Bloody Scots! Not content with getting us to pay for their free prescriptions and university places, they have now come over all huffy about a Great Britain football team in the London Olympics. What's all the fuss about? It's not as if they would get a player in the team anyway!
27 comments:
The above comment is one load of nonsense.
In what way RR?
You can't offend a whole nation with a stupid comment like that HF!
Anyway, the United Kingdom has to decide, once and for all, whether it is one or four nations. Not to choose to be four nations where it is convenient only, like for example football. No other nation(s) in the world would get away with such hypocricy and double standards.
LOL That's rich Sav given you are Greek! Greece has to decide if it IS a nation or just a down and out state living off handouts from proper countries. The governmewnt has to run the country, the tax officers have to stop taking bribes, the people have to pay taxes owed and the whole country has to start living within its means. Please don't get on a high horse about nationhood when Greece is so bankrupt that there is a danger of pulling the whole of Europe back into recession. I have some sympathy as an opponent of the Euro from the outset - currency movement is a vital safety valve as anybody with a basic knowledge of economics understands - but Greece opted for the Euro, nobody forced the country to join.
There is nothing offensive in the post. I agree with your basic comment. Interestingly, the majority of Scots do not want independence from the UK. Why? Because they know their taxes would rise because we fund the benefits such as free universities and free prescriptions. It is ludicrous that I have to pay my daughter's university fees and, at the same time, through my taxes, pay the fees on behalf of a Scottish student at university. It is also ludicrous that Scottish MPs vote on matters relating to England but English MPs do not have a say on how Scotland is run. And meanwhile, through my taxes, I am paying for road repairs in Greece because Greeks don't pay the taxes they should pay.
Should Scotland have a separate national team? They have a separate league so perhaps yes. But if Rangers and Celtic were to join the Prem, then no. On that basis Wales should not have a national team unless Cardiff and Swansea bugger off to the Welsh League. As Greece is discovering, you can't have your κέικ and eat it!
This is typical of you HF! Attacking the person who made the comment you didn't like rather than the message. There is nothing I can say to you about all this mud you threw at me about regarding Greece (and the fact that I am Greek). For your information I am more British than I am Greek but that shouldn't matter at all to anyone except you perhaps.
You know, for someone who is obviously very well educated and writes pretty good articles (although I don't always agree with the content) you badly let yourself down by making personal attacks like this one on your site's regular and other bloggers.
Just for the record and because I am an economist and obviously you are not, who do you think will lose if Greece defaults on its bond payments. 70% of Greece's debt are banks and individual investors in Europe (including the UK). Think about it. Who is doing a favour to whom by getting Greece to agree to enter into a path that leads nowhere else but a postponment of "bankruptsy". And what does it actually mean for a country to go bankrupt? Do you think that the Germans or French will come by and ship the Parthenon to their country? They will not. You know why? Because bond holders do not have any other recourse but to get their Governments to agree to come kind of solution whereby the Greek government makes sure that the Greek populatin will be in a state of poverty for the next 10 years or so, at least, so that some very important speculators in these countries maximise their return. No one is doing any favour to Greece by getting the Papandreou to agree to an impossible repayment schedule which is based on squeezing every cent to be had and destrying any chance for a real economic revovery. If you ask me and any good economist who has the guts to say the truth they will tell you that the only option for Greece is go "bankrupt". That will at least cure the problem and start a possible revival of the economy. It may also bring about the end of the Euro that you so much wish for. You know the late Milton Friedman said this was to bound to happen. Simply because you cannot have a currency that is based on the seperation of monetary and fiscal policy where the former is dictated by Brussels and the latter is determined by the country. Let's face it, Europe, unlike the USA, is not one country and it will not be so no matter how much our politicians like to dream it is.
By the same token, the United States should have 50 national teams in FIFA as they are 50 different states. All they have to do to achieve this according to your argument is to maintain a seperate football league for each State!
No HF, I disagree with you. The criterion should not be having a seperate league, or not. Because any country can decide to do this arbitrarily. The criterion should be "one country on membership". You just have to decide what is your country. Do you have one or four countries? Just make up you mind and tell the world please!
Gawd blimey Hammers Fan! Yer like the son I never had, you're stickin' it up them Scots just like ya did wiv the Welshies. Yer even managed ta stuff it up them Greeks too. Plus you had a good ol' pop at all the black folk in the country the other week. Where next son? Let me think...scousers? nah done them! erm...Germans... nah 'ad a pop at them a while back..Oh, an' wot 'bout them gays eh! I'm sure you'll give them a stiff talking to. go on my son get in there! Keep makin' me proud, don't worry 'bout all them nancies on ere.
Oh see ya down at the BNP on the weekend: i's yer raund ennit?
Other than maybe Craig Gordon no other Scot would make it into a team if Scots. What is everyones problem with the original article?
It's not a personal attack Sav, anymore than your comment is a personal attack on me. There is nothing personal about it all. But your comments struck me as a bit rich in the circumstances. Yes you are 50% Greek (or 25% or whatever) and that is what provoked me to take issue with you on this point, in the same way as I would take issue with a Stoke fan if he was talking about crude footballing tactics. It's not "personal" - I may like the Stoke fan, as I like you - it is apposite.
As for knowledge of economics, I'm happy to take you on mate. I agree completely with Friedman on this point (which hurts like buggery as I am a Keynesian by instinct and hold monetarism as implemented by Thatcher with contempt). Bretton Woods showed us a fixed exchanbe rate doesn't work. The Euro was a mad, mad experiment and the problems were compounded when the entry criteria was fudged to allow Greece to enter. I agree, the best way out for Greece may be for Greece to go bankrupt and leave the Euro, but the shock waves through Europe will be terrible.
What happens to Greece from there is also a big question. If nobody will lend money, what do you do? Print it? Then say hello to hyper inflation and a currency that falls through the floor at birth. It's a bloody mess!
'Allo Alf me old mucker! There's nout racist here of course. Scotland is having its cake an eating it at the moment and the West Lothian question is at the heart of political debate. The SNP aren't pressing for independence because Scots know that leaving the Union will hit them in their pockets, and Scots don't like their pockets hit! And let's face it, as a footballing nation, they are now minnows.
I did noot have a go at blacks, I looked at the record of black players at West Ham. That's like saying that if I look at the performance of certain jockeys, I am having a go at all people below 5'5 tall. I'm not stuffing it up the Greeks, they stuffed it up themselves when they joined the Euro. As for the Welsh, I'm very fond of wool myself!
And the Germans? I've never met a German I've disliked. Clever people with a very healthy attitude to sex.
Personally I would rather have an English team and don't know what all the fuss is about.
I would also like England to be independent of the other UK nations, providing they don't get any tax revenue from us.
I would also like trade unions to be run only by English citizens.
Sav I agree with you the quickest and kindest way for Greece to get out of trouble is to go bankrupt, get rid of the dreaded euro, re-value and start again.
At the moment the EU idiots are just tossing more good billions after bad in a futile attempt to save the euro which most people new with all the different economies involved was doomed from the start.
You are wrong about Sam Allardyce though
I very much hope you are right about Allardyce John. Just for the record I am sure he is a much better manager than last few we had but I said I reserve judgement until I see what he does with the team. I am also sure that if our geniuses of owners made the switch from Grant to Allardyce in January (or even in the last few games) we would not be a Champioship team right now.
But for HF to take issue with me because he happens know I am Greek is totally ridiculous and unjustifiable. It doesn't matter what race I am or what religion I believe in or anything else like that. I am not offended by the attack you made on the Greek nation because anyone can see it is a silly one. I am proud I am Greek and there is nothing you can say or do to offend me in that. And as far as your comment about who will be lending money to the Greek government is concerned, I tell you that when govts. stop borrowing money the world will be a much better and fairer place. Think about it. A govt asks its people to lend it money which if it cannot repay will tax them in order to give them their money back! I suggest you watch a DVD by a great Scottish Professor (a bit of an irony here) Niall Ferguson, the Ascent of Money. The second episode of this series is about bonds. How they were created to enable govts. to wage and finance wars. Today's organised bond speculators hold the world economy at ransom.
By the way HF, what have you done to Stani? I haven't read a post from him for quite a while now.
It was not an attack on you Sav. Honestly, why can't you guys get it? It's ok for you to have a go at the UK and our representation by 4 football teams but it is not OK for me to point out that Greece and everybody from greece is on a sticky wicket sitting in judgement on what is right and wrong at the moment.
I lend money to our government. I own Premium Bonds and National Savings Certificates. I feel safe doing so because of our AAA rating and the government currently pays me an agreed sum above inflation. That's good business for me and for HM Government UK. The trouble for Greece is that you are not AAA, you are more ZZZ for Zorba! As such, you are super high risk, which means to borrow from me you would have to pay a huge interest rate. If you agree to pay that, your debts mount.
Now, of course, with currency movement, you would have devalued and exports would have soared (including tourism) and imports choked off. In this way, the deficit would have been reduced. But by tying itself into the Euro, this key safety valve was removed. More fool Greece!
None of this is personal Sav, except that you are Greek!
As for Stani, he may be on holiday or he may not have liked the conclusion reached by the Nolan is white and English article. He is free to come and go as he pleases. There is no special treatment in here. I speak my mind. That's why I write a blog. Anybody who doesn't like what I say has the right of reply.
Hammersfan 16:19
All bleedin' right! All bleedin' right! I was only 'avin' a bleedin' larf ennit!
Look! Look though son, I love yer non PC posts and the clever way ya raise the issues that everyone is too afraid to say about in public. Yer honest and say what ya believe in an' you can always back up yer views with some reason. I don't always agree with ya mind you! but at least you give us all the chance to say when we don't. The nancies on 'ere choose to hide behind that "anonymous" thingy and hurl them, childish bleedin' insults at yer; i's only cuz they're frustrated at bein' out-smarted by ya though ennit! Eh! And Like ya or not they keep coming back for more though don't they, eh son?
I for one would like to say; God bless ya Hammersfan and thanks for givin' me 'n' the uver mugs somewhere to get away from the bleedin' missus. Eh! ha ha ha
God bless her Majesty and COME ON YOU IRONS!
The last time we re-valued HF, the economists all said there would be hyper inflation and interest rates would be sky high. It didn't happen, the country's economy was handed over to the labour party in fine shape.
The EU is bad news though. The forever increasing rules and regulations will eventually cause the economies to grind to a halt. Apprentice electricians spend a third of their three years study on health and safety. My son a qualified electrician running his own business recently had to go on an all day course about the dangers of drilling a hole in an artexed ceiling and added yet another certificate to the twenty or so he has received for mandatory health and safety courses. His mate a plumber has to have a fire extinguisher within arms length every time he uses his blow torch This is just a minute fraction of the frightening degree of rapidly expanding control that is being implemented by faceless individuals onto the European populations.
If the Greeks have got a good reason for escape they should take it and be happy.
Perhaps the West Ham squad went on a health and safety course last season it would certainly answer a lot of questions.
When Greece issued the bonds the country's was top rated, as was Iceland for that matter only hours before the crash! Greece's rating droped to almost the lowest possible from AAA in less than a year HF. What happened to Greece could happen to any country. Ireland, Portugal, Spain, even the UK. Gordon Brown thought that he is doing the economy a big favour be spending hugely in the econommic depression. Economists suspect that the UK's problem has not surfaced yet. I suspect that if Britain was in the Eurozone it would probably be another Greece.
Sorry mate but that is nonsense. The pound was able to move against other currencies and did. The policy of Quantative Easing was intelligent, far more so than the Thatcherite policy of squeezing the money supply which simply choked recovery and fed the cost push inflation afflicting the UK in the 80s. Greece entered the Euro on fudged criteria, as I said, and so on the basis of an artificially inflated currency value. You can't move out of recession on that basis according to my understanding of economics. All that happens is you suck in imports whilst your exports are uncompetitive. I stopped holidaying in the Euro Zone full stop, and Greece, of course, is heavily dependent on tourism. As a result, the entire tourist industry was obliged to operate on thinner and thinner margins and the knocks on trembled through the economy. Meanwhile taxes were not paid and money was effectively printed with the first bail out. As I said, it is a mess.
That couldn't happen in the UK. In the first place, our market is bigger. In the second case, our Inland Revenue collects the bulk of taxes owed. In the third place, the currency movement acted as the safety valve.
I agree only about the third reason (the currency being different than the Euro). Bigger is no guarantee and even Argentina had to declare itself bankrupt before the revival began.
I hope that nothing like that happens in the UK. I have most of my assets in the UK. But there is no guarantee that what happened in Greece will not happen elsewhere. That is the point I am making and stop saying it is because the Greeks are either lazy or cheats. Maybe they are but if so they were always like this. It didn't happen in the last few years. The problem with Govt. bonds is a worldwide and noone is immune from it. Not even the United States. There is not much chance for the States being able to payoff their huge $13 trillion plus debt any time soon.
I don't think I've said the Greeks are lazy Sav. There is an issue with non payment of tax, however, as I am sure you will acknowledge.
Not sure why you quote Argentina, they have a smaller GDP than Greece! The UK is in a different league mate. GDP in 2009 for the three countries reads:
Greece 329 b
Argentina 307.16 billion
UK 2.17 Trillion
Comparing the UK to either is like comparing Liverpool or Spurs with Chesterfield! As a result, there is close to zero chance of the UK finding itself in a Greek style mess. We are much stronger economically and have a much longer history of political stability. It's not so long ago that Greece and Argentina were run by military juntas!
I repeat country size, gdp and even long political stability are no guarantees that this cannot happen. It can even happen to the USA mate.
No it can't Sav. Why do you think we are securing oil supplies in the name of the Arab spring? The point you seem to be missing is the size of the UK and USA markets. There are dominos that the speculators will happily topple, and there are those that they would not dare to nudge. It is in nobody's interest - not even the Russians and Chinese now - for the whole edifice to come toppling down.
I was impressed by the Greek PM tonight but what a thankless task he has. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!
You are right about the speculators not pushing big economies to the edge because they will also have nowhere to go themselves. But what happens is not entirely up to them. China for example practically owns half the USA. If there is a change in regime there and they want to push things to the extreme, no-one can stop them. Of course the US will default and then what? World war III?
But they can't can they? If USA defaults to the Chinese banks, what are the Chinese going to do about it? Launch a war? Nope. The "Western" and other "Tiger" economies would simply declare the debt null and void. There would a phase of adjustment, a period of fixed currency rates and interest rates around the world to stabilise things and to prevent speculation on currencies and then everything would boot up again, like a laptop rebooted after freezing.
Not that the Chinese want anything like that to happen. They know that they still have a massive internal market to exploit. The potential for Chinese business is huge as the Chinese population become wealthier. Capitalism is not at risk in China and the Chinese do not want anything to get in the way. The only danger is that they choke the planet in the process!
By the way Sav, on what other football blog would you find yourself discussing this?
The question is "would I have been discussing this on a football blog if you haven't provoked me". The answer of course is that no other blog is like yours. We all know that.
People may well argue however that they don't join a football blog in order to discuss the world economy. I think they may have a point.
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