radx

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Member Since: January 19, 2008
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Comments to radx

15 Comments

lurgee says...

Stuff like this scares the fuck out of me. Makes me glad my 2003 Golf is not connected to the interwebs.

radx said:

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

A bloke from Audi spoke to us during a class on model driven software engineering in '07 and the entertainment system was #2 on his list of opportunities for software developers, right after driving assistants. When a friend of mine asked him if it would be air-gapped from the rest of the system, he was quite eager to swipe aside all security concerns.

Makes me wonder if he's still prancing around with his glorious fully-integrated systems...

oritteropo says...

$14k is more than a business class airfare, but less than first class return to Europe... I would guess that the speaker went first class and her staff went business class. The $5k was for a helicopter charter, not ground transport... it's only an hours drive, so not more than $200 for a taxi or a government car.

I am equally bewildered about Abbott and Harper. All I can say is that I think my countrymen were rather naive... it was obvious to me that the claims he was making prior to the election were so ridiculous that the best thing for the country was for him to simply turn around after the election and say "I lied!"... and he has pretty much gone back on every claim, only without actually admitting he lied.

I'm not sure what happened to Canada, either.

Maybe one day I'll have to move to New Zealand...

radx said:

- In Merkel's defence, she's never been elected for her track record of empathy.

- Your gulag is the envy of the "civilized" world. Out of sight, out of mind. Quite frankly, between letting people rot on godforsaken islands and marauding bands of Nazis setting their shelters on fire, I think our two nations got the entire spectrum of despicable behaviour covered.

- 14k on airfares per person, almost 5k for ground transport -- just what did they travel in? Then again, that picture looks like she's desperatly trying to fit in with the blue blooded elites.

- I don't get Abbott. Steven Harper neither, for that matter. How can a reasonable people float this kind of person to the top? There are plenty of loonies around, but always with a solid base of loonies behind them (eg Berlusconi or Cameron). But not Abbott & Harper...

oritteropo says...

I don't think they have much choice really, they can either offer debt repayment extensions as a favour to the Greeks, or they can have a default from Greeks who can't make repayments... the only difference is the amount of good or ill will involved, and possibly penalty payments.

The treaties don't currently allow for a country to be ejected from the Eurozone, so I don't see what they could do if Greece simply refuses to make payments until they have the money. The trick would be to wait until the banks are on a more stable footing before starting that tactic.

radx said:

Unclear.

A straight-up haircut is not an option. An extension of maturities, a stretching of repayments and waving of interest could have worked quite handily as late as two months ago. But ever since this idea was picked up by others, ever since it was explained in some detail how small of an effect it would have on our national budget, the usual suspects went into overdrive to hammer in the notion that it's still a loss to the tune of €XXb. The argument that it would be a measily €1-€1.5b a year, with a slight uptick to €3b in 2026 or something was burried under a huge pile of fear mongering.

Not sure if you can put enough make-up on this pig. Lots of folks went all-in with their demonisation of any form of debt restructuring. Especially when it's a "solution" Varoufakis has also argued for.

oritteropo says...

Are they as opposed to extending the repayment schedule as they are to an honest up-front write down?

radx said:

[...]Germany, on the other hand, rules out debt restructuring of any kind, and haircuts in particular. [...]

oritteropo says...

And then there was this one - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/angela-merkel-comforts-teenage-palestinian-asylum-seeker-germany

Really there was no way to come out of that one looking good... although I do give her points for at least showing up and talking to the girl. Our own local version of the CDU would have locked her up in the Gulags of Nauru or Manus Island, and prevented any interviews or reporting punishable by 2 years gaol http://gu.com/p/4abgf/stw

Something else from Australian politics, the speaker of the house has come under fire for her travel expenses - http://gu.com/p/4akdp/stw - strangely not so much for the $A90,000 on a trip to Europe, but instead for the $5,000 for a helicopter trip to Geelong for a party fundraiser... go figure.

This one was just funny - our chief lizard trying to stay on message seems to have suggested that a grocery code would have prevented the Greek financial crisis - http://gu.com/p/4ae24/stw

radx said:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/16/merkel-gambling-away-germanys-reputation-over-greece-says-habermas

oritteropo says...

Interesting timing, since the heads of the ECB and the Eurogroup clearly disavow the theory... to the extent that eurozone member states can just forget it exists thanks and just go and be thankful for their stale bread and gruel.

radx said:

Over all the years, the "alternative media" over here never even acklowledged the existence of MMT. Not a peep to be found, anywhere, aside from the occasional blog entry. One might think the current crises would have been the perfect timing to take a closer look at matters of macroeconomic finance.

This month, however, I came across at least half a dozen articles about the basics of MMT on the most widely read news sources outside the mainstream, including numerous links to the works of Randall Wray, Warren Mosler and Bill Mitchell. MMT might finally gain some recognition among my fellow citizens.

oritteropo says...

The BBC's Robert Peston has written an article that echoes your confusion (and mine). I don't always agree with what he says, but there's not much to argue in that article.

I think Galbraith is right on the money, the only choices for Greece are capitulation or exit.

I leave you with this - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33346743 - the BBC Magazine advises Greece to follow the teachings of Zeno of Citium, the Stoic. I showed that article to my younger son actually, who's a bit prone to dwelling on past failures and would do well to follow the Stoic principle of only worrying about things that you can change and not those you can't.

radx said:

If the current Greek proposal is actually the one being published just about everywhere, they might as well sign it in the replica of Marshal Foch's carriage in Compiègne. It's even worse than the one they had their referendum on.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Jamie Galbraith substantiated AEP's claim that the referendum was horseshit to begin with.

They screwed the pooch, even I'd agree to that if they were to accept this unconditional surrender. The anti-austerity movement on the left would be compromised to such a degree, leaving only the anti-EU forces of the right credible in their opposition to austerity. The recession cult will have their permanent austerity -- and the bigots will have their revival of nationalism.

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