Greece gives the EU the two fingers

[Jerome]

Well done Greece! Somebody finally had the balls to tell the EU to get stuffed. The EU/ECB/IMF have been imposing directive after directive on ordinary folk to protect the interests of the 1% who are screwing over the rest of the world. Here in Ireland an elderly pair of women had to shut down their home cake baking business because it did not meet EU 'standards' - what a bloody joke. The fishermen in Ireland have to be content to catch only a certain quota while other countries can come in and rape the seas. One of the EU ministers actually tried getting a law passed that would force passengers in cars to wear helmets (for health and safety reasons of course) - turns out his brother has a business - manufacturing - you guessed it - helmets! The ECB/EU/IMF criminals are going to get what's coming to them. Just a matter of time. Yes Greece is in for a hard time but at least they are making a stand and not ruining their children's children's futures. This one has been a long time coming. The EU is going to crumble, sure as eggs are eggs, because of one simple reason - greed.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Well said Jerome.....

[jazzboCR]

This convo specifically turns on Germany's Angela Merkel. She's bound and determined to stuff austerity down Greece's throat, despite clear and compelling evidence, made clear recently, that stimulus works, austerity ruins. Mild austerity prevented a robust recovery in the UK, and what Ms. Merkel is forcing on the Greeks is much stiffer. Greece's debacle is home-made and continuing (they refuse to get a handle on the public and private corruption), but they don't deserve the treatment the EU and allied institutions are meting out.

[Jerome]

Only one country decided to go after the banks and not let them get away with financial murder and that was Iceland. The first country to come out of the crisis? Iceland.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

My relatives in the UK say they were better off financially before the UK joined the EU....

One of the Tory election promises in the last General Election was to get out of the EU I believe, I hope they stand by that promise during this term of Government and do it.

I also remember Maggie Thatcher warning the Government of the day that it would by "national genocide" if England joined the EU and adopted the Euro currency.....but did they listen....NO!,
Same as they never listened to Enoch Powell all those years ago in regards to immigration....
Speaking of Enoch,
We had a Federal Politician here fifteen years or so ago warning of the same thing, she was labelled 'racist' for daring to mention such things....she warned Australia about the Chinese,Malasians,Indonesians etc buying up Australian businesses and shipping the profits offshore, also warned about Islamic extremists before 9/11 and no one listened, now look where we are...
Held to ransom by the Chinese,homegrown terrorists etc.....
But that's another topic for another time......

[Jerome]

Just about everyone I have met in the UK despises Maggie T. If you ask me she was the only one with any brains. They should have listened to her. Now they're stuck with jihadists and all the other crap going on. The EU is nothing more than a financial cartel. It needs to be brought to it's knees. Europe was far better off when each country had it's own identity and own rules. This one-world government thing is just not going to work. Reminds me of 'UNI' in the novel 'This Perfect Day' by Ira Levin - a novel that describes the technocratic dystopia that awaits us all if we allow the 1% to continue to dominate. If you or I are bankrupt and can't pay our bills we get sued, jailed etc. If the bankers do the same thing the UE passes a directive that says we have to give them back the money that they gambled away from out of our own pockets after we have already paid a myriad of taxes. In Ireland it's called the USC - the Universal Social Charge (there's that 'uni' word again) a tax introduced to make sure the bankers and bondholders get the money back that they lost gambling on the property markets. It's a complete disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. And the reason the individual governments of the different states allowed all of it? They're the bondholders. But what do I know - it's all Greek to me! Go Greece..................

[CRAZY-HORSE]

I was never a fan of Thatcher at the time,I thought she was 'brutal' in her methodology but....
As you get older and hopefully wiser in your lives you/we/i see things from different perspectives....
I now see Thatcher as being honest and true to her word in achieving things,she said and did things that a lot of people despised at the time but she stuck to her beliefs whether they were right or wrong...
I don't think the general population like hard nosed straight talkers who "walk the walk", they want leaders who gloss over the truth with "the gift of the gab" and showmen personalities, much like Bill Clinton,Tony Blair etc

Our last Conservative Prime Minister out here,John Howard, was like Thatcher that way in that he called things as he saw them, introduced unpopular policies, but under his leadership and Government Australia didn't fall into recession like the rest of the Western World in the last GFC a decade ago.

BTW, I'm still not a fan of Thatcher but its impossible not to respect her determination in trying to make Britain "great Britain".

[CRAZY-HORSE]

I will attempt to find that,novel Jerome, sounds very interesting.
And BTW, I don't disagree,with what,you're writing in those post above neither.

[jazzboCR]

You knew I was gonna do this, right?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH2a30LTeWw