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OFFICIAL 2016 Foreign Elections Thread

TuffaloDeac10

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It's a big world and there are a lot of things going on in it. Greece's parliamentary elections are today and SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, is about to scoop up a win but it's not clear if they're going to get enough seats for an outright majority (37% of the vote needed for that) or will have to form a coalition with a different party. Note that SYRIZA is already itself a coalition. Their big platform is renegotiating the bailout terms with the Troika but they're also anti-capitalist and well there's a lot of stuff there. Could be interesting (cf "A Real Issue: The Euro" started by Caturday a long time ago).

Also important to note that the Greek Neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, didn't campaign because its leaders are in prison for political murders. They're in third place right now. Is that bad?

After this, I'm keeping an eye on general elections in the UK in May (lots of EU-related issues) and Spain at the end of the year. The Spanish election date isn't set yet but it has to be by December. Podemos, another radical left party, is polling really well there and like SYRIZA they want to change some terms on their bailout.

Hoping for SYRIZA, Labour, and Podemos wins.

Non-European discussion welcome. I just don't know who else is voting this year.
 
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Why would you be hoping for SYRIZA, Labour and Podemos wins? Do they affect you in some way?

I think these elections affect me about as much as the legality of abortion does.

Even if I have nothing more than an aesthetic preference for a southern Europe with youth unemployment rates of less than 50% and a UK that isn't insane over European migration, I think that'd justify hoping for an outcome. It's not like I'm really expending any effort here.
 
Well since you seem to follow it more than I do, how much of a chance does SYRIZA really have a renegotiating Greece's debt deal? It doesn't seem like they would have a lot of say in the matter.
 
Can't Greece just have their central bank print up some drachmas and pay off their debt with bogus "money"? That is the way every modern, industrialized, first world nation invests in it's middle class. Fuck the Onassises.
 
Well since you seem to follow it more than I do, how much of a chance does SYRIZA really have a renegotiating Greece's debt deal? It doesn't seem like they would have a lot of say in the matter.

No idea whatsoever. That's why it's so interesting. SYRIZA's stated position is they want Greece to stay on the Euro. The Cyprus thing from a while back did not cause banking panics in Italy and Spain. That probably reduces Germany's concern about contagion should Greece be forced off the Euro. And with Podemos possibly winning control of the Spanish government in December...

Can't Greece just have their central bank print up some drachmas and pay off their debt with bogus "money"? That is the way every modern, industrialized, first world nation invests in it's middle class. Fuck the Onassises.

I guess we'll find out. Gotta remember the Euro is a political project as much as an economic one.
 
This group needs to attempt these policies in America.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...defence-force-if-Greens-win-power-in-May.html

The British army would be replaced with a new “home defence force” and immigration controls dismantled if the Green party wins power in May.

Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Greens, also said illegal migrants would be given the right to stay in the UK. She added that in the longer term she wanted all immigration controls to be taken down.

She also suggested that the Greens would not be illegal for people in the United Kingdom to join terrorist organisations such as al Qaida or Islamic State.

Miss Bennett, who holds no elected office, was grilled about the party’s policies in an interview with presenter Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics.

Miss Green accepted that her party's party policy is to scrap Trident and leave Nato and to cut the size of the standing army, navy and air force.

She said: “We obviously need to defend our own borders, civil defence and we have a real responsibility as a rich country to contribute to UN peacekeeping forces.” Asked if that meant creating a new “home defence force”, she said: “Yes.”
 
i mean, if i was a westernized nation, i'd cut my military, too. why pay for all that shit when Uncle Sam does all the heavy lifting, apparently out pride
 
Charge the Greeks protection. They would probably be happy to print up some drachmas and pay us.
 
Can't Greece just have their central bank print up some drachmas and pay off their debt with bogus "money"? That is the way every modern, industrialized, first world nation invests in it's middle class. Fuck the Onassises.

They have to beg the Germans and French to print those Euros for them, and the price being demanded has absolutely crushed them.

The bigger problem in Greece is that the ruling oligarchs have basically ignored paying taxes and acted as if they were above governance for generations now. Tons of corruption keeping it that way - even under the austerity rules they are basically passing the burden directly on to middle and lower classes. This election is like something out of the 30s - socialist youth basically trying to throw over the oligarchs and break up their system of corruption and abuse.

It will be wild to see how this plays out. Greece is really one of the last "patriarchal" old school oligarch directed European economies. Where this goes after it is busted up is anyone's guess.
 
SYRIZA FinMin: "We are going to destroy the basis... of the Greek oligarchy system"



Interesting resume (for a Finance Minister) on this guy. Worked for Valve, a computer game company, researching the in-game economies of their games. Blogger. Was lecturing at UT with Galbraith's kid recently.
 
 

Read this article a few days ago which explains, quite well, the error made. Some choice quotes in there as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/australi...hood-left-australias-pm-fighting-for-survival

Abbott had reintroduced knighthoods in a shock announcement in March 2014. His cabinet colleagues had not been consulted. His staff, it was later reported, had advised that the decision would be “fucking stupid”.
 
The crux of the the problem in Greece: they can't pay back the loans.

They have a lot of problems - the fact that they can't actually effectively raise funds via taxation is probably at the core of it - but they are a small state who has lost control of their own economy due to joining a currency union that ended up grossly overexposing them to the financial crash, and are now unable to raise the funds required to pay back the loans they had to receive to stay afloat in the first place.

The EuroZone has to have a better model for handling smaller states who are being exposed to risk sized for much larger economies due to being joined in the currency union. The Greeks have a really valid point in that area. They also have to get their own damn house in order and stop letting the "Oligarchs" effectively pocket the vast majority of their economy while paying no taxes and fucking their middle and lower classes and the economy as a whole. The corruption in Greece is just unbelievable.
 
the biggest problem with greece is all the lazy greeks
 
New poll says the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK is in trouble in his race.

ETA: Don't the British sometimes place important politicians in "safe" districts?
 
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