Swiss Gnomes

    I am old enough to remember when countries were held to account by the "Gnomes of Zurich". If they weren't happy the country went bust!  Now it seems to be the "markets". The investors who buy Greek or Italian bonds charge interest, presumably they charge interest because there is a risk if they underestimated the risk they is the penalty and market discipline says that you go under.  But not for the lords of the finance houses, not only do they pocket the profits, they pass the losses onto the people whilst keeping the profits to themselves, a great we win you lose game.

  But what are the European politicians playing at? The Greek economy is about 5% of the EC, so if the EC wants to bail Greece out there is no difficulty but of course the Greeks are the undeserving poor and they must be punished. An effective solution might be to pay off the Greek debt and then throw them out of the Euro, this would mean they could devalue  and get their economy up to strength. All those form rich Europe could pour in and go on holiday.  This would give the Greeks a chance to sort themselves out. One of their problems, as with Italy, is the large size of the black economy with people using cash and avoiding paying tax. That will not be changed overnight so the austerity measures might keep the "markets" happy briefly it will have no long term impact. Just remember it took the second world war to get Britain out of the effects of the great depression, not sure anyone wishes to repeat the exercise!