Greece, sad

I can attest to that. I spent some time in Richmond a few years ago and there were blocks of Broad St in the heart of downtown that looked like the apocalypse had arrived. I recall there was one whole block with not a single business still open.

I believe this was largely due to the excesses of inadequately restrained capitalism.

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our economy, producing lots of growth, for the sake of saving a tiny amount on a small percentage of currency movement. I'm just grateful we somehow a voided that piece of stupidity.

Being able to buy stuff from Germany while working in the Netherlands was r eally quite handy. Before the Euro it was remarkably complicated and tediou s. After the Euro I could and did buy small quantities of specialised ferri tes from a small company in Germany, which would have been impossibly tedio us and complicated before the common currency.

Before the Euro I once bought a small batch of cheapish microprocessors (Si emens SAB80C517A) from stock from a Dutch stockist for my ex-employers in E ngland. It was easy for me, working from my Dutch bank account and credit c ard, and would have been pretty much impossible for my ex-employers. I just sent them the paperwork with the parts and they stuck the money I'd spent

- converted into UK pounds - in my UK bank account. The parts had been out of stock all over England, and my ex-employers hadn't been able to get at a ny of the continental distributors.

The real advantage of the Euro wasn't anything to do with exchange rates - it just made doing business easier.

Have you seen this one? (a giant Marx generator)

Apparently still functional and available for hire, despite the dilapidated appearance, in case you need 6MV arcs for some reason (they apparently used it to test the Sukhoi fighter for resistance to direct lightning strikes). The Russians compare it to the US HAARP program (also shut down, but of course they point out that the Russian one is not itself a weapon).

It looks to be about a 30-45 minute stroll from this gorgeous 17th century monastary "New Jerusalem", that in turn, is an easy day trip from Moscow.

Rem "Say, have you read Marx?"

"Yes, must be the wicker chairs" replies the other.

HARRY Truman famously asked to be sent a one-armed economist, having tired of exponents of the dismal science proclaiming "On the one hand, this" and "On the other hand, that".

Pretty cool, but they took one short clip and repeated it 20 times or so, to horrible music.

Go to you room. No dinner.

Around here, defunct factories (and there are many, many over the years) don't sit vacant for years or decades while the elements take their toll, roofs collapse and so on. Usually they're repurposed (perhaps as multiple unit or coworking complexes for software or life science types) or they are razed within a few years either to make way for a totally new development or just to reduce the owners' taxes by eliminating the buildings.

Same true elswhere- for example, the old Uniroyal plant in Commerce CA (Los Angeles), vacant when I first saw it years ago, is now the the successful "Citadel" outlet mall:

When you get a massive change that strains funding of the governments and there are many contemporaneous defaults you get the ghost buildings.. imagine a dentist office with all the stuff still in there mouldering away.. as in one of these photos of Detroit MI:

Joseph Schumpeter called this feature of capitalism "creative destruction".

You literally cannot do this and remain in the law. You can't drive a truck full of gas from say, Kentucky to New Jersey.

It varies dependent on the metric.

I guess those trucks that deliver fuel to the service stations are all black market...

There is no law prohibiting delivery of fuel across state lines. There are tax issues involved, but that is just a matter of assuring you pay the tax to the appropriate jurisdiction.

So you don't think the fact that they're a soft economy locked in a hard currency zone had any bearing on their demise? Curious thinking, that.

Not all state lines. Some state lines.

To be sure.

This link points to a page with no information, but links to dozens of other documents. Was there something in particular you were pointing to?

Spain and Portugal: maybe. Italy is about the third biggest economy in the EU. Fiat group (from Italy) bought Chevrolet a while ago! These countries have reformed their government and economies a lot and are well clear from the danger zone.

It is utter nonsense to think that Greece leaving the euro leads to a chaos. FUD spread by people trying to make the exchance rates go up & down. But the effect will only last shortly. Greece has no significant value in ecomony of the EU. The export to Russia is much bigger than to Greece and the EU does just fine without the export to Russia.

David Eather schreef op 05/16/2015 om 12:29 AM:

Many exchange rates in the EU where fixed long before the euro was introduced. The real advantage is ease of doing business when everyone has the same currency. Even in countries which didn't adopt the euro (like Denmark and Switserland) you can pay with euros almost everywhere.

Using several currencies would be extremely confusing because everyone would need to memorize all the exchange rates. Parking meters and other coin operate devices would also need to be able to recognize all those different coins and notes. And how about spotting fake notes and coins?

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your economy, producing lots of growth, for the sake of saving a tiny amou nt on a small percentage of currency movement. I'm just grateful we somehow avoided that piece of stupidity.

really quite handy. Before the Euro it was remarkably complicated and tedi ous. After the Euro I could and did buy small quantities of specialised fer rites from a small company in Germany, which would have been impossibly ted ious and complicated before the common currency.

Siemens SAB80C517A) from stock from a Dutch stockist for my ex-employers in England. It was easy for me, working from my Dutch bank account and credit card, and would have been pretty much impossible for my ex-employers. I ju st sent them the paperwork with the parts and they stuck the money I'd spen t - converted into UK pounds - in my UK bank account. The parts had been ou t of stock all over England, and my ex-employers hadn't been able to get at any of the continental distributors.

- it just made doing business easier.

We don't have Euros, I can buy almost anything from any country with my VISA card, the bank figures out the rest

and the exchange rate have been locked to within +/-2.25% since 1982 first to the D-mark then the Euro

-Lasse

Concentrating on the important factor that got them into trouble is a good deal less "curious thinking" than waffling on about vague generalities like "hard" and "soft" economies.

What's a "hard" economy - give us a few examples - and tell us exactly what distinguishes it from a "soft" economy.

!!! I think you'll find Greece leaving will spark a feeding frenzy in the markets as to which country will be next. Peripheral bond yields will go through the roof and backstopping the combined debt of Spain and Italy alone will be beyond the resources of the ECB even with all the extra funding the IMF could provide. We live in interesting times!

"Hard" economies are those which can still export internationally with the burden of strong currencies or a strong single currency: Germany, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria etc. "Soft" economies like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy can no longer devalue their domestic currencies, since they have only the Euro now and can therefore no longer compete effectively internationally.

Again: that is just FUD. Except for 3 countries every country in the EU has seen economic growth in 2014 and the economic growth is expected to keep increasing in 2015 & 2016.