How sick is Europe?
Watch last night’s 60 Minutes. It contained:
Ten European countries are in recession. Greece is the worst.
The Greek unemployment rate now stands at 21 percent, and the economy is shrinking at the rate of eight percent. There are bread lines in Athens, and in the central markets, more people are looking, than actually buying.
Steve Kroft: How’s your business?
Fish Monger: Seventy percent down. Right now everything is very difficult and I don’t think we’ve even started to see the beginning of the bad times. People don’t have the money to buy anything. The situation is very bad.
Yanis Varoufakis: ….We are now going through what the United States of America went between 1929 and 1932. Only, we are part of a currency union which was never designed to sustain such a crisis.
In the past, if Greece found its accounts overdrawn, the country simply printed more money or devalued its currency to accommodate the relaxed Greek lifestyle. That’s no longer possible. With the drachma replaced by the euro, Greeks must now march to the tune of German bankers. And they have not shied away from expressing their displeasure.
The U.S. will also be hurt, according to 60 Minutes, since we’re Europe’s largest trading partner.
Personally, I think Europe’s doom and gloom is being overplayed. Some banks will lose money, just as I have on certain dumb investments in the past few years.
The story of Europe’s indulgence paid for by borrowings that can’t now be repaid makes a good story for 60 Minutes. For the entire doom and gloom segment, click here.
For me, my story is simple: I figured weekend bed rest would do it. No way.My horrid cold is not going away by itself.
I need to waste Medicare’s money, visit a doctor this morning and get a prescripition for antibiotics, even though the antibiotic pills won’t do any good.
This is a two week cold.The only joy is complaining.
See you tomorrow.
Harry Newton who doesn’t like the look of today’s futures but likes the color of what’s coughing up even less.
Kristin, 3X half a teaspoon of baking soda sounds like an enormous amount of sodium. Just saying.
Good luck with the cold, Harry.
I hope the sad, but predictable story of Europe lead by Greece, makes it clear why that socialistic course of action, in-action?, is not one the United States wants to follow. We're near the tipping point where government dependent folks, from those on welfare to the crony capitalists, will make it all, but impossible to back away from. And the debt risk at all levels, federal, state, municipal, here is already well past the danger point. Success is no accident, nor is failure.
Harry…as you know, my husband survived a bout with a 5%-chance-of-living throat cancer – and since then, we have been very careful about him getting colds. Five years in, he finally got one when we were at a family gathering. As the sore throat part started, I suggested he try some baking soda (not powder) in some water. He tried it – a half teaspoon in a half glass of water. It was so helpful – soothing – that he kept it up, 3x a day, during the course of the cold. I would estimate that it reduced his symptoms by about 80%. It changes the pH level in your body; so much illness comes from too much acidity, which is the norm in our sugar-intensive culture (sugar = acidic). You might want to give this a try. He had no other medicines and got through the cold much better than he would have otherwise.