?
follyhunter
19 June 2014 10:22am
ATL:
In Greece, cleaning workers who lost their jobs last summer in the
austerity cutbacks are protesting outside the office of New Democracy,
the governing party.
Thanks for the info! Just a bit sad that there's no picture.
Please tell the Twitter journalists to keep us updated in case the cleaning ladies cross
the street to get out of the sun.
follyhunter
19 June 2014 3:57pm
Response to jonsnow92, 19 June 2014 1:17pm
Academic rigor has never been the strong point of europhiles. 'The
Project' is their oxygen - figures and facts are not that important.
Bull.
This is all about money and Greek pride.
Had the EU pumped more money into Greece, you Greeks here would all be
europhiles.
follyhunter
23 June 2014 10:17am
Response to kizbot, 23 June 2014 8:52am
But a fair summing up of why Cameron doesn't want that bastard
Juncker.
Ah you Greeks.
All people who do not hand you free money are bastards.
follyhunter
26 June 2014 11:29am
Seems like the Greeks found a new tax collector (LOL) for the hopelessly corrupt
Greek system.
follyhunter
30 June 2014 2:08pm
Response to kizbot, 30 June 2014 1:28pm
while the 25% fall in Greek GDP shows how great it is to be in the EZ...
The Greek blaming game again.
follyhunter
01 July 2014 2:40pm
A bit of neutral info for those Greeks here who do nothing else, than blame the Troika.
For the Sydney news:
At the height of the crisis Greece ran a budget deficit equivalent to 13.5
per cent of its gross domestic product (compared with 4.1 per cent in
Australia). Its gross public debt was 115 per cent of GDP (as against 16
per cent in Australia), and rising rapidly. And the banks would not lend
more.
How did it get there? Take its pension system. Greeks can retire early
on a lifetime pension equivalent to 80 per cent of their final salary, and
indexed to match wage growth. They receive 14 months a year of
pension payments, with bonuses at Christmas and Easter. The OECD
estimates that some Greeks actually receive more on the pension
than they did when they were working.
Greece is the land of bankrupts and luxury pensions, tax dodgers
and rip-offs. It's a country where the authorities use satellites to search
for houses with swimming pools, in order to send the owners a tax bill. It
reported that Greeks on average paid almost $A2000 a year in
bribes, and shops routinely refused to provide tax receipts for
purchases.
And that is part of the story. Greece joined the European Union, joined
the euro, but never became part of that northern European culture in
which officials, taxpayers and citizens obey the law because they see
the state as theirs.
In Greece, tax evasion and corruption are rife. Transparency
International's annual index finds investors rate it the most corrupt
country in the developed world, worse even than Saudi Arabia and
Ghana.
follyhunter
02 July 2014 10:43am
Response to WoodWorker2008, 02 July 2014 9:26am
There is more civil war action in France after an Algeria football match than in Greece
since the beginning of the crisis.
follyhunter
09 July 2014 11:01am
Response to WoodWorker2008, 09 July 2014 10:01am
Not too many people post on this blog anymore.
By reporting on this stuff, they keep at least the Greek posters.
follyhunter
10 July 2014 11:12am
Response to jonsnow92, 10 July 2014 9:55am
Perhaps them righteous northerners are not that much different from the
lazy southerners after all
Are you Greeks dreaming about this sort of thing at night?
follyhunter
10 July 2014 1:59pm
Response to follyhunter, 10 July 2014 11:12am
Seems like some of the Greeks here are so obsessive, they've even got multiple
characters registered here.
Time for the mods to check some IP addresses...
follyhunter
10 July 2014 4:10pm
Response to DonJuan, 10 July 2014 4:08pm
Some members should consider leaving the bitching EU and join the
Eurasian Union.
Please go ahead and don't forget to take Greece with you.
follyhunter
11 July 2014 10:31am
Response to mrwicket, 11 July 2014 10:09am
In case some of you have forgotten (or don't think it matters), Italy are
running the European show for the next six months so just calm it right
down.
Don't worry. Nobody outside Italy will take notice.
Just like when Greece held the presidency for the last 6 months. Nobody took notice
of that non-event either.
follyhunter
15 July 2014 3:36pm
Response to jonsnow92, 15 July 2014 12:06pm
Apart from Germany(And Finland, Netherlands) I think anyone is in
aggrement over fiscal transfers.
Only the broke and backward European South is in some sort of agreement here.
Nobody else.
And the South only wants the one way street fiscal transfers, the one's where money
is flowing south and the South does nothing in return.
follyhunter
17 July 2014 10:39am
The Russian ruble has weakening this morning, losing 0.75% against
the US dollar in early trading.
The French and the Greeks and the Italians want a weak Euro to strengthen the
export of their not so good products.
How about joining Putin's Eurasia Ruble instead?
follyhunter
17 July 2014 2:27pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 17 July 2014 2:08pm
This is a business blog and not for weird news from the European
periphery.
I forgot for a moment that Greece is basically a bronze age culture and you can't
understand these things.
VW and Fiat are car makers and a possible take over would be big business news
indeed.
follyhunter
18 July 2014 12:05pm
Response to windguy, 18 July 2014 11:41am
This crisis will blow over.
That mentality keeps Greece in the bronze age.
follyhunter
18 July 2014 2:17pm
Response to jonsnow92, 18 July 2014 1:30pm
tomorrow could be - 2% + 2% not 2%.
If the ECB be run by Greece, I wouldn't doubt it.
Thank God it's not.
follyhunter
21 July 2014 11:00am
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 21 July 2014 10:54am
People simply can't pay, they've been squeezed dry.
Bold claim.
Greeks didn't pay their taxes in past, long before the crisis.
follyhunter
21 July 2014 3:59pm
Response to usacitizen, 21 July 2014 3:43pm
Hey, James Pethokoukis (no thanks Greece), the ECB's inflation target is 0% up to
2% and not 2%.
Get your facts straight before writing about spending other people's money.
follyhunter
22 July 2014 10:22am
Response to kizbot, 22 July 2014 10:01am
to come over to Greece and meet up with our boys in the Ministry of
finance. We could show them a trick or two when it comes to book
fiddling and number crunching.
When we Neutrals say such thing on this blog, the Greeks call us racist.
follyhunter
22 July 2014 1:59pm
Response to windguy, 22 July 2014 11:18am
Not so good news on Chinese debt.
Some people are not surprised by this development of Chinese debt.
The Chinese are doing a lot of business with Greece lately.
follyhunter
23 July 2014 3:05pm
Response to equusmulusoctopus, 23 July 2014 2:04pm
This post is a great example of the humility that endears so many to Greece.
follyhunter
24 July 2014 10:54am
Response to Heetboven, 24 July 2014 10:10am
Bloody Germans.
I won't say who, but a certain country could learn a lot from them bloody Germans.
(Hint, officially the most corrupt European nation).
follyhunter
24 July 2014 5:19pm
Response to Seaandshells, 24 July 2014 4:49pm
I guess the Germans don't want to hurt the indigenous population by ignoring their
local customs and say: "When in Rome do as the Romans do".
In this case the Greeks.
follyhunter
25 July 2014 7:13pm
And finally over to Greece where the battle to stop Sunday Shopping
reached new heights as the case was taken to the countrys highest
court.
The shops should be open in Greece on Sundays.
That be good for the tourists there who've got real money to spend.
And a great opportunity for large European companies like Metro, Aldi, Penny, Lidl,
Saturn or Media Markt to strengthen their business there.
Let's be honest, the little Greek shop owner hasn't got a future anyway.
After six straight years of recession and with liquidity still at
chronically low levels - most store staff have not been paid in months.
Jezz, I rather work at Lidl.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 9:09am
Response to kizbot, 28 July 2014 8:57am
Bring on the Greek cleaning ladies.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 1:02pm
Response to Rialbynot, 28 July 2014 11:41am
I think of all that EU money wasted on the Greeks.
You just said something negative about Grecce.
Prepare for over twenty replies telling you how you're wrong.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 1:08pm
I continue to believe the only way to change Greece's behavior is to ban travel of all
Greeks to civilized places in the world.
When Papandreou's friends are forced to live in the EU protectorate and have no
access to their villas in the south of France or their homes in London, behavior will
change.
Let them buy summer homes in Syria and North Korea. Enjoy the fresh air in Beijing!
Let them behave in Shanghai, the same way they behave in the ski lines of the Alps,
and see what happens.
In the meantime, the quality of life improves in London and the south of France.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 1:11pm
Response to follyhunter, 28 July 2014 1:08pm
BTW, the Russians are more humble than the Greeks.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 4:30pm
Response to kizbot, 28 July 2014 12:47pm
In Greece it is always the other guy who did the bad deed.
And never the good simple folks...never.
follyhunter
28 July 2014 5:09pm
Response to windguy, 28 July 2014 3:02pm
This is a very simple way to summarize debating with the putinbots.
Non putinbot: "It is raining in Moscow"
Putinbot: "It rains more in London"
LOL
Greek humor.
That'll impress the Putinbots.