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 The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.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 1201:
by
Linda
(new)
Mar 29, 2016 08:42AM
Last night under the guise of using the Tor browser I went online for the first time. Amazon immediately objected and said that they didn't think I was the same person. On that website, though, it was as easy as logging in again. Then I went to my Fidelity page. That was a much harder nut to crack. I had to change my password and talk to somebody on the phone to get into my account. Why? They didn't recognize my computer. I tried PayPal. That one was hopeless. It came up in a different language, French. By the way, I had a similar experience last summer when I was actually on the ship and in Europe. I wasn't using Tor, but the accounts frequently didn't recognize me either.
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Yesterday morning Gary called the county recorder and asked if they could take our houses off the online network and just leave them in paper form only. This county is behind the times and said they didn't have the authority to do that yet. In Florida, for instance, all you have to do is fill out a form to get delisted online. It is supposed to help prevent identity theft for one thing. Supposedly one out of four people are now being victimized by identity theft in this country because of the internet.
Whenever you sign up to anything in the UK you are asked if you want to opt out of promotions etc., so what you describe does not happen.We do have a problem with unsolicited phone calls for marketing but it has recently been made a criminal offence for which companies can be fined mega mega if they use any information gained, so the whole project is worthless and dying down.
The author of the book does talk about pretending you are an EU citizen when you write to google and ask "to be forgotten". Then they have to remove you and forget all the data they have collected on you. You can't be forgotten in the US. You have to write to all the companies separately. If you have a gmail address in particular you are asking to have data collected about you.
I am not sure what the difference is in what is collected in the US vs the UK in regard to data and what is sold for profit to other companies. That would be a subject in itself. But even if companies cannot sell data they collect on you, can they use it for their own purposes? In other words, if the telephone provider collects data can they bombard you with advertising and offers about their telephones simply because you are already their customer?
Also I am sure that the UK laws don't protect you from people on social websites who aren't marketers in the traditional sense. Or do they? For instance, if people on Facebook got your email address and used it to bombard you with news or ads about their books, what can you do? What if they are located in India? Russia? The US?
You say you have protection against your name being sold by companies who have your information. But what about collection agencies? If you were behind in your credit card payments, can the credit cards sell your information to credit collection agencies who then call you ten times per day? I've read about this abuse which can get extreme here.
If you own a house in Great Britain, can you get it delisted in your name? Can you get it delisted online? Or doesn't it appear online at all? Here they think everybody has the right to see who owns every parcel of property, how much they think it's worth, and whether their is a mortgage on the property. Here it is getting to be a dangerous practice. Anybody who knows your name and the city where you live can look up the property records, find your exact address, and appear in front of your house to harass you. This public information is also mined by marketers. Even if you didn't have any credit cards and never went online at all, you could start to get ads in the mail based just on the property records. It has even used by people trying to steal your identity.
Another thing I've been meaning to ask, do you have income taxes in Great Britain? Right now filling out income tax forms has gone into high gear. They are due in the middle of April. There are both federal and state tax forms to fill out online using tax software. Talk about people interfering in your personal life! Forget about private companies. The government takes the cake when it comes to things like taxes. I even have to fill out all sorts of information about the trip I took last summer including motels, restaurants, car rentals, tickets, etc. It will take forever.
Linda wrote: "I am not sure what the difference is in what is collected in the US vs the UK in regard to data and what is sold for profit to other companies. That would be a subject in itself. But even if compan..."Yes, but you can opt out. I always do, but I do get prompts from Facebook and twitter.
Linda wrote: "Also I am sure that the UK laws don't protect you from people on social websites who aren't marketers in the traditional sense. Or do they? For instance, if people on Facebook got your email addres..."I don't have a problem. On line bullying is not permitted. I am not sure what the law is. Essentially if you want to remain private the idea here is to stay off social media.
Linda wrote: "If you own a house in Great Britain, can you get it delisted in your name? Can you get it delisted online? Or doesn't it appear online at all? Here they think everybody has the right to see who own..."We have an electoral register which is as old as the voting system which shows every house and its occupants and the details of property ownership are held at the Land Registry and also with the local council because we have a property tax which the owner (or tenant) is liable for.
But people's financial affairs are strictly private although the credit rating agencies know most of it.
Linda wrote: "Another thing I've been meaning to ask, do you have income taxes in Great Britain? Right now filling out income tax forms has gone into high gear. They are due in the middle of April. There are bot..."Oh yes we have income tax, capital gains tax and a sales tax (VAT). Also my daughter and her mother who are both dual US citizens have to do federal tax returns and pay some level of tax in the US although they don't live there.
The problem in America is that it likes to spend more on the military than all the other top 20 military powers put together, but nobody wants to pay for it. I think part of this anger against the Federal Govt. in US stems from the money being spent on things that do not impact positively on everyday life. A sense of paying but seeing no return.
Nobody likes paying taxes here but everyone can see the benefits, so this anger you have is just not going on here, or I think in most of Europe.
Here they have some rule that if you are the customer of whatever company they get to call you on the phone. They also bombard you with email. What do you mean by "prompts" from Facebook and Twitter?
Since most things have gone online and that means international, the laws of one particular country don't matter as much anymore. It is true that if you don't want to be bothered by anything you should stay off line. But it is almost impossible to do so. If I didn't go online, I wouldn't need Tor or the Tor browser. If there was no online, I wouldn't be trying to get my property records removed from it. Nor would you have to worry about identity theft. (Maybe identity theft existed before the internet, maybe somebody stole your credit card number from a restaurant and pretended to be you and charge in your name, but it must have been less common). Now that even your income tax form gets sent over the internet here there is the possibility of all sorts of snooping on your private data. In the past it would have been almost impossible for someone to steal your income tax form unless they were going to rob the mailman or hold up the postman at the post office! And they would have to be physically located exactly where you were. Online is what presents most of the difficulties we are talking about.
That's what I thought. The idea of registering who owns what piece of land came from Great Britain. It might have been harmless enough in the old days, but in America it has recently become a problem. You didn't mention whether the property records were online, though. Are they? That is what makes all the difference. If somebody has to physically show up at a county recorder's office downtown, he is much less likely to do so especially if he is up to no good.
If financial affairs are private, why do you say the credit rating agencies know most of it? That doesn't seem very private to me. Here it is all contained in a magical number which is called your social security number. If you give it out, somehow magically they know your credit history. I think this is a foul practice and a corruption of a number which was originally supposed to be strictly for federal government purposes. It is especially bad when places that aren't even loaning you money such as employers get hold of it even before they hire you so they can run credit checks when that doesn't even have anything to do with the job. Some employers even require fingerprints! Imagine! Everyone is being treated like a criminal.What do you have in place of a social security number? A citizen number? A citizenship card of some kind?
If you have income tax, do you fill out yearly income tax returns? What time of year? Here the deadline is usually April 15 when it falls on a weekday. For some reason this year it is Monday, April 18. I don't care what the government spends the money on. I still wouldn't want to pay federal income taxes or state income taxes. I would want to have my own money to spend in my own way. Besides, in the US most of the money in the budget comes from taxing big businesses not individuals anyway. Why would your daughter and her mother have to pay taxes in the US even though they don't work there and don't live there? That doesn't make sense to me. Does that mean if they lived there they would have to pay taxes in Great Britain too?
Your priority reading blog is top notch. The American election is like a long running TV miniseries with a list of characters with plots of their own that build up to climaxes and have subplots. There are secondary characters and main characters. It is all entertainment, I think, with very little about it that is serious.
I’ve tried not to pay much attention to elections since the year 2000. Even during 2000 I wasn’t paying much attention. There was all this talk about Bush Gore and Gore Bush. It all seemed very dull. And then suddenly on election night you had hanging chads, etc. Then it when I unfortunately started to pay attention, the post election drama leading up to the Supreme Court decision in mid December right before Christmas. It was all too much and very distracting indeed. Since then I’ve avoided it all together. I no longer watch election returns on election night or anything like it. Of course in 2004 Bush got re-elected. In 2008 we had the current administration. Ditto in 2012. As I’ve said before the only guaranteed good thing about this election is that no matter who wins I get rid of the current occupant of the White House.
Linda wrote: "Here they have some rule that if you are the customer of whatever company they get to call you on the phone. They also bombard you with email. What do you mean by "prompts" from Facebook and Twitter?"I get an email saying there is a message on my timeline or whatever. Twitter tell me when new followers join or when i get re-tweeted.
Linda wrote: "That's what I thought. The idea of registering who owns what piece of land came from Great Britain. It might have been harmless enough in the old days, but in America it has recently become a probl..."It is easy enough to find out who lives in a certain property but what the rent or mortgage is does not appear on public records.
Linda wrote: "If you have income tax, do you fill out yearly income tax returns? What time of year? Here the deadline is usually April 15 when it falls on a weekday. For some reason this year it is Monday, April..."Our tax year runs to April 5th. Yes we do tax returns, but for employed people we have a system where tax is calculated and deducted from pay each month.
Apparently American citizens have a liability, a small one, to pay federal income tax wherever they live, in return for which America will supposedly protect them wherever they are. Brits living in America do not have to pay tax in Britain if they do not live here.
Linda wrote: "Your priority reading blog is top notch. The American election is like a long running TV miniseries with a list of characters with plots of their own that build up to climaxes and have subplots. Th..."Wise and perceptive words!
We have a big crisis here in the steel industry, owned mostly by Tata an Indian multinational who also own Jaguar and Land Rover. Our steel plants are about to go under because of Chinese dumping of their over production of steel at well below its production costs. I have done a blog 'GB: A Nation of Steel' which explains all and which you will like. It compares the UK to the US.http://malcolmblair-robinson.com/word...
The feedback you get from Twitter and Facebook are because you signed up for those things I suppose. But with my personal Facebook page I see ads in the righthand side column. I don't see them on my author's page, however. But then I suppose my author's page is my advertising page to the rest of the world. Facebook is always prompting me to spend money advertising my books. Facebook is an advertising machine, one of the biggest that currently exists.
I recently complained to Goodreads about the ads on my Goodreads page. I wanted to know if I could block them out since they were so tasteless. They said that the only reason they didn't charge me for use of the website was because of the ads. The only advice they could give me about the tasteless ads was to clean my browser, cookies, or some such thing. Then I might get different ads. That's all they could promise me. They also want me to pay for ads. They want me to do giveaways, etc. Amazon owns them. Amazon obviously wants to make money.
You say it is easy enough to find out who lives in a certain property, but is it online? That makes all the difference.
So you do have income tax forms but somehow not for employed people? Only for people who have a small business? I think large businesses probably have to pay taxes everywhere in the world. That’s what keeps the capitalist economy chugging and what supports and props up all the governments of the world.
“A Nation Of Steel” sounds like a complicated and technical situation which I would be hard put to understand. Gary’s father used to work for US Steel which was founded by Andrew Carnegie. My grandfather on my father’s side started a company, Bognar & Co, Inc. in Pittsburgh, making liners for blast furnaces and selling all sorts of gravel, sand, etc. So you would think I would know a lot more about steel coming from Pittsburgh. But really I’m not that scientific or technical.You certainly make the situation in Britain sound dramatic, though. I told you that you shouldn’t be dealing with the rapscallion Chinese.
Linda wrote: "So you do have income tax forms but somehow not for employed people? Only for people who have a small business? I think large businesses probably have to pay taxes everywhere in the world. That’s w..."Yes everybody fills up a tax return, mostly on line now I believe, but employees are taxed before they get their pay check whereas self employed pay tax at the end of each year.
Linda wrote: "You say it is easy enough to find out who lives in a certain property, but is it online? That makes all the difference."Nobody can go on line and find out about your mortgage or whatever. If you want to borrow money you have to give the lender details of your finances and they can check your credit score on line.
Public information, and who lives in which house is public, not private, information, is on line in various forms, so you could not keep yourself a secret unless you were a criminal. But nobody wants to anyway.
I am not sure what your problem is. You seemed to be very hung up on privacy. You really should not be on all these websites if you feel that way. As for this privacy system you are buying to keep your online activity secret, that would be considered mega dodgy here.
If I am "very hung up" on privacy, just remember my experiences during the past couple of years! Never before did I have people hunting me down or using my private information against me in a court of law. Also the potential for these things is enormous. During a recent webinar sponsored by RWA, lots of the other writers were glad that they were renting so that their names would not appear in the property records. Stalkers could find you this way. Think of the mover or somebody like him!As far as being on "all these websites" that started before the extraordinary situation beginning in July of 2014 with the roofer, the ceiling people subcontractors, and the mover. Also there was a small publisher from South Carolina after me at the very same time. Any of these people could try to create trouble by looking up my assets especially my housing situation. Then they could latch onto it and try to sue me for all that I am worth. Even the lawyer we consulted last fall thought we should take measures. He talked about "vanilla trusts". I don't know why you think it is so odd.
Of course the privacy measures do contradict to some extent trying to publicize yourself as an author. But readers aren't usually the problem, though some of the RWA participants told stories about stalkers who found out about them online in this fashion. Even the RWA convention guidelines have warnings about stalkers and who is admitted to the building and under what circumstances.
Some of this is physical privacy protection by the way and not just asset protection. After the mover episode with a creep physically showing up at our house and pounding on the windows we don't want anybody to be able to find out where we live and look us up online, at least anybody like him. This is also why we NEVER have mail delivered to our address anymore and use a UPS Store mailbox. Maybe some of this is a sex difference. Women especially don't like stalkers.
As far as the Tor browser goes, it is supposed to help you fend off commercial advertisers mostly but even the government now and then, too. It is difficult to use. But it helps reduce websites picking up on your online identity so they can add you to a list to send advertisements to as well as pick up on your other information, too. We just had our credit card information stolen about a month or so ago. I remember mentioning it to you. We don't want identity theft to be next.
The Tor browser is becoming more popular here especially since the NSA scandal broke and all the Snowden stuff started. Is is mostly for computer geeks, I guess, and isn't easy to use. But it does help and it states a principle that you don't want people following your activities online anymore than you would want them to snoop on your comings and goings in real life in your car. And when you say that people in Britain would consider this mega dodgy, I think it depends on the person. Some people in the US would consider it mega dodgy, too. It just depends.
Thank you for that very full and frank briefing. I see exactly what you mean. The kind of thing you describe does not happen here. Stalking in any form is a crime and cyber bullying is constantly being monitored by schools etc. Posting offensive or racial tweets is also a crime.I think America has the advantage of fewer laws but the payback is more lawlessness and people claiming individual rights which are not for the public good. It is a different culture.
The four areas which are constantly monitored on the internet by the authorities are terrorism, organised crime, pedophiles and cyber attacks. We get the usual scams like phishing etc but most people are wise to all that.
As far as wanting to be independent of the government, again this is more American than European. And it goes way back in my past. When I was a kid my father told me that my grandfather had a business associate named Robert Vesco but that Vesco had been forced to flee the country because the US government was after him. In those days long before I was born my grandfather had a few liquor store businesses in Maryland that he ended up giving to his second wife when he got divorced, again before I was born. Vesco was somehow involved in that. Then when I was a teenager I became infatuated with Lord Byron. I also memorized Percy Bysshe Shelley poems and recited them for speech competitions. Those poets didn't like the British government and found it oppressive and tyrannical. That impression remained with me later.
I've never had a conflict with the US government, but I've had lots of problems as you know since I moved to Arizona with Arizona authorities and Arizona law. Just to give one recent example that you already know about, last year I complained to the police that the mover was harassing us by parking at the top of the street and honking and shouting at us, displaying banners and flags and signs about us. The police said it was freedom of speech even though it was clearly not right. Another example was when the police ignored our complaints about the drug dealers across the street at the old house. It all gives me a bad feeling about government in general. Therefore I don't want "the authorities" snooping in my email either.
Actually I did just think of one small example from the distant past of a conflict with the federal government. When I was going to Europe as a kid my father wasn't allowed to get a passport to visit Berlin or Eastern Europe. He worked for a defense contractor, and it was during the Cold War.
Do you mean that all this stuff about the NSA doesn't make you paranoid about the government? The British government is involved, too. Ever since WW2 the US has shared spy secrets with the British.
No I am not fussed about Snowdon. More reassured that my government will stop at nothing to keep us safe. But Britain has always been like that. That is why it is a hard nut to crack and a formidable enemy which punches above its weightBut remember Britain has always liked government and America was founded because it didn't. And loads of Americans are descended from people who fled from repressive regimes. So you can understand the suspicion and antipathy.
Do the Germans publish property records online? The reason I ask is that they are another European country but are known to be more paranoid. They are also without the traditions started by William the Conqueror with the Domesday Book or later Doomsday Book. They don't allow google earth to show street views of people's houses and where they live online. So I wonder about the property records.
Don't you have identity theft in Britain? Or hasn't it yet reached your shores? Here they have started to sell insurance anticipating that someday you, too, will be a victim of identity theft. It is part of an umbrella policy you can buy with your property insurance. A lot of identity theft has to do with having your records online including your property records. Apparently even submitting your income tax returns online is a big problem. They can be intercepted and you can have not only your refund intercepted and diverted but your social security number, too.
What do you have in place of a social security number? A citizen number? A citizenship card? Here I think too many places ask for your social security number. Originally it was intended only for federal government use. Here it has been abused as a key to your credit report and other information about you. Somehow this has gotten out of hand because of the internet. It is now dangerous to give anybody your social security number for any reason.
Linda wrote: "Do the Germans publish property records online? The reason I ask is that they are another European country but are known to be more paranoid. They are also without the traditions started by William..."I am afraid I do not know what the Germans do.
When you say that Britain has always liked government, doesn't it depend on who you are and what the government is? Did the people of Britain like William the Conqueror all the way back in 1066? Did the British like their Norman kings? The legend of Robin Hood would indicate otherwise. If you were Catholic you wouldn't have liked Henry VIII. If you were a Puritan you wouldn't have liked the Restoration. Byron and Shelley didn't seem to like the British government in the early nineteenth century. Mark Twain cast aspersions on it in the late nineteenth century. In a more serious sense so did Thomas Hardy. Lots of poets didn't like Britain during WW1. And for a long time the Irish didn't like the British, and they were part of the British Isles. Some of the Scots didn't like them either. Minorities against the majority? Maybe. That was why America had the Bill of Rights, to protect the minority against the majority. That was what Snowden and Chomsky were citing against the intrusiveness of the federal use of the internet.
Linda wrote: "Don't you have identity theft in Britain? Or hasn't it yet reached your shores? Here they have started to sell insurance anticipating that someday you, too, will be a victim of identity theft. It i..."Yes we have identity theft but people are usually compensated for losses by the banks. We have a National Insurance Number which is the same as your sos sec number. It covers everything including tax.
We never give personal details unless we are satisfied that the request is genuine. Of course people are caught out by scams, but they have to be pretty sophisticated. Everyone knows not to click links or confirm passwords from people they do not know.
Oh yes and only government agencies can ask for your NI number.you give it to nobody else.
Linda wrote: "When you say that Britain has always liked government, doesn't it depend on who you are and what the government is? Did the people of Britain like William the Conqueror all the way back in 1066? Di..."People like the institution of government and have faith in it. But of course they dislike individual governments who follow policies they do nt approve of. In the US people hate the Federal government as an institution no matter who is in power.
When you say that people in Britain are compensated for identity theft by the banks, don't the customers have to first prove that it is identity theft and fill out lots of papers? Or is that done for them? Also what about the damage to your credit report? Who fixes that? The banks? Also what if the identity thief commits a crime in your name and pretends he is you? Then you have to get your criminal record cleared. The enemy is not only the internet and losing your credit card but public records kept about you. At the very least the government needs to stop putting them online.
It is not just revealing personal details online that harms you, or losing your credit card in a public place, but also those public records such as property records, voting records, marriage records, etc. It has gotten so bad here that many localities --- not including stupid places like Arizona --- let you opt out from having your property listed online. In California you can opt to have your marriage records kept confidential now.
