All we are saying is give Greece a chance

IGC University Lesson 2 Yanis Varoufakis

This fella is gonna be a regular here at the IGC Uni.

He's making quite the name for himself, and he's talking
right.
His blog
www.yianisvaroufakis.eu
and his twitter

ancient Greeks used it because they were lazy

The Antikythera Mechanism in Lego from Small Mammal on Vimeo.

they were too lazy to count the days to the next solar
eclipse, so they made a machine to do it for them.

It also did some astronomy. this was from the 2nd
century BC, and the things this machine did were
only repeated by humans 1700 years later.

These fellows who built a version out of Lego parts,
had to make it much bigger than the original,
with more gears.
Lazy Greeks. Ingeniously so, innit?
Why should I make it look like I'm working when the
job was done much more quickly than expected?

23% inflation, if you sit down

new tax on restaurants.
Does anybody know how to make a coffee, anymore?

remember the days after WW2?

for those of you who think that Greeks don't know
how to deal with hard times, here's a photo of
kids going to school, over snow-covered mountains,
without shoes.



My mother's family also were barefoot most of the time.

They cannot expect to revolt militarily. They know how to lock down
their belongings and wait for the crisis to blow over.
If it's a revolution you want to see, you should go to countries
that have been accustomed to having ruled over others. They have
ethnic pride and expect the winnings and the comforts that go with it.

Wait for Italy and Spain to put an end to this bullcrap. Such as these
students at the Instituto Europeo in Florence, who are studying
Politics.
[Repubblica]

They listened to Van Rumpboy, another unelected guy from Brussels, and
then gave him a democratic dressing down.

No jobs, part 2

Papandreou could only do so much harm. After a while
he got sick of taking orders from his masters. So he had
to be replaced with a banker. Only a banker could do
his fascistic duty without breaking a sweat.



Papademos. No jobs, part 2

IGC University- lesson 1 George Katrougalos

George Katrougalos- lawyer . prof of constitutional law



lecture notes:
coming soon

Civics class will be held at Syntagma today

[louisa gouliamaki- AFP]

Lesson: the meaning of democracy
-lining up against the riot police
-march peacefully, but expect police to attack



then, find some way to get into the parliament:

Chance to learn proper Economics & Politics from Greek lecturers

Opening soon:
The Internet Greek Crisis University,
where regular lectures, in print form, will be posted
here, only from Greek lecturers. They are quite popular
these days because only they understand Greece, and
colonialisation, having been the doormat of so many
powerful nations.

Stay tuned

GFL and the rebirth of the Classics, like a phoenix

With classics waning these days, and departments closing
in many Western univerisities, the very crisis which is
killing Greece is bringing back all the great stories of
ancient Greece and its mythology.

This crisis is the way to teach the world of ancient greek
culture.
Just in the last 2 days, I've heard of:
Sisyphus.
2 metaphors for the Greek disaster from Zeus Yiamouyiannis
(from oftwominds blog)
and the assorted "Greek tragedy and Greek comedy" quips,
and the "marathon" 14-hour discussions, for what purpose?
to save Greece. Ollie Rehn, that impudent pig, mentioned it
in the same breath as the subjugation of the country
that he grew up idolising.

School is opening here soon. Stay tuned.

[Trojan horse- we're from the Troika and we're here to help]

no growth and no oil, but wait a minute

As we know, Greece is being squeezed from all sides.
It's not enough that the country will be enslaved
for the foreseeable future, unless a default becomes
necessary, but the EU has decided to pick a fight
with Iran.

Why does that matter? The deeper story is that oil
companies want a credit note in order to send
anybody some oil. Greece's banks have been emptied
of original money, are now zombies, and are being
fed money through the back door, to keep this EU
charade going. As a result, Greece's banks cannot
raise a proper credit note without causing laughter
in the halls of other banks. No note, no oil.
Bye-bye all the big dealers, and welcome to Iranian
oil. Iran is willing to give oil on credit.

But now, Iran is country-non-grata in the EU.
So, by July the refineries will run dry.

Unless.... a miracle happens. Greece is thankfully full of those.
Now that diesel cars can run on vegetable oil, then Greece can
make a lot of its own "motion lotion" from its own crop of olive oil.

And while veg oil, if given to a human, is a dangerous substance,
olive oil will make you and your car last longer.

And that's not the best part. The clincher is the financialisation
of this new market.

olive oil derivatives

that's how we'll get in the big leagues.
We can use derivatives to screw other countries out of their money,
like they're doing to us.

the first mnimosino was so good we got another

That's right, it's a mnimosino.
The death of Greece as a free country.
It lasted about 36 years this time.

I'd say that's pretty good, on average.

And guess who paid for the party?
The troika 80 billion euros.

The first one was not voted on properly, in 2010
but the government passed it with a lower than
required majority just to f*ck with the
xenoi.
Greek debt is agreed to be taken under English law.
That means no bankrupcy allowed.

In Greece, when a person dies, they get the funeral,
and mnimosino at 40 days, 6 months and one year.
These are sometimes big public events with politicians
("hiss" "where's my youghurt") and priests.


Well, Greece got a second Mnimosino that's being worked
on right now. I wish them all that an anti-democratic
banker's wet dream, written on the back of a napkin,
deserves.

the famous recording of the 2012 mnimosino,
in Syntagma Square. They burned the Constitution
since the politicians had no use of it.



IshitUnot: front page of mnimosino 1
EΥΡΩ [80 000 000 000]
ΣYΜΒΑΣΗ ΔΑΝΕΙΑΚΗΣ ΔΙΕΥΚΟΛΥΝΣΗΣ
μεταξύ
ΤΩΝ ΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΩΝ ΚΡΑΤΩΝ ΜΕΛΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΟΠΟΙΩΝ ΝΟΜΙΣΜΑ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΤΟ ΕΥΡΩ: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟ ΤΟΥ ΒΕΛΓΙΟΥ , ΙΡΛΑΝΔΙΑ , ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑΣ , ΓΑΛΛΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ , ΙΤΑΛΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ , ΚΥΠΡΙΑΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ , ΜΕΓΑΛΟ ΔΟΥΚΑΤΟ ΤΟΥ ΛΟΥΞΕΜΒΟΥΡΓΟΥ , ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΜΑΛΤΑΣ , ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟ ΤΩΝ ΚΑΤΩ ΧΩΡΩΝ , ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΑΥΣΤΡΙΑΣ , ΠΟΡΤΟΓΑΛΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ , ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΣΛΟΒΕ ΝΙΑΣ , ΣΛΟΒΑΚΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ και ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΦΙΝΛΑΝΔΙΑΣ και τουKfW,που υπόκειται στις οδηγίες ,τελεί υπό την εγγύηση και ενεργεί προς το δημόσιο συμφέρον της Ομοσπονδιακής Δημοκρατίας της Γερμανίας ,ως Δανειστών και ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑΣ ως Δανειολήπτη ΤΗΣ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΑΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ

So capitalist that it's communist

In this day and age of Chinese communist capitalism, it's not
difficult to accept the fact that capitalist economies with
centralised oligarchic planning, are actually communist in
their economic real politik.
The US, UK, Germany, the whole EU.
It used to be that the GATT was designed to get
rid of any and all communistic government ideas by
stressing that

NOBODY WAS ALLOWED TO SUPPORT THEIR COUNTRY'S BUSINESSES

EVER AGAIN, with threats of big penalties

Well, since 2008,

who's been helping their banks with public money?

the very countries that dreamt up the GATT
to screw the rest of the world.

I've been saying for a long time that Greece has


the worst aspects of capitalism


and the worst aspects of communism


all rolled into one.

The first one has been proved conclusively,

and the second too, because it's

a research-driven fact that Greece's

oligarchy is stifling the economy.

Well, now it can't , because there is none.
I wonder why the Troicycle isn't beating up on them
instead of their lowly employees. @sarc

Michael Porter, of Harvard
Key results:

-"one of the very worst macroeconomic environments in the world
-"the worst public institutions in the developed world
-"only 16 out of 142 countries with a less efficient labor market.

-"GDP per capita was more than 50% above
where it ought to have been judging
by its ranking for business competitiveness

And then people wonder why Greeks cheat. You have to, just to survive
in such a situation. With all public officials looking for bribes,
what do you do?
and then they wonder why it is that Greeks are so successful, outside
of Greece. Because life is easy out there. It's not Greece. Non-Greeks
live the easy life. Pay taxes and get public services.
You want to see how that works best, see Canada.

Why did he waste his money and time. He could've asked me.

IshitUnot:
Wall Street Journal
Alen Mattich
Greece’s Uncompetitiveness: Discuss
Whatever agreements are struck on Greek debt, whatever austerity measures the country’s politicians promise, whatever loans or aid is extended to the country, there’s one problem Greece can’t easily escape.
It is deeply, deeply, uncompetitive.
In the World Economic Forum’s latest competitiveness report, Greece is the lowest ranked European country, barring Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed, it is the lowest ranked country in the developed world. The country has one of the very worst macroeconomic environments in the world, has the worst public institutions in the developed world, and there only 16 out of 142 countries with a less efficient labor market.
A 2008 study on competitiveness by Michael Porter for the Harvard Business School (its focus was on Saudi Arabia, but the cross-country data is very useful, hat tip to the LOL Greece blog) shows just how far out of whack the Greek economy was in 2007.
Mr. Porter charted GDP per capita on a purchasing power basis against business competitiveness. Greece, he found, was a considerable outlier, its GDP per capita was more than 50% above where it ought to have been judging by its ranking for business competitiveness.
Since then, Greece’s GDP per capita has fallen, but so too has its competitiveness ranking. Assuming that structural changes will make it more competitive in future, including ridding itself of anti-business laws, reducing the role in the economy of its bloated bureaucracy — all of which will be hard, but easier than improving infrastructure and human capital which can take decades — its competitive ranking should improve, say to the level of Spain or the Czech Republic or Estonia, all of which cluster at around the same level, somewhere around the third quartile for European countries.
Should this happen Greece would still need to see a fall of around 20% in its GDP per capita to reach trend. Which means substantially more suffering for the Greek population — erosions of living standards are never fun.
For too long, Greeks were made to believe they were richer than they were. The process of returning their apparent wealth to levels that can be justified by the economy’s productivity is a slow one, especially since the normal route to quick adjustment, through a currency devaluation, is closed to Greece.
Will the Greeks be able to manage before they finally decide that the euro experiment isn’t worth the pain? Unlikely, because the adjustment won’t need just a few changes in laws and wage cuts, but a more profound change in the country’s political culture. These changes take years, and it’s unlikely Greek politicians have the time they need.