Is Atlas Shrugging in Greece? Article on Greece's new left wing Finance Minister

[RobinReborn]

Very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/magazine/a-finance-minister-fit-for-a-greek-tragedy.html

Perhaps us Americans will be lucky and Atlas Shrugged will be played out in Europe and the communists/socialists will see the flaw in their ways.

[Reidy]

Varoufakis came up on OL a few months ago when we noted that he likes to cite Kant. Look up "varoufakis kant" on a search engine for more data on this.

[Selene]

Charming...

Nonetheless, he said, he and the prime minister decided that they should reshuffle the teams to adjust to the current climate and the narrative that dominated the media, even though he denies that he was “sidelined.” He represented Greece as usual at the next round of negotiations. “This is a narrative that feeds on itself,” he said. “It’s completely disconnected from reality, but it’s a parallel reality, a Goebbels-like propaganda style that has a wonderful capacity to change the atmosphere.”

[Brant Gaede]

Very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/magazine/a-finance-minister-fit-for-a-greek-tragedy.html

Perhaps us Americans will be lucky and Atlas Shrugged will be played out in Europe and the communists/socialists will see the flaw in their ways.

What flaw? They're getting what they want, they think, just not fast enough.

--Brant

the guy at the top is just flotsam

[RobinReborn]

@Brant the flaw is that they can get what they want without economic problems. They want people to produce with no incentives.

[Brant Gaede]

The incentive is for the greater good--but that means the greater good is your master and you, the slave.

[Gary Fisher]

Nothing good will come out of Greece's default.SYRIZA will lose all credibility and Golden Dawn will take its place.

[Brant Gaede]

With the euro the Greeks got a credit card with a huge credit limit but they spent it down. That's what the euro is, even to Germany, albeit in reverse flow as the primary productive exporting economic unit. When the credit dependent countries max out their euro credit cards they won't be able to buy those exports unless they keep expanding the credit limits. It's a Russian sleigh ride and the question is who gets tossed first. Greece, of course, as the weakest. Greece is fighting to stay on the free money sleigh. The only non-radical--radical is way, way beyond these folk--to save the situation is to make each euro-country have it's own central bank and call it the French euro, the Italian euro, the Spanish euro, etc. for cosmetic save-your-face reasons as each country in actuality returns to its own sovereign print your own money currency and much previous debt forgiven. That's top down, but the euro central bankers don't want to give up their power and their dreams of ruling Europe through Brussels. This whole, sorry story will play out for another 15 - 25 years.

This top-down might work for it would only involve a comparatively few people of the ruling elitist class, but the whole rotten, cultural socialist edifice cannot be changed for the better for a long, long time. Look at the sway of the Peronists in Argentina. You can't get rid of them. The worse things are for the lower classes the more worse they want more of the same as a corrective. They may lose power for a while but as soon as things get a little better they come back riding on the idea of the freebie horse.

The addiction to debt is the same for every country. There is no getting rid of it until you hit bottom. Greece today has yet to hit bottom. Getting rid of the euro is only the beginning of that bottoming process. Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged to prevent what looks more and more like inevitable Atlas Shrugged results. The only possible preventative might be from communicative technology as people learn and understand what is really going on and start behaving more rationally, arm themselves with torches and pitchforks and march on Washington.

--Brant

in about 70 years--so how does one be rational in the meantime?--personally prosper

[Selene]

Nothing good will come out of Greece's default.SYRIZA will lose all credibility and Golden Dawn will take its place.

What is your candidate Evita's position on this?

A...