R.P. Barr

Winning ticket

Last week, we had another example of how hard work and diligence pays off. I have been buying lottery tickets with some regularity for the past forty years. When I started, I was not winning a mere million dollars each time. But, I did not give up, I stayed with it and last week, I didn’t win $654 million. I feel proud.

Every time the pot gets big, the media trot out economists and the like to talk about the terrible odds, and how buying the tickets is futile effort, and a waste of money. I disagree. Sure, I have probably spent between one and two thousand dollars over the past forty years, and if you could show me any $2,000 purchase that I could pay off at a dollar a week, I might agree that I could have spent it more wisely.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the odds. The way I see it, either I win or somebody else does. That’s not a million to one, it’s 50/50. Admittedly, Somebody Else is on a hot streak, but how long can it last? Million to one shots come in every day. Sometimes they’re good things, sometimes not. We’ve all experienced them. Why not the lottery? The only absolutely sure thing is that if I don’t buy a ticket, I won’t win.

Seriously, buying a lottery ticket is a whole lot cheaper than professional therapy. I don’t look at the tickets right away. I wait weeks or even months. As long as I have a ticket in my pocket, I could be a millionaire. That thought has gotten me through a lot of rough spots. Instead of dwelling on the misfortune I’m in, I think about what I’ll do if the ticket has the right numbers. It’s easier to keep plugging away with that siren’s song folded in my wallet.

Then, some day when my spirits are high, I look up the numbers, and don’t mind so much that none of the tickets I’ve saved have won. The people who bet the rent money are the ones for whom the lottery is a bad investment. I’m not investing. I’m buying a wisp of hope, and it’s a good deal.

The Monster We Made

[reference: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120224/D9T3O0MO0.html]

How did American private equity firms cause dozens of people in India to commit suicide?  To be fair, it wasn’t entirely their fault.  Like the roadhouse on the highway is not responsible for the accidents caused by drunks leaving their parking lot.

Here is what happened.  In the 1970’s, Bangladesh was, and probably still is, the most impoverished country on the planet.  A Bangladeshi economist named  Muhammed Yunus had an idea.  Working from the principle that poor people cannot get credit, he would—from his own pocket—make small loans to poor women (because men are more likely to waste the money).  When they paid back the money, he would roll it over into loans to others.  He had a 100% repayment rate and Yunus formed the Grameen Bank.  Each village would have a board of five women who would decide which applications to approve.  The business grew and Yunus received a Nobel Prize for his creation.  So far, so good.  Bangladeshis helping Bangladeshis.

An Indian alumnus of Tufts University, Yale and the University of Chicago, Vikram Akula took the concept to his own country in 1997, and founded his own microcredit organization, Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS Microfinance), Sanskrit for "self-help society."  Like Grameen, it prospered, doing well by doing good.  So good that in 2005, SKS evolved into a for-profit organization.  His American education paid off.  And, like a good American businessman, in 2010 Akula took SKS public.

If you’ve followed the trends in American business you can already see how this story would end in dozens of suicides.  If not, well, Akula didn’t see it either.

According to the AP article, “Exuberant investors oversubscribed the $350 million offering nearly 14 times. The stock surged more than 10 percent its first day. The company handed out 21,000 watches to employees in celebration.”

Boston-based Sandstone Capital had made a major investment in 2008 and probably saw a public offering as the best way to see a profit.  It was soon joined by Sequoia Capital from Menlo Park, California.  This partnership became the largest shareholder in India’s SKS Microfinance.  Vikram Akula resigned as chief executive, but stayed on as chairman of the board.

Across South Asia, thousands of people kill themselves every year because of insurmountable debt and poverty.  Grameen and SKS were created to provide a way out.  But, the management philosophies of investment firms in the air-conditioned comfort of Menlo Park and Boston, believe that growing the numbers in corporate ledgers is the goal of all business.

SKS began to market loans to impoverished Indians without concern for their ability to repay.  Agents were given incentive prizes that could exceed 10 times their annual wage.  SKS had 6.8 million borrowers in a 100,000 villages, and loaned $3.2 billion. SKS began bundling loans and moving them off their books by selling them to investors.  Does this pattern sound familiar?

 Then, when the borrowers defaulted, agents began a system of horrific harrassment: seizing household utensils, ordering mothers to sell their daughters into prostitution, telling other loan applicants that they could not get loans until this named person repaid his/her loan, setting up demonstrations in front of borrower’s homes.  Women began drinking pesticides and drowning themselves: one in a pond, another in a well.  44 recorded cases so far.

In November 2011, Vikram Akula resigned from SKS Microfinance.

You might argue that business never was about morality, but it used to be more local, and more focused on the idea that getting ahead means providing products that fill a need and responsible service.  If a merchant was perceived as abusing his neighbors, he faced the opprobrium of the community.  In today’s world of long-distance capitalism, there are no neighbors, and those who are victimized often have no recourse.  The only answer is for government regulators to keep businesses honest and responsible.  Unions also have a roll in counter-balancing greed-soaked schemes.  But, the bean-counters are winning, profitting from failure, and women are drinking pesticide.

 

Romney's Job Creators

Last week, Sears announced the closing of 120 Sears and K-Mart stores.  (Sears owns K-Mart.)  As part of the NPR report on this news, a retail expert pointed out that when Wal-Mart and Target had invested in renovating their stores, improving the lighting and layout, etc. The hedge fund that owns Sears had used their extra cash to buy up Sears stock in the expectation that a shortage of stock would drive up the price for benefit of those who owned it.  The dingy, dated stores that were left to languish did not attract shoppers.  Sales dropped off until the bean counters decided the best way to show a profit was to cut stores and personnel.

Business owners like that are the “job creators” that Romney and the Republicans want to protect from regulations and taxes.  I mention Romney because he recently proclaimed that he did not want the United States to be like Europe.  Of course, not like the Europe of today.  The direction he’s heading will make the U.S. more like the the Europe of the 15^th Century, with a handful of superrich nobles riding on the backs of the rest of the population.  That’s freedom to Mitt Romney.

Lawrence Lessig wrote Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It, in which he points out that the country is not run by the top 1%, but by the .05% who finance political campaigns.  The question is how the rest of us can take the country back.  The campaign contributers find that putting money in political coffers is a very economical way to get the favorable treatment that keeps them rich.  For Congressional office holders for whom elections have become so expensive that they spend half their time fund raising, the opportunities for extortion that expiring subsidies and regulations create are irresistable.  The lawmakers are not going to change the system.  They’ve legalized corruption.

Don’t look to the Tea Partiers who are more concerned with redefining Christianity as the faith that turns its back on its neighbors and squeezes camels through needle eyes.  The Occupy Wall Streeters have got to get out of their tents, stop complaining and stand for something.  Conservatives love to march in time with each other.  For them, unity is more important than truth—or thought.  Liberals can’t agree on which way to walk in a revolving door.

What to do?  George Bernard Shaw said, “The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.”  It may come to that.  If we keep going in the same direction, and can’t get focused on  political solutions, bad things are bound to happen.

Happy New Year!

 

Occupy This

Having left the Occupy Wall Street folks alone until now, their eviction from parks around the country creates an opportunity to reflect that I would like to address.  Squatting in public places is a good attention getter, but alone, it is not going to accomplish anything.

 Not every opinion spouter offers full disclosure, but I do.  Therefore, I admit that I have not attended a demonstration since 1969, although I did march in a union picket line a few years ago.  And, to be honest, in ’69, I was on the other side as a Military Policeman.

 That perspective inspires my first point.  The police are part of the 99%.  Embrace them.  (Not literally, of course, that could get ugly.) I’ve heard several protestors on the news say things to the effect of “Now I’ve seen a police state.”  That is a bad direction to go.  For centuries, the rich and privileged have pitted groups of the oppressed classes against each other.  When the French peasants stormed the Bastille, they could not have succeeded except for the soldiers who were sent to crush them and instead joined them.

That may be a little too dramatic to expect on American streets, but think of staging a day of protest in defense of first responders—police and fire and EMTs—who have seen their numbers cut, their pay and pensions cut, and who still go out every day, often risking their lives for the rest of us.  Tell the cops that “We’re doing this for you.”  Some won’t appreciate the gesture, but some will.

 The thing to remember is that cops don’t like disorder.  In part, that’s why many of them joined the force—to bring order and sanity to a brutal world.  More than that, every cop knows that losing control of a situation can cost him his life.  And, we’re not being hyperbolic as in, “I got killed in the stock market.”  So, tell the nice policeman what you are planning to do.  Apologize for making him arrest you but explain that you need the publicity to fight the bastard bankers who are screwing with his retirement savings.

 And, remember the Bastille!

 The other lesson to take from the French Revolution is what happened after the Bastille fell.  The Committee of Public Safety couldn’t agree on much except that there were always more heads to cut off.  That chaos led to the rise of Napoleon.

So, the movement needs to coalesce around some basic goals and then do what it takes to achieve them.

Allow me to offer a few:  1) Re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act which was instituted after the Great Depression to prevent a recurrence of financial collapse—and it worked right up until it was repealed.  Bring it back. Get the hot dogs out of banking and make that industry dull and reliable once more.  2)  If you or I went into a bank and took one of their chairs we would be arrested.  Bankers have taken entire houses from people who never missed a payment on their mortgages.  Insist that the Attorney General employ the RICO statute to prosecute the conspiracy surrounding those thefts.  Put the offending bankers and their bosses in prison.  3)  The reason Congress is a mess is because financing for campaigns has become more important than votes.  We need some tough campaign finance reform.  Money is inherently corrupting.  Separate the financing from the politicians.  5)  In line with that, let’s have a Constitutional amendment that defines a person as an individual, biological human being.  Corporations are not people.  They do not have the same rights and privileges.

There you have it.  Treat the police as brothers and sisters, and pursue five simple goals.  Getting there won’t be easy, but forming a community in a city park isn’t easy either. 

 

Our Longage of Expectations

Recently, I was asked my opinion of a podcast conversation.  Since I find that kind of request to be flattering, I took some time to study the podcast transcript.  The two men having the conversation were Chris Martenson and Nat Hagen.  I didn’t know either one, but they seem to be accomplished so we travel in different circles.  Some of their points agreed with a few I had made in earlier posts, so I judged them to be intelligent and insightful.  But, really, it was the concepts new to me that were fascinating.

The whole thing is available at http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-nate-hagens-were-not-facing-shortage-energy-longage-expectations.  And, I recommend it.

 They discussed the economy in terms of oil production and consumption.  They pointed out that for as long as humankind has engaged in economic activity, the goal has been growth.  Bigger and bigger, more and more.  Standing still means falling behind.  Today, however, we are rapidly expanding into a wall.  Oil is a finite commodity and as tantalizing as the other sources of energy are, none of them are even remotely ready to replace oil. 

Hagen used the example of ethanol.  We currently produce about a million barrels per year which takes more corn than is used for food.  And, barrel-for-barrel, ethanol produces only 70% as much energy as oil.  Meanwhile, we consume 19 million barrels of oil a day.  So, if my math is correct, we could take a year’s worth of ethanol and replace oil for roughly an hour and twenty minutes.

He went on to explain that the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) has statistics on Energy Return On Investment (EROI).  Of course they do.  EROI is how much energy it takes to produce one unit of energy.  Seventy or eighty years ago when a wildcatter could find an oil field, stick a pipe in the ground and get a gusher, we would invest one barrel of energy to harvest a hundred barrels of oil.  That was a pretty good business plan and led to the primacy of the internal combustion engine.  By the 1970’s however, that one barrel of energy would only bring thirty barrels in return.  Still not a bad investment.  Then while the world worried about computer crashes in Y2K, the EROI came in around 10:1, and “the EIA stopped producing data on how much energy it takes to get energy.”  I wonder whose idea that was?  Who didn’t want us frightened by statistics?  Hagen doesn’t speculate on the who, but he reasonably estimates that our return on that barrel of energy spent is in the single digits today.

 We may be forgiven for believing that as oil becomes more expensive, drillers will go to greater and greater lengths to find it.  But, Hagen asserts that “you eventually get to a point, even if oil is $100,000 dollars a barrel, or $1 million dollars a barrel, if it takes one barrel of oil to get out [one] barrel of oil, you’re kind of out of gas at that point.”

What happens to our economy then?  What happens when we can’t grow our way out of our problems?

Martenson and Hagen go on to talk about how the issue shouldn’t be the shortage of oil or fresh water or anything else, it should be about the “longage of expectations.”  We, as a society, nation and planet, need to plan how we will get along when growth has been replaced with contraction.

Here is where they lost me because they went on about living on a smaller carbon footprint, and buying locally.  The elephant in the room, gentlemen, is that what needs to be downsized is us.  There are simply too damn many people.  If the available stuff doesn’t stretch far enough now, it sure won’t if the population keeps ballooning.  Back when society could get 100 barrels by spending one, there were only two and half billion people to use it.  This year we have or will top seven billion.  And, as development in China and India has proven, they all want cars.   Given the chance, like Jay Leno, they won’t stop at one.

Current projections are for population growth to slow--but not stop--toward the end of the century--as we approach nine billion hungry consumers.

We can prepare for the crash mentally—as Martenson and Hagen advise.  We can stockpile goods, which they say won’t do us much good since we can’t possibly cover all the bases.  Even money and gold will have little value when we run out of stuff to buy.  Does that sound bleak?  Remember that everything we use comes to us courtesy of oil—in trucks, planes, ships, and trains.  Run out of oil and we run out of everything else, too.

There is a school of thought that expounds belief in human ingenuity.  Pushed to the wall, we will invent a way over.  It’s a nice thought. 

 

Living Long Enough to Regret It

This morning, I flipped the channel to Bloomburg news just in time to hear the CEO of something drop the final sentence in an interview.  He pointed out that we are cutting benefits to the elderly, I don’t know whether he meant private companies or the government, but both are on the chopping block.  What that means is that everyone is going to have to save more money to prepare for getting older.  In an economy that is driven by consumer spending, that means recovery will be much slower.

From another source, I learned that the average American has $52, 000 in retirement savings.  Assuming that you are average, how long is that going to support you?  Better spend less and sock away more.

 And, how long will that savings have to last you?  The BBC reports that the a baby boy born in Britain today has a one-in-four chance of living to be 100.  A girl has a one-in-three chance.  Of course we Americans don’t have so much to worry about.  The average American male will live 1.5 years less than the average Briton.  Canadians, Australians, and Japanese outlive us by even more.  And, the gap is growing.

 If I may, I will quote from the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14070090

 "We weren't surprised that we had lower life expectancies than other countries, but we were surprised by the fact that we were falling further behind," says Dr Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

…But the US is a big country, and while parts of Mississippi have a male life expectancy of 67, behind nations like the Philippines, women in areas of Florida live as long, on average, as the Japanese, who top the longevity rankings.

It is precisely this kind of inequality that goes some way to explain why the US - and the UK to a lesser degree - lag behind other countries, according to Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

He believes a more even distribution of wealth, even if the average were lower, could mean longer lives for everyone.

Meanwhile: Elderly Americans have a higher chance of surviving heart disease and many cancers than their counterparts in other rich countries, she says. Where the US lags behind is what happens at a much younger age.

That brings us back to being able to pay for longivity.  Those who want to be able to afford to grow old will not be spending the money necessary to provide jobs for the rest.  Funded pension plans are going the way of the dinosaur.  Social Security was never intended to support people in their old age.  It is a supplement, and one that conservatives want to reduce.  Meanwhile, putting our money in stocks and mutual funds seems to be riskier every day—unless you happen to manage stocks and mutual funds. 

Isn’t freedom great?  Slogans beat soup any day.

 

Wounded on the Job

Among other things, I follow news of workplace injuries.  Lately, there have been some new cases that present some new trends. 

 There was the woman who telecommuted from home.  Her workplace was an office in the garage.  One day, on her way from the house to the garage, she tripped over her dog.  I forget the injury, but it was apparently worth going to court over. The employer said—in other words—“Oh, come on.  This was her dog in her house, how can we be responsible?”  The court disagreed.  The employer knew that she had her office in the garage, and walking from home to garage involved all the risks therin. 

In another case, a woman working from home had a fatal heart attack.  The court ruled that AT&T, the employer, knew that she was working beyond her normal hours, and that too many hours at a sedentary job is a heart attack risk.  The woman’s obesity was not relevant.

 The lesson of these two cases—and of others sure to come—is that employers are responsible for remote workplaces.  They may need to visit the homes of telecommuters to ensure a safe workplace, and to monitor employee activity to see that they get up and walk around periodically.  Or else, get out of the telecommuting business altogether.  Or—and I think this is most probable—businesses will seek legislation indemnifying them against employees who are injured at home.

Another pair of cases are so similar, I don’t have to tell the separate stories.  Employers hired undocumented immigrants.  Of course they claimed that they did the due diligence and the employees appeared legal.  The employer did not provide safety equipment or training.  When the workers were disabled or killed on the job, the employer said, “I don’t have to pay because they were illegal.”  The court said—and I completely agree—the legal status of the workers is a separate issue, and irrelevant to the OSHA violations and Worker's Comp responsibility.  To decide differently would be to reward the employer for hiring undocumented workers.

 The moral, as I see it, is that there will always be employers who will look for cheaper operating costs without taking responsibility for the consequences, whether its saving office space by letting people work from home, or by hiring people who won’t question the work rules.   Cutting government oversight will make us no better than Chinese or Indian employers.

 

Quote: Warren Buffett

These excerpts are from In the Loop with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television.   Liu was in Sun Valley to interview Warren Buffett.

 Betty Liu: Is it misguided in many ways to look to the White House to try to help create jobs.  I mean,                 Obama’s got this jobs council—you know he keeps creating these councils to create jobs—is it                 misguided in that way?

 
 Warren Buffett:  People get their expectations too high.  I mean, if you                 look at these 15 recessions  we’ve had since we became a country.                  During half that period, at least nobody knew what monetary policy                 or fiscal policy was.  I mean,we cured ourselves and the system                 cures itself.   And, I would say that’s the biggest single factor.                  Government can do things to make it worse and they did in the                 Great Depression.  And, government can help some.

 Betty Liu:  Is the president making it worse?

Warren Buffett:  No, no, no.  We know the things to do that can help, but they                 are not, in my view, the prime determinant.  There are things to                 work through.  If you have too many houses, what can government                 do?

         …Government gets blamed too much and it may get too         much credit when things do improve.  Government’s a factor, but by far the biggest factor is correction of the business cycle over time is what would call the natural regenerative powers of capitalism.  Capitalism works.

[Later in the interview]

Warren Buffett:  It takes some cooperation from Congress, but [Obama] has ideas about what America can and should be                 that are in sync with mine.  Some of it is social justice and some of it is distribution of wealth, and that sort of thing.

Betty Liu:  Like what?  What are the lot of issues?”

 Warren Buffett:  Like I think, for example, that we’ve had a period in the last 15 years whee the 400  top tax payers in                 the United States—we have to go back 15 years—they had an average income  of about 45 million.  Now, they                 have an average income of 350 million, in the most recent figures, whereas their tax rates went down from                 27% down to 16%.  That’s not my idea of America.  I mean I want everybody to get rich, but I think that the                 rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates.

 Betty Liu:  So that when you hear him say targeting the millionaires and the billionaires, you’re saying  “Go get ‘em.”

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah.  

 Betty Liu:  Yeah?

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah, I am.

 Betty Liu:  But, don’t get me--

 Warren Buffett:  No, I look around at my friends here who are paying lower tax  rates than the                 people who are serving us the food—

 Betty Liu:  Do they agree with you?  When you’re here at Sun Valley talking to them, do they agree with  you?

 Warren Buffett:  I think some do, yeah.  And, many don’t.

 Betty Liu:  And are they still talking to you?

Warren Buffett:  Oh, yeah, they talk to me.  They figure I’m harmless and eighty.  This guy will only be  around a few                 more years.  

[So, if you are not a billionaire and plan to be around for more than just a few years, it is time to decide what kind of America you want to live in.  In the next 15 years do you want to see the income of the 400 top taxpayers rise by another 777% and their tax rates drop by another 40% while your numbers remains the same or worse?  The rich have already made their choice.  What are you going to do?]   

 

The Self-Deception of the Right

Recently, I’ve had a little down time and realized how the conservative movement has deceived itself—or let itself be deceived by those who would use it.  You may be ahead of me on this, but the thinking seems to be that the economy is down—especially where jobs are concerned.  Taxes are a pain in the rear.  The national debt is worrisome.  The government gives money to people who don’t deserve it.  And, society seems to have lost all sense of order.  What to do?

 Well, let’s cut taxes until the problems go away.  And, deport or lock up all those with disturbing behavior.  Slash the regulations on business so it comes back to America.  That’ll fix it.

 And, while we’re at it, let’s bring home all the troops from everywhere.  Those foreigners don’t know how to fix their problems, so let them kill each other until they figure it out.

 This is the same thinking that drives the Taliban.  Reject innovation and cling to an earlier age when privilege was reserved for a few at the top.  Life is less confusing if everyone knows his/her place.

 There is a natural hunger for easy answers to intractable questions.  There aren’t any.  I toilet-trained three children.  Each one required a different approach.  With that in mind, look at any social problem with its many facets and the numbers involved and you have to know that multiple strategies are necessary for everything.  Along the way, there is going to be waste and frustration, and that is just how it is.  Try and try again.

 As for taxes, back in the 1950’s, taxes on the wealthy were 70% or more.  Corporate taxes were also higher.  And, we had an economic boom.  Job creation all over the place.  Go back to the Great Depression.  The wealthy didn’t end that, government spending did.  It took a world war to get a consensus, but it was the massive wartime spending that beat the depression.  The debt that was created resolved itself in the post-war economic boom. 

 Now, it is also true that the great social programs and environmental regulations came along later, but, that is not what soured the boom. Strong regulations create jobs.  Increased opportunities expand the economy.  We also had strong tariffs.  Duties paid on imported goods kept domestic manufacturers competitive.  When the duties came down, there was an incentive for manufacturers to send their factories overseas.

 If the wealthy have a low tax rate, who are they going to hire?  Another gardener?  The wealthy don’t create jobs.  One could argue that low corporate taxes would create jobs—except that they don’t.  Look what happened with the stimulus.  Companies bought each other, handed out bonuses, and built factories overseas.  Individuals and corporate boards are always going to spend or save money in ways that are selfish.  As a stockholder, that is what you would want.  Corporations and those who run them will never conspire to act in the public interest.

 Tell a CEO that you are going to reduce his taxes by $10 million next year and ask him how many jobs he will create with that.  You will never get a straight answer, unless he says, “I don’t know.”  Taxes don’t determine if private companies will hire, the marketplace does.  Unless he sees a sustainable increased desire for his product, the CEO is not going to invest in hiring.

 I could go on.  The right has it exactly backwards.  This is no accident.  Some are dazzled and deceived by their rich supporters.  Others are firmly in the deep pockets of the privileged.  I’ve said it before. This is a war on the middle class.

 

The Weight of Greece

Back in my traveling days, I visited or stepped in 42 foreign countries.  When someone asks which one I liked the best, I always say Cyprus.  I only saw the Greek side, but the people there were the warmest, most hospitable folks I have ever met.  I could also go on about the food, historical sites, excellent roads, etc. but then I would wander off my thought-path.  If someone asks what is the country I liked least, I don’t hesitate there either.  It’s Nigeria—for reasons I won’t go into.  The second least-liked country on my list is Greece.  Like Cyprus, the food and sights are also stellar—and individually, the people I met were very nice.  However, the shopkeepers, taxi drivers and other service people that a visitor depends on spoiled the experience.  They would prefer that tourists stay home and mail them the money.

When I read about the problems that Greece is giving the European Union, I have to say that the Greeks will not put their financial house in order—not within the lifetime of any Greek currently drawing breath.  They should be cut loose and left to sink, or they will drag the rest of Europe down with them.

 I was sent there on a training mission to help with a problem they had.  Forgive me if I am vague and cryptic, but this was a mission sponsored by our State Department, and deserves some discretion.  The senior officials that I met all agreed that problem was serious.  They would puff out their chests and boast that all of Europe was looking at them.  Each time, I would wait for the next sentence in which I expected to hear them say that they were taking action, but there never was a follow up.  Europe was looking at them, and that was enough.

 About the problem?  Well, the consensus seemed to be that it was the fault of foreigners.  Greeks would never do that.  Law enforcement officials who took their jobs seriously would be transferred to the farthest reaches of the country.

 I met a Greek millionaire.  He and his American wife took me to dinner and for a ride in his speed boat.  Good people.  He lamented about how easy it was for him to cheat the system.  He explained that if he were stopped for speeding or any other violation, he only had to tell the officer who he was, and he would be released without a ticket.  Corruption extended beyond the necessity to pay a bribe, just mention your name or who you knew, and that was enough.

 I don’t recall the numbers, but a high proportion of the work force were (and probably still are) employed by the government.  Their benfits were extraordinary.  Governments were elected on the promise of more giveaways.  Even when I was there, pre-EU, experts said that the economy was unsustainable.

 Until the bottom falls out completely, the people will not allow the government to make the adjustments that are necessary to balance the budget.  Maybe when the money runs out, they will wake up.  Of course, even then, they will blame it all on foreigners.