All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

VDU’s blog: Ebola virus: wild and domestic animals, plants and insects…

VDU’s blog: Ebola virus: wild and domestic animals, plants and insects….

Mega-important when one considers how intensive agriculture of fruits increases population of carriers and transmitters, which then may become more vulnerable due to population pressures/stresses. May also be tied to lands recently deforested for intensive agriculture.

The EU bears some responsibility for Greece’s liquidity crisis

The EU bears some responsibility for Greece’s liquidity crisis.

Contrary to popular belief the Greeks were not living beyond their means. At the beginning of the crisis, household borrowing as a percentage of disposable income was among the lowest in Europe, as was corporate borrowing as a proportion of GDP. The banks got in trouble not for over-lending to the private sector as in Ireland and Spain but because of their holdings of Greek sovereign bonds which were dropping in value when the markets discovered that despite the single currency not all countries in the eurozone were equal risks.

Most of the funds provided under the two bailouts went to shore up the banking system and compensate private holders of Greek debt for the ‘haircut’ they had to endure. Very little, no more than 10 per cent of the second bailout, went directly to the Greek state for the benefit of businesses or individuals.

– See more at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/lot-pain-so-little-gain#sthash.QuYy5vTS.dpuf

Greece and Spain helped postwar Germany recover. Spot the difference | Nick Dearden | Comment is free | The Guardian

the country’s creditors came together in London and showed that they understood how you help a country that you want to recover from devastation. It showed they also understood that debt can never be seen as the responsibility of the debtor alone. Countries such as Greece willingly took part in a deal to help create a stable and prosperous western Europe, despite the war crimes that German occupiers had inflicted just a few years before.

via Greece and Spain helped postwar Germany recover. Spot the difference | Nick Dearden | Comment is free | The Guardian.