EU Spectacle
The word spectacle is carefully chosen, since this is what the current drama of which Greece is the symptom, not the cause, has become. It no longer bears any relationship to coherent democratic leadership or process of governance in a workable political and currency union. The cancellation at a moment’s notice of a summit of all EU leaders is extraordinary.
There is a problem with Greece, but it is not that difficult to solve. Indeed this blog working alone would be able to negotiate a workable solution. What is proving impossible is to find an acceptable solution, because the institutions normally established to process decision making at national and international levels are not there, or there in such abundance nobody can detect who is in charge. And to make matters worse the structure of the currency itself is unsustainable as it lacks a treasury and a finance minister answering to an elected government. A committee of finance ministers at loggerheads, elected by only one member state in each case, on conflicting mandates and to differing electoral timetables will work only in the good times and becomes dysfunctional under pressure.
So all we know at this moment is that Greece may or may not go bust tomorrow, the euro looks more like an impediment to growth than an engine of it, and the reputation of the EU as a coherent political union is severely damaged. Beneath that a big gap is developing between the north and the south of Europe, between the politicians and their electors everywhere and between those in the eurozone who want to stand firm to high principle even if it brings the whole thing down, led by the Germans, and by those who feel pragmatic reality demands compromise, led by France and Italy.
At the heart of of this crisis now engulfing the whole EU are three violated principles. You cannot have a democratic political union without an elected forum from which all authority flows. You cannot have a currency which cannot be printed. You cannot have capitalism which does not permit debtors to go bust. The first is violated because the whole EU is wrongly configured. The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
message 751:
by
Linda
(new)
Jan 06, 2016 08:03AM
Still no luck looking for cameras. Either they are too flimsy and cheap or they are too expensive. My price category seems to be nonexistent anymore.
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I'm really beginning to wonder about the market these days. Not only don't they make cameras for me anymore. I don't think they make cars either. I was always a minivan customer. But now they've ruined the basic design of the minivan, leaving me without a vehicle to fall back on.
I’m used to this nonsense when it comes to books. I expect it. But now it’s spreading to other products? I don’t know how to explain it to myself.
Yes, some of the camcorders and cameras I use were made 10 years ago or at least the better part of 10 years ago. For several years now I haven't been buying new Leica cameras. I buy them refurbished. The so-called "new" ones were purchased by somebody years ago and they have been sitting around in a box all that time. They try to charge you over $1000.00 for an item that originally cost $650.00 or $750.00.
I'm also limited by the fact that I need a pocket-sized camera to carry around. Most of the cameras including the SLR's are bigger than that. The Leica vlux 20 and the Leica C are the correct size but neither is made new anymore.
Occasionally a camera is offered on Amazon that calls itself "travel size". Once in awhile I've purchased one. They are usually less expensive than the original Leica vlux 20 or Leica C. I try it out. They frustrate me because they aren't as good. They don't take good pictures under low light conditions for instance. And I'm back to square one.
Yesterday we were busy buying King Arthur whole wheat flour, yeast, organic cracked wheat, Bob's red mill organic rye meal pumpernickel, as well as a loaf pan with a lid. What's going on? We're supposed to be making pumpernickel bread which we can't find for sale here. Do you make bread? Do you have a recipe?
Yesterday we were busy buying King Arthur whole wheat flour, yeast, organic cracked wheat, Bob's red mill organic rye meal pumpernickel, as well as a loaf pan with a lid. What's going on? We're supposed to be making pumpernickel bread which we can't find for sale here. Do you make bread? Do you have a recipe?
I was also thinking of making cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast. Have you ever baked that?
The weather here is so grim for Arizona that you naturally think of indoor activities like cooking. Even the bobcats would be interested in baking right about now.
Sorry i have been v busy on book and preparing fro guests. I think your problem is one many people face. The world moves on from their comfort zone where they would be happy to remain. Culture, cars, cameras, clothes, everything changes, fads and fashion come and go. Maybe that is why you are a historical novelist.Yes it is one of the Cybershot range, which i am sure has been upgraded now. The thing is the Zeiss lens is German and as good as Leica (you will know of Zeiss binoculars), but the electronics are Japanese, which are more advanced and reliable. Sony cameras are much better value. Leica has always been over the top on price.
Wow, you are busy in the kitchen. I have not baked bread for years, but I used to make all our bread. I think I have moved on from that.
Yes, I once was attending a writers conference in Philadelphia. This was when I was still in college and before I was married. I commented on something the instructor had said about the type of novels I would like to write and why I didn't like what was then being published. I'd just gotten done majoring in English literature and said something like I preferred the Victorian period. The instuctor shook his head and said that I had to make peace somehow with the time period in which I lived. I was about twenty years old at the time.
When I was in high school I took an elective in creative writing with a teacher named Barb Byers. She was then taking courses herself at the University of Pittsburgh and was letting the instructor of that course evaluate some of the writings of her high school students. When she looked at my writings she sighed and said, "You were born at 30." P.S. By the way I don't think I've ever sent you my piece of juvenile writing that I wrote for that class when I was about 17. It's a short story called Old Man Cactus and is very interesting only in that it seems to foreshadow that someday I'll move to Arizona. It also won an honorable mention in a writing contest at the time. It was before I had control over my style. I thought I was writing something serious. Everybody else in the class died of laughter when I read it aloud.
Yes, I could lament even more ways that the world has changed in ways that I don't like such as cars. I should send you a picture of our irreplaceable car, the 2007 Nissan Quest. I would be hard to give you a realistic idea of it. They don't sell anything like it in Europe. The hardest thing would be to give you a size comparison. But this is becoming a real problem. We need to buy another car. They don't sell anything that meets our needs, which is ridiculous considering how they keep on raising the prices of cars. Basically it's hard to find another car as big as this one. All the other current minivans are smaller. Only a few SUV's are still as big or bigger. But the real, real problem is that for some reason they've raised the height of minivans and in effect turned them all into SUVS, and we don't like SUV's.
That's one reason I liked the Germans at Cora Verlag. For years they refused to change their line and move on as you say. They wanted to keep on publishing young adult paperback thrillers, and that favored me since the US and Britain weren't doing it anymore and hardly anybody else was writing them and hardly anybody else knew about the Germans publishing them. It was a rare opportunity before the world moved on. Cora Verlag was bought first by Harlequin and then last summer by Harper Collins. It's now Harper Collins Germany.
My editor Christine Boness once said to me, "You think we Germans never change. But once in awhile even we have to change something." That's definitely my way of thinking. I hate change. I admire things, people, institutions, books, whatever that doesn't change. It was part of the reason I liked historical novels. They existed as a set piece in the past that you could return to that never changed. It's also why I liked classics. There's very little new that is discovered about the Greeks and the Romans. It's always the same. You can't even discover new authors or make them politically correct. They are what they are and always have been.
Linda wrote: "My editor Christine Boness once said to me, "You think we Germans never change. But once in awhile even we have to change something." That's definitely my way of thinking. I hate change. I admire t..."Yes, you are certainly right about that.
You say you used to make bread, but you have moved on from that. Where do you buy your bread now?
Have you ever used a bread machine? I see them advertised and wonder what they are like.
As far as pointless change goes, I've had terrible inconveniences because of changes in clothes and shoes, too. Particularly with shoes it's been epic. I used to wear a pair of shoes up to five years because I liked it so much. But then about ten years ago now they started to make the shoes cheaper and import them from places like China. I had to scramble to find a pair of shoes that was still made in the US. That served me for a number of years. Then about three years ago we started on nothing being reliable. I found a brand of Hush Puppies that seemed to work. But it depended on the actual pair of shoes. Sometimes it was just plain defective. You had to return it to Amazon and get another pair of the same style.
Linda wrote: "You say you used to make bread, but you have moved on from that. Where do you buy your bread now?"All our supermarkets have bakery sections where they sell the output of local bakers, as well as the wrapped 'store' bread, l always buy the bakers bread, usually mixed grain.
Linda wrote: "Have you ever used a bread machine? I see them advertised and wonder what they are like."I know people who have them and they swear by them. But it is not the same. Like chopping with a food processor when all you need is a knife.
Linda wrote: "As far as pointless change goes, I've had terrible inconveniences because of changes in clothes and shoes, too. Particularly with shoes it's been epic. I used to wear a pair of shoes up to five yea..."Yes it is the same here. We used to have a huge shoe industry. Now the shoes are designed here but made in China or Portugal. They do not have the same build quality. I am wearing Hush Puppies today. I got them from Amazon. They are a retro lace up design as if from the 1930s. Very comfortable. But when I want to replace them the style will have changed.
If you get the output of local bakers in your regular grocery store, that's certainly different from the average grocery store in the US. Most of the average grocery stores have a store bakery, but they are pretty sad sack. Local bakers would never be able to get into the large food distribution chain that ends up in the local grocery store. And guess what? In Tucson there AREN'T any local bakers. There's not one local bakery in town. Only the East Coast seemed to have things like that and the Northeast at that, not even Virginia. One of the restaurants we have frequented over the years, Viro's, has a small bakery section. They are supposed to be an Italian Restaurant and do a few loaves of Italian bread, that sort of thing. But they are not a full-service bakery.
I’ll have to bake a few loaves of bread first to see what I think. Then I’ll read the book on bread machines to see if I want to try one.
You have shoes made in Portugal? That sounds better than China. I would think that a domestic shoe industry would spring back up again just as a reaction against all the problems caused by importing shoes from China. I used to buy shoes every couple years. The shoes lasted that long. Now I have to buy shoes at least every three months, and the women's shoes seem to be worse than the men's shoes. The prices have gotten cheaper but the quality much worse. At the same time there are no shoe stores left either. I have to buy shoes online, try them on, and return what doesn't fit or what I don't like. It's really wild.
“Slowing growth and rising US interest rates are causing problems in China”. This is a quote from Fidelity this morning when I logged in. That's what I mean. China is connected to the US economy.
Linda wrote: "“Slowing growth and rising US interest rates are causing problems in China”. This is a quote from Fidelity this morning when I logged in. That's what I mean. China is connected to the US economy."Yes but the US is connected to China. China buys most US debt. if it stopped buying the US would have a problem. China has the world's biggest holding of US dollars. If it decided to sell them the dollar would plunge. They would not do it because they too would suffer but don't imagine the US is any longer in absolute control of the world economy because its isn't. Neither should it be.
Linda wrote: "You have shoes made in Portugal? That sounds better than China. I would think that a domestic shoe industry would spring back up again just as a reaction against all the problems caused by importin..."China makes cheap stuff but it also makes quality and the quality increases year by year. I suspect US importers buy the cheapest.
Yes, the US is in absolute control of the world economy as it should be. China is a distant follower who is the manufacturing arm of our industrial production. I don't think they should be, but so it is. If they sold their holdings of dollars we must might adjustments, but they would crash. That's why we are in control. I don't know why you don't seem to like this idea. It makes no sense. Britain and the European powers have more control than China, too. That's why China and Russia don't like their own currency. They hoard dollars and pounds and euros as the three leading currencies of the world. Maybe Swiss francs, too. That's why when you could leading economies you count the US, then Germany and England. China doesn't figure in the numbers. Size doesn't determine it. Leading ideas, leading companies, that's what determines it.
China doesn't make anything of any quality at all as far as I can determine it. That's why I wouldn't deal with them. Almost any place else would be better. And we ought to start supervising what goes on in foreign factories.
So far in the past week we've had two strange incidents with weird people. First back on Friday when we were grocery shopping at Target and we were driving out of the parking lot, a man we had never seen before started to chase us. He started pounding on the car and shouting at us. Gary just ignored him and drove on past. He said he thought it was homeless people. I bet you don't have this situation in England!Then just yesterday afternoon I had an even stranger experience. I was alone in the house with the dog. I thought everything was locked up. But somebody had left the gate through the carport open. Suddenly I see two men dressed as policemen at my sliding glass door. They tried to get in the house, but thank goodness that was locked up. Oddly enough all they did was ask about my computer equipment which was visible from the back of the house. My dog seemed to keep them off and they finally left. We're still calling around trying to determine who they were. Were they casing out the joint dressed as policemen?
Oh yes, I forgot! When all this was going on yesterday afternoon, Kenny was out at class. He saw men trying to scale the wall in the driveway in the broad daylight using a ladder. All this was on Arlo, the surveillance camera (which by the way we couldn't install on the roof because it needs to be semi-protected from the elements). He tried to get through to me, but it didn't work. So he got through to Gary who was out attending to business. Gary rushed back, but the men were gone.
Linda wrote: "Yes, the US is in absolute control of the world economy as it should be. China is a distant follower who is the manufacturing arm of our industrial production. I don't think they should be, but so ..."The idea I do not like is the America is best and everybody else is sub standard. America is a great country, but it is very recent and it is very aggressive. Like all countries it has faults and good qualities. But it thinks it is the world and it isn't. There is a big world out there that actually America does not really understand When they get a president who does understand they turn on him. Nixon, Clinton and Obama are respected the world over but American derides them. Bush II is regarded as the biggest disaster in history.
But the difference between the rest of the world and America is the the rest of the world takes America as it finds it and accepts that it is the way it is. But America cannot do that about other countries because it lacks the self confidence to do so. It sees threats everywhere.
China is one of the oldest civilisations in the world and Brits respect that and admire it. Britain has a history of developing its civilisation and governance over 2000 years and I think it is a lot more tolerant because of that.
Linda wrote: "So far in the past week we've had two strange incidents with weird people. First back on Friday when we were grocery shopping at Target and we were driving out of the parking lot, a man we had neve..."I just don't know how you can live behind locked gates and security cameras and stuff. That is just not a proper life. Move somewhere that has a respect for law and order.
Linda wrote: "Yes, the US is in absolute control of the world economy as it should be. China is a distant follower who is the manufacturing arm of our industrial production. I don't think they should be, but so ..."As for the dollar it is accepted as the world reserve currency and all world business is priced in dollars as well as GDP etc. This is because the US has the biggest economy. It used to be Sterling in the days of the British Empire. It has nothing whatever to do with liking their own currency. We price all our oil reserves in dollars. It does not mean we do not like the pound. The language of the air traffic control is English but it does not mean that Germans or whoever don't like their own language.
This business about America being in charge of the world economy is not a matter of morality. It is a matter of history I guess you could say. It inherited this role from Great Britain after WW2. But the western European powers are right there as the most important part of what America is doing worldwide. Without Europe it wouldn't work at all. Can't you see that countries like China imitate America and other western countries? Capitalism wasn't part of their tradition. Neither was democracy. Neither were computers or anything like that. It all came from the West.
China is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. I agree with that. Civilization sprang up: 1)in the Indus Valley in India 2)in China 3)along the Nile 4)along the Tigris and Euphrates. I think they call that the cradles of civilization. You notice that Greece and Rome aren't among the cradles of civilization. But after about 1000BC, gradually and then rapidly you didn't have Ramses 2 anymore (he was around 1250BC) and after the archaic period in Greece you started into the classical time period mid millenium. Then you got to Alexander the Great and the Ptolemies who took over Egypt. From about the classical period on to now the West has dominated. That's about 2500 years. You start with Greece. You go to Rome. Then you go to countries like medieval Germany with Charlemagne and countries like France and England, too. It stayed that way until England became totally dominant at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the Pax Britannica. Then after WW2 the baton passed to America.
More about these Tucson incidents later. I don't understand what goes on around here either. It seems dangerous. The neighborhood network online is full of incidents about burglars prowling around. Is it the Sunbelt where all the homeless people live outside?
Just yesterday between 2 and 4 in the afternoon a neighbor reported a burglary inside her home. Her dog was there but it was a small dog, not a 100 pound dog like ours.
Also the past couple of nights I've noticed on Arlo that there is a car that is going up and down the road outside the house in the middle of the night and very early in the morning before it is light out at all. This isn't typical. I haven't seen this before, and this house is on a dead end. There is no thru traffic.
This property was something we purchased two years ago next month. At that time there didn't seem to be any reported rime in the neighborhood. That's one of the reasons we didn't like our previous neighborhood which was 3 miles closer to the center of town. Now there's a big road construction project right outside our subdivision, more buses, etc. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Obviously everybody likes their own language, but I've been told that over hundreds of years lots of languages have bitten the dust. There is a tendency toward fewer languages. No one knows if this will accelerate in the future. Will we eventually have one world language, get rid of the Tower of Babel effect? It's anybody's guess.
By the way I don't know if you have noticed, but I have a new blog at http://www.midsummernightschef.com.
I have also been occupied posting photos in the picture galleries at Edward Ware Thrillers. What do you think of the new photo on the introductory page? The desert scene?
We are reading aloud from the book Waterloo: Four Days, Three Armies, Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell. He apparently isn't an academic but an historical novelist of all things. How about that?
If the dollar is accepted as the world reserve currency it's not just because it is the biggest economy. It is because is is militarily, politically, and economically the lynch pin of the whole system right now in history. If as you say China got bigger in terms you are measuring, I don't think it would change anything. China isn't capable of being the lynch pin of the whole system.
When you say that the US sees threats everywhere and doesn't have "confidence" I think what you really mean is that it is Isolationistic. I've said this before, I know, but I can't emphasize it enough. This one tendency has controlled much of the US foreign policy for generations back to the founding fathers when they emphasized that the US wasn't to have any foreign entanglements.
The US has an economic empire, not a land empire. It doesn't demand tribute or taxes from other countries. But in a way it does demand that other countries participate in the capitalist system. Frequently it also tries to demand that all countries become democracies even if their history dictates otherwise.
