Banks (not Greek) are having the sale of the century...Hollywood stars and Warren Buffett among reported buyers. (Max Keiser reporting). The stripping of the assets of Greece has begun..All these sales should be by tender only and then they may get a fair price to pay off the $350 billion euros they are alleged to owe to European bankers. Which country will be next? Spain or Italy? Seems like SEVERAL leading bankers in the US have joined the billionaires club after having been bailed out in 2008. Everyone should be aware of what is happening in Greece, tomorrow it may well be another until finally it is your country... Oh it couldn't happen here may well be the cry but do people here in Australia realize how close we came to a meltdown in 08...Billions of $$$$ handed to 2 of our major banks to keep them from insolvency. Regards Errol 43
West.... and the Nat........$5.4 billion if my memory serves me correctly... Remember banks borrow short and lend long. Regards Errol 43
Was the money handed to them to save from insolvency or did the banks simply use it as a credit source?
They put their faith in politicians and bankers, same as Australia. And when times were going good in Greece everyone was happy and I bet barely anyone was pointing at the credit card bill they were racking up. Now they are crying because they have to pay it.
Let's pretend for a second that this did happen to Australia and we had to sell off a bunch of assets. Can someone explain to me why I would care? I'd be perfectly happy to see state assets go into private hands.
Because they were state owned they will be monopolies, because they're monopolies they're going to bend over the Greeks.
But the problem would not that they are privately-owned, the problem would be that there is a state sanction on competition. EDIT: I also always find it funny that people think we somehow get value for money from the government. Have people not looked at their tax bill lately?
I'm just saying that's why people wouldn't like it. I guess it's probably more likely that they'll just make money by slashing wages down from whatever the union wages are now, rather than increasing prices.
Athens Stock Exchange falls by 22.8pc with banks taking a battering as trading resumes for the first time in over a month
Only the rich could be glad about it. And not all of them. Some are not selfish and they think about the common good.
There is no such thing as a "common good" despite how much socialists try to convince us otherwise. Each one of us is way different from the other with different priorities, goals and values. What is worth a great deal to me, could be worthless or even undesirable to you. Only through individual buying power we could tell the market what and how much we want something, individually and as a collective/society.
Sweet if only I had access to zirp so I could buy an island... Shame it's only the people that stitched Greece up that get to buy for cents on the dollar.. Australia is getting so close to this I think average people would be shocked
I'm pretty sure Education and Healthcare are common good. Try to tell to a random person that those things are worthless and see what you get for an answer. In order for that to happen, everyone should have buying power. The problem is that, for example in my country, at least 20% of people are unemployed (despite government statistics to tell something different) and at least another 50% have their wages exhausted by rents (house, loans, etc.) and basic necessities (electricity, water, food, etc.) so they get to choose very little or nothing at all with their elusive buying power. Then we have another 20% that have some buying power. Those people definitely feel freedom of choice and some could actually tell that they get less from the State than they contribute to. Then we have about 5% that has a strong buying power. Those people have a lot of freedom, regardless of the taxes they pay (those taxes don't have any impact on their lifestyle). From those 5%, 0.00025% have almost 9% of the entire country's wealth. Those individuals have more than buying power and freedom of choice. It doesn't matter if most people want a Ferrari. They won't get it just because they want it so badly. That's not how it works. In my country, at least 70% of people don't choose, 20% choose something and 5% choose a lot. There you have it. Only 15% to 25% could qualify as clients of your utopia.
