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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 25-Feb-2010
25-Feb-10 News - Greeks call Germans 'Nazis' as strikes shut Greece down

Web Log - February, 2010

25-Feb-10 News - Greeks call Germans 'Nazis' as strikes shut Greece down

YouTube links for 'Generation Zero' movie special coverage on Hannity

YouTube links for 'Generation Zero' special on Hannity

If you missed the 'Generation Zero' Hannity special on Fox News Channel on Tuesday evening, it's now available on YouTube.

You can go to youtube.com, and search for "generation zero hannity". The links are as follows:

2/23/10 Hannity Special 'Generation Zero' Part 1
2/23/10 Hannity Special 'Generation Zero' Part 2
2/23/10 Hannity Special 'Generation Zero' Part 3
2/23/10 Hannity Special 'Generation Zero' Part 4

Each part shows clips from the movie. I appear in the clips in the first two parts.

A transcript of the full hour can be found here, on FoxNews.com.

Greeks call Germans 'Financial Nazis'

A Greek depiction of the Berlin statue of the goddess Victoria, shown holding a swastika <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: Eleftheros Typos / WSJ)</font>

A Greek depiction of the Berlin statue of the goddess Victoria, shown holding a swastika (Source: Eleftheros Typos / WSJ)

The picture on the right, appearing Wednesday in the Athens newspaper Eleftheros Typos, depicts the statue of the goddess Victoria, atop the Siegessaeule in Berlin, showing it holding a swastika. According to the WSJ, the paper was reacting to the cover of this week’s German magazine Focus showing the Venus di Milo making an obscene gesture ("the finger") at Europe, with the headline “Swindlers in the European Family."

Both countries are showing increasing mutual acrimony in their public opinion, according to the article. The majority of Germans oppose bailing out Greece, while the Greeks refer to "financial naziism."

Bitter generational words from Greece's deputy prime minister

Even more bitter words came from Greece's Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos, in an interview with the BBC. Pangalos' remarks were very wide-ranging. He accused Italy of lying about financial statistics even more than Greece had, and he said that Germans had no right to criticize the Greeks after the Nazi slaughter and occupation. "They took away the gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away Greek money, and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future," he said.

He also made a statement that was very interesting from the point of view of Generational Dynamics. He attacked the caliber of the EU's current political leaders, saying that those of the 1980s -- such as Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand - would never have permitted the current economic crisis. "This is another level of leadership which we don't have today. The quality of leadership today in the union is very, very poor indeed."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is completely true. The leaders in the 1980s were survivors of the Great Depression and WW II. Even when they were from different countries, or in different political parties, they shared common horrors when they were children, and gave the highest priority to preventing anything like that from happening again. Today's politicians don't care about anything except getting votes.

However, the problem with Pangalos' statement is that it applies to Greek politicians as well, and he doesn't seem to have any inkling of that.

The Greek politicians are in a complete state of denial, according to Brussels-based financial analyst Fredrik Erixon. "We haven’t yet seen anything of the fiscal contraction that Greece has to go through if it wants to avoid a sovereign default," he said to Bloomberg. "The main problem is that the Greek government and the prime minister himself have not yet realized the depth of the mess."

So, now we can turn it around. Erixon correctly states that the Greek politicians are in a state of denial, but he apparently doesn't realize that the EU politicians in Brussels are also in a state of denial.

In fact, more and more analysts are reaching the conclusion that there IS no solution to the crisis. John Plender, writing in Financial Times,

"[T]o argue ... that the difficulties of the southern European countries [Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal] can be solved by a stringent dose of fiscal austerity and the equivalent of an International Monetary Fund programme is plausible but utterly wrong.

All these countries suffer from poor cost competitiveness, exacerbated by the overvaluation of the euro. What they need is more external demand for their goods and services while they try to address problems of fiscal excess and overblown unit labour costs.

Yet much of northern Europe, with Germany in the lead, seems to think it can continue with its structural savings surplus and export-led growth model while Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are throttled."

Crippling strikes in Greece, protests in Spain

Another person who's in complete denial is Yiannis Panagopoulos, Head of GSEE private sector union. He's leading crippling public sector strikes that shut down the country on Wednesday. All flights in and out of the country have been canceled, while public schools, ministries, municipal offices, and public transportation are shut down. Many hospitals are operating only with emergency staffing.

Greece may be the euro country worst hit by labor union strikes right now, but it's far from the only one.

John Monks, secretary general of the European Trades Union Confederation, warned yesterday that unions across the EU were pushing back against austerity plans that were "socially unacceptable" and which would only exacerbate the recession by fuelling unemployment, according to The Independent.

In Spain, trade unionists led rallies in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia against plans to raise the retirement age to 67, according to the article. Spain's economy was driven by a huge real estate bubble during the boom years, and the current slump, with 20% unemployment, is worse than even the Greek slump.

In France, where unemployment is at 10%, oil refinery workers and air-traffic controllers are threatening strikes.

To repeat what I've said before, there is no solution to this crisis. Everyone wants as much as possible for himself, and couldn't care less about anyone else. If someone suggests a compromise, it's immediately shot down by the other side. This crisis can only end up in war, as I've said before. Exactly how the countries will choose up sides cannot yet be predicted, but the bitter acrimony between Greece and Germany, invoking the Nazi ghosts of WW II, makes it pretty clear that those two countries will be on opposite sides.

Additional Links

According to the Asian Times, the Sunni terrorist group Jundallah is poised to regroup and become even stronger, after the capture of its leader, Abdulmalik Rigi, that we reported yesterday. It's believed that Pakistan intelligence helped Iran capture Rigi, but Jundallah is already dominated by anti-Shia terror organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose network spreads across Pakistan.

More trouble for Greece, as wealthy citizens are pulling money out of Greek banks and sending it abroad to Cyprus, Luxembourg and Switzerland, to escape anticipated punitive taxes. WSJ.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Feb-10 News - Greeks call Germans 'Nazis' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (25-Feb-2010) Permanent Link
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