Topic: history repeating itself... Greek society in free-fall (Read 2290 times)

Ergo, not a free market. 100 years ago, crony capitalism was doing a number on our workers, too. They figured out the solution. It's kinda backfired, but having a fight over the steering wheel will tend to cause the car to veer off course.

Not today, things have changed A LOT. But go back 100 years ago, the businesses owners were anglophones and the employees were francophones. The only sector owned by the french-canadians was the agricultural one, where they mainly had family farms. But the industry and services sector were owned at a crushing majority by the anglo. In any common factory, work was done in english and everything was written in english. Even in Montreal, all the business names, the billboards or the ads in the street were practically all in english. We were accommodated though, we had access to democracy and somewhat decent living, because they needed the population.

Remember that the guys you kicked out of the US back in 1776, well, they ended up here. They were not interested in getting another revolution, so they gave us some consideration. We had two hands too and it's useful when you need workers. But they controlled what they gave us, they didn't want us to become too powerful.

I'm not naive, I've read a lot about my history. The 60's is when we got ourselves a bigger government that gave us real access to universities or that nationalize english business (like in energy sector) so that french people had control over a part of the economy. Having a big and socialist government gave us the power that we couldn't get through the free market and right-wing thinking. This big government built our economy, while the free market before that was only exploiting us, with the money going one-way only. Thinking that charity and social work should be done by rich individuals instead of government is nice on paper. But when the rich individuals tell you to "speak white" and see you as second-class citizen, well, you get nothing. Either you get a big government that get back on them through taxes, either you get screwed.


Well, it worked for us, that's why I approve this method. I agree it is not the panacea, because it is relative to many factors. Still, when I compare the situation of my grand-parents back then and my situation today, I see the success of it.

On that, I think I've hijacked the topic too much 

Same chance at what? Don't you guys essentially have an entire province to yourselves? You're telling me every business in Quebec was run by the anglophones?

Come on... Even you can't be that naïve.

Stop saying in theory!!!!


What government has ever stopped injecting money once it started? How would you measure the success of the ones that did vs the ones that did not?

The market was free. It's simply that the money and assets were in the hands of the english. Since they had control on a big amount of wealth, it was easy to prevent french-canadians from accessing it. It was not like the slaves states in the south, where the law was used to separate the blacks from the whites. In theory, french-canadians had access to the free market and the wealth, there was nothing against it. But because of racial tensions, it was easy to deny french-canadians the same chance as the english.

The correct response is to work towards building a superior system that ensures people have no excuse for relying on locking people in cages to make society run. In my opinion, this can be done and should be the ultimate goal.

Violence is the answer... Lets try this: you are an asshole.

Just tear up the debt. It's just invisible abstract numbers on paper floated around by giant banks and the IMF

Argentina did it, Mexico did it, every single European kingdom used to do it. Historically no country on earth has prospered from paying off an enormous debt while many have from not paying.

Whenever the King of France was in debt to the Dutch he'd summon the lenders and just have them executed. Problem solved.
Greece should wholesale cleanse themselves of their corrupt leaders who pissed all their money away and just do what Argentina did and not pay. Start all over again this time weed out the corrupt eurobanker speculators and technocrats in office before they get a chance to blow the money again.

You may have noticed... That wasn't a free market.

It depends on the type of government and population you have. There's no perfect answer to that, it's mainly a philosophical one. Since I live in a social-democracy, I think money injection in certain parts of the society gives awesome results and it's important to have a strong government.

But I'm biased since, in my nation history, francophones were considered as the "white nigger" of America. Being second-class citizen, the free market was rigged against us and the anarcho-capitalism model made us poorer. It's when we decided to build a strong government aimed toward social-democracy that we evolved tremendously as a society.

I think free market is a fallacy honestly. In any free market, there's always a gang that becomes stronger than the rest and where they start to makes the rules. Either you follow them, either you're out. So, in a way, free market tends to create governments within themselves. If governments have to be created, I prefer having the choice of voting for it.

So the government should always inject money no matter what? Or is there some consequence of this?

1) It surely helped, without any doubt.
2) The war effort ended, so, in a way, they stopped subsidize this war industry and what was related around it. But at that point, people had more skills and qualifications that were acquired during the war. That they continued to inject money or not is irrelevant, since what is important is the capacity of the population to produce something. It's not that hard to measure, since the baby-boom is the best symptom of that era. People had now the capacity to make new things that weren't possible before the war, because they didn't had the skills, assets and investments at that point.

Jobs are created using a mix of knowledge and investments. You can't make a business if you are missing:
-the knowledge or capacity of doing it
-having the basic investments to start it up

If you're lacking jobs, the best thing to do is to teach your population so they can learn and think new things, while providing them the basic investments possibilities. Those two things needs a social intervention, usually provided by a government. In the case of WW2, factories were popping up left and right for the war, and people working in those also learned these jobs. When the war ended, you had many production lines available for any businesses that were subsidized by the government during the war. People had new opportunities that created crazy growth.

When people don't have money, they can't create the investment needed for education or businesses. If the state also cut at the same time, I don't see how you can encourage growth and education. Back in 2008, we were also affected by the economic crisis, and some people had difficulties finding jobs. What happened? Since school fees are really really low (lowest in North America! ), many people went back to school. When the economy started to recover, the same people had now more knowledge and qualifications, and were doing more valuable work.


This is crazy. We're talking about a country of like 5 millions people. You have to learn from the best, and IMHO, Norway is easily the top country in the world. You don't top the chart of the Human Development Index by accident.


I agree that spending for spending is not a good strategy. My call is free education and providing assets for start-up and small businesses. The best way to solve a job problem is not to find one, it is to create one for yourself.

problem is, whats actually in that fund? dollars?
if you want to save your wealth, you might as well just leave the oil in the ground for the time being. its not like oil is getting cheaper anytime soon.

also, spending money is not always a bad strategy. but very often governments fight depression by spending money rather randomly, for example just giving the ok to every infrastructure project any community presents, no matter how useless it is. having a sound long term plan to spend your extra money is always a good idea.

You are right, Norway just surpassed the Arabic oil funds and is now the biggest fund in the world. It is growing by investments alone by 850$ per second or more. As of July 2012 it was 634,753,952,831$.

Edited typo.

1) Perhaps it was the war weakening the competition that lead to america"s rise
2) What happened afterward? Did they stop "injecting money"?

If the answer to #2 is yes, I would like to know how you measure this. If it is no, then that is not an example of what you said earlier.

The damage in Greece is done, the debt basically cannot be paid off without some form of write-down.  The only way forward is to balance the budget at a minimum which they are not doing.

It is "absurd"?  How exactly?  :-)


Greece, ruined by statism?  NOOOOOOO, YOU DON'T SAY!

reasonable values are likely 15-20.
i just singled that out because it was just the most obvious part of a post that was "maybe a little off" about everything. talking about greece as a state that has failed again and again for about three thousand years is so totally absurd...
greece, until conquered and systematically ruined by the ottoman empire, was among the most prosperous and developed regions of the world for almost two thousand years.
how the fuck does that constitute failure?

Bingo!

You're making money and your people is making easy money. Pay those debts and save some money for when the country is going down. Bush trashed all this money in I-don't-know-what and now, you're stuck with a guy trying to repair all the damages.

I love the Norwegian model exactly for that. They found oil and easy money. What do they do? They build one of the biggest fund around here and save money for worst days. Last time I checked, their fund was estimated to 500 billion$. The day they go in crisis, they can simply subsidize their population for a couple of years, waiting for the economy to get better. This country is almost immune to any economic crisis.