I am starting to understad this Greece debt crisis. Basically, Greek will always be bailedout, as well as other Euro countries. It is really a political thing.
And subsidise chips for Greeks to gamble away in dignity, I expect Varoufakis to soon champion this grand plan.
News from this morning is Germany France and Italy will join the Asian Development Bank, following in UK steps. Also when did Merket meet last with the Dalai Lama ? In 2008 ? It doesn't seem he gets much meetings with high ranking german officials nowadays. It's smart from the british government (as well as german or any government for that matter) not to meet again with the Dalai Lama, it is a very insignificant cause for a western country to get in bad relationships over with China. I understand what you mean about Merkel political clout compared to her predecessors, you are probably right, although again, for the good of Europe, I feel it's preferable to have a politically strong UK. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/b...sian-infrastructure-investment-bank.html?_r=0
all fair points and I agree with all of them. Only keep in mind, seeing religious figures as states head in Europe is long tradition, not to play political games. Think of the Vatican audiences and meetups between the pope and European statesmen and women. It was never intended to be used against other countries. However, the frequent invitations of the Dalai Lama by the White House and Downing Street were very much intended to infuriate China. Very different motivations. And yes, seeing the Dalai Lama is insignificant especially given that Buddhism is not a well practiced religious faith in those countries that China does not wish the Dalai Lama to be welcomed by. Regarding a politically strong UK, I fully agree. I even wish the UK to be economically strong, I in fact wish all European countries to be as economically mighty as Germany, even if that means more competition for Germany because competition only does good to innovation and productivity. Do you think German taxpayers are not growing tired of infinitely subsidizing the rest of Europe? You raise kids but at some point you want them to stand on their own feet and make prudent decisions. Maybe we have to be honest and agree that some current EU members are just not "compatible" with the EU root ideas and ideals, something that the majority of EU members at least realized early enough about Turkey. It would be a drama and absolute horror to have to start fighting about religious ideologies on top of all this economic mess. But we also have to respect the course the UK is heading towards at the moment. The UK makes strides to fight for survival economically. It must have sunk into most arch conservative British minds that the United Kingdom has lost any and all political influence in the world. The country in fact is fighting hard to maintain its economic might. That is the precise reason it now look at "partners" that can ensure continued investments and trade. The US loses in relative significance for the British vs China. The UK has chosen to embrace money rather than upholding its many century old moral values and ethical framework. London has become the playground to some ridiculously rich middle eastern kids who cruise around in super cars, while their own citizens and migrant workers toil at local minimum wage that is by any standard appalling. Such kids would receive a ticket and have their cars impounded after 30 minutes in Germany or Monaco. Yet money outdoes petty crime in London for years now. Also consider the hundreds of millions of illicit money from Russia, the Middle East, and China that is flowing into London real estate. Nobody needs to provide proof of the legality of the monetary resources as, for example, in Germany. I find it a sad turning away from laudable British principles and moral values. One of the most disappointing British decisions recently is the total and utter silence towards the state of affairs in Hong Kong. The UK even after the handover has a responsibility to ensure that the treaties and agreements with China are upheld. Else, locals legitimately will get the impression the UK is embarking on the same policies as during the Opium Wars: Steal and extract value and when you have harvested it all you retreat and piss off.
Well, I don't share the political and moral values you're describing. I'm glad China raises as a political superpower to balance the western influence and feel very very very very little sympathy for HK protesters. They might be displeased with the way HK is turning into, but that shouldn't allow them to block the city's trade during months then attack tourists. UK seems quite OK with them beeing chinese now, and appears to have no intention to give them residency. I guess UK has enough thugs to deal with already. Also if money talks in UK, that doesn't disturb me either. Locals working for minimum wage certainly doesn't apply to the whole of middle east. At least in Saudi UAE and Qatar, which rich kids do roam some european cities in luxury cars on a regular basis, minimum wage jobs are reserved for foreigners.
Agree with that part. I actually was thinking of Munich yesterday, such an awesome place to live (not only the city, but the whole area, including the alps nearby). I checked again the taxation but it's a killer in Germany (and germans don't seem to treat tax evasion lightly). Not sure how the money is reparted but locals probably get pissed if they think to much of the money is redistributed overseas to countries which appear not to play their part (even if it's redistributed in the same country, especially a large one, I'd be pissed to pay so much taxes)
Thought this was a good read on Merkel - since you guys were discussing her. It’s Time for Angela Merkel to Stand Up I need to start of off the bat with an update to this piece, which I started writing yesterday, since I now know that Angela Merkel actually did invite Alexis Tsipras on Monday. It only took her two months…. But that doesn’t take away anything from my point that Merkel has been sorely lacking and missing, it just goes to prove that point. And if she doesn’t get her act together very quickly (why not ask Tsipras to be in Berlin tomorrow morning?!), this will, I’ve said it before, go down as her main legacy. She will be known as the person who let Europe slip into war, for no good reason whatsoever. Here’s what I started off with last night (Oz time): The increasing ugliness of the ‘negotiations’ between the Greek Syriza government and the rest of the eurozone, which is ruled by the German government, needs to be halted and put in reverse. There is an urgent need for a detente, for cooler heads and for trust. And there is only one person who can act to create these things: Angela Merkel. But Merkel is nowhere to be found or seen. The increasing ugliness of the propaganda war the west is waging against Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, also needs to be halted. There is an even more urgent need there for a detente, for cooler heads and for trust. There is only one person who can act to create these things: Angela Merkel. But Merkel is AWOL. There are German voices in the Putin case that call for reason and quiet, and that have labeled people like NATO head Stoltenberg, NATO General Breedlove and US State Department ‘Assistant’ Victoria Nuland more or less insane. But Merkel’s voice is not among them, nowhere to be heard. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was born in 1942. That means he was alive when German troops committed the worst of their war crimes and atrocities on Greek soil, and on Greek people, which the Syriza government says it wants to receive war reparations for. But Schäuble high-handedly poo-poohs these demands, claiming everything has been settled decades ago. As if he were talking about things that happened 1000 years ago or more. They did not, Mr. Schäuble, they happened during your lifetime, and no level of high-handedness, not one level of it, is appropriate here on your part. The only appropriate reaction is humbleness and the highest level of respect you are capable of. Whether there’s a legal issue is something for legal experts to decide, but until then, you have no right to poo-pooh anything. Besides, you’re a finance minister, and this is not a finance issue, it’s far too sensitive to be regarded as such. The only person who should indeed address it is your boss, Angela Merkel. But no-one’s seen her around. Merkel should have told Schäuble weeks ago to keep his trap shut, but she has instead allowed him to antagonize Athens even more. And blame the Greeks for that. It may already be too late when it comes to the Ukraine issue. Angela should have intervened a long time ago. She did not. She suddenly turned her back on her friend Vladimir, for reasons she never explained, and allowed US and NATO hotheads to completely take over European politics. Never a good idea, for obvious reasons. And now she may be stuck with the consequences: a war on her doorstep. Which, in reality, has of course already started. 6000 Ukrainians are gone, millions have been forced to leave their homes. Angela Merkel could have prevented most of this from happening. Blood on your hands, girl. She let Schäuble get out of hand with his hugely out of place and out of whack comments on Greece’s financial situation, on Varoufakis and on the crimes perpetrated by his parents’ generation in not just Greece, but certainly also in Greece. Comments not befitting the European Union’s de facto political and economical leader. And that has left space for extremists to come in and take the lead over from Merkel. Likewise, she’s let Breedlove and Nuland take the lead in the Ukraine issue, while she could have easily defused it, leading to a situation where Putin this weekend made it a point to say that he felt so strongly about Crimea, he would have been ready to alert his nuclear capacity. That the western press chooses to put that fact in entirely different, and far more threatening terms, was and is only to be expected, for Angela as much as for you and me. The most powerful woman in the world had better stand up now, or it will be too late in both instances. Greece will be forced into a Grexit or Grexident, neither of which EU leaders have anywhere near the grip on that they try to convince us they have; more countries will leave after Greece, and financial markets will start betting on just that. And the US and NATO will force Ukraine into a full blown war theater, something Merkel should never ever want to her immediate eastern flank, and something that was always entirely preventable is she had put her foot down. Is Angela going to be the umpteenth tragic lady with a tragic footprint in history, or will she wake up in the nick of time, stand up, and say: no more of this?! We’ll soon know.
An excellent piece. There are mad idiots happy to push Europe into a war over Ukraine, Merkel needs to be decisive and put a stop to that nonsense.
a) nobody blocked anything to a degree that people could not get to work anymore. You could simply walk around the protesters in Causeway Bay. Then none of the paths from Midlevels to IFC I/II was blocked. And you could have taken a subway from Kowloon side to Central. So not sure what you are talking about here. And protests always disrupt. Even new technologies call themselves "disruptive". You want to ban innovation because it hurts/endangers existing one? Any demonstration or protest will cause certain costs, but the few less dollars some flower shops or taxi drivers earned was a price worth it in exchange for expressing freedom, imho. Else, none of the momentents in our human history should have ever taken place, whether you talk about the revolution in Eastern Europe towards freedom from communism, women's movement, apartheid protests in various countries...yes it does cost a little to attain something. Always has always will. b) No tourists were ever attacked. If you are referring to anti-parallel trading protesters then you should maybe try to understand what is really going on. Mainland Chinese who abuse their travel privileges to enter HK multiple times each day and tax the HK system and its citizens should not have a place in this city. That there were very few incidences where physical shuffles broke out is regretful but it in no means weakens the point of the HK local protesters. Walk around Central, Causeway Bay or Kowloon: Do you need watches, handbags, baby milk formula? Yet every 2nd fucking shop sells one of those three items. No HK person needs it. They need food shops, restaurants, and stores that sell items for HK citizens. Its ok to cater to tourists, but its something entirely different to pervert the idea to welcome visitors who in turn have their babies pee into the streets, spit, burp, fart, and otherwise behave uncivilized. The UK was a slick bastard during the time of the handover. Facts surface now whereas they have secretly agreed with the PRC government on concessions the UK government was ashamed to publicly admit for many years. Its not about giving HK citizens residency. Its about ensuring that the publicly agreed terms of the handover are respected. You can't just raid and pillar your colonial concessions and then curl up your tail and disappear into the fog. At least that seems to be in stark contrast with my understanding of the British value system. Being open to investment in the UK is one thing. Turning a completely blind eye to the sources of money streams and ignoring to actively investigate murders is an entirely different story. The only reason the polonium poisoning is now investigated is because of the widow and her legal team. No one in the parliament nor police investigative forced bothered for years. Money talks...bullshit walks.
Jeez we could hardly have more opposing opinions. Not going through all the points but blocking roads to express one's discontent is not ok in my book, breaking heads or detaining the ones who block the road to restaure traffic is OK. Shopkeepers are free to sell the products they find most profitable, if the product is legal, feel free to open a shop selling organic tomatoes in Kowloon or Tin Hau. Protesters attacked shoppers indiscriminately, forced shops to close. They had no idea wether the chinese tourists were parralel traders or shopping for themselves and their family (and if they intended to resell the goods they bought it didn't make the disruption any more legitimate). Honkies are taking their frustration on mainland chinese, it's not new but it's become more agressive. I find HK unbearably packed and it's no longer a financial paradise which took away a lot of its charm, so I spend as little time as possible there (Singapore, Taiwan, Macau are much more pleasant destinations in the area, Shenzhen is kindda better also, if one speaks mandarine or at least cantonese, but I sure hope the HK authorities take a harder stance on protesters, and HK pays its behaviour with a slower economic growth. Japan, Korea, and a bunch of other countries are making it easier for mainlanders to come and spend money there rather than in HK, and that's what chinese have started doing.