www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Greeks Turning To Barter

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/world/europe/in-greece-barter-networks-surge.html

One way to avoid the "New World Order" being ushered in by the EU!
In a similar vein, the State of Utah has passed legislation recognizing gold and silver as alternative forms of "legal tender". There is also pending legislation to that effect in several other States. That is a good way to overcome the growing worthlessness of the "Federal Reserve Note" (which, technically, is not "legal tender" in the first place, but is a promissory note between the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank. It memorializes debt owed to the Federal Reserve by the U.S. Treasury).

Dn. Robert

What do you mean by 'New World Order' with respect to the EU?

Incidentally, you have to register in order to read the NY Times.

The EU is a dead union walking. The European experiment is over, the question is how messy its ultimate demise will be.

It seemed apparent from the beginning that Germany would not be able to use the EU's weaker members as places to dump its own economic problems forever. All of the problems that affected the Confederation which only lasted a decade affected the EU but in spades. Add to that an incredibly expensive and absolutely irrational bureaucracy and you have the makings of a mess of monumental size.

How amazing is it the the British who were too sentimental to give up the Pound are likely to avoid the worst of it. At least when it comes undone coin collectors will have a more interesting hobby again.

Actually, the Norwegians seem the smartest, having rejected the EU altogether, and with it the Euro. The Swedes, like the Brits, joined the EU but rejected the single currency, so they're likely to do well, too. The Estonians are mad as hell, having been sweet-talked into accepting both the EU and the Euro. Having built themselves up into something of an economic powerhouse on the basis of wireless technology, they really don't want to send their hard-earned Euros south to support La Dulce Vita among the PIGS.

The German population never wanted the Euro. The currency union was the price France exacted from Germany for German reunification. Almost immediately, it became clear the Euro could only work if everybody cheated on the terms of the Maastricht Treaty. But at the same time, the currency union did create a single financial market through which capital flowed to the most efficient investments, and it did cause the true price of everything to come out, unhidden by exchange rate differences.

That's about the only good thing that happened, because it caused the French and the Germans to see the handwriting on the wall, and begin to cut back on their welfare system and make their economies more efficient. But other countries behaved as if the transfer of wealth from north to south would go on forever. Now they have to pay the price, and the straightjacket of the Euro prevents them from doing what countries normally do under such circumstances--devalue their currency, inflate their economies, and pay off their debts in cheap money (recognizing that they'll have to pay in higher interest rates downstream).

Because none of the bailouts are viable, because they are politically impalatable among both the givers and the receivers, eventually all deals will collapse, and with it the European currency union, European federalism, the European Constitution, the European Commission and the rest of the impedimental of the EU. In its place, we'll have squabbling little nation-states of Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Englishmen, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and the rest, and the world will be better for it. The underperforming Mediterranean states will be a lot less wealthy for a long time, but they'll have precisely the lifestyle for which they are willing to work. The industrious northern tier will begin living up to its potential, and become much better markets for U.S. products, to boot. And, ruled by accountable national governments instead of by unelected bureaucrats, the Europeans may discover that they have a culture that is worth having and worth defending.

I was with you right up to the "U.S. products". Those are a bit like leprechauns and sasquatch, no?

@StuartK:

I'm willing to accept your comments, but I want to posit a few ideas that perhaps you (or others) might address.

It seems to me that the question of the EU presents at least three(and probably more)issues:

1)Cultural. You, Stuart, touch on this in the final line of your post (above), and it comes up very often. The issue appears to centre on the notion that increasing European integration represents a threat to the cultures of individual states. I well remember arguing this case at the advent of Maastricht, but when I moved to Britain, began to think that this was at least one country that could stand to benefit from greater integration. So, how, in concrete terms, does the EU undermine culture?

2)Economic. This is the issue that dominates your argument above, and with everything unfolding as it currently is, economic arguments against integration are strengthened. I wonder, though, if it wasn’t just that implementation was poorly thought out from the beginning. Is it not possible that there were economic benefits to be had from dispensing with the manifold currencies and multiple states working together to ease trade?

3)Religious. Of less interest to most Europeans, yet of distinct concern to Christians (and others), is the suggestion that the EU is both anathema to religious faith, and politically disposed to undermine religious institutions. Not that anyone has overtly suggested so on this thread, but it has certainly come up in the past. Indeed, no less an important figure to me than Philip Sherrard saw it thus. And yet I have not been totally convinced. How would you describe the problem?

As for me, there are arguments I would assert in favour of the EU in each of these categories although – importantly – I am happy to have them countered. I just have not yet been totally convinced by the people I have heard comment for any number of reasons. When argued by Americans, I cannot help but wonder if they wouldn’t have said the same thing about the Union after the Civil War, when we can see clearly that, for all its problems, the United States is not something any of us would wish away now (at least I assume so!).

In any case, I suppose I am inviting anyone interested to persuade me that the EU is as negative as suggested – partly for discussion’s sake, and partly because I am not settled strongly yet for or against.

I was with you right up to the "U.S. products". Those are a bit like leprechauns and sasquatch, no?

The Commission was inherently anti-American; it used its regulatory powers to create product standards intended mainly to keep U.S. companies out of the European market, or to impose additional costs upon them so that they would not be as competitive within that market. At the same time, the EU pressed these standards upon third party countries that comprised Europe's principal export market. Having adopted EU standards as their own, these countries now also raised barriers against U.S. products in their market. The use of standards as trade barriers is more subtle than tariffs, but just as effective. With the Commission kaput, the more ridiculous European standards are likely to be superseded by more rational national standards.

In regard to Slavophile's comments:

1. The first thing to recognize is the entire purpose of the EU was to prevent a recurrence of the European wars that blighted the 20th century by tying France and Germany together at the hip--first through the Common Market, then the WEU, then the EU and then the Maastricht Treaty. But this puts the cart before the horse. After two World Wars, Western Europe was thoroughly "debellicized", and only the threat of Soviet aggression caused Western Europe to retain large military forces; even then, from the 1960s onward, Europe consistently spent less even than the modest 3% of GDP established by NATO as a defense budget baseline. Absent the USSR, European defense spending plunged even further, and now averages less than 2% of GDP (Germany, remarkably, spends only about 1.5%).

So, the truth is, it wasn't the EU that brought about peace in Europe; it was peace in Europe that allowed the formation of the EU. But, working behind the facade that only the EU can maintain European peace, a whole set of regulations and constraints has been imposed upon the people of Europe by an unelected, unaccountable and utterly undemocratic technocratic bureaucracy, which takes no heed either of history or of culture.

The entire European experiment is, in actuality, opposed by most Europeans, whose objections were either ignored or silenced through a combination of coercion and bribery. It is the brainchild of a transnational technocratic elite, who have little to do with the day-to-day lives of ordinary Germans, Frenchmen, Belgians, Britons, Scandinavians, Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese, etc. These people, all of whom went to elite schools, tend, like the transnational aristocracy of the Ancien Regime, to mingle only with each other, to speak the same language, to share the same assumptions and values. The European Commission, and its rubber stamp, the European Parliament, were established by them to allow them to remake the world in their own image. Caring about nothing except power, they work relentlessly to smooth down the rough edges that make each European nation-state a unique cultural entity; in its place, they erect a bland, multicultural "Euro-culture", which has no history, no substance, and no future.

3. The next logical thing is to look at how the EU deals with religion, because, in Europe, culture means Christianity, even in ostensibly secular states like France. One cannot erase 1700 years of European history because one thinks Christianity is passe, a rank superstition that stands in the way of an enlightened future. Consciously or subconsciously, European peoples from one end of the continent to the other, have inculcated Christian culture and integrated it into their own national cultures. The assault on culture and religion by the EU converge in those societies which are the most traditional, and thus also the most religious. We see this in the attempts of the Commission to impose fads like gay marriage and abortion rights in countries like Poland, Romania, Ireland and Spain, using a carrot and stick approach. We see it in an explicitly secular European constitution, and in laws and regulations that marginalize and even criminalize Christian beliefs. And once the religious foundation of culture goes, it becomes increasingly easy to dismantle the old and erect a new one.

2. Economic. No, the implementation of the economic integration wasn't just badly implemented, it was poorly conceived and fatally flawed from the beginning, having been tainted by the fantasy of a united, federated Europe. But that Europe did not exist, and probably never will exist, because national and cultural differences are not easily extinguished. Not all the regulation in the world will turn Greeks and Italians into Germans and Danes. So, the kinds of economic policies that work for the one will not for the other. Pretending that they could caused finance regulators to ignore the false wealth being created by EU transfer payments from the rich countries to the poor countries, and to take claims of economic reform at face value. The same "one size fits all" mentality now binds the PIGS in a straightjacket from which there is no escape: culturally and politically, they cannot make the cuts in spending that the EU demands; legally, they cannot just inflate their currency and pay off their debts with devalued drachmas and lira, which is what they would have done prior to Maastricht. This dichotomy cannot be resolved within the current structure, hence the structure will collapse.

Thanks for that, Stuart.

With respect to the economic points you raise, I have nothing to add. Not only would my instinct have suggested you are right, I think that the current crisis is proving it.

As for the other points, though, I am wondering why they need to be fatal to the European project.

So, for example, we have an institution run by elitist bureaucrats; but if it is an institution that has merit on its own terms (and I'm not necessarily saying it does), then do you not think it can be acceptable in principle with a view to reforming the rot?

As for religion and culture, I can feel in my marrow that the technocrats are doing precisely what you describe; but the optimist in me wonders if in some way we aren't now in a more honest situation. Even as I say this, I can't help but wonder what came first: the disintegration of European culture and religion or the EU. Yet whatever the case, from a theological point of view, I also propose that such a situation can be providential and serve as the the basis for a new evangelism. About a year ago, I posted an article about the Christian symbolism of the EU flag, and it is on a similar basis that I see the new order as ripe for subversion. It may be more desperate than that, though, so feel free to point out where I am being too naive.

My optimism is based on a notion that the EU has precedent in the Carolingian empire (and, to a lesser degree, the Roman). Historian Maurice Keen, in the introduction he wrote to the 'Pelican History of Medieval Europe' (a book that influenced me heavily when I was young) talks of Europe as a 'republic' - the idea, in case it is not self-evident, being that for all its varied nation-states, Europe's history is a common one involving a common religion and common ideals, and that the wars between her states were essentially civil wars. Wrongly or rightly, that has shaped my own thought on the matter, and inspired my support of the EU; or if not support, exactly, then at least willingness to work with it.

Here is a "copy and paste" version of the article. Dn. Robert


Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks
Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: October 1, 2011

VOLOS, Greece — The first time he bought eggs, milk and jam at an outdoor market using not euros but an informal barter currency, Theodoros Mavridis, an unemployed electrician, was thrilled.

The barter network in Volos has grown to 400 members.
“I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.”

Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses.

Part alternative currency, part barter system, part open-air market, the Volos network has grown exponentially in the past year, from 50 to 400 members. It is one of several such groups cropping up around the country, as Greeks squeezed by large wage cuts, tax increases and growing fears about whether they will continue to use the euro have looked for creative ways to cope with a radically changing economic landscape.

“Ever since the crisis there’s been a boom in such networks all over Greece,” said George Stathakis, a professor of political economy and vice chancellor of the University of Crete. In spite of the large public sector in Greece, which employs one in five workers, the country’s social services often are not up to the task of helping people in need, he added. “There are so many huge gaps that have to be filled by new kinds of networks,” he said.

Even the government is taking notice. Last week, Parliament passed a law sponsored by the Labor Ministry to encourage the creation of “alternative forms of entrepreneurship and local development,” including networks based on an exchange of goods and services. The law for the first time fills in a regulatory gray area, giving such groups nonprofit status.

Here in Volos, the group’s founders are adamant that they work in parallel to the regular economy, inspired more by a need for solidarity in rough times than a political push for Greece to leave the euro zone and return to the drachma.

“We’re not revolutionaries or tax evaders,” said Maria Houpis, a retired teacher at a technical high school and one of the group’s six co-founders. “We accept things as they are.”

Still, she added, if Greece does take a turn for the worse and eventually does stop using the euro, networks like hers are prepared to step into the breach. “In an imaginary scenario — and I stress imaginary — we would be ready for it.”

The group’s concept is simple. People sign up online and get access to a database that is kind of like a members-only Craigslist. One unit of TEM is equal in value to one euro, and it can be used to exchange good and services. Members start their accounts with zero, and they accrue credit by offering goods and services. They can borrow up to 300 TEMs, but they are expected to repay the loan within a fixed period of time.

Members also receive books of vouchers of the alternative currency itself, which look like gift certificates and are printed with a special seal that makes it difficult to counterfeit. Those vouchers can be used like checks. Several businesspeople in Volos, including a veterinarian, an optician and a seamstress, accept the alternative currency in exchange for a discount on the price in euros.

A recent glimpse of the database revealed people offering guitar and English lessons, bookkeeping services, computer technical support, discounts at hairdressers and the use of their yards for parties. There is a system of ratings so that people can describe their experiences, in order to keep transparent quality control.

(The network uses open-source software and is hosted on a Dutch server, cyclos.org, which offers low hosting fees.)

The group also holds a monthly open-air market that is like a cross between a garage sale and a farmers’ market, where Mr. Mavridis used his TEM credit to buy the milk, eggs and jam. Those goods came from local farmers who are also involved in the project.

“We’re still at the beginning,” said Mr. Mavridis, who lost his job as an electrician at a factory last year. In the coming months, the group hopes to have a borrowed office space where people without computers can join the network more easily, he said.

For Ms. Houpis, the network has a psychological dimension. “The most exciting thing you feel when you start is this sense of contribution,” she said. “You have much more than your bank account says. You have your mind and your hands.”

As she bustled around her sewing table in her small shop in downtown Volos, Angeliki Ioanniti, 63, said she gave discounts for sewing to members of the network, and she has also exchanged clothing alterations for help with her computer. “Being a small city helps, because there’s trust,” she said.

In exchange for euros and alternative currency, she also sells olive oil, olives and homemade bergamot-scented soap prepared by her daughter, who lives in the countryside outside Volos.

In her family’s optical shop, Klita Dimitriadis, 64, offers discounts to customers using alternative currency, but she said the network had not really gained momentum yet or brought in much business. “It’s helpful, but now it doesn’t work very much because everybody is discounting,” she said.

In an e-mail, the mayor of Volos, Panos Skotiniotis, said the city was following the alternative currency network with interest and was generally supportive of local development initiatives. He added that the city was looking at other ways of navigating the economic situation, including by setting aside public land for a municipal urban farm where citizens could grow produce for their own use or to sell.

After years of rampant consumerism and easy credit, such nascent initiatives speak to the new mood in Greece, where imposed austerity has caused people to come together — not only to protest en masse, but also to help one another.

Similar initiatives have been cropping up elsewhere in Greece. In Patras, in the Peloponnese, a network called Ovolos, named after an ancient Greek means of currency, was founded in 2009 and includes a local exchange currency, a barter system and a so-called time bank, in which members swap services like medical care and language classes. The group has about 100 transactions a week, and volunteers monitor for illegal services, said Nikos Bogonikolos, the president and a founding member.

Greece has long had other exchange networks, particularly among farmers. Since 1995, a group called Peliti has collected, preserved and distributed seeds from local varietals to growers free, and since 2002 it has operated as an exchange network throughout the country.

Beyond exchanges, there are newer signs of cooperation from the ground up. When bus and subway workers in Athens went on strike two weeks ago, Athenians flooded Twitter looking for carpools, using an account founded in 2009 to raise awareness of transportation issues in Athens. The outpouring made headlines, as a sign of something unthinkable before the crisis hit.

With unemployment rising above 16 percent and the economy still shrinking, many Greeks are preparing for the worst. “Things will turn very bad in the next year,” said Mr. Stathakis, the political economics professor.

Christos Papaioannou, 37, who runs the Web site for the network in Volos, said, “We’re in an uncharted area,” and hopes the group expands. “There’s going to be a lot of change. Maybe it’s the beginning of the future.”



Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting from Volos and Athens.

Most of the "elites" in government, businress, and the academe, in the West, are of a "Globalist" bent. As an example, most officials in the U.S. Government who hold policy-making positions in the area of Foreign Policy, are, of necessity, members of the Council of Foreign Relations. The latter is, amongst other things, a private "training school" for diplomats. It is "connected at the hip" with the Rockefeller family, and other "elite" families. The CFR (which has a "sister" group in the U.K.-the Royal Institute for International Affairs-the RIIA) is on record for bringing about a system of Global Government. Historically, they have been divided between World Federalists who seek to bring this about by way of a strengthening of the U.N., which they see as an "embryonic world government". The other school of thought is to bring about a Global System by first forming regional governing bodies, like the E.U. There has been some talk of forming an "EU-type" body in the Americas by merging Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. Ultimately, these regional governing bodies could be merged into a Global System. Based on the failure of both the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinple to persuade the "Founding Fathers" of the Constitution of the EU to give some recognition to Europe's Christian roots, I do not see how any serious Christian can be optimistic about the order which these people intend to bring about. It is strictly "secularist".

In Christ,

Dn. Robert

P.S.

One can find evidence of the above assertions by simply reading back copies of Foreign Affairs, the "house journal" of the CFR. One can also "get a handle" on all this by reading the writings of Carroll Quigley, especially Tragedy and Hope. He is a professor (Political Science?) at Georgetown University,and, I believe, a member of CFR. President Bill Clinton had him as a professor while he attended Georgetown.

Ah, Carol Quigley! My old Prof from Georgetown, where he taught History of the World Since 1920, AKA "The World Since Me". He was a hoot, and we could never be quite sure when he was serious or pulling our legs. Tragedy and Hope was, of course, required reading (gotta build up the nest egg for old Quigley's retirement, you know), much of it was tendentious, and parts of it downright silly. He's not teaching anything right now (to my knowledge), having passed away in 1977.

When we both have time, I'd love to hear your "Quigley stories".

Dn. Robert

Some of them have to be told in person, otherwise you lose full impact of Quigley's Back-Bay Boston Irish acccent, in which he would do scenes from Gone With the Wind (with commentary):

(As Scarlett): Only the land! Only the land is forevah!

(As Himself): That's ridiculous. Everybody knows the Irish hate the land. Why else would they get off the boat and head straight for the slums?