Yup, I've seen similar graphs (different base, same result).

If you were to add projected GDP based on previous growth to it, you'd need a drink. If you further added a rough guesstimate of lost output potential due to constant underutilisation, you'd need to make it a double. And if you were to extend it to the entire eurozone and just look at the aggregate of lost output, you might as well keep the bottle at hand.

It'll take decades to undo this damage. Given the precarious situation of young folks in a significant number of countries, I'm not convinced the union will exist for much longer.

Just look at Greece: according to Costas Lapavitsas, some 80% of youth votes in the recent referendum were "no". Now their government intends to subject them to even harsher terms -- that's not sustainable.

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.

Hah, like Congress would ever approve spending for any new infrastructure.

Too busy debating benghazi & how to undo the Affordable Care Act.

I'd genocide all IP if such a feat were possible. Tyler Durden has gotta be kickin around somewhere in the collective unconscious.

If there is such a force, be it far future grey goo or gods that dwell within or without, I dedicate the abstract concept of my fictitious soul to the undoing of all corporate power.

Corporations are people and their IP is what? The thoughts within its brain? Well, I'd murder one or all so easily. Prey on their greed.

As the datum of my prayer festers in the digital realm, my only desire is for vengeance. I will rise from within the 1s and 0s, Viggo the Carpathian style.

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...

Unfortunatly, it's not just Merkel and her cabinet. It's the press, it's the economics departments at universities, it's politicians at all levels. Call it an economic nationalism, hell-bent to defend what they know to be the moral way of doing business. Everything left of this special flavour of market fundamentalism has been systematically attacked and suppressed for at least 30 years.

For instance, our socialist party, still referred to as the fringe of what is acceptable, runs on what is basically a carbon-copy of social-democrat programmes from the '70s. Similar to the British Green Party and Labour. Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, Wolff, DeLong -- they'd all be on the fringe in Germany. Even the likes of Simon Johnson (IMF) or Willem Buiters (City Group).

If you speak out in favour of higher inflation (wage growth) to ease the pressure on our brothers and sisters in southern Europe, you'll be charged with waging a war against German saver. "You want to devalue what little savings a nurse can accrue? Don't you support blue collar workers?"

The same blue collar workers have been stripped of their savings by 15 years of wage suppression, the same blue collar workers are looking at poverty when they retire, because the PAYGO pension system was turned into a capital-based system that only works to your benefit if you never lose your job, always pay your dues and reach at least age 95. The previous system survived two world wars without a problem, yet was deemed flawed when they realized how much money could be channeled into the financial system – only to disappear at the first sight of a crisis, eg every five to ten years.

Similarly, you could point out that a focus on trade surpluses might not be the greatest of ideas, given the dependence it creates on foreign demand, a weak currency and restricted wage growth domestically. But they'll call you a looney. "The trade surplus is a result of just how industrious our workers, how creative our scientists and how skilled our engineers are. It's all innovation, mate! Are you saying we force the others to buy our stuff? That's madness."

You simply cannot have an open discussion about macroeconomics in Germany. Do I have to mention how schizophrenic it makes me feel to read contradictory descriptions of reality every day? It's bonkers and everyone's better off NOT reading both German and international sources on these matters.


Any compromise would have to work with this in mind. They'd have to package in a way that doesn't smell like debt relief of any kind. People know that stretching the payment out over 100 years equals debt relief, but it might just be enough of a lie to get beyond the level of self-deception that is simply part of politics. If they manage to paint Varoufakis' idea of growth-based levels of payment as the best way to get German funds back, people might go for it. Not sure if our government would, but you could sell it to the public. And with enough pressure from Greece, Spain, Italy, and France most of all, maybe Merkel could be "persuaded" to agree to a deal.

As for Syriza's domestic problems: it's a one-way ticket to hell. Undoing decades of nepotism under external pressure, with insolvency knocking on your door? Best of luck.

Italy is hard on Greece's heels in terms of institutional corruption. Southern Italy, in particular, is an absolute mess. Given the size of the Italian economy, Syriza better succeed, so their work can be used as a blueprint. Otherwise we're going to need a whole lot of popcorn in the next decade...


Edit: Case in point, German position paper, as described by Reuters. As if the elections in Greece never took place.

In the current situation, "structural reforms" is used to subsume two entirely different sets of measures.

The first is meant to remove what you previously mentioned: corruption in all the shapes and forms it takes in Greece, from a (intentionally) broken tax system formed over decades of nepotism to a bankrupt national media in the hands of oligarchs. The institutions of the Greek state are precisely what you expect when a country has been run by four families (Papandreou, Samaras, Mitsotakis, Karamanlis) for basically five decades.

This kind of structural reform is part of Syriza's program. Like you said, it'll be hard work and they might very well fail. They'll have only weeks, maybe a few months to undo significant parts of what has grown over half a century. It's not fair, but that's what it is.

The second kind of "structural reform" is meant to increase competitiveness, generally speaking, and a reduction of the public sector. In case of Greece, this included the slashing of wages, pensions, benefits, public employment. The economic and social results are part of just about every article these days, so I won't mention them again. A Great Depression, as predicted.

That's the sort of "structural reforms" Syriza wants to undo. And it's the sort that is expected of Spain, Italy and France as well, which, if done, would probably throw the entire continent into a Great Depression.

I'd go so far as to call any demand to increase competitiveness to German levels madness. Germany gained its competitiveness by 15 years of beggar-thy-neighbour economics, undercutting the agreed upon target of ~2% inflation (read: 2% growth of unit labour costs) the entire time. France played by the rules, was on target the entire time, and is now expected to suffer for it. Only Greece was significantly above target, and are now slightly below target. That's only halfway, yet already more than any democratic country can take.

They could have spread the adjustment out over 20 years, with Germany running above average ULC growth, but decided to throw Greece (and to a lesser degree Spain) off a cliff instead.


So where are we now? Debt rose, GDP crashed, debt as percentage of GDP skyrocketed. That's a fail. Social situation is miserable, health care system basically collapsed, reducing Greece to North African standards. That's a fail.

Those are not reforms to allow Greece to function independently. Those are reforms to throw the Greek population into misery, with ever increasing likeliness of radical solutions (eg Golden Dawn, who are eagerly hoping for a failure of Syriza).

So yes, almost every nation in Europe needs reforms of one sort or another. But using austerity as a rod to beat discipline into supposedly sovereign nations is just about the shortest way imaginable to blow up the Eurozone. Inflicting this amount of pain on people against their will does not work in democratic countries, and the rise of Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Féin, the SNP and the Greens as well as the surge of popularity for Front National and Golden Dawn are clear indicators that the current form of politics cannot be sustained.

Force austerity on France and Le Pen wins the election.

Meaningful reforms that are to increase Europe's "prosperity" would have the support of the people. And reforms are definatly needed, given that the Eurozone is in its fifth year of stagnation, with many countries suffering from both a recession and deflation. A European Union without increasing prosperity for the masses will not last long, I'm sure of it. And a European Union that intentionally causes Great Depressions wouldn't be worth having anyway.

Yet after everything is said and done, I believe you are still absolutely correct in saying that the pro-austerity states won't blink.

Which is what makes it interesting, really. Greece might be able to take a default. They run a primary surplus and most (90%+) of the funds went to foreign banks, the ECB and the IMF anyway, or were used to stabilize the banking system. The people got bugger all. But the Greek banking system would collapse without access to the European system.

Which raises the question: would the pro-austerity states risk a collapse of the Greek banking system and everything it entails? Spanish banks would follow in a heartbeat.

As for the morality of it (they elected those governments, they deserved it): I don't believe in collective punishment, especially not the kind that cripples an entire generation, which is what years of 50+% youth unemployment and a failing educational system does.

My own country, Germany, in particular gets no sympathy from me in this case. Parts of our system were intentionally reformed to channel funds into the market, knowing full well that there was nowhere near enough demand for credit to soak up the surplus savings, nowhere near enough reliable debtors to generate a reasonable return of investment without generating bubbles, be it real estate or financial. They were looking for debtors, and if all it took was turning a blind eye to the painfully obvious longterm problems it would create in Southern Europe, they were more than eager to play along.

So, you can't argue against my points, so you change your argument?
You said we are sliding into socialism...I showed you that's wrong and now you say 'sliding to more government' is the same thing. They are not.

You are listening to talking heads. The republicans may promise to 'undo what was done' but in reality they don't do that (they don't really even try, they just try to look like they are, how many 'votes' to 'repeal' the ACA?) but instead increase their control at every turn.

1) Wow! A point we agree on!
2) Um...so you want to say the minimal wall street regulations were 'screwing corporations' and removing them is 'unscrewing them'? Well, lets just leave it at 'I totally disagree' that going back to reasonable rules (rules the republicans removed before, causing the insanity in the market for 25 years) is 'screwing business', it's forcing business to not screw everyone else by fraud.
3) If the government IS in charge of the program (and it is, because states failed miserably to do it themselves) there should be reasonable 'rules' on how to do it. Those 'rules' in this case should be determined by nutritionists, not politicians. Catchup is not a vegetable. It's really just one more swipe at the Obamas for no logical reason in my eyes.
4) It's hilarious that when it's for something you like, you are all pro-federal power to override the states/local laws, but when it's not (like a federal lunch program) they shouldn't be involved.
Socialism and corporatism are the reverse of each other. I should not have to be the one to teach you that.
We disagree as to which party is running faster towards 'oligarchy'. We disagree because you think Faux actually shows NEWS, but they ONLY have propaganda on Faux, not news, not reporting, only editorializing. Those who watch Faux are consistently less informed than those who watch NOTHING. Repeatedly proven fact.

Both parties have failed, so you think we should go for the crazed, farther right splinter party...you know the Naz....oh...sorry...I got confused....teabagger party. They might not all be lynching nuts, but most certainly are. I've seen and talked to them, and walked through rallies. It's not a myth.
Because they were not registered republicans does not make them either democrat or independent, most of them just think the republicans don't go far enough to the right...kind of like a certain German party from the 30's I can mention.

EDIT: I guess since it's OK for the republicans to off hand legislate against the known wishes and vote of the people because they 'control the laws in DC', you would have no problem with Obama using executive powers to bypass congress and to line veto the budget to remove all the superfluous BS the republicans added to it? The president has that power and can executive order and line item veto all day long...but you would be having a fit if he did, no?

As you wrote " As has been mentioned above, you must simply have no idea what socialism is if you think America is even headed in that direction, we're headed the other way buddy" shows your lack of understanding of political systems.

You can 100% government control on 1 side and 0 government power at the other end

At the 100% you would have labels such as Communism
Socialism,Fascism and such. At 0 would be Anarchy


Our government is in the middle but sliding towards more and more government control and morphing into some for of Oligarchy by buying votes via socialist programs promised by the left.
Then the pudendum swing back and the republicans buy votes by promising to "undue" what the left has done.

Either way the people loose because nothing get totally undone. More and more government control ensues.



1 Yes I would like there to be ZERO dollars donations by corporations and people. Since the government owns public airways and grants them via FCC, hence ABC, CBS, NBC etc let these station allot public time for equal debate for ALL parties and persons. TAKE the money out of politics.

2 I do agree what you indicated by the Republicans and did this week was reprehensible. A passing a trillion + bill and and worse the extra "shit" to help banks and such. But to be fair to republicans , Democrats over screw corporations and republicans attempt to unscrew them.

3 school lunches - Government should not be in regulating school lunch- it should be a local thing. Republicans are just undoing Michelle Obama failed school lunch program. Just more finger pointing points for bloggers to use.

4 Federal government controls the laws in DC Its their little kingdom. They can re ban pot all day long.

Generally speaking there are 5 types of government:
Monarchy - rule by one - never truly exits
Oligarchy - ruled by few - most governments today
Democracy- rule by majority - Majority rule is a failed system.
Republic- rule by law - Law limits Government powers
Anarchy - every man for himself- Always short lived due to power vacuum.


You say " America is sliding away from socialism, and into corporatism" Well they are basically neighbors in the political spectrum which would be some form of Oligarchy. Neither necessary serve the people freely.


Both Democrats and Republicans are sliding headlong towards Oligarchy. One party is just trying to get there quicker than the other party.


Both parities have utterly failed its people. There is only 1 party that desires to steer this country back towards a Republic and that is the TEA party. They get stronger and stronger every time their party fail its constituents. Were not all right wing lynching nuts. That's just a myth promoted by left wing media to color you thinking to stay on the Democrat plantation.
Truth of the matter is that four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents. Go to a rally and see for you self.

It's refreshing for them to admit that they are ultimately useless for protecting anyone - in that they only show up after the fact and can't undo whatever harm anyone has suffered.

There's a statistic : 'the typical person on average commits 3 felonies per day' (on account of the sheer volume of laws. approaching 10'000 in any given area you stand, between federal, state, county, and city).

Anyone can be arrested any day, if someone simply decides to watch them and make a good accounting of all of their activities. On an even more basic level, 99/100 cars on the road are speeding at any given time, and writing tickets is their bread and butter.

They know the law is a joke, and they know what they're there for. So yeah, these guys are about the most honest bunch yet. Not bad at all (video wise).

-scheherazade

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/29/justice-probation-contracts-private-companies

As if the privatisation of probation services wasn't horrible enough, the contracts include this little gimmick:

The Commons public accounts committee has established that the contracts included a £300m plus “poison pill” clause guaranteeing bidders their expected profits if the 10-year contracts were cancelled after the general election.

Hi, I'm a long time lurker. I happened to see an interesting 'Videosift lounge' -link in the top of the page yesterday, clicked it, and found out that the site has a chat lounge, which is quite nice!

I wound up chatting with @eric3579, and found out that the chat had been enabled for everyone just a few months ago. We got to talking about how hard it can be for a first time user to find out more information about what VideoSift is, and how it actually works.

I had seen this thread a couple of weeks ago, when I first time tried to find out some extra info on the site. I skimmed @Zawash's great post through for some info (on what power points can be used for etc.) - I didn't find the link to the FAQ then, I found the FAQ-link just today.. as it never occured to me to look for the link at the very bottom of the page, but from the top menu navigation bar instead.

I sketched that above linked image as we chatted, and now I just noticed that @dotdude had suggested just that idea already above. The sketch's question mark and font color is not as cool as the real design is, but in anycase, I too think that something of that sort would be more noticeable/clear place for FAQ/Help for the new people?

Do you guys think that to make this happen, we could perhaps cut the task in to two? One for the mighty Admins, and one for the helpful, interested parties in this talk thread? Admins would create cool graphics and code the link for the help menu, and the layout views for a sectioned help text, and then another task for all the long time pro sifters, in creating all that text for those help sections? A bit like @Zawash has done here?

Could that work be done in anonymous google document (does require Google-account (I think, maybe, note sure if it even requires that), but editing and commenting on the document doesn't reveal identity in any case)?

If there are helpful and knowledgeable people, perhaps this document could be used for the work of creating a good help section and updated FAQ?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hB-bGN9QJ0Wgu7_-jH22eHG3HYJ9_Oj4hG9EWsorNgE/edit?usp=sharing

I'm going to currently just copy all the material from the FAQ in there, and edit it to look nice and clear, and then separate 'Help/instructions' sort of stuff in to another section, and leave only actual basic Questions in the FAQ-section. Anyone's free to help and contribute! And if you come up with a better way of organizing everything, or want to write a completely new section, just use the document and do it!

I'm a total newb when it comes to anything related to actually using this site and its features (only submitted a couple of videos), so I think I'm underqualified for doing this by myself, so I sure hope you guys could help!

Just hop on in to the document and start doing useful stuff when ever!
Don't worry about accidentally doing anything, there's a complete undo feature in Google Docs, and each edit revision is saved as its own version, so if someone decides to vandalize (I heavily doubt anyone would do such a thing!) this, I can get the last good version back, and then put on restrictions on to who can edit etc. But, I'll do those things only if there is a need for that, let's keep the document super easily accessible and commentable for now!

Thanks!

(BTW. I really appreciate all the effort of the Admins and sifters have put in to the site over the years! I believe that there's quite a few other people besides me, who mostly just lurk around, and do not contribute much to the site actively.
That reluctance to participate might of course be due to us lurkers being like we are, but also it could heavily be related to the way in which it's a bit hard to find out about how stuff works currently..)

I'm trying to figure out what happened to that guy's account.

What was the reason for invoking ban on the video? Was it just because his account is banned? And why follow up with the discard?

I'm going to undo both of those things pending further investigation.

I must say, I did not expect that much Dinklage. Looks promising. Comic books have a proud tradition of retcon, good they're trying to undo the franchise suicide note that was X-Men 3.

The ability to scientifically detail a painting does not diminish its meaning, nor does it "negate" the painter. What science does show, however, is whether the piece is genuine or fake; that given enough time and investigation, events can be explained. Maybe science will, one day, discover that there is a "meaning," maybe that there is a "creator." And, maybe, they will also discover that "god" is a totally natural phenomenon. Education, searching for the truth, and willingness to accept evidence only when that evidence has been tested, re-tested, then tested again, these are the keys to our future. Science does not say; "We don't know, therefore we believe it was god." Apparently we ate from the tree of knowledge and were cast out. Maybe that was gods undoing or, maybe, it was his intention that we should use that knowledge. That's a lot of maybes, but as time goes on we are getting closer to the "truth." And, whatever that is, I suspect it will surprise us all.