For those with 27 stars in their eyes!

As we have witnessed, over and over and over again, on this, er, distinguished blog, there are those amongst us who can only be described as 'True Believers'.  Metaphorically, they hold hands and chant the latest agit-prop pronouncements from Berlin-Brussels as though they were scrolls handed down from heaven.  Sorry, children, but here's a nice big bucket of ice-cold water to pour over yourselves supplied a man who knows, at first hand, where-of he speaks - Taki Theodoracopulos.

As you will have guessed, Taki is Greek to his finger tips although, as an exceedingly wealthy man, he is better defined as an 'internationalist'.  Even so, he is a man who loves his own country and in a splenetic rant on his own magazine site he coruscates the Grand Panjandrums of the dictatorial EU.  To be fair, he accepts that the Greek leadership at the time of their entry into the 'Gulag' made a huge error but since then the EU 'Gauleiters' have flayed the Greek people down to the bone:

Like Germany following World War I, Greece has been choked by its obligations to foreign creditors. The archvillains are the megacrooks of the E.U. Children go hungry so that banks can tell their investors they’ve refused to take a haircut. The situation is similar to that of a fighter who is a middleweight, is put on a strict, starvation-like diet, and is expected to grow and fight as a heavyweight. Mind you, the Greeks themselves were the ones who started it. Once Greece joined the dictatorship that the fourth estate dares not call by its real name, the E.U., in 1980, credit became the cocaine of both left- and right-wing governments. The more the E.U. lent, the more successive Greek governments wanted and received from the dealer, Brussels, that knew from day one what was going on and, like all good drug dealers, let the addict sniff to its heart’s content.

[Snip]

Seven years of severe austerity with 60% unemployment of the young and 25% general unemployment have accomplished absolutely nothing. The country runs on its black economy. People have simply stopped working in order not to have to pay taxes they cannot afford to pay. When the austerity began in 2010, the debt was 130% of the GDP. Now it stands at 180%. [My emphasis] The crooks in Brussels call it progress. Talk about Orwellian newspeak.

There may be some excuse for the fat heads and dreamers who decades ago urged us all to join this gang of Mafiosi, but today, with Greece bleeding to death before our eyes, who can repeat the ode to joy they used to sing?

 

Comments

[backofanenvelope]

You don't even mention the hundred thousand or so migrants in Greece. The interesting question, why has nothing happened? There must be plenty of lamp posts in Greece.

[Whyaxye]

In my last few years at work, I noticed quite a few exceptionally highly-qualified Greeks working for us in posts that were far below their abilities. One was a computing and philosophy boffin who had ended up teaching low-level IT to our finest school drop-outs. He was a lovely bloke, and said the "brain drain" problem in Greece was catastrophic. Many bright youngsters were getting out, and leaving the country to the unskilled, the elderly, and - of course - the migrants.

One might almost conclude that the EU's long-term plan was to help out the Africans by extending their borders across the Med and giving them a bit more elbow room. My advice to Southern Europeans would be to move north and hope the EU collapses before the tidal wave hits you.

[Loz]

Good Lord, that snobby, bloated old scrote with his "low slung bum and short hairy legs" as Auberon Waugh described him once is still hangin' on in there!

What a whinging, wining, victim-status claiming, load of old bollocks.

No consideration of the responsibility on the Greek government to hold off on the loans during the boom time?

No acknowledgment that the Greek democracy and people shunned Grexit when given the choice?

Outside of the EU no-one would have lent the Greeks a bean, so they'd have been scratching around with their chickens and goats trying to make a living off the black market as they are now.

Greece is broke because of Greece and Greeks.

At least within the EU the useful Greeks get a chance to go find lucrative jobs elsewhere where they are valued and rewarded, and avoid being shackled to nd robbed by their useless homebodies and their hopeless governance.

A bit like Blighty is about to find out, really

SoD

[Peter G]

if tax evasion were an Olympic sport the Greeks could at least count on regularly winning a medal in that event. So listening to a rich Greek complain about how evil banks won't loan his country money they have no intention of repaying pretty much defines chutzpah. Trying paying some taxes assholes and Greece won't need to borrow money.

[Peter G]

By the way, the people who loaned Greece all that money they very evidently lacked the desire or capacity to repay are mostly to be found in the City of London. ( Also the home of the Libor scandal. ) It wasn't their money of course. It belonged to their depositors. And that's not even touching on the financial wizards who were trading in Greek bonds and telling everyone what wonderful investments they were. Which, parenthetically, is why I am pretty confident the EU is going to make damn sure the main financial center of Europe is firmly unde their control and not yours.

[Cuffleyburgers]

Loz - not sure that's quite the case, in Varoufakis's referendum they voted to reject the Troika, but Tsipras went ahead and signed up anyway.

To that extent their responsibility is that they didn't immediately hang Tsipras from the nearest olive tree having first done unspeakable things to his testicles.

And ambush the troika motorcades from the airport with RPG7s.

[Loz]

I can remember the exact spot where I was standing when the epiphany moment struck, like a bolt of lightening from the heavens: In the corridor on the top floor of my client in Marlow, heading back from the kitchen, having a rumbustious debate with B. B. is Portuguese. Summat like this: -

Loz: "For goodness sake B., can't you see the EU is eating into Portugal's sovereignty, and it's inefficient and bureaucratic - and you're paying for that!"

N.: "What you don't realize, Loz, is that the EU may be eating into our sovereighty, but we're ok with that, because our own pols suck worse, and have sucked worse for centuries! I'd even rather Portugal was a province of Germany than run by our home grown crooks and incompetents. The EU is just the balance we want to call out our home grown schmucks but not be completely under the jackboot of the Jerries."

N: "And the EU may be inefficient and bureaucratic, but relative to Portugal, it runs like a BMW production line! You have no idea how broken and corrupt Portugal was until the EU stepped in."

And then the epiphany.

N: "Maybe Britain outside the EU would be even better than the EU in terms of efficiency and bureaucracy. I don't know, I wasn't around in Britain when you were last outside of the EU, I wasn't even born then! You were. So what was Britain like then?"

At this point I was very glad to have arrived back at our desks.

Loz: "I really must be getting on with something urgent, let's talk later".

I sat at my screen and stared into the void for a very long time.

JK - If you dig the archives and want some fun serving up my own dirge to make me cringe, you probably won't have any trouble hitting it! 'bout 3-4 years ago and beyond.

My defence: Stripey leopards do exist, y'know.

SoD

[Loz]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmorrow/3665882070

Mo meds or Slivovice required.

SoD

[Cuffleyburgers]

An awful lot of the money which was poured into Greece with no intention of being paid back actually belongs to EU tax payers in other countries.

Any money that was lent by the city was in the firm expectation that it would be paid back.

That is how commercial banks work.

Loz - the Italians reasoned in the same way. They are now beginning to have their epiphany, realising that in being ruled from Brussels they have all the crap they had before, plus a whole new layer of crap on top.

There is still not a real appetite to leave, but there' precious little enthusiasm to stay in it, and Italian politicians are increasingly being forced to look for italian solutions to nevralgic issues such as the migrant crisis, and bailing out local banks.

They are also realising the extent to which they are being shafted by the Euro.

[Peter G]

No shit Cuffley! Gee and I thought bankers were supposed to be such whizzes at figuring out who it was safe to lend their depositors money to. You'd think they would have seen the handwriting on the wall so to speak but they kept shoveling more. The interesting thing though is the guy who is bitching and probably never failed to cheat on his taxes, presuming he ever paid any at all, is right about exactly one thing. Governments of Greece left and right spent money they borrowed foolishly with zero regard to repaying it. Left and right. Just like in America where the conservatives pretend to be fiscal conservatives but cut taxes and increase deficits every chance they get. And have done so since Reagan.

[Whitewall]

And Germany is the power behind the EU?
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/09/palestinian-terror-group-permitted-to-run-in-germanys-bundestag-election/

Surely there must be an extra "shocked face" on the Continent?

[Loz]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/01/brits-dawdling-clueless-german-media-lashes-uk-brexit-strategy/

"Suddeutsche Zeitung painted a gloomy picture of the UK team's ability to go toe-to-toe with some of the EU's most formidable officials, dismissing them as venal, and disorganised."

Or in other words ...

"For you, Tommy, ze vorr is over. Und it hasn't even begun!"

SoD

[Bob]

It would be fair to keep in mind that the 2008 world recession hurt the poorer countries of the EU most and that Brexit has caused further economic instability. Finland and Greece are struggling but Czechia, Ireland and Spain have performed well.

[Loz]

Or, did Tommy, hunkered down in his bunker, just flip a grenade out of the hatch and take a few of them out? ...

"There was total amazement,” the EU source said, “Everyone was completely flabbergasted that this young man from Whitehall was saying that the EU's preparation on the financial settlement was 'inadequate'. It did not go down well."

http://uk.businessinsider.com/eu-flabbergasted-after-britain-reportedly-spent-3-hours-lecturing-officials-about-the-brexit-divorce-bill-2017-8?r=US&IR=T

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/30/brexit-showdown-eu-left-flabbergasted-british-negotiators-dismantle/

That "young man from Whitehall" just massacred the EU Brexit bill calculation position line by line over 3 hours! I would have paid good money to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting.

It's now clear what Tommy's strategy is: Hunker down inside his legal bunker and take Jerry's status quo bombardment - no vote, fee paying member of the EU - for a few years.

Tommy might not have many hot air puffing, negotiator, diplomatic bullshitters, but he's got plenty of top notch lawyers.

And the Hague court is neutral territory: staffed with Americans, Africans, Chinese, Indians. No ECJ EU political interference here.

So drag the locus away from politics - Jerry's home ground - and into law - Blighty's home ground - in neutral territory.

A hard pounding in the "no vote, fee paying bunker" for a few years. But meanwhile, Tommy gathers his forces for the break out.

Whoever that "young man from Whitehall" is, I think we'll be hearing more from him in the future. And he deserves a bloody medal.

And IDS, the empire 2.0 fruit-loops, all the swivel-eyed Ukip loons, and the right-wing media need to shut the fuck up while these guys do their stuff.

SoD