Especially for smaller peripheral countries like Greece. Euro is way too expensive.
Our main sources of income is tourism and shipping. Both of them, and especially tourism, has been seriously undermined... prices in Greece are way higher than in Saudi Arabia or the vast majority of non-EU countries. Turkey, Croatia etc. are way cheaper.
Our trade balance will always be in the red: we export olive oil and BS like that, and we import Mercentes and everything.
The only sector who likes the expensive Euro and the ultra low rates is the banking... but it hardly produces any real growth.
Now we are gonna have an internal devaluation; thus becoming "more competitive". This will mean two things: transfer of debt from public to private (heavy taxation, closing down of small businesses, bankruptcies etc.) and foreign capital taking over local businesses for pennies.
We all have sources that we trust more than others. Some of my trusted people when reading about Haiti are Noam Chomski, Howard Zinn, William Blum, Eduardo Galeano, Paul Farmer. Here is a website with links to their articles and books on Haiti:
I'm sorry, I trust (the late) Howard Zinn much more than about.com. Here is what he said in a recent interview:
Haiti is one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. foreign policy because Haiti is a neighbor (as is Cuba, where a similar relationship has persisted) and we have treated Haiti with cruelty all through our history. When it became the first independent black Republic in this hemisphere, defeating the Napoleonic army, the administration of Thomas Jefferson (ironically, author of our Declaration of Independence) refused to recognize it.
And in the early 20th century, repeated Marine excursions to put down rebellions, and in 1916, the supposed "idealist" and proclaimer of "self-determination" Woodrow Wilson sent an occupation army, killing several thousand Haitians who would not accept our rule. The occupation lasted eighteen years.
And since then, as you note, support of the Duvalier dictatorship. And hostility to Aristide the first democratically elected president. And for some time now, strangling Haiti economically, and ruining its rice crop for the benefit of U.S. exporters. If we weren't spending hundreds of billions on stupid wars, we could have made much of Port-Au-Prince less vulnerable to natural disasters.
pierrot_le_fou Forum Posts (582)
and women love romance 
RE: The Person Below Me
Definite plans for NovemberTPBM is in love with Boban