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The tunnel and the light
by Thanos Kalamidas
2008-10-07 08:33:14

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It was amazing to read that the German chancellor decided that the German government will guarantee people’s savings hoping that the rest of the European governments will follow. I don’t know if all of them can guarantee 100% of the investments and savings but the bitter truth is that it will be a pity if people in Poland, in Greece, Finland or Portugal lose their money because of Wall Street’s inabilities!

Now inability sounds pretty heavy but it is the truth, some greedy executives there thought that capitalism doesn’t have any limits and big fish eat the small and whoever survives in the end gets the fancy mansion in N.Y. and the private jet, ignoring that the money wasn’t theirs in the first place; they were just doing a job committed to their customer. That’s another point, after being so long there they forgot that the customers are not just numbers but humans with names and lives, much more worse is that they forgot that a mistake can be painful for hundreds.

But then it was not the first time they made mistakes, they’ve been practising since the early-80s and what happened? Well nothing more than some people lost their jobs and as a consequence their houses, cars and some of them their families, but then again they were just numbers. But the mistakes became more and more and more often, and the numbers became a wave and at the same time their greed became unstoppable.

Do you know what I hate more? This international dependence, this chain reaction. Why suddenly I have to pay more for my mortgage in Finland and risk losing my savings because an idiot in California has screwed up! I mean put the bastard in prison and lose the key if I care. Do these people know though how many things I had to go through to get this mortgage? I nearly had to put my body as a guarantee and then because an idiot banker in Florida thought that they can give loans without guarantee my savings are in danger.

I have said it many times that I don’t understand much about economics and I’m not the type to gamble, I mean I’m one of those who see the stock market as gambling. The two investments I have done were made after a lot of thought and making sure that they could give me a bit more than the bank, but they could at least guarantee that in the end there is something for me. After all, by investing or better by giving my very real money to a company with the right knowledge they would use them for the common good, a kind of partnership and then out of the blue without my knowledge I got a new partner from the other side of the ocean who screwed up with his money and I have to pay! Hallelujah!

I really like what the German government did but then again Chancellor Merkel had to follow Ireland’s example, they were the first to do so and actually guarantee 100% of the people’s savings. The best part of the story? The other EU partners got angry because Ireland took one serious decision without asking them. What a pity the UK had spent a whole year with Blair touring around all the capitals making sure that all the partners agreed to the invasion to Iraq! Why did they get angry? Because they were forced to follow the Irish otherwise they would have to deal with their own people who would naturally expect their governments to support them guarantying their savings. That now makes you wonder, what would have happened if the Irish hadn’t done that move! The usual thing, we would be screwed!

What will happen, I haven’t got a clue and I’m browsing the financial papers and news daily to find out. Long analysis reassures me that everything will be alright, we just have to go through this dark tunnel but then the bright light awaits. The problem is that we are in this damn tunnel since the '80s and I cannot see any light; it is all dark and I’m afraid that I will never see the light.

money Ireland Finance Economy

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Emanuel Paparella	2008-10-07 09:47:59
Thanos, to vie with your cynicism a bit, before Dante and Virgil get to the tunnel that gets them to Purgatory on the other side of the earth, they have to journey in a rather dark and unpleasant place called hell. Far from being in the tunnell I have a notion that we may still be in hell "in the middle of the journey of our life." What did Nietzsche say? Whatever does not kill us makes us stronger. That is, unless it drives us crazy first. Sartre too had an insight when he declared hell as other people. That insight is wonderfully portrayed in that famous movie titled "Wall Street." It's must to understand what is usually left out of all those mystifying mathematical financial formulas that describe Capitalism and the market: pure unadulterated greed that turns the Kantian imperative up-side-down and selfishly declares others nothing else but means to an end.


Sand	2008-10-07 12:27:05
Whatever other Kantian idiocy may be promulgated, if people were not useful to each other civilization of any type could not exist.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-10-07 14:12:38
Shall we also throw Kant into the bonfire together with the work of all the other German philosophers for good measure? If that is what the visiting voices have been suggesting lately don't believe them; they are villanous barbarians of the intellect.


Clint	2008-10-07 15:44:38
Merkel on Sunday was telling Brown the Irish were wrong and that she did not believe in unilateral action. Two hours later she's protecting her own and dancing an Irish jig. It is said a week is a long time in politics, but two hours. Don't yer love it the EU at its very best. Still it gave Brown a Neville Chamberlain moment. Bless him!


Sand	2008-10-07 16:38:42
If Kant says things that are obviously foolish they obviously must be appraised by their content and not accepted merely because they were said by Kant. If Paparella decides they must be consigned to flames, of course that's his prerogative but book burning, beyond adding to global warming, is a habit I would prompt Paparella to discourage.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-10-07 23:02:54
Paparella was not even born yet when the barbarians of the intellect in 1942 consigned to the bonfire some of the finest classics of Western Civilization. Ask the voices when they visit if they suggested the idea to them.


AP	2008-10-08 02:33:26
Hey people, please join and divulge this Facebook group (65,000 individuals have): "Intelligent Women Against Sarah Palin" :D eheh http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23510724557&ref=nf#/group.php?gid=23510724557 I couldn't believe, when I got the invitation, how many people were so openly tuned with my deepest feelings :D This woman surely has a merit: she can definitely gather a lot of antipathies around her!! :D


Sand	2008-10-08 07:02:26
According to your logic, Mr.P. you would have had to be over 2000 years old to be a Christian.


Sand	2008-10-08 07:16:43
Hey AP. What are all those floating Ps and Ds you keep putting in? There are lots of people throughout history that gathered great antipathies and I cannot see how that grants them any particular merit.


AP	2008-10-08 16:11:33
Sand, I was being ironic, of course (about the merit). Hey, the floating :Ds are little faces with both eyes and a grin turned right, as the floating :Ps are little faces with both eyes and their tongues out turned right. You see, Mr. P complained about my LOL before, so I'm trying to be more graphic while using "internetical" language. I'm not sure if Aristotle used such codes with his disciples though, and that may serve as some kind of justification to condemn my attitude :D :P these are more expressive than LOL, ah? You still have some more signs (the single thing that you have to do in order to understand them is to imagine little faces turned right): ;D - blinking an eye and smiling :-) - face with a nose :( - expressing sadness :! - I don't quite remember this one, but I think it expresses something like surprise/shock :? - confusion :* or * - kiss etc... (you can ask some more to your grandchildren, I'm not an expert)


AP	2008-10-08 16:23:30
Oh, the :P tongue out means being goofy/silly or a provocative joke.


AP	2008-10-08 16:26:17
and the white space above is a big canvas so you can paint it all together and imagine the colours you would use there ...or just my mistake writing the message. I apologize. :)


Sand	2008-10-08 17:58:48
AP Thanks for the white space. It is, of course for me, a graphic of Helsinki in a snowstorm. When my younger son died we put the side-on smiley on his tombstone since he was an avid computer user.


AP	2008-10-09 02:02:32
For me, it is the canvas that I've been painting all day and tonight at home finally barefoot (ah, painting barefoot is SO relaxing and liberating! ...specially when your sneakers, far from being comfortable, kill you the whole day instead), a reinterpretation of Mrs. Matisse green stripe portrait but with a well-known "movie Mrs. star" in red gloves and turning her face to the left side of the canvas (the stripe is there still, but diagonal as she rests her cheek on her hand and her oblique arm is covered with the long red glove). I'm sorry about your son, you must recall in particular the good things about his existence, it seems. Even if it happened a long time ago, the way you chose to celebrate his memory was nice and original.


Sand	2008-10-09 02:21:58
My son is why I am so fond of Finland. When he was struck by a reckless driver at the age of three I was working for the UN in Israel. He was a US citizen but the US would not help me so he was given a life here in Finland through President Kekkonen's intervention and spent the rest of his 32 years as a quadriplegic on a respirator in a Helsinki hospital with 24 hour nurses. He was exceedingly bright and his computer gave him a life.


AP	2008-10-09 02:43:55
I imagine how grateful you must be to Finland for the support given back then. Now Sand, if an image with a chocolate cake that I sent to Ovi some days ago is published this week, please don't be offended and take into account that it is not a personal critic, but a social one instead, and it doesn't mean to question your gratefulness and appreciation for the country in any way whatsoever. ps - your son ever got the chance to taste your chocolate cakes, he liked them?


Sand	2008-10-09 02:50:38
I'm a pretty good cook and I would bring him hot meals in a thermos whenever the hospital food was not to his taste. He enjoyed my spaghetti with meatballs, lasagna, broiled fish with fried rice and vegetables, Chocolate, spice, applesauce, blitzkuchen cakes and a large variety of cookies. And I made pizzas before Finland discovered them.


AP	2008-10-09 02:57:01
I'm getting hungry...! :) (there's no graphic internet convention for a watering mouth, I think!)


AP	2008-10-09 03:00:52
Off to sleep now... good night Ovi space travellers.


AP	2008-10-09 03:01:44
But before sleep... food!