I remember that. A massive bacterial infection infected greek olive trees that threatened to spread to the rest of europe. If it spread then Greece would likely have been the only country with enough surviving olive trees to become the only exporter of olives at exorbiant prices. Funny that fire miraculously occured...

I agree that they understood the question and did not imagine that a simple No vote could vanish all the debt like magic.

But I would say that nobody really knows what the No will bring exactly.

I for example woke up an monday, heard about the result and thought that an euro exit would happen on the very same day because somehow it seemed only logical. The deadline was already over, the EU didn't seem willing (still doesn't seem to) to give more money and accept less cuts, and the Greeks had clearly voted that they will rather default on the debt than taking this offer. So, except for the euro exit no other solution would be left, I thought. But that did not happen so far.

What the result really meant, nobody knows, and we'll have to see. Maybe this weekend will bring a decision.

Personally I guess that the result of the referendum has raised hopes which might be difficult to fullfill. Somehow my impression is that a lot more money is unlikely to come.

Tomorrow the Greek government will make a new proposal. Everything depends on this.

Bacterial infection was in South Italy
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/24/olive_tree_blight_xylella_fastidiosa_is_threatening_millions_of_groves_in.html

I can tell you that I'm far more afraid of the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) than the CIA. The IRS can walk in and take your property and garnish your wages more easily than pretty much any other government agency. I'd rather be investigated by Homeland Security than have the IRS audit me--- I'd have an easier time proving my innocence to Homeland Security.

Edit: So yes, your average citizen does want to file their taxes on time. Avoiding personal taxes isn't a national sport here the way it is in some countries because the penalties are sufficiently painful. That said, there are always some people who just have to try to get away with stuff.

Quite similar to Germany. Don't mess with the finance office. They garnish your account faster than a speeding bullet. Though some people still try shifting money to other countries for tax evasion. I hope Europe finally accomplishes an agreement that makes it much more difficult than it is now. It'd be about time for more cooperation on this.

The result of the vote was exactly what the referendum said it was. NO to the troika offer. That's it. That's all there was to the referendum. It was a propaganda effort that planted the "No=leaving the euro or EU" to scare people into not voting no.

The referendum was never about what happens next. It was about saying yes or no to that offer. What happens next no one knows. Leaving the euro is a possibility (since there are already IIRC three EU countries with their own currencies) but the political leadership has made it clear from day one that they do not wish to leave the EU. Whether they're able to meet that wish is anybody's guess, as there are many in the "big three" EU countries that would like to see Greece be expelled from the EU.

But not knowing what happens next doesn't equal not knowing what they were voting on. They were asked to vote yes or no to the troika offer of more austerity, more of the commons being sold to private interests, and basically more of the deterioration of their already shattered economy. It shouldn't even have been as close as 61-39 (if in fact it really was that close).

Exiting the euro and leaving the EU is not the same. There are probably many people who think that Greece should exit the euro and devaluate but should not exit the EU because that way it would be best for Greece and for the EU.

So lets understand what you're suggesting:

After 5 years of austerity through the actions of the former political party Greeks elect a far left party because they're sick of austerity, sick of being compliant as they were and watch things get worse. That party (Syriza) takes power, goes into negotiations and is pushed to the wall so they call for a referendum. Tsipras goes on TV condemning the proposals calling them "extortion," and "blackmail" that the Greek people shouldn't support. Thousands of people hold rallies in the capital, carrying banners crying "Oxi," meanwhile the oligarchs who own much of the media run a near constant "Nai" campaign. 61% vote no and these people were confused?? Sorry you're either a victim of a propaganda narrative or purposely trying to obfuscate the racist comment Timppu engaged in. The Greeks voted for what they wanted (or rather what they didn't want) plain and simple.

I read what you wrote. Maybe you should reread it yourself. It's condescending and defamatory to the Greeks i.e. racist. You can hide behind the facade of some grotesque article - it doesn't make it any less belittling and patronizing.

Of course there is. Haven't you ever heard of a "marathon"?
Is this what the state media in Russia is saying? After your guys blew up that jetliner, I doubt very much that anybody is going to be fleeing from Brussels to Russia. There's issues with the EU, but none that are as bad as what's going on in Russia at the present.
I know that's true, but it never ceases to confuse me how there can be so many essentially independent states using the same currency and how some in the EU don't use the Euro and others do.

What this really demonstrates more than anything else is that the EU collectively needs to start making some hard choices about whether they want to use the same currency or have the local nations be largely independent on financial issues as you can't have both and still have a functioning currency.

Wow. You really are some kind of idiot (ad hominem). The fallacy you're referring to - doesn't apply. Usually the appeal to authority fallacy is used on an irrelevant authority that's cited but even in cases of a genuine authority being cited as part of that fallacy it requires someone use their authority in place of an argument. The economists (relevant authorities) I've cited are all clearly making an argument (i.e. not relying on their authority)...It simply requires that you actually bother to read them.

Sigh. Red-herring. No one is unclouded by ideology. Someone's ideology doesn't invalidate their argument. With regard to Krugman specifically, whom you've clearly not read much of, as he's pretty middle of the road, a Keynesian, a believer in capitalism, etc. The "highly colored" part of his column you point to with Krugman stating Greece is about politics not economics is the conclusion of his argument as there is no way to argue the economic validity of what the Troika are doing. Again this is consistent with the views of the 5 other leading economists cited.

Don't misquote me - I said "gangster capitalism." Which was linked to a whole story about this issue, gangster capitalism was my term for its summation.

Yes silence because I assumed you could lift a finger to read when I stated:

Incompetence or laziness from you, take your pick. None of them talk about leaving the EZ.

I'm not sure what happened to the English translation - possibly not a full transcript at the time it was up. It might reappear soon but in the meantime Piketty has appeared in a lot of places recently - a simple search would have revealed that. Google for yourself.

Edit: Here spoon fed to you.

Are you naive enough to think institutions of power that hold billions of dollars don't buy influence or try to craft favorable narratives for themselves? These are just your friendly neighborhood bankers out to make the world a better place? It's not a coincidence in 20+ pages of posts now, your opinions never link to anything but themselves, they could best be described as a kind of impoverished narcissism rather than informed substantive argument.

Apparently you don't understand how a loan works.

But actually your comment is a straw man. There's no question from any of the economists that I've linked or even Syriza that there clearly needs to be tax and corruption overhauls. It's a moot point everyone agrees on. If anything it's a red-herring at this point that distracts from the culpability of the banks and the protections of corporate tax rates by Germany.

Introducing the euro was voluntary, so some did it and other didn't. In same cases the parliamentary agreement was sufficient, in others you had referendums. Some countries like Danmark kept their own currency but effectively tied it with quite a fixed conversion rate to the euro. Other nations like GB even have more than a single national bank and the scottish money for example isn't accepted everywhere in England. And at least one nation cheated to get into it.

One big advantage the euro brought was no more conversion when going on holiday and easier shopping in the euro area. One big disadvantage is that if for some reason an area gets out of sync with the rest it cannot collectively up- or devalue anymore and that disadvantage is unfortunately now doing a lot of damage.

What we learned from it? A currency union doesn't work well without a political union.

Now the problem is that people all over Europe don't want to give up the common currency (after all it is quite practical) but don't want to have a political union either. And there you have it. The big problem.

For example Greece is completely independent and nobody can tell them what to do. On the other hand they do not control the currency they use and need a lot of money.

If you ask me we'll try to continue this ambivalent life style for as long as possible.

I know they're not the same. That's why I said exiting the euro was a possibility, but the political leadership in Greece has made it clear from day one that exiting the EU was NOT something they wanted. I think they will consider exiting the euro, if necessary (and at this point that's probably they're best bet) but I don't think they're ever going to agree with exiting the EU. But, as I stated, there are politicians in the "big 3" EU countries (UK, GE, FR) on record as suggesting Greece should be expelled from the EU. (Presumably for some sort of "breach of contract" when they defaulted). But as far as I know, there is no mechanism in the EU agreement that allows for expulsion. The political leadership of Greece has threatened lawsuits if in fact steps are taken to expel them from the EU.

But leaving the euro is definitely a possibility, (as I said I believe there are already three EU countries not in the euro, with UK being the biggest). But it's still unknown at this point whether that will happen. And just because the voters didn't know/don't know what the end result will be, they were still pretty clear on what they were voting no on. And that was to reject the troika offer on the table.

No, this is reality.
US ally, Saudi Arabia plans to purchase nuclear plants for $100B from Westinghouse, US?
No, from Russia:
http://www.caspianenergy.net/en/energy/23858-rosatom-ready-to-offer-saudi-arabia-overall-development-of-nuclear-energy

Another interesting thing - in 2014 The Russian Federation was the world’s third largest recipient of FDI
http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir2014_en.pdf
#Isolation

Whom people don't like... Evil warmongering Russians? Or good guys americans, protectors of the world?
http://www.ytravelblog.com/why-are-americans-disguising-themselves-as-canadians/
Yeah, US citizens are ashamed of being "good guys".
Guess the trend in Europe toward Ukraine and Russia, Who is being seen as a case of EU workers losing jobs?
http://i.imgur.com/HyREuCB.png

Putting these facts into your vision of the world for me looks exactly like http://i.imgur.com/BgJ3dZb.gif

About MH-17, there are 3 major versions left:
1. Militants captured ukrainian BUK and destroyed MH-17 by accident instead of ukrainian warplane. Probability for me ~5%.
2. Russia provided militants with BUK and specialists, they destroyed MH-17 by accident/for glory of satan.
This version is created by Bellingcat team.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2014/11/08/origin-of-the-separatists-buk-a-bellingcat-investigation/
I don't take it seriously, because it is based on heavily photoshopped images to fit into narrative:
This was second fishy photo for me:
http://i.imgur.com/ikvV6k2.jpg
Best explained here:
http://fakemh17photo.blogspot.ru/2015/03/the-donetsk-buk-was-photoshopped-w-e.html

Personally, I checked this photo with http://fotoforensics.com/ -
Result: http://i.imgur.com/QFGEgov.png - What is seen here is that Buk doesn't match to the rest of the image in quality (white noise). Mechanism of photoediting is pretty straightforward - "someone" took photo of the Buk, placed it above real machine and merged layers. Layer with Buk was made transparent to make effect of being taken through windshield, so leftovers of much smaller car still can be salvaged.

First photo which caught my eye:
http://i.imgur.com/EBz6FoE.jpg
I swear to god, these are two different machines (GAS-66 design, it has 12 modifications).
http://i.imgur.com/IvTkxAo.png
Different lamps, different cabins, different doors. Even different tires.
Bellingcat called them "the same truck" basing only on number plate and toy. Toy have visible tracks of edit.
Fotoforensics highlights it even more:
http://i.imgur.com/jI39dCJ.png

So, key evidences of "Buk was transported by militants" and "Russians gave Buk to militants" are photoshop.
Later on it was exposed that Buk 312, claimed to be Russian, belongs to army of Ukraine.
http://russia-insider.com/en/bellingcats-buk-312-caught-video-ukrainian-armed-forces/5570
(sorry for the Russia in link, took first available)

Who is Bellingcat then?
Personally, I think that they are paid photoshoppers, which create fake evidences to implant into social media.

Probability of this version=0%.

3. MH-17 was destroyed by Kiev's forces. Circumstantial evidences (in no order):
1. No direct evidences available. If US posted data from their satellites/ Ukraine from radars which directly pinpointed at militants - all support from Russia would've been stopped, it could've caused riot.
2. SBU posted prepared in advance mashup of old radiointerceptions, which "prove" that militants destroyed jet.
3. MH-17 was destroyed right before meeting in EU over "Do we need to put more sanctions on Russia"
4. Year later records from black box still not available to public. Records of A-320 from France became available in ten days, I believe.
5. Records of talks between Ukrainian dispatchers and MH-17 - classified.
6. Malaysia was kicked out of investigation. They are owners of the plane. As a result, papers circulate only in the EU and US.
7. There is an agreement that results can't be published without Ukrainian permission.
8. Some days after the catastrophe I was on inspection, and with me there were 8 people, which originated from Donbass region. Two of them know some militants and said that there are no rumours about being guilty between militants themselves.
9. Netherlands got 120 tons of gold https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/the-netherlands-has-repatriated-122-5t-gold-from-us/
10. If there were evidences, militants could've been claimed as terrorists, which justified usage of even heavier weaponry. Still nothing.

Gremlion: are you a member of some state-sponsored Russian propaganda team? I know you won't answer, but considering RU is widely known for having these - they have entire sites in various countries specifically designed for this purpose - and the general tone/content of your posts ... it makes one wonder.