Decemberist
Ooooh its election day in France and Greece on Sunday with a hung parliament being predicted in Greece.
Dutch Lesbian
WTF Whale, I thought you bailed?
Lost in Space
I really hope Hollande gets in. He's channeling Krugman, which makes him awesome in my book.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
I'm going to a friend's place on Sunday to watch the Finland-Slovakia match in the Ice Hockey World Championship, and after that's we're gonna watch France24's English version's broadcast on the Presidential election, as well as a live stream of the Greek election.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm more excited about Finland's game (we're a hockey people,) but the elections are gonna be a thrill, too.
edited 4th May '12 1:14:31 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Saying you're a Finnish hockey person is a little like saying water is wet, Best Of. 
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
I prefer football, though.
But then, you're a British person and you like the EU and want more federalism, so yeah, I guess we're not walking stereotypes after all.
(Or that's what I keep reminding me while I sip my beer and yell at the screen as I watch Finland's goals against Sweden in last year's final over and over and over again.)
edited 4th May '12 2:16:07 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
V
France: Sarkozy v Hollande on the economy
Interestingly, both Sarkozy and Hollande have promised to Balance the Budget (Sarkozy: 2016; Hollande: 2017), but Hollande also intends to raise taxes, including introducing a 75% income tax of those earning over 1 million Euros, and a new 45% tax band on people with annual incomes above 450,000 Euros. As well, Hollande is also committed to equilibrium between the euro, dollar and yuan.
edited 4th May '12 3:05:21 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
75% income tax... I can feel some Tories combust just thinking about that figure for top-rate payers. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Before talking equilibrium with other currencies even in the long-term, I'd be tempted to sort the foundations of your own house out and keep my mouth shut until they're less rocky, myself. But, the idea is a nice one. Doubt the realism, though.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Meh: I stick with two stereotypes though: football and more football! And, not the oval kind of ball, neither. Then, I defy: I prefer real ale to wine. Yes, I'm still a girl. I don't have to like shoe-shopping, either. 
edited 4th May '12 3:06:09 PM by Euodiachloris
And Francois Hollande has just become the first Socialist President of France in the Fifth Republic since that arch corrupt bastard Mitterand.
Which means the game has just done changed, childrun.
Hollande won?
Yuppers. That short arsed beggar, Sarkozy, has just started his "oh shit I lost" speech and has just this second said that Hollande has been elected President. It is on the BBC rightthissecond.
Oooooh: interesting times!
Yeah, in the sense of the Chinese proverb that everyone including me gets wrong, anyways, 8-)
Lost in Space
Fantastic. Sanity has a chance to prevail.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Which is one way of putting it. Bet your backside the vast majority of the European Press do not see it that way in their first editions tomorrow. Especially what passes for the Press in Britain.
Well it's not like France has unilateral control over its monetary policy, what with the EU and all that.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
For those who are unhappy about how the government of Greece has been going about paying their debts (cutting social programs rather than increasing taxes,) you should take a look at the predicted results of the election there.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Just did. No overall control and the two main parties have been gutted as electoral forces. Least that is what the Beeb has said.
Yeah: the Greek situation does kind of resemble a nicely filleted and heavily processed kipper, doesn't it? <sighs>
IT'S THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ALL OVER AGAIN! Oh wait, different country. Never mind, carry on.
V
Well, the way the Italian Economy is right now — it could easily bring down the Euro, if not the whole European Union.
Keep Rolling On
When the Euro goes, (at this point, we can skip the "if" part, methinks), then the European Union as it is just now goes with it. It is just a question of time.
Krugman has been pretty disparaging towards the Euro for a while, so I'm not at all surprised.
That is exactly what they're
doing — even handing out Food Parcels
.
There's also another article from the Financial Times: The slow shredding of western democracy
— it's not good. Here is a part of it:
Among those responsible for this Greek tragedy is a political class that used votes as goods of exchange. Each time a party won an election the public sector expanded, says Panos Kazakos, a professor at the University of Athens. After all, establishing a limited company required the presentation of 200 pages of certificates, he notes, while a public sector desk job could be had just by tapping the right contacts. Since votes were bought, no one paid much attention to economic policy: today’s situation makes clear the perfidy of this oversight.
Today, Greeks who lived through the military junta find it hard to believe that the democratic state, seen as a “good father”, could have made so many mistakes: that it could have laid off 200,000 people in the past 12 months, cut pensions by 25 per cent and state salaries by 60 per cent. The graffiti covering the drawn shutters of downtown Athens stores suggest a Star Wars battle of two worlds: “evil” Germany has imposed austerity on “good” Greece. Newspaper cartoons frequently depict Angela Merkel in a Nazi uniform. In Greece, one truly feels one is “in the trenches” – but in a war where no one knows who the enemy is.
In exchange for the most recent financing, the Greek government has had to cede part of its sovereignty to the Troika (the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund). The lobby of the elegant Hotel Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square swarms with north European lawyers and bureaucrats and their assistants laden with files. It is they who now determine Greece’s future. Many come from the law firms that advise the giants of global finance and the EU, the very institutions that helped create the Greek debt crisis.
Greece increasingly looks more like a company in administration than a nation in crisis. The troika is organising the first funeral of a European nation state, to replace it with a Teutonic company run by foreign professionals. Greeks intuit this but cannot rationally accept such betrayal by the “father” state. In the streets of Athens, where the unemployed wander aimlessly and old people beg, one can see the slow shredding of western democracy.
Krugman Wishes He Were Wrong Amid EU Austerity Backlash
: An article from Bloomberg about Austerity, Krugman and his opponents.
edited 3rd May '12 2:29:40 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On