Switzerland Second has been added as a related post - related requested by dag on that post.

Place de la Concorde Suisse...John McPhee's book exploring Swiss...paranoia...
---All military age men have an automatic weapon at home; the penalties for using it or even open the ammunition other than military duty are severe
---The bridges and tunnels in to the country are rigged with places for Swiss Army Engineers to stick explosives and drop them all
---Airbases tucked into mountain sides; not nuke proof; but damn hard to get at any other way
etc
etc
etc

"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. "

Harry Lime; Orson Well's "The Third Man"...

Switzerland? France? Looks like Raclette, but I'm not certain.

North of the border, anyone wishing to buy a gun or ammunition must have a valid licence under the Firearms Act, and to obtain a firearms licence, all applicants must undergo a screening process, which includes a safety course, criminal history and background checks, provision of personal references, and a mandatory waiting period. The law further prohibits military-grade assault weapons such as AK-47s and sawn-off rifles or shotguns. Handguns are generally classified as restricted weapons, while rifles and shotguns are usually non-restricted.

There are only a few purposes for which individuals can obtain a restricted firearms licence in Canada, "the most common being target practice or target shooting competitions, or as part of a collection."

Based on your article and what else I've read, that means that pump, bolt action, and single shot rifles/shotguns are ok. Everything else is pretty much a no go. Sounds like some pretty heavy restrictions, although I did note there is a huge demand for ar-15 style rifles to be allowed in Canada.

But yes, the bulk of our shooting issue is the culture of our country. We are very diverse in culture, as well as familial structure. I would say that our culture and population is unlike any other in the world (except Australia, oddly. from what I've seen, I think they are sort of the USA lite version). Realistically, barring massive limitations to gun ownership, we are not going to stop mass shootings in the USA. I honestly don't think we will stop it then either, what with the sieve of a border we have, guns will just become the new coke/meth. Not to mention AR-15 style rifles aren't exactly hard to build. Other than the barrel and the bolt, most of the other pieces can be hand milled out of semi finished pieces that are completely legal for anyone to have.

Maybe we could do like Switzerland, their gun control seems to work.

Saw the same thing in Switzerland.

3:00 "do you think this conversation is happening in any other country?"

FFS, does anyone really think that the US has a monopoly on political conversation?

The same conversation (well, a less retarded version of it anyway) is happening in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. And that's just in English. There are political debates in Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Hell, I bet no talks about anything ELSE in Greece!

@radx

I think you misunderstand the Swiss referendum. It's about preventing banks from creating money through fractional lending, it doesn't restrict the central bank. Typically banks will take in deposits and lend a portion out (keeping a % as a capital buffer), that money then filters through the system and some of if returns as deposits, and the process repeats (hence the term fractional banking).

In effect banks are creating money through lending out more money than otherwise exists. It also means they lend out far in excess of the deposits they have, creating high leverage and meaning even a small level of default can lead to them eating through their capital and insolvency (see US in 2008). The referendum seems to be about effectively preventing fractional lending.

No idea what effect it would have in a country like Switzerland. The country is an exception as it has a relatively small economy but is seen globally as a safe haven currency meaning every time there is a crisis you see the CHF appreciate rapidly (similar to the USD). Naturally that tends to wreck havoc with the economy and exports since the currency value no longer reflects the real economy and is why the central bank has taken various measures to discourage it in the past.

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

Your video, Spectacular Rockslide in Switzerland (two angles), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

First of all, Flassbeck is the only(!) prominent economist in Germany arguing strictly against the madness of austerity. But he's living in the border region between France and Switzerland, so he's a European more than a German.

Among all the economic think tanks in Germany, only the union-sponsored IMK makes a credible case against this madness. Everyone else is more or less in line with the neoclassic perspective. Not a Keynesian in sight, much less a post-Keynesian group.

But now to the meat of the issue. There will be no major political shift in Germany in the near future. As Flassbeck stated, only a single party opposes the financial inquisition commonly known as the Troika. Unfortunatly, it's the socialists, and despite overwhelmingly popular policies, they are still an absolute no-go for large swaths of the demos thanks to the authoritarian regime in East Germany. Sucks, but it is what it is.

So it's up to the French people once again to save the continent from itself. Noone else has the balls or the influence to put an end to this misguided union. How likely is it for the French government to openly challenge German hegemony soon? I wouldn't bet on it. Which means the Greeks are fuuuucked².

In any case, what would it take for Greece to stabilise? And by stabilise I'm talking about a return to a manageable level of unemployment, a working healthcare system and social safety net. A conservative guesstimate would be a public deficit of ~10% of GDP for at least 5 straight years. Alternatively, the EIB would have to prop up Greece with €50b a year for the same number of years. To get a working bureaucracy, to undo four decades of nepotism, Greece would basically need a generation to reestablish itself as a state – and it would require appropriate financing.

Now remember which of Syriza's demands is painted as most controversial right now: debt restructuring. Debt restructuring, while neccessary at some point, is entirely pointless as long as the fiscal policy remains contractionary. Greece needs austerity to stop, right the fuck now. Greece needs to provide income-generating jobs for its people. All the talk about debt is utterly pointless, because at 25% unemployment, we're looking at permanent damage in every way imaginable. The social toll alone should be completely unacceptable within Europe if we truly gave two shits about human dignity.

So, even if Syriza get their way tomorrow, Greece would still be flushed down the shitter. Syriza's proposal is contractionary. Any primary surplus in this situation is contractionary.

Greece is done within the Euro. The use of a foreign currency makes it impossible to use appropriate fiscal policy on their own. Unfortunatly, but also intentionally, the currency issuer, the ECB, is placed outside the democratic control of the European Parliament, or any national parliament for that matter. Fiscal policy within the EZ was taken out of the control of our elected representatives to ensure that the neoclassic/neoliberal approach was irrevocably built into the system. We can thank Germany for that, by the way.

There is a shortage of spending in Greece. There is a shortage of spending in Spain. There is a shortage of spending in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, France. There is a shortage of spending in Germany, for fuck's sake. Put the ECB under control of the EP, add full employment (2-3% unemployment) to its mandate, and have them finance the appropriate programs at the national level. The output gap in Europe is so massive, the un(der)employment so vast, they could spend a trillion Euros and inflation would still not reach the agreed upon target value of 2%.

All it would take to change the rules is consent from every national parliament in the union. Might as well go skinny-dipping instead.

The United States Justice Department, F.B.I. and I.R.S. are going after FIFA corruption starting with indictments and arrest (Switzerland) of many FIFA officials. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-arrested-on-corruption-charges-blatter-isnt-among-them.html

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

+ a central bank whose mandate is limited to inflation
+ the lack of a treasury
+ the lack of a harmonized tax system
+ the crippling deficits in democratic control that make it very hard to turn the will of the people into policy
+ etc

The last point is of particular interest if you look at Greece as a shock & awe induced suspension of democracy. Many nations are held in a permanent state of emergency through the war on terror, while Greece's permanent state of emergency was imposed through debt.

Previous governments did what they were told by troika officials, with parliament left aside and judicial decisions left ignored. The return of democracy into some parts of the system caused rather vicious reactions from both the press and European officials. Just look at what Martin Schulz or Jeroen Dijsselbloem said about Syriza officials in the last few days.

Debt is a tool powerful enough to suspend democracy in a heartbeat, even quicker than our famous war on/of terror.

Parliamentary decisions are superceded by transnational treaties and obligations. And if you take the thought one step further, you end up at TTIP/TTP/CETA/TISA. If Greece demonstrates that democratic decisions at a national level still overrule transnational treaties, governments lose a scapegoat for unpopular decisions ("treaty X demands it of us"). Should Syriza manage to end the state of emergency, to return control over the decision back to the elected bodies, it will become infinitely harder to impose draconian or even just highly unpopular measures.

But I digress. Twin Euro blocks (South/North) were part of the discussion, just like parallel currencies in troubled nations. A German exit is still being discussed as well, but I don't think its advocates within Germany thought it through. Switzerland just uncoupled its Swiss Francs from the Euro and it did a real number on their exports. A new DM would appreciate like a Saturn V, instantly shattering German exports. Without a massive increase in wages to compensate through domestic demand, Germany would bleed jobs left, right and center. A fullblown recession.

I'd say it would take very little to stabilise the union, even in its currently flawed configuration. Krugman had a piece this morning, calling one of Syriza's core demands reasonable. And judging by what I have read over the last five years or so, it is. He said Germany would be crazy if they demanded payment on full, no reliefs. And that's where it shows that he cannot follow the media or the political discussions in Germany to any meaningful degree, language barrier and all. Public discussion on economics in Germany stands completely separate from the rest of the world.

Ignorance, stubbornness, cultural bias, a feedback-loop of media and politics, group pressure -- we have everything. And the fact that Germany has been comparatively successful in the face of this crisis makes it practially impossible to pierce this bubble. We're doing fine, our way must be correct, everyone else is wrong.

@RedSky

Selling assets and, to a certain degree, the reduction of public employment is an unreasonable demand. There's too much controversy about the effects it has, with me being clearly biased to one side.

Privatisation of essential services (healthcare, public transport, electricity, water) is being opposed or even undone in significant parts of Europe, since it generally came with worse service at much higher costs and no accountability whatsoever. Therefore I see it as very reasonable for Syriza to stop the privatisation of their electricity grid and their railroad. There are, of course, unessentials that might be handed over to the private sector, but like Varoufakis said, not in the shape of a fire sale within a crisis. That'll only profit the usual scavengers, not the people.

Similarly, public employment. There's good public employment (essential services, administration) and "bad" public employment. Troika demands included the firing of cleaning personnel, who were replaced by a significantly more expensive private service. And a Greek court decision ruled the firing as flat out illegal. For Syriza to not hire them back would not only have been unreasonable financially as well as socially, it would have been a violation of a court order. Same for thousands of others who were fired illegally, according to a ruling by the Greek Supreme Court.

Troika demands are all too often against Greek or even European law, and while the previous governments were fine with being criminals, Syriza might actually be inclined to uphold the law.


On the issue of reforms, I would argue that the previous governments did bugger all to establish working institutions. Famously, the posts of department heads of the tax collection agency were auctioned for money, even under the last government. Everything is in shambles, with no intent of changing anything that would have undermined the nepotic rules of the five families. Syriza's program has been very clear about the changes they plan to institute, so if it really was the intent of the troika to see meaningful reform the way it is being advocated to their folks at home, they would be in support of Syriza.

Interventions by the troika have crashed the health care system, the educational system and the pension system. Public pension funds were practically wiped out during the first haircut in 2012, creating a hole of about 20 billion Euros in the next five years.

I would like to address the issue of taxation specifically. Luxembourg adopted as a business model to be an enabler of tax evasion, even worse than Switzerland. In charge at that time was none other than Jean-Claude Juncker, who was just elected President of the European Commission. He's directly involved in tax evasion on a scale of hundreds of billions of Euros every year. How is the troika to have any credibility in this matter with him in charge?

Similarly, German politicians are particularly vocal about corruption and bribery in Greece. Well, who are the biggest sources of bribery in Greece? German corporations. Just last week there was another report of a major German arms manufacturer who paid outrageous bribes to officials in Greece. As much as I support the fight against corruption and bribery, some humility would suit them well.


As for the GDP growth in Greece: I think it's a fluke. The deflation skewers the numbers to a point where I can't take them seriously until the complete dataset is available. Might be growth, might not be. Definatly not enough to fight off a humanitarian crisis.

Surpluses. If everyone was a zealous as Germany, the deficit would in fact be considerably narrower, which is a good thing. Unfortunatly, it would have been a race to the bottom. Germany could only suppress wage growth, and subsequently domestic demand, so radically, because the other members of the Eurozone were eager to expand. They ran higher-than-average growth, which allowed Germany to undercut them without going into deflation. Nowadays, Germany still has below-target wage growth, so the only way for Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to gain competetiveness against Germany is to go into deflation. That's where we are in Europe: half a continent in deflation. With all its side effects of mass unemployment (11%+ in Europe, after lots of trickery), falling demand, falling investment, etc. Not good. Keynes' idea of an International Clearing Union might work better, especially since we already use similar concepts within nations to balance regions.

Bond yields of Germany could not have spiked at the same time as those of the rest of the Eurozone. The legal requirements for pension funds, insurance funds, etc demand a high percentage of safe bonds, and when the peripheral countries were declared unsafe, they had nowhere to go but Germany. Also, a bet against France is quite a risk, but a bet against Germany is downright foolish. Still, supply of safe bonds is tight right now, given the cuts all over the place. French yields are at historic lows, German yield is negative. Even Italian and Spanish yields were in the green as soon as Draghi said the ECB would do whatever it takes.

The current spike in Greek yields strikes me as a bet that there will be a face-off between the troika and Greece, with very few positive outcomes for the Greek economy in the short run.

QE: 100% agreement. Fistful of cash to citizens would not have solved any of the core issues of the Eurozone (highly unequal ULCs, systemic tax evasion, tax competition/undercutting, no European institutions, etc), but it would have been infinitely better than anything they did. If they were to put it on the table right now as a means to combat deflation, I'd say go for it. Take the helicopters airborne, as long as it's bottom-up and not trickle-down. Though to reliably increase inflation there would have to be widescale increases in wages. Not going to happen. Maybe if Podemos wins in Spain later his year.

Same for the last paragraph. The ECB could have stuffed the EIB to the brim, which in return could have funded highly beneficial and much needed projects, like a proper European electricity grid. Won't happen though. Debt is bad, even monetised debt during a deflation used purely for investments.

So Monarchies are oppressive? Hmmm. Interesting. Got it.

But doesn't Norway also have a Monarchy? And in this comment, didn't you extoll the values of their nationalized and socialized industries? Would you not then also give a pass to Norway's people who might reject that form of government and feel the need to secede? Same for Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, the UK, and most of the civilized Western world for that matter?