Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2011

Italy: Too big to fail;Too big to bail!

Another week of European drama - only difference from last week that center stage moved from Athens to Rome. The economic crisis cost one more powerful prime minister his job (don't feel sorry for Silvio Berlusconi  since he had 3 years to fix Italy's problems)  With crisis finally moving from PIG (Portugal, Ireland, Greece) to PIIGS (with addition of Italy and Spain), Euro has reached cross-roads. Both Italy and Spain are "too big to fail and too big to bail". This means both these countries need to fix their problems on their own with some support from ECB. Germany/France cannot bail Italy/Spain otherwise they risk getting engulfed by crisis themselves. Already France is at brink of losing its prized AAA rating. European politicians are at least taking steps by installing technocrats like Mario Monti in Italy as prime minister. Since he is short-term prime minister, he has nothing to lose. He should convert crisis into opportunity and forcefully move in freeing up

Democracy, Drama and Tragedy: Greek Origins!

Watching last weeks events in Greece, I was curious to find out origins of following three words and to my amusement all of these three words have Greek origins. Democracy -  δημοκρατία  – ( dēmokratía ) "rule of the people Drama -  Classical Greek :  δρᾶμα ,  drama Tragedy -  ( Ancient Greek :  τραγῳδία ,  tragōidia , " the - goat - song " [1] ) is a form of  art  based on human  suffering  that offers its audience pleasure No wonder these three words represent what is happening in Greece in particular and in Europe in larger context. It all started when Greece joined Eurozone in 2001 by falsifying its government debts and lost control of its financial destiny. While people of Greece benefited in last 10 years by joining the Euro club, they started living lavishly without paying proper dues which comes with this membership. Finally in started catching up with them in 2009 and continue to muddle thru one crisis after another. Eurozone being motley crew of 17 nations