Toilet paper for Turkey

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Sep 12, 2010 at 13:20

Caleb writes :

> Greece's financial problems are the fault of Turkey? <

Greece's military expenditures in terms of budget percentage are higher than those of the US. The only reason for that is that its neighbour happens to be the jihadist and hypermilitarised police state called Turkey bent on aggression and conquest. Now how many billions of dollars that are spent on the military which is an unproductive part of economy ( unless you rely on booty and occupation of foreign territories as Turkey does in Cyprus or Azerbaijan preparing for its imperial war for Turan ) would be saved annually if instead of Turkey Armenia were the Eastern neighbour of Greece ? Interesting question, isn't it ?

> Bourthes! [Greek for "garbage".] <

In Turkish it's "saçmalık" , isn't it ?

> Here is a reader comment appearing last April on the website of "the local", a German newspaper in the English language [take my word, this isn't an isolated opinion]... "14:12 April 24, 2010 by Bensonradar It's common knowledge that Greece has lived beyond its means. Their public service sector was a running joke, with civil servants running private businesses. Their middle classes turned tax evasion into an art form. They have nobody to blame but themselves. The previous government hid the deficit, so George Papandreou's incoming administration were caught out. Moody's downgraded the country's bonds to A3 status, four notches above junk. The cost of insuring Greek debt (CDS) jumped 565 basis points, reaching 200 points above that of Iraqi debt. But loaning them more money means they have to pay that back as well. Without a strong tax and internal fiscal policy, how are they going to pay it back? Greece's debt will never end. Mark my words. Then the UK, then Spain etc etc."

With the exception of the statement : "They have nobody to blame but themselves" which is wrong as the whole EU machine is corrupt , mendacious and dysfunctional , the rest might be with even greater legitimacy applied to the US which is the biggest debt-ridden economy in the world. Nowadays its federal debt equals its annual GDP ($13.258 trillion) but when other state debt items are added (more than $55 trillion in social security and medicaid obligations and 16 trillion in US insurance guarantees ) you get reach beyond $ 80 trillion which is roughly 6 annual US GDPs. Now the reason why the US is not declared a bankrupt country , although fanancially it is , is that it can print money in any amounts as it has "successfully" done so far so as to circumvent the painful cuts in its living and social standards . As the only superpower it has also very potent political instruments to make the world pay its debts. Greece can't do that.

Judging by the criteria applied by you or rather your commentator Turkey and many other EU countries are also on the brink of bankruptcy. But while Turkey can and did avoid bankruptcy through inflation individual EU states can't do that as they are no longer sovereign states and can't save their economies by injecting more money to cover its deficits and pay debts. But this very effect has been achieved by inflationary money printing of the EU and it is exactly what the EU is doing now to save the euro zone. To "rescue" Greece (and Portugal , Spain , Belgium which are in debt up to their necks) and prevent the disintegration of the EU the European Central bank has printed several billions of euros which it transmitted to the beaten economies . But it is all inflationary money backed up by no goods or services , let alone gold as in the old days.

> The main opposition to Greece's leaving the Eurozone is from the Greek banks. They rightly fear a run on them by depositors if word got around that the Euros in those accounts were to be converted to New Drachmae--which would be useful for the toilet paper Ianus is so proud of Greeks using.<

Actually, Greece was blackmailed to stay in the euro by the European Commission which was afraid that if Greece made a precedent and left the holy of holies (the euro) others like Portugal, Spain, Italy would follow starting an avalanche which will leave the dictatorial Commission without its most powerful instrument of control and blackmail and undermining any trust in the artificial currency which produces everywhere dearth and discontent . The Brussels comrades know very well why countries like Sweden rejected euro in a referendum and the UK will never accept it . They know also that if any EU country were left free to do decide what money to use it would immediately leave the straitjackets of euro and do their own financial policy with their own currency as sovereign states worth the name have always done.

So unlike what you suggest it would not be drachma just like it isn't Swedish crown or Polish zloty that are converted to toilet paper but rather the euro would go that way down the toilet flush system. Indeed if pulped up with all the too numerous portraits of Ataturk taken from Turkey the mixture would make perfect toilet paper to be used free of charge by every dirty Turkish Moslem after Friday prayers in their 86 000 mosques of 'secular' , i.e. 100% Islamic Turkey.

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