Suitcases full of cash
Jul. 20th, 2011 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksA splendid piece from Steph Flanders yesterday on an article which hypothesizes how the Greeks (or indeed any country) might exit the euro. Roger Bootle and Ben May point out in a note for Capital Economics that the current situation with the euro is, unusually, unique in the history of currencies.
It's unique because the euro was never really a single currency. Although in terms of cash it was a single currency, when debt was issued by governments, that debt remained the obligation of that government. In other words, the printing presses said it was a single currency and the governments said something else.
But even that is a bit misleading, because state bonds and munis are issued in the US at varying interest rates. These are all in dollars, but the whole thing doesn't fall apart just because, say, California is on the verge of default. So wherein lies the difference?
John Kay in the morning's FT claims that the difference lies in the political vision. While in the US the concept of states' rights is strong, the drive in the EEC, then the EC, and then the EU (the clues are in the names) was to change the mechanisms and hope that greater federalism would follow. For some 45 years this actually worked, and it is still the fading dream of writers such as Wolfgang Munchau. "A crisis? We need more federalism!" Indeed, the EU's driving centre actually WELCOMES crises (ones that their own mechanisms have often caused) because this will necessitate further centralization.
The only reason the plan has gone tits up this time is that the perpetual backers of federalism (Germany, Netherlands, France) now have voters who are beginning to question if this isn't a subsidy too far. The West Germans, in particular, got their fingers burnt with reunification. This time round, they can see the implications of a Federal Europe that includes countries such as Greece.
Indeed, very few people seem to be arguing that this is what needs to be done (certainly fewer than were arguing this a year ago). Now the talk is more of "OK, Greece was a mistake. But the Euro wasn't. Is there an easy way out?"
The dream is that, because Greece makes up such a small part of the euro, and because its debts are, really, in the grand scheme of things, fairly tiny, there should be a solution (Italy is a different matter, of course, but we can come back to that).
What Bootle and May point out is that this dream suffers one serious flaw -- that being that it is not the level of Greek government debt that matters, but the level of Greek banking debt. And not its net debt (amount it is owed minus its deposits), but its gross debt.
Why so? Well, this is the clever bit, clever in the sense that it is so obvious, one feels one should have thought of it before.
Once domestic depositors start to suspect that their country might have to leave the euro, all that they have to do is to withdraw their money from the bank -- in euros -- put it in a suitcase, drive across the border and deposit in another country's bank, in euros. The money is, as it were, very liquid. Now, it's possible to do this with currencies such as sterling, (if, say, a massive devaluation is on the cards), but governments can impose currency controls to stop it. And then there's the currency exchange fees. While Greece is still in the eurozone (a monetary union), it can't stop people from moving euros around within the eurozone.
Now, this is already happening. Smart Greek money has been exiting Greek banks for some time, finding its way into gold, Paris property, London property, etc. I believe that we might be looking at a 15% decline in the value of deposits over the past year. At the moment the ECB is helping out the Greek banks, but the ECB can't cover a complete run on Greek banks (and, if you faced the prospect of your Greek bank deposit being turned into New Drachma and losing 50% of its value overnight, would YOU leave your money there?).
So, as Flanders points out,
If the eurozone promises to guarantee all of the liabilities, this will likely cause political crises in Germany, Finland and elsewhere. And, worse, it wouldn't even solve the problem. Not only would European taxpayers be on the hook for all of this money, but soon it would be one of the other peripherals in the same boat.
If the ECB simply cut off funding (this is, by the way, the US solution and is roughly what the Fed did to New York in the 1970s) then the Greek banking system would collapse. Euros would flee Greece by the lorryload. It would be touch and go whether democracy would survive (I suspect not, which is why the "American solution" isn't that great an answer over here) but, even if it did (say via lorryloads of euro in aid, not to the banks, but to the people via some kind of Marshall Plan), Greece would effectively become a protectorate of the rest of Germany.
So, that leaves "let Greece go". This would probably still leave the banking system insolvent (euros would still have left the country at a frightening rate before all of the technical procedures were in place), but one could go about putting that back together within the New Drachma and, provided once again that "emergency aid" kept the country away from total systemic collapse, within a couple of years we might be back in a sustainable situation.
It must be said that, horrible though all three of these options are, they are preferable to what might happen if Merkel keeps hiding behind procedure in a vague hope that the problem will go away. It won't. If we carry on as we are I fear that there will be a "Black Swan" weekend, where the smallest event might turn Europe into a financial battlezone. We got a taster of this with Italy the Monday before last. Once the situation spirals completely out of control (by which I mean complete loss of faith in the European banking system) then the European governments and the ECB and the banks might suddenly "agree" on a solution to the Greek problem. But by then it will be too late. I'm afraid I can't even begin to calculate how that scenario might play out -- to call it "Lehman cubed" would be an understatement. Perhaps once should try to imagine what happened in Iceland, happening throughout Europe, with a "Lehman cubed" on top of that. We do not realize how much of our civilization basically depends on mutual trust -- trust that your counterparty isn't going to renege on his promise. When Lehman happened a relatively small part of the financial system lost that mutual trust for a relatively short time. So, let's just imagine a few things that might happen, and I'll leave you to work out how it might play out.
1) Greek banks suffer huge run on euros. ECB cuts off funding. Banks appeal to international banking system for help, and they step in. But crisis "spreads" to Ireland, Portugal and Spain, which has revealed that its bad debts are worse than it previously thought. A major Spanish bank with a presence overseas suffers a crisis. Its ATMs stop working in France, England, Italy. A major French bank follows suit. Suddenly it's only 50:50 that any one ATM actually has cash in it.
2) A Europe-wide run on banks begins. All ATMs run out of cash. Queues form early in the morning as people rush to withdraw cash from branches. The price of gold soars through $2,500 an ounce. Other precious metals are in demand. Stores begin to insist that products are paid for in cash. If you can't get your hands on cash, you go hungry. Some people begin to resort to barter to buy food. Political crises emerge throughout Europe. In the UK, France, Spain and Portugal, the army takes control.
3) Insert your own ideas here.
Of course, it almost certainly won't happen. There will be a muddle-through -- probably through an eventual compromise whereby the priovate sector accepts government bond haircuts and, in return, capital requirements are relaxed. Greek bonds are "retired" at about 50%, with the "loss" being shared by taxpayers, solvent banks and perhaps with a bit of help from China. Greece gets some kind of aid from the eurozone for a decade as its financial system is restructured. That, at the moment, is the best we can hope for.
__________
Note: The IMF's report on the euro crisis firmly takes the "more unity" line as the solution, thus fulfilling the vision of Schumann and Monnet.
It says that
I.E., more Brussels power, less national power.
The problem is, and the IMF alludes to this but can't bring itself to accept it, that the timing is all wrong to get the Germans and the French (and the British - but we would always be opposed) to accept it. The German and French governments might accept it, but I don't think that the voters would. And if the German and French governments ee that the voters are madly against it, then they will do what they have been doing for the past two years, they will attempt to "muddle through" in the hope that things will get better. And therein lies the recipe for future disaster.
__________
It's unique because the euro was never really a single currency. Although in terms of cash it was a single currency, when debt was issued by governments, that debt remained the obligation of that government. In other words, the printing presses said it was a single currency and the governments said something else.
But even that is a bit misleading, because state bonds and munis are issued in the US at varying interest rates. These are all in dollars, but the whole thing doesn't fall apart just because, say, California is on the verge of default. So wherein lies the difference?
John Kay in the morning's FT claims that the difference lies in the political vision. While in the US the concept of states' rights is strong, the drive in the EEC, then the EC, and then the EU (the clues are in the names) was to change the mechanisms and hope that greater federalism would follow. For some 45 years this actually worked, and it is still the fading dream of writers such as Wolfgang Munchau. "A crisis? We need more federalism!" Indeed, the EU's driving centre actually WELCOMES crises (ones that their own mechanisms have often caused) because this will necessitate further centralization.
The only reason the plan has gone tits up this time is that the perpetual backers of federalism (Germany, Netherlands, France) now have voters who are beginning to question if this isn't a subsidy too far. The West Germans, in particular, got their fingers burnt with reunification. This time round, they can see the implications of a Federal Europe that includes countries such as Greece.
Indeed, very few people seem to be arguing that this is what needs to be done (certainly fewer than were arguing this a year ago). Now the talk is more of "OK, Greece was a mistake. But the Euro wasn't. Is there an easy way out?"
The dream is that, because Greece makes up such a small part of the euro, and because its debts are, really, in the grand scheme of things, fairly tiny, there should be a solution (Italy is a different matter, of course, but we can come back to that).
What Bootle and May point out is that this dream suffers one serious flaw -- that being that it is not the level of Greek government debt that matters, but the level of Greek banking debt. And not its net debt (amount it is owed minus its deposits), but its gross debt.
Why so? Well, this is the clever bit, clever in the sense that it is so obvious, one feels one should have thought of it before.
Once domestic depositors start to suspect that their country might have to leave the euro, all that they have to do is to withdraw their money from the bank -- in euros -- put it in a suitcase, drive across the border and deposit in another country's bank, in euros. The money is, as it were, very liquid. Now, it's possible to do this with currencies such as sterling, (if, say, a massive devaluation is on the cards), but governments can impose currency controls to stop it. And then there's the currency exchange fees. While Greece is still in the eurozone (a monetary union), it can't stop people from moving euros around within the eurozone.
Now, this is already happening. Smart Greek money has been exiting Greek banks for some time, finding its way into gold, Paris property, London property, etc. I believe that we might be looking at a 15% decline in the value of deposits over the past year. At the moment the ECB is helping out the Greek banks, but the ECB can't cover a complete run on Greek banks (and, if you faced the prospect of your Greek bank deposit being turned into New Drachma and losing 50% of its value overnight, would YOU leave your money there?).
So, as Flanders points out,
"In the event of a serious run on all Greek banks, there would be three possibilities: eurozone governments agree to guarantee all of those liabilities; or the ECB could cut off funding, forcing the collapse of the Greek financial system; or the eurozone could decide to allow or force Greece to get out of the euro.
If the eurozone promises to guarantee all of the liabilities, this will likely cause political crises in Germany, Finland and elsewhere. And, worse, it wouldn't even solve the problem. Not only would European taxpayers be on the hook for all of this money, but soon it would be one of the other peripherals in the same boat.
If the ECB simply cut off funding (this is, by the way, the US solution and is roughly what the Fed did to New York in the 1970s) then the Greek banking system would collapse. Euros would flee Greece by the lorryload. It would be touch and go whether democracy would survive (I suspect not, which is why the "American solution" isn't that great an answer over here) but, even if it did (say via lorryloads of euro in aid, not to the banks, but to the people via some kind of Marshall Plan), Greece would effectively become a protectorate of the rest of Germany.
So, that leaves "let Greece go". This would probably still leave the banking system insolvent (euros would still have left the country at a frightening rate before all of the technical procedures were in place), but one could go about putting that back together within the New Drachma and, provided once again that "emergency aid" kept the country away from total systemic collapse, within a couple of years we might be back in a sustainable situation.
It must be said that, horrible though all three of these options are, they are preferable to what might happen if Merkel keeps hiding behind procedure in a vague hope that the problem will go away. It won't. If we carry on as we are I fear that there will be a "Black Swan" weekend, where the smallest event might turn Europe into a financial battlezone. We got a taster of this with Italy the Monday before last. Once the situation spirals completely out of control (by which I mean complete loss of faith in the European banking system) then the European governments and the ECB and the banks might suddenly "agree" on a solution to the Greek problem. But by then it will be too late. I'm afraid I can't even begin to calculate how that scenario might play out -- to call it "Lehman cubed" would be an understatement. Perhaps once should try to imagine what happened in Iceland, happening throughout Europe, with a "Lehman cubed" on top of that. We do not realize how much of our civilization basically depends on mutual trust -- trust that your counterparty isn't going to renege on his promise. When Lehman happened a relatively small part of the financial system lost that mutual trust for a relatively short time. So, let's just imagine a few things that might happen, and I'll leave you to work out how it might play out.
1) Greek banks suffer huge run on euros. ECB cuts off funding. Banks appeal to international banking system for help, and they step in. But crisis "spreads" to Ireland, Portugal and Spain, which has revealed that its bad debts are worse than it previously thought. A major Spanish bank with a presence overseas suffers a crisis. Its ATMs stop working in France, England, Italy. A major French bank follows suit. Suddenly it's only 50:50 that any one ATM actually has cash in it.
2) A Europe-wide run on banks begins. All ATMs run out of cash. Queues form early in the morning as people rush to withdraw cash from branches. The price of gold soars through $2,500 an ounce. Other precious metals are in demand. Stores begin to insist that products are paid for in cash. If you can't get your hands on cash, you go hungry. Some people begin to resort to barter to buy food. Political crises emerge throughout Europe. In the UK, France, Spain and Portugal, the army takes control.
3) Insert your own ideas here.
Of course, it almost certainly won't happen. There will be a muddle-through -- probably through an eventual compromise whereby the priovate sector accepts government bond haircuts and, in return, capital requirements are relaxed. Greek bonds are "retired" at about 50%, with the "loss" being shared by taxpayers, solvent banks and perhaps with a bit of help from China. Greece gets some kind of aid from the eurozone for a decade as its financial system is restructured. That, at the moment, is the best we can hope for.
__________
Note: The IMF's report on the euro crisis firmly takes the "more unity" line as the solution, thus fulfilling the vision of Schumann and Monnet.
It says that
"National policy makers in the euro area need to move away from the illusion that a national approach to fiscal, financial and structural issues, preserves sovereignty in a monetary union. Instead they should focus on on the fact that interconnectedness requires more common thinking from an area wide perspective."
I.E., more Brussels power, less national power.
The problem is, and the IMF alludes to this but can't bring itself to accept it, that the timing is all wrong to get the Germans and the French (and the British - but we would always be opposed) to accept it. The German and French governments might accept it, but I don't think that the voters would. And if the German and French governments ee that the voters are madly against it, then they will do what they have been doing for the past two years, they will attempt to "muddle through" in the hope that things will get better. And therein lies the recipe for future disaster.
__________
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Looking for enlightenment
Date: 2011-07-22 01:14 pm (UTC)Regards,
Sigrid
Re: Looking for enlightenment
Date: 2011-07-22 07:17 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: Looking for enlightenment
Date: 2011-07-22 10:39 pm (UTC)Now, as to why Germany and France are counted as the strong countries of the Euro zone? I'm with Richard Sharp on this one. If you want excitement, go for Austria. If you want a dull but inevitable steam-roller, go with Russia.
That is what Diplomacy is all about. Although I think that Calhammer got Turkey slightly wrong.
Insight? Insight? Just read the fucking thing.
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Date: 2011-07-22 06:41 pm (UTC)It actually did far more than I thought was possible from these bozos. But it still didn't address the fundamental issues. (Finland's attempt to play Monopoly and buy the Parthenon was an amusing effort, though.)
That's a mighty big can they're still kicking down the road, and I'm beginning to think that Wile E Coyote has secretly filled it with nitro-glycerine.
The problem is that they took the wrong fork on the road. Effectively abolishing 25% of Greek State Debt (whilst not addressing Greek banks, as far as I can see) is just making space in the cess-pit for the next 25%. Trusting in the markets to back off Italy and Spain and (hem hem I keep saying this) the Landesbanken is criminally naive. The EFSF is a nice idea but won't happen, or at best won't happen any time soon, which comes to the same thing. And the cherry on the top of the federal trifle is this new idea that what Europe really, really, needs is its own Credit Rating Agency, to provide a more balanced view than those nasty S&P and Moody types.
It's a wonder that Monnet and Schumann never thought of that one, isn't it?
Btw, I hold no brief for and even less faith in the global Credit Rating Agencies, having read Michael Lewis' latest and been truly appalled. It's just that, on the individual level, reality kicks in. (German voters abandoning the CDU in droves; the constitutional court just saying no, Greek bank depositors walking "across the border" with their Euros ... which is incidentally surely not yet a good option. Bulgaria ain't quite Trans-Dniestr yet, but I doubt it's all that safe, either. I understand your metaphor, though.)
The road not at all travelled? Face facts: Greece is going to default at every single level in a very messy way. As you point out, there are no sane mechanisms to deal with expelling a country from the Euro. Therefore they either do it, insanely, or they take the only option left (peripheral countries' debts being Euro-denominated) and partition the Eurozone into two. The Med gets the Euro (which promptly plummets) and the North gets the Mark (we could call it the Krone or the Florin to appease those lusting for the Gold Standard).
I think that would actually work, and probably involve the least pain. It would still involve a genuine Marshall Plan whereby the Markbund funds the Eurolite bond issues for the next two or three years. An imaginative politician of stature and widely-recognised integrity might even be able to sell that.
Well, the Markbund has always got Sarkozy.
The only thing wrong with this proposal, as far as I can see, is that partition is precisely the solution that the British Empire adopted for each and every post-Imperial crisis. Northern Ireland, India, Palestine, Malaysia (Singapore, guv) ... hell, it got so popular that even the Greeks and Turks adopted it when it came to Cyprus.
But in this case I think it makes sense. If only to staunch the bleeding.
Re: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Date: 2011-07-22 07:13 pm (UTC)Curiously, I think that the last time I played that fairground game was in Hamburg. The German connection that keeps on giving.
So, we have a particular Greek problem, consisting of (a) Greek profligacy since 1992 and (b) a bunch of Greek banks that are clearly broke unless they get bailed out.
Then we have a flawed euro system with monetary union but not fiscal union, the implications of which are just becoming clear.
Then we have large levels of debt caused by various manifestations (property booms, overspending, general lethargy) that can only be cured by levels of growth that won't happen.
Then we have the voters. Oh dear, yes, the voters. Or, as Steph Flanders said: "The last time I looked, most European countries were democracies". Even if all of the governments in the eurozone (or indeed the EU, if some of the bailout comes back to non-euro countries) agree on bailing out the peripherals, there's no guarantee that the voters with. There were two FT articles yesterday by three europhiles that nearly had me choking on my coffee. One of them actually said "Thankfully the SPD is pro-Europe", clearly not realizing that it isn't just a matter of carrying the major opposition with you. Look at Finland.
I think that this "solution" will unravel quicker than most market analysis anticipate. Its major flaw is that it has said that this "solution" is specific to Greece. In other words, they have remained silent on Portugal and Ireland with the exception (and it's an important exception) that these two countries are at last being charged more reasonable interest rates. BUT, that money has to come from somewhere. It won't take the German voters long to work out that it's them.
The effective 21% haircut is also at least something, but it's Greek-specific. If this solution had been put together 18 months ago, we would be in business. Today, it's too late.
PJ
Re: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Date: 2011-07-22 07:37 pm (UTC)My "step-daughter", Chelsea, was enormously good both at whacking moles and at the barter thing. All she got was cheap and cheesy Chinese crap, but it made Chelsea happy.
We all need Happy, these days.
Perhaps Whack-a-Mole would be a suitable game for the next EEC summit? Things could hardly get more feeble.
I don't really enjoy speculating on this sort of stuff ... but I wonder if one of the spread-betting bunch are actually offering odds on a member of the EU (doesn't have to be the Euro, although hem hem) becoming a military dictatorship within two years?
I hate myself for even thinking about that possibility.
Re: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Date: 2011-07-22 07:53 pm (UTC)Not quite as important as with the US, with its extra-special "We are Born Again, and where did you say that Concord place was again?" No Surrender to People Who Make Cheese Better Than We Do --
-- Oops, sorry, brain sploded. I sincerely hope that the Americans get their shit together faster than the EU can manage. Not because I regard myself as an American manque (although I do).
Simply because the consequences of failure (and yes, in this particular case, they do involve the generally and correctly despised Moody's and S&P and so on) are ...
... If you remember, and I think I was in Sweden at the time, I said back then that "things are going to get nasty. Very nasty." I under-estimated that, as ignorant people will.
Things are going to get Despicable. Possibly even catastrophic.
I'm babbling. Once again, you have captured the essence of my (original post) rambling: IT'S TOO LATE, YOU IDIOTS!
A tiny thought off the side (and you should be aware that I have despised economists in general since my best friend at school, Roger Millington, decided that it was the thing for him, and let's just ignore maths and thinking and history and stuff).
What is the point of all these pundits?
They weren't right in the first place.
They weren't right in the second place.
They have spent four years ignoring the obvious evidence in front of their silly faces.
They are not right now. They have no clue what the future will bring. As far as I can see, all that they do is follow the herd.
And, the most unforgiveable thing to me ... Some idiot (I blame Nixon. Honestly. I think he started it, although it might well be either Kennedy or Eisenhower) actually employs these gibbering idiots to make decisions that affect the world.
cf the World Bank and the IMF and the Chicago School on How To Cure Third World Problems in the 1990s.
Looks to me like we're all in the Third World right now, guv. Albeit with a judicial system that works, and a political system that has not (yet) descended into violence and nausea.
Re: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
Date: 2011-07-22 10:49 pm (UTC)The idiots started off thinking it was about liquidity. Nope. Try again.
Well, we can deal with Solvency, can't we? That's a subject the IMF and the World Bank has immense expertise in. (And look at the phenomenal success on that one ... but I digress.)
No! No! No! It's Unity! Or Confidence! Or hang on, we'll come up with some other stupid re-assement of the accountancy rules; (c) P Birks, roughly two years ago.
But he ain't heavy. He's my brother.
One Amusing Thought...
Date: 2011-07-22 06:54 pm (UTC)There might very well be a Basel III (jolly good timing, that), but I don't see a Lisbon II. Possibly a Porto 1, Barcelona 5, but I digress.
Even on a state-by-state, constitutional, let's ignore the people and get the poodles in the lower house of all 27 countries to vote this rather serious change in our fiscal affairs, basis ...
... It is just not going to happen. Hell, you could reduce the requirement to a simple majority of member states, by EU Commission fiat.
It is just not going to happen.
Re: One Amusing Thought...
Date: 2011-07-22 07:20 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: One Amusing Thought...
Date: 2011-07-22 07:59 pm (UTC)It's meant for 2013, I think.
Having not looked at the details (IANAL. Also, not quite anal; despite being a Historian with a penchant for detail), I can only go with my gut reaction.
Which is that the next round of politicians (it won't be Sarkozy; it won't be Merkel; it probably won't be Berlusconi, as if he cared) are never in a million years going to hold to the timing.
Which means that it's dead in the water.
Events, dear boy, events.
Re: One Amusing Thought...
Date: 2011-07-22 08:03 pm (UTC)"Yes! We will pledge 0.7% of our GNP to this noble cause!"
Or, alternatively,
"Hang on while I scrabble around behind the sofa cushions."
Yeah, that'll work as a strategy for getting the Great European Project back on track.
All of these people are weak and should be taken to the mat and given a Savage Beating.
Which is what is going to happen. In six months, possibly two years. I'm going for six months.
Err, Birks on banks I suppose.
Date: 2011-07-23 12:24 pm (UTC)Re: Err, Birks on banks I suppose.
Date: 2011-07-24 04:13 pm (UTC)Hmm. Care to share some advice?
History first, numbers second
Date: 2011-07-24 12:09 pm (UTC)60 years on, and it's all still going to plan: let things drift and drift, pushing de facto change, and when the crisis comes, make it de jure.
German taxpayers don't want to pay for fiscal union, and the Greek voters don't want to have political union. So, what you do is reluctantly transfer the Greek public debt to the French and German public now, and then when you come to collect on it in 2-3 years time, you've got both sides by the short 'n' curlies and they have to accept greater integration. Alternatively the whole European integration project falls over, and we go back to war in Europe every 30 years.
Re: History first, numbers second
Date: 2011-07-24 04:17 pm (UTC)Six months (if they're realistic) or two years (if they're cowards).
An interesting by-line on European wars every thirty years or so, btw. Have you considered the odd maniac like Napoleon III? Even he managed to limit it to a couple of minor local fiascos, followed by a rather silly war over Luxembourg, in thirty years.
Good Lord. I'm almost looking forward to this. Germany 2, Finland 2 (Finland wins on penalties, 4-3, aet).
Onassis? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Onassis!
Date: 2011-07-24 09:28 pm (UTC)It's a rotten sort of mechanism that props up the status quo at the expense of rewarding a complete aversion to moral hazard, if you ask me.
Well, as far as I can recall, the descendants of Mobutu are still rolling around in the filth. No doubt this goes for several other African leaders as well; not to mention the odd Champion of the Arabs.
It's a sad but necessary part of the capitalist model that you have to let some of these gits get away with it. But it's pretty pathetic when you construct an entire rescue policy based upon supporting the little bastards.
Re: Onassis? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Onassis!
Date: 2011-08-01 01:14 pm (UTC)Of course, the system also seems designed to keep the economic ruling classes in clover when they fuck up economically (which is also, er, often).
Thus we have a system whereby if you fuck up politically (be you either of the economic or political ruling classes) then you are in deep shit (just remember Ali Bhutto). But if you fuck up economiically but keep it cool politically, you get to enjoy a pleasant retirement in a haven of your choice.
PJ
how to buy facebook likes ba
Date: 2011-07-27 02:01 am (UTC)buy guaranteed facebook fans
buy bulk facebook fans
how to buy facebook likes buy targeted facebook likes
(http://aandgillhangforyou.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=334631) buy facebook fans cheap buy cheap facebook fans
_________________
buy facebook fans cheap [url=http://www.theartofdredging.com/apps/profile/77098273/]buy cheap facebook fans[/url] buy facebook likes buy bulk facebook fans
Best Gaming Desktops
Date: 2011-07-27 04:04 am (UTC)I think, that you commit an error.
[url=http://aldousfirm.com]Slow Processor? To Upgrade or Not? [/url]
Bootle It Down The Road
Date: 2011-08-03 07:58 pm (UTC)When some lunatic (Philip II of France, the founders of the EMU) deliberately introduces a monotonic imbalance -- and the fact that the curve is monotonic is important here -- then you're in for a heap of trouble.