Actually, it seems to be dropping, according to Booker, but at last there does seem to be some recognition that Greece's problems with the euro is by far the most serious crisis that the great European "project" has ever faced.

Unlike me, Booker watches the idiots' lantern occasionally, and observes that, as their sad, bewildered faces show whenever they appear on our screens, the EU's leaders have nowhere to turn. The "colleagues" cannot afford to allow Greece to fall out of their beloved euro, which might trigger an international currency crisis, the consequences of which no one can calculate.

View full article here

Am I being stupid or something?
As I understand it, GDP includes internal sales such as services.
This I think would be analogous to borrowing money based on sales I'd made to myself!
Tell me where I'm wrong please, I'd really like to be wrong.

It also seens that I have not ordered enough effin piano wire for us to dangle these total tossers up - Idea's are welcome

Standard & Poors has stated it as clearly as can be:



So has Fitch: As Greece faces an unpopular vote on Tuesday over even more unpopular austerity measures, Fitch Ratings kept up the pressure by saying that it would regard a voluntary rollover of bond maturities as a default and cut the country's credit rating accordingly.

And Moody's hinted the same a month ago: "A Greek default could take many forms, including a "re-profiling" and large-scale voluntary debt buybacks at high discounts, the ratings company said."

Despite this the Eurozone leaders keep prattling on about voluntary restructuring of private debt, which will avoid a Greek default.

Now if the rating agencies worry about the fact that a voluntary roll-over in this case would in fact be "voluntary" the events at the recent European council meeting showed that they are right to do so.

ECB board member Bruno Smaghi first invoked both the Maastrich treaty and Sir Thomas Moore to explain why he would not step down on the orders of Berlusconi and Sarkozy, but then a day later he was said to have "voluntarily" called up van Rumpoy and assured the latter that he would not remain on the board until the end of his term.

And, yes, in the minutes from the Council* meeting it is stated that before a second crisis package will be agreed on, Greece must undertake to show that it will get voluntary assistance from private lending institutions.

Will that be more or less voluntary than the turkeys volunteering for Christmas dinner?

PS: Some private investors are not volunteering. According to rumours out of Switzerland the Swiss banks have almost run out of bank deposit box space. (See blog
Golem XIV - Thoughts.)

*Relying on quote from Swedish newspaper. The meeting minutes are presently not available on the EU site. (Quelle surprise!)

yes dave, camoron and his super rich cabinet like to think we are
Every bomb in Libya,and every £ of foreign aid and every first class travel junket, all on borrowed money.

As many others surely must have done, I often compare this country (a large extended household) with your average working/middle-class family entity.
If that average family were facing the present & future economic situation which this country does, the wife would long since have gone back to mother with the children & the husband would have already purchased a long-enough piece of garden hose to reach from his car's exhaust to its interior.
He could, of course, be better employed acquiring weapons & constructing Molotov Cocktails.

Well now so China is going to bail out Greece inter alia. Now hasn't the Chinese government just blocked a deal to sell some Airbusses to China's national carrier because of that fool Connie Hedegaard because of the climate change levey imposed on airlines from outside of the EU. And she stated that EU makes the rules and all the world must follow right after the chairman of Airbus went to lobby against its introduction. Boy would I have liked to be a fly on the wall at those talks. Do you think she ---- horrible thought---- got on her knees. To the Chinese of course -- you didn't think it would be to anyone who made anything.

Still I think it is well worth reviewing:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlkLhVo3 ... re=related