This is more of an overly well mannered squirrel with low self esteem.

Really I should just take the peanut, oh golly, why don't I just. Oh nevermind I'll just. Hmmm, take the peanut? If only I were squirrel enough to take. Take the peanut? Oh my, oh Yes, I'll just. Take. The. PEANUT! ALLLL MIIINE.

EDIT: I answered my own question about this. Apparently "US Citizens Living Abroad" is one of the exemptions to the mandate/rule. So nevermind the below.

As a US citizen living outside the US, one thing that concerns me is the health care / insurance mandate and penalties.

I live in Thailand, and have health insurance through the nearly-universal Thai healthcare system because I have a job that pays in to it. On top of that, I have insurance through a private insurer based in the UK.

The Thai system is really good. A few years ago, I had something like 5 episodes of tonsillitis in one year, and my doc told me that I should consider getting a tonsillectomy. I opted to go for it, and the Thai govt. insurance paid for the entire operation except for about $30 that I had to pay myself because I opted to stay in a private, air conditioned room for a recovery night instead of the busy public ward. Other than that, it cost me absolutely nothing.

The private insurer I have is for any travel outside Thailand and backup purposes; it has a higher max payout and would allow for more optional treatments to major things. I haven't made any claims against it so far, but it is a nice safety net. The only downside to it is that it works "around the world*" (*except in the US, because that system is so f*&^ed up they wash their hands of it). So, on the rare occasions where I make a trip back home to the US, I'm technically uninsured.

Signing up for Obamacare would be pretty pointless for me. I've been in Thailand for about 10 years, and during that time I've been back to the US only twice for a sum total of about a month and a half. But technically, it seems that I may be subject to penalties since I don't have any US insurance coverage. No idea if there are exceptions for expats or not.

In theory, I would suppose so.

But in reality, the one entity tasked with enforcing the legal frameworks of the EU, the European Commission, is also the entity behind many violations in the first place. So tough luck, I guess.

We have a saying in Germany that fits the activities since the beginning of the crisis rather nicely: "legal, illegal, scheissegal". Legal, illegal, who gives a shit.

Just a few appetizers:

- EU parliamentary inquiry says troika acts outside of legal framework, without any oversight
- Special Rapporteur: cuts in Greece would have never passed EU parliament, had to be done outside of any democratic control
- Portuguese Supreme Court rules cuts unconstitutional, European Commission calls court a group of activists
- Troika forced an end of collective bargaining in Greece, in violation of ILO agreements
- Troika forced Greek minister to use decree to cut minimum wage, circumventing parliament entirely
- EC and ECB violate law by being part of the troika
- Eurogroup acts as enforcer for EC wherever law needs to be violated
- Troika forced sale of Portuguese BPN (bank) under extremely shady circumstances
- Bailout, nationalisation and later privatisation of four largest Greek banks equally shady
- Cyprus/Piraeus
- Just about everything the Spanish government has done in the last couple of years

Nevermind all the treaty violations vis-á-vis financing/bailouts, etc. But you won't find a court willing to touch any of this. Nobody wants to destabilize this mess even further, despite all the gross violations. TINA, all the way.

Frankly, I'd be satisfied if these calls were made by parliaments instead of unelected and unaccountable officials.

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.

You are absolutely right, the results of elections in Greece do not create an obligation for fiscal transfers from other European countries.

But that plays right into what Varoufakis has been saying for years, doesn't it? The program over the last seven years has reduced Greek output by a quarter, and thereby its ability to service and reduce its debt. The troika is offering more loans, loans that cannot be payed back, in return for a further reduction in Greece's ability to pay back those loans in the first place. Extend and pretend, all the way. Nevermind the humanitarian cost or the threat to democracy itself.

It is either counter-productive or aimed at a different goal entirely. Greece wants an end to those loans, and all the loss of sovereignty that comes with it, while the Eurogroup in particular wants to stick to a program that only increased Greece's dependency to a point where they can throw the entire country into unbearable misery at a moment's notice (e.g. cut ELA access).

Take the privatisation demands as an example. The program demands that Greece agrees to sell specific property at a specific price. Both parties are keenly aware that this price cannot be realised during a fire sale, yet they still demand a promise by the Greeks to do so. Any promise would be a lie and everyone knows it.

Same for the demanded specificity of Greece's plans. After decades of nepotism, a fresh government made up entirely of outsiders is supposed to draw up plans of more detail than any previous government came up with. And they cannot even rely on the bureaucracy, given that a great number of people in it are part of the nepotic system they are trying to undo in the first place.

Taxes, same thing. The first king of Greece (1832'ish) was a prince of Bavaria who was accompanied by his own staff of finance experts, and they failed miserably. Greece went through occupation, military junta and decades of nepotism, and the new government is supposed to fix that within months.

Those demands cannot be met. The Greeks know it, the troika knows it, the Eurogroup knows it.

Zizek called it the superego in his recent piece on Syriza/Greece:

"The ongoing EU pressure on Greece to implement austerity measures fits perfectly what psychoanalysis calls the superego. The superego is not an ethical agency proper, but a sadistic agent, which bombards the subject with impossible demands, obscenely enjoying the subject’s failure to comply with them. The paradox of the superego is that, as Freud saw clearly, the more we obey its demands, the more we feel guilty. Imagine a vicious teacher who assigns his pupils impossible tasks, and then sadistically jeers when he sees their anxiety and panic. This is what is so terribly wrong with the EU demands/commands: they do not even give Greece a chance – Greek failure is part of the game."

Aside from all that, the entire continent is in a recession. Not enough demand, not enough investment, unsustainable levels of unemployment. Greece was hit hardest, Greece was hit first. It's not the cause of the problem, it is the canary in the coal mine. And Italy is already looking very shaky...

nevermind. meant to post that in the video

*dead (nevermind...worked on 3rd page refresh)

Nevermind

...nevermind...all over the internet even hours ago...quacks like a....

*ban

Twerkers getting electrocuted would be illegal, right? Nevermind.

@Grimm
@ChaosEngine
@Sagemind

thanks guys!
thats exactly what i was looking for.
though i have to admit a particular curiosity in regards to what a "decent" or "living" wage would amount to,which is too specific for most people to actually state.

the reason i am so curious is because since 1978 i have been in the business in one capacity or another.i have been a captain at a few 5 star places.ran two 4 star ballrooms and have bartended at some of the most amazing clubs.

i worked very hard to learn the techniques and particulars of my trade.i learned from the best so i could be the best.started from the bottom,listened intently and learned the trade from some of the most talented people i had ever met.

so what am i worth? what would be considered a "living" wage?
the reason i say this,tongue firmly planted in cheek,is because when people find out how much i made they..and i am not exagerating here..literally lose their mind.

i did very well,but i worked my ass off to get it.
and i was worth every penny.
but i didnt just do it for the money...thats just...soulless and void of any meaning.i did it for the challenge.i did it for pride and knowing that the majority of people out there could not do what i do.
and i happen to enjoy meeting people:bonus!
love what you do and the money follows.

or did.

i recently left the business out of disgust.
maybe i am just getting too old and cranky but corporate eateries have douched the profession i adored for decades.

a corporate trained waiter/waitress is just one notch above useless.
i know i know..thats my experience and does not reflect on ALL servers but fuck that,i am old and i am free to bitch about the younger generation.

no pride.
no discipline.
just whining crying and more whining.
and god forbid you offer advice to these know-it-all wankers...
"well,when i was at olive garden"..oh fuck me....
only been in the biz for 30 plus years..yeah..what would i know..
just let grandpa hump the ten tops because you got double sat and are now in the "weeds".
fucking pussies...

gah..sorry for the ranting,but watching my profession go down the shitter is upsetting.

tipping is not mandatory in the states.
though if you are experiencing the "new wave" of servers,who i have seen openly give stink eye to customers,i can see why you may think otherwise.

i always looked at my profession as a sub-contractor.
my relationship is with my customer.THEY are my business and i treat them accordingly.you should not do this job strictly for the money.might as well go sell your soul and become a crack dealer...same difference.

ok..now i am just rambling.
suffice to say:
tipping is not mandatory.
new generation of servers are a gaggle of whiny non-conrtibuting pussies who think they know everything because they worked day shift at olive garden for a year.

and if ever offered minimum wage to do what i did,i would stab the person in the eye socket with a dirty ball point pen.

/end rant

folks i will be here every tuesday! dont forget to tip your bartenders and wai...oh....nevermind.

Why would you say it's co-incidence?
The area was designed as a giant, open air amphitheater. It's not co-incidence that they built it that way. It was necessary because they didn't have amplification back then, and for the priest/speaker to be heard, it had to be built acoustically near perfect. I think you get the same thing if you clap in a Greek amphitheater.
(But perhaps you just mean the bird sound and the (mispronounced) name being co-incidence? If so, nevermind!)

rule of law?
really?
you mean the law that ignores the lying liars on wall street?
the law that criminalizes the poor?
you mean THAT law?
a criminalized elite that legislates laws that benefit them and their cronies while crushing the working class.
wrong side bob.
thats ok..seems @ant agrees with you.

i find it hypocrisy of the highest order those who claim to be christian and follow the teachings of jesus,who will abandon his teachings when it becomes uncomfortable and inconvenient.

nevermind that many of the laws and rights you so enjoy nowadays were hard won by the sacrifices,and sometimes deaths of those who think and feel exactly as this video portrays.

hypocrites......the lot of ya.

Nevermind. I checked out some pictures of some young Lynx and this does fit the description and the video. Amazing to see one that young. I know Bobcats here in Idaho and the surrounding areas are so few and far between. Sightings are rare.

@bobknight33

Please tell me what your experience is with the scientific community. Do not waffle or sidestep the issue but answer exactly what the extent of your experience with scientific research is, and if necessary how that positions you to judge scientific material.

Please also provide three examples from three separate (and recent) peer reviewed (and published, i.e. forming part of the scientific argument) scientific research papers from approximately the last 4 years (since 2010) that provides something illogical as a foundation argument or any particular conclusion. (You realise of course that even 3,5,10, 100 out of 10 thousand is meaningless, but i know that you can't even understand the layout of a scientific paper, nevermind find 3 examples of an illogical statement in a scientific paper.... even my professors would struggle with that.)

I'm not going out of my way to be a dick here @bobknight33 .. but if you tried to give people medical advice (chemotherapy is illogical propaganda!) then you would be expected to have an expertise in medicine. So don't run away from your responsibility.

This shouldn't be a difficult challenge for you, being as you are so certain and so correct that the science is illogical propaganda. I've had to accept things that ran completely counter to my intuition, so if climate change science is bull then as soon as you prove it, i'm on board.

So go ahead, explain to me simply and clearly what makes it bullshit science, or you're going to have to admit that you don't even have the first clue what you're talking about (as i strongly suspect).

Believe climate SCIENCE, do not believe what politicians and industry leaders tell you about climate science - ASK A FUCKING SCIENTIST. And most of all - @bobknight33 - it is NOT ok to pretend to understand science and lie to people about it, you deceptive, brain-dead parrot. Well, having said that, at least parrots have redeeming features.