Well this happen because people think paper money which cost a few cents to produce is actually valued at what is printed on it. Or some digital information in some servers which cost next to nothing is actually worth what it represented.

We are actually trading in trust / reputation of government to buy things. Unless we went back and trade in goods rather than money, there is no way to be rid of the banking system.

How is it the fault of paper money that the private sector banks made loans that Greece could not pay? I may as well blame paper money if I run someone over with my car. The bankers are supposed ot be the ones to reject impossible loans, not use loans to mug people for their assets.
What if bankers went to jail for predatory lending?

This also has something to do with it!

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/FeminismMeme9.jpg

And this

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/bankersFedFraudMoneyMeme.jpg

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/feminismPSYopMEME1.jpg

Please Read everyone!

http://smoloko.com/?p=6064

Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the greatest aphrodisiac.” Women are attracted to powerful men. Powerful women repulse men.

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/feminismMeme141.jpg

“Free love” and the abolition of the family are main tenets of the Communist Manifesto(1848). The success of the Communist subversion of THE WORLD is shown by our inability to comprehend that this has already taken place. Communism is a front for a scheme to assume control of the world by an ancient satanic cult backed by international bankers. They sponsor most of what ails the world today, including female empowerment.

The Rothchilds said::

“There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their (Womens) good opinion, give them (Women) hints of emancipation…of standing up for themselves…it will cause them (Women) to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so; for they will only be indulging their own desire for personal admiration.” (James Wardner, Unholy Alliances 1996, p.35)

They were Laughing at how it was SO EASY to LEAD women in this direction! It's called FEMINISM! Makes sense now does it not! Women are working for these MEN at killing off their unborn children and Killing off men in general Get both sexes angry with one another AS A DISTRACTION and also as a Way to CULL THE HERD (EUGENICS) To the bankers feminists are "USEFUL WALKING PEICES OF MEAT" Yeah that's right their Cannibals too!

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/FeminismPsyop4IlluminatiMeme.jpg

Female empowerment is a cruel hoax. It flatters and lures young women with money and recognition and paints marriage and family as oppression. Thus many women are deprived of a lifetime of love from husband and children.

The Illuminati-Communists advance their plan by a policy of divide-and-
rule: world war, class war, race war and now gender war. Crime, corruption, dysfunction and decadence are other weapons in their secret war waged on humanity.

The purpose of female empowerment is to dissolve the family and to increase our dependence on the media and government, which are both owned and controlled by agents of Illuminati bankers.

With No children No-one to pass on the man's and womans GENE POOL so the man's and woman's Lineages are STOPPED there!

http://smoloko.com/wp-content/uploads/FeminismPJWmeme.jpg

It reads Feminism Taught women They could behave Like men and Sleep Around. By the time Women Hit 30 No Good men are Interested. Picture of a woman Passed out (Or Dead) on a Park Bench with almost nothing on!

You're seriously asking why bankers should be responsible for their actions? Everybody else has ot be responsible for their actions except bankers? Are you implying that banking is inherently an idiot's job so it's not reasonable to expect they do their jobs successfully?

Sure, just define predatory lending in the law and make it illegal. Until then calling for people to be jailed for performing legal activities doesn't make much sense.

That's already in the law, called malpractice.
Problem is to prove it, circlejerks everywhere.

It ought to be both parties' responsibility, no one is absolving Greece totally and saying it is entirely the banks' fault- though there are plenty saying the reverse of that, that it is all Greece's fault.

It is the banks' fault if they loan irresponsibly, they are supposed to do due diligence in a contract every bit as much as the other party to it, and one of the best ways to make sure that your bank gets nothing at all is to loan to someone who cannot pay back the money- at least theoretically, the sub prime crash was largely a crash of secured credit, mortgages in particular, where the houses had less real value than the mortgages held on them/ buyers could not be found. In this case though the loans were not secured against actual Greek assets as a mortgage would be, they were secured by the belief that the Eurozone would not allow default. Which in a way has proved to be accurate, for them at least

Sadly, when it comes to large banks lending irresponsibly whether it be the sub prime/ derivative/ No Income No Jobs or Assets US 2008 variety or the European variety the adage is 'Too Big To Fail' and while the profits from the irresponsible lending are kept the chickens coming home to roost land firmly in the living room of Joe Taxpayer. And that has massive repercussions, because with no/ massively reduced consequences for their actions there is no pressure to change behaviour and that makes it inevitable that it will happen again, and they'll be bailed out, again.

And as has been pointed out, in various places predatory lending/ loan sharking is actively illegal.

Who's blowing smoke? I wonder :)

As far I can see what you are doing here is basically insisting you know better than me what I meant.
Your semantic interpretation takes one sentence of mine literally and out of context in order to insist: I was not being hyperbolic, despite my stating it already 3 times.

What's your end state here mate? You think you're convincing anyone other than yourself? Stop arguing in bad faith.

Now, because I more and more think that I offended you, ideologically and then personally, I'll add again that your initial reply to me seemed to me clearly sarcastic and rhetorical itself. I walked that back after your more gracious 2nd reply, but now I think you basically lied to me given this reopening of hostilities from your side.

And since we already made clear to anyone what the semantic misunderstanding is in regards to my post, let's look at yours, and remind ourselves of this marvel of passive aggressiveness and ad hominens that was in my mind while answering you - and actually going back to fish for that link I reminded of another here.

As you see, I like to provide context instead of elide it. These might be irrelevant to you when you typed, but they weren't irrelevant to me when I read. And here's your full post verbatim. And the link to it.

So what is this, your call to apathy and individualism? An appeal to the status quo.

I have one question. Did you forget a ? perhaps? :)

Because if not, this is a pure rhetorical question. You had made your mind that I was appealing to the status quo, and you asked me what I meant (though spinning it, it's not an open question at all) just as a mechanism to give your answer more rhetorical weight. Kudos, it was not a bad gambit. As you see, I just used the same technique myself, though I doubled down on it by using literal praise of my opponent to give myself even more ethical pull. The difference being, that I have no problem admitting my intentions, and peeling back the rhetoric. That's unlike you apparently, now even insisting this original reply of yours actually was an honest question of what I meant.

And no Singh, I'm not going to engage in substantive discussions of solutions. Not because I am unable, but because I am very much unwilling to do it with you. Though again kudos, rhetorically that certainly allows you to claim victory whatever I do.

I don't mind your rhetoric dude, it's nice to fence. But your motivations are more and more suspect. Feel free to have the last word, and unless you change your approach I'll likely stop caring to continue this detailed dialogue. I think your character is clear enough as it is. And you can't change the meaning of what I wrote.

Edit: Fixed link
And the big elision is the implicit assumption that poverty has increased dramatically globally. Inequality is one thing, poverty is another. The first is relative, the second can at least be defined in more absolute terms of starvation and subsistence. And in those terms the progress has been huge and whenever someone implies otherwise it's obvious they are being selective, probably due to emotional engagement as you noticed - at least I don't assume bad faith initially.

Still, I'm the rhetorically abrasive asshole, so I can't resist being sarcastic. Paraphrasing: Look at how many poor people there are, but don't mind how many stopped being poor recently - change course, change course!

Bribes and such are unfortunately hard to prove and our law system does not like to just do justice without proof. But if so wouldn't also a lot of Greeks who took the bribes have to go to jail? Or were they all victims and didn't know for example that running a permanent deficit is considered a sure sign of coming doom.

And then even if Greek was somehow bribed, tricked into excessive spending instead of just volunteering for it, they still could have used the money for smart things like investing into their economy instead of consuming it all.

If you ask me also the banks deceived themselves. After Greece (with cheating and wrongfully) joined the euro, the banks thought that any problems in Greece will immediately be solved by tons of euros from other countries and therefore allowed Greece much too low interest rates. If Greece would only then have started saving... they would have saved also a lot of interest but instead it made them feel like they can afford a larger credit and they just took it (the key idea of a bubble).

In the end the banks should have paid much more for it. But they were lucky. Indeed the EU saved them. It's a pity but it's already done.

If you could prove bribes in Greece (which happened for sure almost everywhere) I would not object if all involved people (international bankers, manager, Greeks) are put in jail.

My lessons for the future:

- Don't run permanent deficits. It's evil.
- Fight corruption. Transparency and strong laws are the key.
- Regulate banks.
- Hold the banks liable to a much higher degree.

And this all works well together actually. If banks are hold much more liable, they will ask for higher interest rates which will impede permanent deficits.

Not sure if people would really like this but I think this is the way it should be.

It's not only that both involved entities have less interest to work together as they would have, would they be two parts of a single country like the US, they also seem to have less interest to help themselves.

My feeling is that Greece never did go beyond anything that was asked of them instead they fell behind in many aspects in the last five years. Many there, at least the politicians, liked the role of the victim so much and rather blamed others for the harsh actions, not their own kind who ruined the country in the last decades. And once you start blaming the reforms instead of the past misgovernment you essentially stop wanting to help yourself. Isn't this crazy?

If I would have governed Greece in january this year I would have told the IMF and the EU that obviously their help package is not working because of not enough stimulus and not enough reforms, that I intend to put that reforms (corruption, openeing of job sectors, privatization, pensions) through but that unless they allow me to decrease taxes and put a considerable stimulus into the economy now, I will have no choice but to leave the euro and default on the debt. That would be reasonable while marking the shortcomings of the EU at the some time.

The choice should have been: more stimulus or euro exit. Instead it was about everything else and in the end about a lot of money. Did it good to the country?

I think on the personal level it's clear.

It's the fault of the individual. Freedom means that you are free to make mistakes. Only then you are really free. If we wouldn't allow people to drink/smoke/take drugs/indebt/buy sports cars/sweets or fast food... more than what is good for them, then we wouldn't really respect their freedom. We can ask for everyone that they inform themselves about the danger of the actions they are going to do and that they abstain from overuse by themselves just because of their free will.

On a state level it might be a bit more complicted.

One argument is that fault is the wrong word. It's just insolvency and there are no rules yet. But in general forgiveness is an important concept. You cannot (morally) really make a future generation responsible for the actions of a past generation and you cannot really force a sovereign state to pay anything. You'll always have to make a compromise. Otherwise you end up with something like Germany after World War I (after World War II actually the world was very generous with Germany). This is not what anyone would like to have, I guess.

I guess the best is not even getting into this situation. Just don't run permanent deficits. Tax the rich, devalue your currency, but whatever you do, keep the debt and deficit limited.

Nope. What you said is what was insisted upon. What you meant is still being obfuscated by you - your "implications" and such, but by now who really gives a shit, whatever you meant isn't really the point. You simply need to press this nonsense of insisting you've staked out some position that's very obvious except it's not because the only thing you've been consistently capable of expressing is smug posturing - for that you're aces.

Except that was followed by your post insisting it didn't propose anything:

But wait then it did:

But then my "comprehension" is at question:

And finally the meaning we arrive at is completely hollow and trite i.e. without substance.

Yes arguing in bad faith, like going on to make a character attack while avoiding the topic - your modus operandi.

Anyways the end state is the beginning state. Nothing has or will be said to clarify what possible philosophical greatness hides behind "we're all fucked - save yourselves," or w/e your point was.

On a bit more lighter note: It seems a bit as if Greece is too much attached to the euro and Britain not enough. Although both countries are a bit peripherally located in Europe it might have to do with that there is a channel between France and England but none between Greece and Macedonia/Bulgaria. Therefore a land connection between France and England as well as a bit more water between Greece and its neighbours might do the trick. In any case such a massive project would create a lot of jobs and wealth.

(Sorry if I offended anyone.)