tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post7572583065847281111..comments2023-07-17T11:55:51.363+02:00Comments on ObservingGreece: Chile as a possible example for Greece?kleinguthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12491174042954678023noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-11117409221581848312012-08-22T11:55:41.161+02:002012-08-22T11:55:41.161+02:00@CK
There are indications, even proves that peopl...@CK <br />There are indications, even proves that people, individually, society as a synolon,quality of political dialoque-system and antilipsis about what is bad plus old fashioned "mindset", is a reality.<br />But people change AND understand the situation.<br />And if you understand the problem, is matter of time to be solved Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-48859396207904915612012-08-22T08:20:26.262+02:002012-08-22T08:20:26.262+02:00Countries do not have a 'mindset'. People ...Countries do not have a 'mindset'. People do. What is perceived as country 'mindset' has to do with the government and what it enforces or tolerates. For instance the Simitis logic "if someone has evidence, let him go to the district attorney". Which means if you know someone who is<br /> cheating the state for instance, it's your job asa citizen to go after him at your time, money and risk(since greek courts routinely rule that pigs can fly) and not the job of the minister and his staff who have sworn and are well-paid to look after the country's interests(as well as having immunity and police protection). What you see as 'ottoman administrative practices' has to do with the government, not some mentality. You may say the government is elected, but it's always a choice of very closely matched evils.<br /><br />As for CHile: Free markets bringing about a free society? I think time(and Pinochet's retirement due to age, just as Franco's death) brings change. No different than the Soviet Union.<br />Privatization for acquiring know-how is a baffling concept to me. Know how of how to run a business? We are not talking about building nuclear weapons here. Lots of people could do that without being schooled(Onasis for example).<br /><br />"They established the rules of the game within which the private sector could operate competitively and fairly"<br /><br />And in the case in hand in Greece that would be<br /><br />-state intervening to change existing private contracts<br />-state intervening to change employer-employee agreements<br />-state intervening to change existing contracts with citizens(e.g. solar energy producers) whom it had encouraged to invest (some had actually borrowed to do so)<br /><br />just so it can go on paying good salaries to<br /><br />- judges who rule that pigs can fly, prosecutors who release arrested fugitives on thegrounds that they are not suspect of fleeing<br />-correction officers judging that convicted murderers serving life sentences should get a second furlough although they had never returned from the first one<br />-ministries violating their wone (and troikas rules) to appoint corrupt people whith connections<br />-the political elite who takes no hit for the mess the country is in<br /><br />as well as spend 15mil plus donnate government land to build a mosque (and of course the same for every other religion) and pay a mufti for eternity?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-60185356996587437072012-08-22T07:36:02.636+02:002012-08-22T07:36:02.636+02:00Herr Kastner.
This was a very interesting article,...Herr Kastner.<br />This was a very interesting article, thankyou.<br /><br />You say "people, as human beings, have a desire to develop some form of personal and individual worth"<br /><br />Cultures across the world are very different. I too have lived in different parts of the world, and understand this as well as anyone can. The issue you raise is not an easy one to answer, whilst what you say is true, each culture will do it in its own manner. <br /><br />The fundamental "mechanics" of economy are just that, mechanics. Physical commodities, industry and so-on. What makes countries different is the way they go about dealing with these things. In each case it is different. You know well enough that to speak English, you have to think in English - and the same goes for German. You cannot think in German and speak good English. The different styles of thinking are fundamental, and lead to (or from) different cultures. <br /><br />You say "They freed the economy of excessive rules and regulations but made sure that there was an overall regulatory structure in place."<br /><br />What I mean to say in this disorganized comment is that whilst people have individuality, they do it as a Greek, Chilean or Brit. They do it within their culture. Whilst American culture is markedly different from Chilean culture, the regulation of economic mechanics should be much the same in each case. Gemmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01544898113676166032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-30624315029394876892012-08-22T02:35:30.247+02:002012-08-22T02:35:30.247+02:00The three big copper mines nationalised under Camp...The three big copper mines nationalised under Campo & then Allende, were Chuquicamata, El Salvador, and El Teniente. They were owned by Anaconda Mining and Kennecott Copper Corporation, both were US corporations at the time. Anaconda was part of the Rockefeller empire, and the Guggenheim's had a major slice of the Kennecott pie. <br /><br />Today those mines are owned by CODELCO, the worlds biggest copper miner - CODELCO is an Chilean SOE. I find it ironic that the free-enterpise heros - Pinochet & The Chicago Boys - failed to de-nationalise CODELCO. Could it be they knew they were onto a good thing, in other words who was buttering their bread. Same could be said of their successors of course. Post Pinochet Chile set up a couple of SWF's based on the Norwegian model.<br /><br />The overthrow of Mossadeq (1953) and Sukarno (1970) were precursors to what happened to Allende in 1973. Lets not quibble about which label they carried - Marxist, Troskyite or Maoist - they were all left wing nationalists. Mossadeq was elected, Sukarno wasn't but his NASAKOM brand confected from NASionalisme + Agama ('religion') + KOMunisme.<br /><br />As well as mineral resources Chile has other things that Greece does not have, like its own sovereign currency, and its political independence. <br /><br />Under Pinochet the peso was either pegged to the US$ or allowed to float within a narrow band. It was almost a decade (1999) after Pinochet left office when it was finally deregulated and allowed to float free. Much (most ?) of the structural de-regulation in Chile also occurred post Pinochet. This includes the crackdown on the cartels, which existed before Allende took office and were thriving when Pinochet left office - Allende wanted to nationalise them.<br /><br />Tourists are fickle, "Let's give Greece a miss, Morocco looks nice, and Croatia has some good deals". House builders don't care where there copper pipes are mined, but tourists do care about uncollected garbage, beggars, pickpockets, getting ripped off and riots. <br /><br />Without those mineral resources Chile would probably be more like Uruguay. Although UY is another Latin country Greece could emulate, its GDP PPP is not much lower than Chile, its unemployment is about the same < 7%, although its currency is a bit of a problem. Greece may have more in common with UY than CL, in that its economy is not dominated by non-renewable resources.<br /><br />If Greece was an independent state then there are many countries that it might might look towards for ideas, including its immediate neighbour Turkey. But whilst ever it's under "EU House Arrest" it will falter. <br /><br />Greece does not have the mindset of a 'European Union state', it has the mindset of a former colony of the Ottoman Empire. Let's not forget that most the Ottoman administrative practices were 'inherited' from the Byzantine Greeks. <br /><br />CKCanutely Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07318977471631386327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-82750182617250336942012-08-22T01:29:00.051+02:002012-08-22T01:29:00.051+02:00Klaus every case is different depending how people...Klaus every case is different depending how people of each society understand or perceive themselves under different influences during time, experiences,important facts, historical memories etc. <br />Also take into consideration, sociologically, the human development, the progress, the enlightment years for each country understand the antilipsis of ours what should be the road to ideal society.This is the one aspect.<br />Close to all these "influences" there are for me some general "rules" which every society approach them with different sentiment,mentality, saying a different truth about eg responsibilities of citizen, duties of citizen etc. This truth is related with the first aspect.<br />For example when Greece gain idependance the first governor Kapodistrias decided to bring potato and make people to start cultivation. But no one have the indention to do that!<br />Kapodistrias then bring potatos in a public place to be seen from most people and put many guards to "watch them".<br />The following days potatos disapeared!<br />Before some days after tax checks in an popular island some people attacked against state, police etc ! <br />The point? The different perception, the different progress or mentallity are the decisive factors and to what extend? Hard to say.<br />Different example, before days a Greek unemployed man found 10k and gave it back.<br />I count 3 or 4 same facts in the news last months.<br />So my point is that people have motives and talents, weaknesses and arogance many seek materialistic thinks others spiritual but in our case the ideal society is not builded upon the same mentality with other countries. Impulsively,trivially not better but differently.<br />About Arnie, trully i don't know the % of talent, smart, luck or need for something different in Hollywood. Might be all of them. I don't know about character, values, no brains, brains, become part of elite, upgrade socially etc<br />But the question for me is not if he could accomplish in Austria(its difficult for practical reasons, market publicity, marketing)what made in US but if he is in an aspect "a fair character"<br />I have read (don't know if truth) he made several mil $ donation to birthplace. Maybe for tax reasons? Don't know.<br />He could not.<br />So my point is the " good character" which everyone diffently understand it, should make a better society not probably ideal evaluating and balancing fairly the need for materialistic things and spiritual.<br />And he always will make mistakes.<br />So is hard -for us- to help develop talents to fullest and only that.<br />It would be great to change from bad mentalities which are sometimes amusing but with cost.We have not same representations but we have the potential to change many!<br /><br />PS: Kapodistrias was killed!<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-13661708197210184822012-08-21T23:05:33.660+02:002012-08-21T23:05:33.660+02:00Yes, every case is different but please allow me t...Yes, every case is different but please allow me to say, having lived in 8 countries and in 3 totally different cultures (in addition to my wife's Greek culture) that people are more or less the same all over. <br /><br />My experience would suggest that people, as human beings, have a desire to develop some form of personal and individual worth. Some people strive to reach that objective through materialistic things, others through spiritual things; but it's still the same objective.<br /><br />The ideal society, in my view, is the society which allows each and every individual to develop his/her own talents to the fullest extent, in whatever way. The not-so-ideal society is the one which limits its members in doing that.<br /><br />When I speak in Austria about Arnold Schwarzenegger's phenomenal career, I often get as a response: "Ok, but that could happen only in America, in the land of unlimited opportunties". My response to that is: "Shouldn't it be the primary objective of EVERY society to provide unlimited opportunities to its members?" That's generally a discussion-stopper.<br /><br />I feel confident to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger, had he stayed in Austria, would have had a career as a small town policeman; perhaps as a construction worker; perhaps even as a construction supervisor. But no more than that. Why? Because, in the value structure of Austrian society then, "he only had muscles but no brains, and no education". That is how Austrians viewed Schwarzenegger for a long time.<br /><br />After he married a Kennedy, he became a somewhat "civilized person" in the minds of Austrians. Once he became governor of California, the President of Austria, a sophisticated diplomat by training and a member of Austria's elite, was just so happy to receive as his visitor "my good friend Arnie".<br /><br />No one ever in Austria ever seriously asked the question why Arnold Schwarzenegger could not have accomplished anything similar in his home country. kleinguthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12491174042954678023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-38812479275568301432012-08-21T21:21:35.557+02:002012-08-21T21:21:35.557+02:00Every case is different, Klaus.
http://www.bankof...Every case is different, Klaus.<br /><br />http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/en/Bank/News/PressReleases/DispItem.aspx?Item_ID=4033&List_ID=1af869f3-57fb-4de6-b9ae-bdfd83c66c95&Filter_by=DT<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com