Nashton's lies and fantasies

On Jan 1, 4:51 am, Nashton <n...@xxxxx> wrote:

I am not sure that Nashton fails to understand what is in discussion
or that he does this deliberately. I tend towards the former. The
following discussion is indicative of his total confusion

Regarding the Greek crisis, I said the following

I did not blame the Germans or the Euro.

ROF

What a reply!!!


   In the first place, I
criticized German policies as having contributed substantially to the
problem but so have many senior European politicians, politicians
within Germany, virtually all economists, etc, etc.

Liar

Aaahhhaa, Nashton thinks he has cornered me!!! and here are some of
his examples

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/browse_thread/thread...
#68fe434f
4026e630

" In fact, there has been a resurgence
of blind nationalism and racism in Germany.  Politicians have told
them that the money to help these countries is coming out of their
pocket when actually Germany is borrowing this money at low interest
and then lending it to Greece and Ireland at a much higher one."

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/browse_thread/thread...
#e2d517fb
7e8de957

"The article actually focused on the contemptuous treatment of Greece
by the German press and people.  In fact, in my own mind, it came
close to racism.  And here you go, blaming the Greek Left for making
the Germans feel bad!!! I think that you have your priorities all
twisted up. "

Now, the above had to do with the attitude of the Germans towards the
Greeks during the crisis and nothing to do with the crisis per se.

One of your favorites that you have mentioned over and over again is the
following:

"The Germans  know the equation quite well.  In fact, the biggest part
of the surplus that Germany is running is within Europe and with the
Eurozone countries.  As I have stated before, Germany essentially
doubled its exports to Greece in the last decade and drastically
decreased its imports from Greece at the same time.  It has done the
same with the rest of the countries of the periphery.   This has
happened because, especially under the Merkel government, internal
consumption has been suppressed."

This is incontroversial. Those are true statements. Germany pursued
its interests, Greece ought to have pursued its own.


 Fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/browse_thread/thread...
d0d2bd309
d47d

There *is* no escape from Google.

Yes, Nashton, you are making a fool of yourself, as usual

  Actually, just
recently, the head of the ECB, J-C, Trichet launched an attack against
Merkel. There is little doubt that German policies, although they may
be good for Germany (and this is up to the Germans to decide), they
are not good for Greece.

Thanks for overstating the obvious, traxana.

Note the typical insult on facts widely reported, even in the German
press. Even dear old Yiorgakis criticized Merkel for its policies. I
have posted the links on these reports in the international press.
Merkel's statements that in an insolvency, private investors will have
to take some of the pain resulted in the spreads going up, the market
losing confidence and intense criticism from all over the EU. But,
the real traxanas cannot get even simple notions.


Regarding the Euro, I did not blame the Euro per se.  I blamed the
Greek governments who decided to join the Euro probably knowing quite
well the problems that may ensue.

This is pretty clear, isn't it??? However, Nashton still does not get
it.

Another lie. You have been advocating exiting the Euro for months now.
You must at least partially blame the Euro for Greece's fiscal mess?
Or do you think people can't Google your lies and verify what you posted
and when you posted it?

Is this man thick or what??? I repeatedly stated that electing to
join the Euro was a bad decision for Greece. I repeatedly stated that
the Euro is probably just fine as the currency of the EU core. But
Nashton continues being totally irrelevant, singing his own tune.

Just an example of your obsession with exiting the Euro (if you blamed
the politicians that help pave the way for Greece to enter the Eurozone
and not the Euro per se, you wouldn't be hell bent on Greece exiting the
Euro, you would be preoccupied with blaming particular politicians,
therefore, you actually do see the Euro as being at fault, you're just
too stupid to remember what your opinion was a few weeks ago.)

"Moving away from the euro is inescapable at this stage.  The only
thing that stops rational discussion is the Greek insecurity of "being
European" and the "sense of failure" and "failing to measure up".  I
would perceive this as just a stupid decision that led to an
inevitable disaster.  The only reason to stay within the Euro right
now is only to help the Germans and French banks dump Greek securities
as fast as they can."

Absolutely!!! And what does this have to do with anything???


  Greece had no reason on earth, save its own insecurities, to join the Euro.

Yes it did. Many countries have pegged their currencies to the Euro
because of the stability that it confers. This has been pointed out to
you ad nauseam and you still don't get it.

Again, Nashton talks about totally unproven notions such as
"stability". What stability??? The basic benefit for joining the
Euro for the Greek government was solely to reduce the cost of
borrowing. For a time, it did just that, although Greece always paid
more than Germany. However, right now, it cannot borrow jackshit.
The interest rate for 10-year bonds is 13.3%. The interest rate for 6-
month bonds is about 6%!!! (Germany pays less than 0.5% for that).
So, what stability are we talking about???

The Eurozone was devised as common currency area with the hope of
leading to tighter political integration. It has not happened; if
anything, things are much worse than they were prior to the Euro. Had
Greece not joined the Euro it would have borrowed much less (because
it would have had to pay higher interest rates) and the current crisis
would have been easily dealt with either letting the drachma follow
the course of other currencies (the diving English pound for example)
or by its active devaluation. Increase of liquidity by the Bank of
Greece would have resulted in Greece exiting the crisis about the same
time that the UK did. However, because Greece is bound to the Euro,
the crisis had become an existential trial by fire.

as to how the Euro contributed to the loss of competitiveness of the
Greek economy over the last 10 years.

The Euro had nothing to do with it. Not heeding OECD recommendations and
implementing the structural changes necessary to increase transparency,
decrease corruption, improve productivity and stop conducting client
based politics was behind this. Not to mention spending money to hire
public sector employees to garner votes.

Nashton has not even a clue that there was a major financial crisis
that has affected countries with perfectly functioning economies
(including Germany) which entered into a long recession from which
they emerged in the summer of 2009. Still clueless, after all these
years. The Greek crisis started with this financial meltdown. The
Greek government had to respond by recapitalizing its banks, resulting
in an increase of expenditures at the same time that revenue was going
down. Thus, the gaping budget deficits, the need for rescue, etc,
etc. The Greek crisis did not happen because of lack of transparency,
politics, corruption or any of the above. In fact, the country less
affected by the financial crisis, China, has no transparency,
unmeasurable productivity, high corruption, etc, etc. I have never
advocated that the Greek state should not be reformed to improve on
all these. But it would not have made a difference, as it did not
make a difference in all of the world economies from the beginning of
2008 to the summer of 2009. Do you think that Nashton will ever get
this simple fact???? Nooooooooooooooo!!!

Again for this fouska ADR, it is never the Greeks that are at fault.
It's either the Germans, the French, the Euro, Julius Ceasar, Cleopatra
or Kolokotrwnhs that are at fault.

This idiot does not get it, does he?? I have solely blamed Greece,
nobody else. I have blamed Greece for (a) running lax fiscal policies
(b) chosing to joining the Euro knowing quite well the weaknesses of
the economy and (c) of accepting the "rescue" when restructuring the
debt would have been (and remains) the only answer to this problem. I
have never blamed others for Greece's choices. I have identified
their motives. I have blamed Yiorgakis, his seriously compromised
spine, his coterie of sycophants and imbeciles for making disastrous
choices for Greece.



   This is really
incontrovertible.  As the Euro rose in value, Greek products became
far more expensive and exports sunk to a very low level.

And what was Greece doing in the meantime? Where there policies in place
to promote R&D? Did the govt. create any departments to help exporters
export their products? Where funds not available from the
EIB or other venture capitalists to invest in incremental scientific
discoveries that would have the potential to be marketable?
Did Greece clean up its pension system as was prescribed by the OECD and
IMF many years before the crisis. Bozo, many countries were way ahead of
Greece on this front. They could see the writing on the wall and
implemented bitter and hard to swallow reforms.

And this is the last item that I would respond to in this sprawling
post. This bozo Nashton must be on another planet, or somewhere else
for that matter. Have I ever stated that Greece followed a sensible
investment, development and industrial policy? I have not. Indeed, I
have pointed time and time again the weakness of the Greek investment
system, the cluelessness of the banks, the lack of capital
accumulation, the missing M&A activity, the lack of attracting any
serious investment, the red tape, the inflexibility of the civil
service etc, etc. It was because of all of that I did believe that
Greece made a serious mistake in entering the Euro. Its capitalist
infrastructure could not simply respond to the pressures of a currency
designed for more advanced economies.
.

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