Peter's Viewpoint

The current trend in Greece is to change the social network environment from devious and tax evasion to a people that are socially considerate about the needs of the country, one of the previous politicians bluntly declared the acceptance of a bribe by the Siemens.

Mr. T. Mantelis a former minister under the political party of Mr. Simitis declared his acceptance of bribery in the most contemptuous of ways, saying that what he accepted as a deposit into his Swiss bank account was a political donation to help cover the political expenses during his campaign.  Not only did he not declare the money back then, but he also claims that he did not know who deposited 450,000 Euros into his account.

While the people of Greece know that the majority of the political leaders from all of the parties are corrupt, it is the people that are paying the debts that were created by others as they would say “plironoun ta spasmena tou allinou” in Greek.

The saddest and most significantly obvious psychological parameter of all of this is that the corrupt politicians have trained themselves into believing that they are morally correct and that the illegal payments that they have received are justly due to them for the work that they perform.

At the same time, the German international company Siemens, that has been brought to court in Germany and has received nothing more than a smack on the hand for bribery charges of government officials in Greece and abroad, has been betrayed by the blunder of Mr. T. Mantelis.  His confession will now re-open the case against Siemens by the Greek government.

It is time for the current government to prove it’s worthiness to the people of Greece.

Prosecute and punish Mr. T. Mantelis now!

Then continue to weed out all of the others without regard to which party they belong to.

I personally believe that all of the politicians and their staff should undergo polygraph tests and that no politicians should have accounts in banks outside of Greece.

Who are those responsible for the destruction of earth’s natural resources?

Oil and electric companies place the blame on the consumer.  After all while the profit in the billions giving us the gas, oil, and electricity to make our lives more comfortable, they keep the economy going through production.

History is supposed to teach us that we should not repeat the same mistakes of the past but it appears that the energy companies may have construed that to mean not having a sinking ship destroy the coastline.  We as consumers began the campaign to reduce the use of oil and electricity back in the 70’s when we were awakened by the blackmail of the same companies.  Then the Valdez came to remind us again that we should be more conservative and respectful in the use of energy.  We may have managed to decrease the usage but then we were victimized by the vicious circle of the auto companies offering super powered larger cars with engines that increased the consumption of oil and gas, coalesced with air conditioning that spread world wide requiring enormous amounts of electricity.

Solar energy is now available but we are still not seeing the technology used as much as it can to develop an entire industry that can increase jobs while at the same time reduce demands on energy.

In Greece, the electric company has finally created a solution that is totally in their favor.  The government and the government owned electric company have delayed the use of solar energy until now.  The reason being is that they designed their business plan so that the consumer will fund the investment that will provide the government with the opportunity to resell the energy to northern European countries.

With an investment of starting at 20,000 Euros and a payback period of 10 to 20 years, the consumer is NOT allowed to use the photovoltaic energy that is generated from the solar cells and power regulators that will be installed on their homes nor is the amount to be offset against the energy bill.  Instead consumers are required to continue to pay their electric bills and wait for their money and return on investment that the electric company will pay based on a price that is set by the electric company.  In addition to that, they suggest that the consumer use a loan from a bank and they do not indicate what if any tax deductions will be made or whether income tax will be paid by the consumer.

So we have to ask ourselves, is it really their fault or ours?

Damned is we do, damned if we don’t.

Living in the limbo of European decision makers gives one a wide perspective to the realities of world economics.

The current unpleasant financial environment that both the American and European people undergo everyday proves that the simplistic thoughts of our fore fathers are essentially similar to that of a classical Greek saying “Pan Metron Ariston” which basically translates to “everything in moderation”.

From the massive rush into globalization that opened the locks of the canal to the east without regulation, to the pedagogy of illiteracy, have provoked undesired social consequences of the loss of work to people world wide in the areas of services and manufacturing.  As a result, the instability of the western countries became the hornet’s nest of the financial players in the category of extremist capitalists to play the tables of fortunes with the livelihoods of millions at stake.

Even while Mr. Obama and Mr. Bernanke attempt to stabilize a destabilized market; their efforts are hindered by the multitude of ongoing parameters that have the effect of walking on a pane of glass that cracks with every step that they take.

The EU at the same time has failed because they did not take the steps necessary to build their internal market and structure the basic market functions in the same manner that exists in the United States.  The exportation of manufacturing and services to countries outside of Europe forces Europeans to increase their importation of products and services to disseminate money externally.

From a micro economic perspective to the whole of Europe, the events that led Greece to it’s dysfunctional state of affairs are now the basis for the creation of solutions that continue to fail in lieu of the high trends of importation combined with minimal exportation of goods and services, and should not be continued if the country wishes to reduce the need to borrow from foreign sources because it cannot offset monetary needs.

One possible solution in the past would have been to assess high import taxes on all goods and services that are produced outside the American and European continents, however as most manufacturing is now devoid due to outsourcing that would be undesirable to the general market.  The efforts to increase cash flow by the countries of Europe through increased direct taxation on the sale of goods and services may become directly responsible for the domino effect due to the lack of morals, geopolitics and political ideology as ingredients that were prerequisites to Keynesian theories of the previous century.

The foreboding and undesirable thoughts of bankruptcy in the near future will become reality show of punishment.

Failure of the market's self-healing power