The UK is so skint that the Gorgon plans to sell Dover to the French. That, I thought, was an odd way to resolve debt. Selling off the country bit by bit means that by the time the debt is paid, we don't own the country any more.
It's like selling your house, room by room, to pay your mortgage. Sure, the loan is repaid, but you now don't have a house.
Now Greece is skint and the Germans fancy a bit of bloodless conquest too. They think Greece should sell their islands to pay their debt.
Sounds harmless enough. They want the uninhabited islands. What could go wrong?
Suppose we sold one of the Hebridean islands to the Russians. There are people on most of them but not very many. The compensation bill would not be huge. It could be done. That island then becomes Russian territory and they can use it for whatever they want. A prison, a holiday destination, a missile base...
From that distance, a Russian shot-putter could launch a nuclear attack on the mainland. Iceland and Norway might not be too happy about the situation either.
I'm not suggesting that Angela Merkin or whatever her name is would put missiles labelled 'To Athens, Best Wishes from Krautland' on that island but what of her successor, or the one after that? What if another Kaiser Bill or Hitler rose to power?
Likewise the Gorgon's idea to sell Dover's port facilities to a foreign country. We are not at war with France but we have been, many times. It's almost a tradition, a sort of practice sparring we do once in a while before we venture further afield. How will our navy function if the French own the port of Dover? Would we have to attack it?
Before Greece lets the Germans place towels on sunbeds all over their islands, they should consider the future implications of such a move. It's all friends at the moment but that situation has been prone to abrupt change in the past, and could be prone to the same sort of changes in the future. Especially when the EU collapses, as is inevitable given the way it's run. Then we're all separate countries again and the Greeks have a German base on their doorstep. Worse, if the Greeks leave the EU, they would have an EU base on one of their islands. It's not a comfortable feeling.
Selling your home to pay the debt on it is never a good idea. The UK is not in the Euro so could go to the IMF without having to beg permission from the EU. Greece might want to consider reviving the drachma for the same reason.
Or maybe not. Someone with better understanding of economies can maybe come up with a solution that works. All I'll say is that it does not look like a good idea to pay debt with land.
It's a finite resource for any country.
11 comments:
I live in Newhaven, East Sussex.
The port is owned by the French and there's a big push on to take the single sandy beach back from them as a 'village green'.
Needless to say, nobody is happy.
What Navy?
We could always buy an island off Greece and use it to house all the Labour MPs who get booted out of Parliament in May.
My uninformed opinion on the Germans-telling-the-Greeks-to-sell-their islands-issue, is that its the Germans having a bit of fun at the Greeks expense in retaliation for the Greek deputy PM (or wotevah) saying Greece's problems are all the Germans fault for stealing all the Greek gold and for generally being Nazis. Or summink.
If I buy one of these islands, will I be allowed to smoke on it?
Actually I think we should blame the Germans for all our problems as well.
After all, if they hadn't invaded Poland we wouldn't have had to declare war on them.
And we should blame the Russians as well, coz if they hadn't invaded Poland at the same time as the Germans we wouldn't have had to declare war on them either.
If we hadn't have had to fight the Soviets and the Nazis at the same time we'd still have a great big empire and everything would be tickety-boo.
Bastards.
Angela Merkin
LOL!
Irrelevant but true: ‘merkin’ was the word that immediately sprang to mind when I first saw the shape of a Jaguar S-Type’s radiator. It’s a shame we live in a world where you can’t find justification for employing it more often.
BTW to her credit, Fr. Dr. M. is a pukka scientist. PhD physics, I think.
One final true story: I once heard a German grumbling about bad British behaviour on holiday. Apparently, we have a lousy reputation for ‘removing towels from the sunbeds’. No sense of humour?
We are not at war with France but we have been, many times
Who is this "we"? Scotland has never been at war with France and nor has Britain qua Britain though one could argue the toss about the War of the Spanish Succession, I suppose, with Jacobitism making the picture a bit merkin, sorry, Merkel, sorry, murky.
Succinctly, accurately, cogently and magnificently put, Leg-Iron (as usual).
PS: any chance of a preview of your latest publication? :)
America has sold much of its resources to the UN. Which is possibly why the UN's policies hold such sway in the US and might well be why the global warming/carbon credit scam has been allowed to take hold.
Handing over parts of our isles is tantamount to treason. Why does the MSM not comment on this?
Iceland and other indebted countries might consider defaulting on their loans and issuing their own currency, based on tradable goods - just as America did centuries ago. What would the world do if it disliked Iceland's stance? Declare war? Is that why the Gorgon attempted to brand an entire nation as terrorists?
My very limited understanding of the mysterious workings of the Euro is that “once you’re in, you’re in for good,” simply because one of the conditions of joining is that a country hands over all of its gold and silver reserves (apart from a small “working balance”) to the EU, thus making it all but impossible to launch what will – in all but name – be a completely new currency. I guess it isn’t impossible that a country might try it, but it must surely run the strong risk of turning out to be something tantamount to economic suicide for an entire nation – and which politician wants to be responsible for that? I guess, too, in theory that if they withdrew from the Euro/EU they could go to the IMF for assistance, but it isn’t at all certain that the IMF will be willing to lend huge sums of money to a country which is already in such financial hock; and in any case, aren’t the IMF all in cahoots with the UN, EU et al anyway? If so, they certainly wouldn’t want to offer any assistance to any rebellious little country which is threatening to spoil its friend’s cosy little tea-party, would it?
BBC quoted some important German today as saying "Germany would not give one cent to help Greece out of her economic difficulties".
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