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 The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
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Linda
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Aug 24, 2016 10:42AM
Today is the 1937th anniversary of the eruption at Pompeii. As if to commemorate the date, apparently there was a large earthquake today in the hill town of Amatrice. Weird! But it shows that Italy is still a seismic region.
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I haven't seen Romans in Tucson in occultus. Maybe you should send it again.
I bet that Margaret Thatcher did not go on holiday during a national crisis.
If there had been no such thing as mortgages the last house we bought would not have cost so much. Then we would have had money left over to use as we please.
That is another reason that I like to write historical fiction. If you are writing "contemporary" fiction, contemporary moves forward every day and you have to keep pace with it. When I was writing young adult thrillers they had to be contemporary and current. Even novels that were only two years old had to have technology updates. I also had to update the fashions. I kept a stack of Vogue magazines for that purpose. Online fashions weren't good enough. But if you are writing a novel about World War 2 the fashions and technology stay the same the entire time you are working on the novel. I suppose you could write a novel and announce that it took place in 1993. Why not? It is semi-historical. But that wasn't young adult fiction.
So why do you like May?Also isn't there an old idea of the "royal progress" where the monarch goes from country house to country house and all the ministers follow behind and go wherever the monarch goes? The US President can operate like this. Even if on "vacation" the government comes to him (or her???). The President can give orders and meet with advisors anywhere. But then in the US it is a tradition for the President to vacation within the country (except Campo Bello, Canada which is in Canada but is Canada really separate from the US???). If May is in Switzerland I suppose it wouldn't look right to be conducting government activities in foreign countries. Maybe she should stay in Britain for vacation. Why not???
By the way doesn't the Queen go to Scotland in August? But then, you see, she is also the Queen of Scotland and must spend time there. So she is on duty while she is on vacation. That makes more sense. Why doesn't May go to Scotland?
What are you talking about? How many people in your country have rent subsidies? Is it just poor people or lower middle class or what? How do you get a rent subsidy? What is the procedure? If I have an idle moment today, I may try to look it up. Here the US government pays for rent subsidies for Section 8 housing. But that isn't a very big program and it is limited. Landlords can't just raise the rents on the US government either. And nobody in this country wants to be in Section 8 housing. It isn't that nice.
They should do what California does and build buildings on rollers or something like that. Apparently the tremors were felt in Rome. If we had been there we would have felt it. Have you ever been in an earthquake? Believe it or not, when I lived in Charlottesville there was a minor earthquake. Gary was in the National Legal Research Building at the time. He noticed things moving a little and wondered what was going on. I was at Briarwood, the subdivision where we had bought a townhouse. I was upstairs at the time at my desk talking to my father on the phone which must have meant that it was a Friday. He was calling from Bettis. Suddenly the shade on the lamp on my desk moved. It swayed back and forth. At the same instant I heard a sound that resembled something hitting against a wall or something like that. Since I was alone in the house with Kenny asleep in his crib in the next room, I wondered if it was the furnace, the heat going on. We later wrote up our experiences for somebody studying the quake at the local paper.I still think it is oddly coincidental that the earthquake would happen on August 24, the same day as the monstrous eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD.
If you judge politicians according to results no wonder you like Churchill! I remember on Yes, Minister! all the PM's were having "Churchill moments" and imagining themselves as Churchill. I don't think there has ever been a US President who was quite as much of a character as Churchill. Teddy Roosevelt comes the closest I think. What do you think? A Teddy Roosevelt re-enactor appeared on my computer last night when I tuned in to the celebration for the 100th anniversary of the National Park System. With Roosevelt Arch in the background the re-enactor reminded me that when TR was President he actually camped in Yellowstone National Park (we are members of the Yellowstone Association) and invented teddy bears. There isn't a President around nowadays who would do the same.
Here in California especially around San Francisco and Silicon Valley housing is so expensive that few can afford it even engineers, scientists, professors, teachers, and most working people. They have a different solution that Britain ought to imitate. They don't rely on the state of California or certainly not the Federal government. Instead the companies themselves and the school districts themselves provide the housing for the employees who don't earn that much money and can't find suitable housing otherwise. (By the way none of this applies to NYC where there is lots of housing for different income levels from what I understand.)Also home builders in this country are engaging in home financing, not just banks anymore. Home builders want to make sure that you buy their houses, and let you get away without making such a large down payment.
You said you had an Italian car. What model car do you own? By the way I bought the Hastings option in paperback.
The only way to secure buildings that have been there for three hundred years is to do what the Germans did after World War 2. Rebuild the old buildings from scratch but make them new. Knock down the old ones.I don't know what goes with Charlottesville. Just a few years ago, say 5 or 6, there was an even bigger earthquake that was reported in Central Virginia. But I was not there for that one.
Now that you mention it, I think you did send it. Your car may be ideal for your little lanes, but our dog Rommel would not fit inside it, I fear. Do you have a hatchback? The model looks as if it might. But is there room back there for your grocery shopping bags? When we go out Rommel occupies the entire third row of seats. Putlitz's cage occupies one of the seats in the second row. The other seat in the second row has a stand in front of it with the dog's water dish. The hatchback provides space in the very bag for the cat's stroller and any shopping bags we collect. The Nissan Quest minivan model we drive has a kind of "table" between the two front row seats where I can put down the dog's treats and he can advance up from the third row to eat them and drink water from his dish. Unlike more recent cars there is nothing between the two seats in the second row so Rommel has room to move around. We have been test driving cars, and the dog refuses to climb into anything smaller.Almost nothing is produced anymore the size of our 2007 model car. Perhaps the Chevy Suburban is the same size, but I don't like SUV's. I almost fear that we may have to go back to driving a 22 foot RV the way we did circa 2004-2006 before buying the current car. Have you ever been inside an RV? Did you ever go camping? It was very convenient. It had its own restroom, microwaving oven, stove, and sink, not to mention cabinets to store items. It even had a set of stairs to climb up into it. However, it was a bumpy ride compared to the Quest, and the A/C wasn't as good.
Gary is almost done with your Left book. We are going to read the Hastings Option at dinner time. Gary will be writing his review soon, of course.
I have no idea who is winning. Nor can I imagine what a Trump presidency would be like. However, I DO know what another Clinton presidency would be like --- a disaster. Do you remember how many scandals engulfed the Clinton presidency in the 90s? Well, you would have it again. That might have been OK for the scandal prone decade, the tabloid decade, but things are supposed to be a little more serious now. Also there is a looming constitutional issue. Bill the Bozo already had two terms as President. He is not allowed to have another. As soon as anybody suspects that he is doing anything behind the scenes you could have another impeachment. The co-presidency worked in the 90s because Hillary was just First Lady. But now it wouldn't work at all.
Abraham Lincoln is always considered the greatest American President. But he's not as much fun as TR. That is why my 6 inch black bear is named TR and not Lincoln.
What do you think of the constitutional problem I raised yesterday about a Hillary presidency? Bill the Bozo already got impeached once in the 90s but he did not get removed from office. Does he want Hillary to get impeached, too? A double impeachment presidency?
We were talking yesterday about negative interest rates. We found out about a book called The Curse of Cash which is going to be published very soon. It is authored by Kenneth S. Rogoff, who is a Harvard professor in the economics department there. I obviously have not read it yet but I have seen summaries, and the man sounds crazy. It is also very scary. He starts out saying, "The world is drowning in cash". Then he proposes actually getting rid of $100.00 bills, $50.00 bills, and even $20.00 bills and phasing them out. He would keep only what he considers to be "small change" for small transactions. What is the purpose of this? He wants to do negative interest rates and penalize people for keeping cash in a bank account.Do you have negative interest rates in Britain? I can't imagine what nut ever came up with this idea.
Supposedly the Fed Chairman here who is somebody named Yellen earlier this year discussed the possibility of negative interest rates in the US. Who ever appointed an idiot like this to the Federal Reserve? Now Yellen is discussing buying up corporate debt but doesn't have the permission of Congress. What do you think of this?
What would you do with your money if you were confronted with negative interest rates? Withdraw it as cash and stuff it under your mattress? Put it in PayPal? Invest in stocks? Go on a shopping spree? That of course if what the negative interest people want you to do --- go on a shopping spree.
Yes, one's attention is drawn to the ground and not toward the sky. The color is all on the ground. Here it is just the opposite. You look skyward a the blue sky where you can see for miles and miles, the big sky effect.
Yes, this is all in your book but not the part about abolishing cash. Your book doesn't mention that. What do you think of that??? That is the part that I found most scary. Have you ever heard anybody who is a politician propose abolishing cash??? Of course the reason I want to have the cash is that if they proposed negative interest rates for consumers I would immediately put all of my funds in cash even if it meant having a briefcase devoted to that purpose. I would also use PayPal more than I do now.I didn't know about Yellen until recently and can't help hearing about the person because of Fidelity. To me Yellen sounds like a jerk. The current Fed chairman keeps on putting her foot in her mouth. She proposed negative interest rates early this year, and now she says no. You don't know whether to trust her. It makes me nostalgic for Alan Greenspan.
As far as interest rates go, I wish they would get back to 4% or 5% which I think is the historic average for money market account. Then I could make some money just letting it sit in savings.
You don't seem to understand what I said. There is a constitutional issue here. You are allowed to have only two terms as president, not three or four at least since Truman. If Bill the Bozo shows himself having too much influence in the White House, or shows himself to be making decisions, etc, then there is a possible constitutional violation. Also since he was President before and could be returning to the White House, you even have a dicey issue there.By the way, this all started with Edith Wilson. Remember what I said about her being President behind the scenes and not being elected?
There was a tradition in the US for southern governors who were limited to so many terms in office to have their wives elected after their term ran out. This is the sort of thing we are talking about.
What is you don't want to go shopping? Don't you have the right to save your own money? This is why I don't like the idea about abolishing cash. If nothing else you can always save cash outside a bank.
I think economists are too fond of their theories. This guy seems like a maniac. He would welcome a dictator just to force them on everybody. His methods aren't compatible with a democracy. He believes that there are people in the know like him who should be in charge of everything. What ever happened to good old commonsense? Personally I think that the problem with the economy is that there are too many economists. Shakespeare said let's kill all the lawyers. Well, let's kill all the economists. They didn't exist in Shakespeare's day, or the Bard would have had the same sentiment.
The man who wrote The Curse of Cash makes it sound as if they apply to private savers. Otherwise, why would he be trying to eliminate cash? He says that the reason the US hasn't embraced negative interest rates is because savers can withdraw their money and keep it in cash as 0% interest instead of negative interest. Do you know anything about this?
The Clintons are a mess period. They are a walking disaster area. They always have about 10 scandals going on at the same time. That is one issue. But the constitutional issue is: If Hillary is elected President, who is the REAL President, her or Bill the Bozo? Is he telling her what to do every day? Is he making all the decisions since he is the one who put her there to begin with? This is the problem. If they start a scandal about this issue, they are playing with fire.When he was President he appointed her as the health care czar during his first term. He actually gave her something to do. She had better not do this sort of thing with Bill.
It doesn't matter if she is elected with less than 50% of the vote or more than 50% of the vote. All that matters here is the electoral college. That is what determines a landslide or a close election. But this constitutional issue would still be there even if she won in a landslide.
Also the Clintons always used to advertise that they were a team. They said you elected one and you got two for the price of one. This sort of thing could get them in big trouble with Bill as a former President.
It isn't just a matter of habit. I would like to use a card all the time. It would be much easier. But as I said hotels and motels can't be trusted not to put "shadows" on your card for all sorts of reasons.I used travelers' checks as recently as 2012 when we went to Europe four years ago. But when It tried to get them from AAA last year, they didn't sell them anymore. Instead they have a "cash card" which is like their prepaid debit card which you use in place of travelers' checks. The downside is that you have to pay to put the money on the card and you can't use it abroad. It's good though to protect yourself. Hotels can't put shadows on it. One tried and complained to me that they couldn't.
That is why it is an interesting election. No matter who wins it is hard to imagine that person as President of the US. But surely one will win and become President. It's just about inevitable.
I am not talking about "cloning" my bank account. I am talking about putting a "shadow" on my card. There are several ways this could happen. If you have made a reservation at a hotel ahead of time, sometimes they try to put the whole charge for the reservation through on your card a week ahead of time even though the cancellation time frame is two days. You say why not let the charge go through if you plan to stay there and you will be paid up when you arrive? When you arrive they expect you to pay again even though the charge is still pending on the card. Then a month later they lift the shadow for the first charge. This is the sort of thing I am trying to avoid. Also there is some sort of racket going on where some hotels require you to present a card even if you are paying in cash and even though you paid in full when you checked in. They think guests might steal something from the room even though there is not much in a hotel room that I could see somebody wanting to steal. Again they put charges through that pend and pend even if you don't steal something.What is worse, if you ever present a card to a chain hotel, they store it in their data bank and if you stay at another hotel in the chain they can draw upon information from past stays. So every year at least once a year I get new cards with new numbers so nobody can use a card from a past stay to charge anything to me.
It gets harder all the time to avoid bad policies at hotels.
Also you want to avoid using cards as much as possible because of identity theft. Use them when you have to, yes, but don't overdo it. You might just find charges on your card that you didn't put there. This can never happen when you use cash.
We can look forward to December when the snakes go underground because it is too cold. This is another reason NOT to be here during the summer. We found out that the Westinghouse family from Pittsburgh used to spend winters here from November through April about 100 years ago. They knew what they were doing. And they were on the far east side of town not far from Houghton Road right where we are right now.
Holiday Inn is "bad" here. They like to place "shadows" on cards. So I checked Great Britain Holiday Inns. I am quoting you what they say on their website about debit cards. They require you to present a "card" a check in. That eliminates just paying in cash. This is what they say on their website. "Hold" is the same thing as "shadow":Most IHG hotels and resorts place a hold on a debit card when it is presented at check-in. The hold amount varies depending on the rate type booked and can include the entire price of the stay, plus taxes, fees, and a deposit for incidental purchases. These holds are separate from, and in addition to, your billable charges. IHG hotels and resorts typically release the hold within 5 days of check out once final payment has been received. Depending on your financial institution, funds may take up to 14 days or longer to be back in your account. InterContinental Hotels Group, its subsidiaries, affiliates, franchisees and agents are not responsible or liable for the loss of use of these funds or any overdraft charges.
What they don't tell you is that they expect you to pay the bill in addition to putting up with this "shadow" or "hold".
What about Austria and Germany? in 2012 a Best Western in Salzburg put a "shadow" on my card. It lasted two whole weeks before it dropped off, causing my card to go into negative numbers at the time. Fortunately the investment bank we use doesn't care and doesn't put fines or charges on your card if you dip into negative numbers. Last year a castle that we were thinking of staying at along the Rhine tried to put a shadow on our card, but we outfoxed them by giving them a PayPal Master Card instead. The charge didn't go through. If I stay overnight in England I'll let you know if any motel tries something like that. I feel as if I'm engaging in open warfare against these motels.
What we did with the Best Western in Salzburg was to leave the hotel on the day we were scheduled to go without formally checking out. They were left with their “shadow” on our card. We didn’t let them charge us twice. They had to make the “shadow” hard in order to get paid. If we had let them charge us twice, we might have run out of money before we could get back to the states.
One of the sillier examples I can think of is the Hilton Hotel in Santa Fe. We have stayed there twice. Each time we have tried to pay in cash upfront They refuse to take our money. They insist they want a "card". So we give them a card with no credit on it. Later the same day they notify our room that the card "doesn't work". We are supposed to come up to the front desk with a card that does work. We just ignore them. This goes on for several days during the entire length of our stay. Then we check out and pay them in cash. But we at least preserve the integrity of our card.
Traveler's checks ceased to exist at AAA somewhere between 2012 when I last used them and 2015 when I tried to buy them and found out they were no longer available. I had a few left over from the 2012 trip that I used when we went to Santa Fe in 2014. But that was really it. More people refused to accept them. Some didn't even recognize them. Some shopkeepers would tell me, "We don't accept checks", confusing them with checks in your checkbook from the bank.
We always offer to pay for the entire visit when we check in upfront. We usually want to pay in cash. Since they have been paid upfront for the entire visit and sometimes an additional amount as a pet fee I don't see why they insist on a card. The only explanation I've ever been given is that they are afraid you are going to steal something from the room, which sounds ridiculous. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to steal pillows or pictures on the wall from a motel room. But it would be dangerous to give them your card. For one thing I don't know exactly what is supposed to be in the room to begin with. If something is missing when I check in and I don't report it, they may charge it to my card.
This sort of practice is becoming more and more common all over the place. If it breaks the law or violates standards, I would like to know how to confront them with the facts. I agree it seems to affect only chains, but in the US almost every hotel is part of a chain. Lots of the smaller hotels in Europe didn't have any part of this system. And as you would say, Best Western is an American chain.
This "lock" account you describe sounds like a credit card. You check in with a credit card and then pay cash when you leave. This is exactly what they want you to do. The problem with this is that you are opening yourself up to potentially huge liability. For one thing, the more you give out your card number the chances of identity theft go up. This weekend is Labor Day Weekend here. There is news out that lots of "skimmers" have been placed on gas pumps. You aren't supposed to use your card to buy gas or petrol. Somebody at the hotel could steal your card number, too. Also once you give out the number to one hotel, all the other hotels in the chain have access to it. Also they could charge you for something you didn't steal that happens to be missing.
How would it be different if you had a dispute with a car rental company in Britain after you had rented it with your credit card? Would the credit card go to your defense? Would they help you out? Here the credit card company helps you only if your dispute is with a "small creditor" who doesn't have much money. For instance two years ago we protested that we didn't have to pay the rest of the money we supposedly owed the roofers at Wallen Ridge because they had botched the job. The roofers at first protested and wrote back. The credit card provided a forum for these discussions. We submitted lots of objective evidence, photos, and professional testimony. Then we protested that we didn't owe them anything at all when we discovered the extent of the damage they had done to the house far exceeded the value of the roofing. Frankly I don't know what the credit card would have done if the roofers had continued to protest. The roofers gave up when they saw the mountain of evidence we had accumulated from building inspectors and mold inspectors. But if they hadn't, I don't know if the credit card would serve as a small claims court. (These are the same roofers who didn't pay their subcontractors who put the lien on the house and caused the big lawsuit which we settled last September).
Certainly during the past ten years I have had to be vigilant about the integrity of my credit card and my debit cards. I get new cards with new numbers at least once per year to throw off criminals who may have stolen the numbers. At the beginning of this year we had to get new credit cards twice because somebody in California was trying to use the card number to buy things. This is all the underside of being able to go online, etc.
We were able to clean the computer. We also replaced the keyboard with a spare one we had in the closet. It was back up and working within 24 hours. But that only works because this laptop is a 2012 design. The more recent laptops are sealed. You can't repair them.
What do you think about this? Not everything in Britain is that idea if Poles can be murdered in the streets.
Here the banks indemnify you, too. But what if you need the money today? You probably have to wait a day or two for the bank to correct the loss. But also what about identity theft? I've never had this happen, but from what I have read it sounds like a nightmare. What if they use your card to rent a car and then use the car to commit a crime? Sounds like a novel, doesn't it?
Not easy to keep your drinks away. We use the laptops quite a lot during meal times.
Has the new government done anything yet? The last time I checked with you May was on holiday in the Swiss Alps. Did she ever return? Or is she still up a mountain?
Not from what I have heard. Apparently Identity theft has become a big problem. Companies sell insurance to buy to set your identity right again after it has been stolen. You sometimes have to go to court to get it done and hire a lawyer, too.
Don't you ever have disputes with car rental companies or other companies about their practices?
