It all just seems to be getting darker and darker. This is a ‘postcard from Athens’ via Zero Hedge (click to for larger image).
Athens 12 Feb 2012
Matters may be coming to a head. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph:
It is clear that Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble wishes to expel Greece from the euro, calculating that Euroland is now strong enough to withstand contagion, and that the European Central Bank’s `Draghi bazooka’ for lenders has eliminated the risk of a financial collapse.
“We can’t keep sinking billions into a bottomless pit,” he said on Friday.
and
By demanding a budget viceroy for Greece, and now an escrow account to seize Greek revenues at source, the Merkel-Schäuble government has crossed a diplomatic line and brutalised EU politics.
Elsewhere in the Telegraph, it’s reported that Greek party leaders have been required to make a written commitment to fully implement the Greek austerity package regardless of who wins the elections in April.
Beyond everything else, this is the central dilemma the eurozone faces: necessary economic reforms are constantly pitted against basic democratic principles.
The demand for a written assurance to stick to the austerity plan in Greece is only one in a series of direct assaults on democracy, accountability and transparency that have followed in the wake of the eurozone crisis,…
The article cites the installation of unelected technocratic regimes in Greece and Italy, veto powers over the budgets of poorer eurozone states, central banks dictating economic policy, secrecy, and lack of transparency.
And if that’s just in Europe, then it doesn’t seem that banks aren’t very much better in China either. (See also the Slog)
There is probably nothing to worry about here. Just the second-largest economy in the world with about one-quarter of the world’s population demanding that banks roll over $1.7 trillion in loans made to local governments during a building spree.
…I don’t mean to alarm anyone — truly I don’t — but what happens to the United States if we have recessions in both Europe and China this year?
If much the same has been happening in Europe, the USA, and China, with banks everywhere massively over-lending, then it’s a global bust that’s looming. And soon enough pretty much everywhere is likely to be looking like Greece, as people lose their jobs and their homes. Perhaps that’s why democracy is vanishing. There’ll be a state of emergency everywhere. And then what?
Update: The Slog: GREEK DEBT DRAMA: MERKEL ‘READY TO ENGINEER DEFAULT’ SAY SOURCES.
Perhaps that’s why democracy is vanishing. There’ll be a state of emergency everywhere. And then what?
ANARCHY,civilwars……..ahh maybe just a few concentration camps packed with billions of folks.
Yes, but most importantly, the generation of politicians who brought us the current state of affairs should be commended for also bringing us the much beloved smoking-bans worldwide, much to their credit, such saints and darlings that they be.
And to think that it all started with a few smoking bans over there in the “loopy ol’ US of A;” which damaged the hospitality industry where so many of those now-largely-forgotten sub-prime mortgagees worked; which damaged the lenders over there in the US; which in turn damaged the banks who’d bought the mortgages off them; which in turn damaged the banks elsewhere in the world who had dealings with them; who in their turn were then damaged by a whole field of industry failing in their home countries (i.e. their own hospitality industries); who in their turn were being damaged by their own countries’ smoking bans.
And yet still anti-smoking crusaders, politicians, the hospitality industry itself and most of the general public won’t see the connection. I despair.
Sorry, I’ll put my soapbox away again now …
Keep stepping on your soapbox. I think your logic is right on!
At a glance it seems like a far-fetched theory, but the more I think about it the more credible it seems. This guy seems convinced that the economic meltdown started with the bans. I find his blog a little over-vociferous, but he comes up with some interesting facts.
How about the direct effect of cigarette taxes on discretionary spending. I remember like it was yesterday when Prop 98 passed in California back in 1988 for 25 cents/pack. This was 40 cents in 2012 money. I happened to need a new set of tires at the time and I did the math and realized that the tax (over one year) had just consumed the equivalent. In other words my set of tires was diverted to the likes of TobaccofreeCA to produce ads that insulted me. I skipped the new set of tires that year.
Then ten years later Rob Reiner stuck me with the bill for his pet project of preschool education to the tune of 50 cents a pack. Now it was a new set of tires and a brand new Skilsaw, year in and year out I would be foregoing. I was livid.
Now they’re back wanting one dollar a pack because inflation has eaten up the purchasing power of TobaccofreeCA’s original parasitic haul from Prop 98. Add them all up and we’re talking $1.75 times 365 days. That’s $639 a year in foregone discretionary income, not to mention the multiplier effect on the producers and retailers of tires and Skilsaws. And to think this is going to the University of San Francisco and TobaccofreeCA makes me beyond livid.
They seem to have no shortage of money to spend on expensive television ad buys, they’re everywhere all of a sudden. Harley is right, it is being supplanted by Obama’s stimulus.
I talked to the owners at my local tobacco shop today about NO on
California Cancer Research Act pamphlets and they assured me they’d get some. This.Will.Not.Stand.
It’s an interesting idea. A while back I built a simple economic simulation model to explore Idle Theory (I’m an inveterate computer modeller, after all). In Idle Theory, goods are divided into primary and secondary goods, with primary goods (useful tools) producing idle time, and secondary goods (luxuries, amusements, and pastimes) consuming it. So useful tools like spades and knives and cars produce idle time, and then people use up this idle time by (for example) sitting in pubs, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. But while I’ve thought a lot about the primary idleness-generating economy and built working models of them, I’ve never really thought too much about the secondary economy. I’m not even sure whether my model has secondary goods in it. Perhaps I should go back to it and pick up where I left off, because I think it’s a very interesting idea that smoking bans might push economies into recession.
I came across this article in my wanderings and immediately thought of your Idle Theory, Frank. http://jacobinmag.com/winter-2012/four-futures/
Also, this interview posted on Naked Capitalism, was quite an eye-opener: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/the-global-minotaur-an-interview-with-yanis-varoufakis.html
Jackie
I think it’s true.
It occured to me that I haven’t needed to use a taxi since July 2007.
I haven’t bought a dress to go out for the evening, because I haven’t needed one.
Nor bought a lipstick.
I found a receipt from my favourite hotel dated from April 2007, it was the last time I stayed there for the weekend.
I don’t vist teashops any more, I buy something from the bakery and take it home.
All these and more are memories of a happy past, now fading into history.
If 20% of the public have reacted to being under this siege in the same minor ways that I have, no wonder the country is going bust.
For many years we used to visit a non-smoking hotel, it changed with the new owners, we liked the place and we liked them, so we still stayed there and took our coffee in the garden.
After the smoking ban became law I never visited again, I just couldn’t face the smart remarks.
It’s much the same for me, Rose. Since the smoking ban, my consumption of more or less everything has fallen. Why should I visit galleries and shops and restaurants where I’m not welcome? I keep my shopping trips to a minimum. I spend most of my time at home. And because of this, I hardly ever buy any new clothes or shoes. It’s not just the pubs that have lost most of my custom.
Indeed it would be an interesting exercise to do a variation on your Idle Theory, with the expanding, ripple effect of what might be seen as a small thing initially, but in reverse, as it were, removing one small aspect of the idle time generated and plotting the resultant contraction.
Small things can have big ramifications, as the old proverb suggests:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
@Rose
I would imagine that your experience will hold true for a large percentage of smokers. And worldwide, a “large percentage of smokers” is one hell of a lot of people.
I know it has altered my perception of what I will do. And on the occasions I’m in the UK, the pubs lose most or all of the money I would otherwise have spent in them. And as you astutely point out, it’s not just the pub that loses out.
It’s the taxis, the clothes shops, the hamburger joints and curry houses and fish and chip shops, the pickled onion makers, the crisp and peanut distributors, the glass and glass washer manufacturers and so on and so on. Ok, my not going to the pub will have a negligible, almost non-existent effect on these associated or incidental industries, but multiply that by fifteen million or so (for the UK), and it starts to become a real figure. And if you then extrapolate that UK figure globally…
Well it’s certainly not like it was say in 1979, the country had to be dragged back onto it’s feet, everyone was broke but we still felt part of the country.
Now we have become a denormalised minority at government behest, I just don’t feel that I have that kind of personal investment any more.
Jax you are so right on. These American nazis are the worse,especially the robert woods johnson group funding everything over here and now our own CDC is taking grant money from PHIZER for doing the 9 states economic study. CDC director DR.FRIEDIMEN stated the results before the study even began 3 weeks ago in a media blitz.
Y’all
It’s not smokers alone. Most have family, almost all have friends – and they feature in this too. At least the sensitive ones do in my experience. Now, when I visit, it’s a case of something knocked up at home, or a takeaway, whereas previously it would have been the works and possibly a second coffee and several fags in a restaurant. Maybe you guys have noticed that as well…if so, how do you model that?
It’ll be a difficult one to model, however the food chain goes from – say – a bingo hall or a low end diner to what happens when they close. Full time and (stacks of) part time jobs. Then you’ve got accountants and lawyers and banks to consider as well as lost revenue with business rates and then that bit about when income tax turns to unemployment benefit.
However the thing that no one can factor in is the intensity of feeling of betrayal and wish to deny all forms of revenue to the government. It’s more than baccy trips or the services of an illicit supplier. It’s way more than a taxi driver (a smoker) who stiffs them at every opportunity or a painter or a carpenter. High Net Worth’s are in on the act as well and they’re perfectly happy using Dubai or Singapore or Hong Kong to stash their assets. (Many Greeks use US banks or – increasingly – Russian banks). Web based brokerage services are fantastic as well; don’t use one, use lots, in various jurisdictions
How can you explain the intensity of feeling people have who lost their business to the smoking ban? Frank says he’s always annoyed and so are many of us. As far as I can tell, our beef is being made to comply. Losing a business through no fault of your own is a very difficult one to swallow. Best served cold doesn’t do this justice. There’s a void, a disconnect… a wish to tear down the whole system… and work toward that goal.
It’s because all this is impossible to prove in concrete terms and because any model can only work on tangible data, that is’s likely to show a woefully low reading
That said, knowing what’s happening, learning from others, living it and watching it evolve is fascinating. It really is monumental stuff, yet there are several simple facts that I keep in mind at all times.
* It’s a nondescript plant that grows extraorinarily well.
* It can’t be eradicated.
* It’s awesome.
* The next generation of smokers are in place.
* I’m not alone.
Thanks for the space Frank.
You are right Lou
The gloom seems to extend beyond us, I think it came as a massive shock to most people that their friends and relatives could be treated in this way, and when constantly held up as an example of what can be done to the rest of the herd, everyone gets nervous.
The latest JUNK STUDY:
Smoke ban ‘reduces home smoking’
Feb 14 2012
Banning smoking in public places also leads to cuts in the amount people who smoke at home, research suggests.
People are likely to implement their own “home bans” on lighting up once new laws come into force.
Writing online in the journal Tobacco Control, researchers carried out surveys between 2003-4 and 2008-9 depending on when bans took effect.
The polls involved 4,634 smokers in Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Before a ban came into force, most smokers had at least partial restrictions on smoking at home, with young children and support for a smoking ban important factors.
However after new laws came into force, there was a rise in all countries in the proportion of people banning smoking at home – rising 25% in Ireland, 17% in France, 38% in Germany and 28% in the Netherlands.
Home smoking bans were more likely to be imposed when the smoker planned to give up, when there was a birth of a child, and among those smokers who supported a smoking ban in bars.
“Opponents of workplace or public smoking bans have argued that smoke-free policies – albeit intended to protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke – could lead to displacement of smoking into the home and hence even increase the second-hand smoke exposure of non-smoking family members and, most importantly, children,” the experts said.
In fact, banning smoking in public places “may stimulate smokers to establish total smoking bans in their homes”.
http://www.denbighshirevisitor.com/news/uk-world-news/2012/02/14/smoke-ban-reduces-home-smoking-105722-30326396/
If the end of the world as we’ve known it is at hand, it would at least be pretty to think that such irrelevancies as smoking and eating sugar and drinking beer would fade to their rightful level of oblivion, but I doubt that’ll happen. First, because the need for a scapegoats soars as times get tougher and the governments want badly to have diversionary goats, and second because,, cash-strapped, the governments will tax their expanding roster of “sins” even more than ever before and believe they’ll be saving money in “health care costs.” Meanwhile, depriving the general population of their comforts and solaces, and ways to deal with tension, will likely spur riots.
Yes, it’s the end of the world. I’m going to my cave.
Well I will fight on,I suggest you do the same………we are the hope of freedom and sanity!
This poor woman looks so desperately miserable and she doesn’t appear to even know how to hold a cigarette properly.
A picture of misery with what looks like a glass of brandy drooping forlornly on her lap.
Ah, I see, having run the mouse across the image – it’s supposed to be an image of middle aged people smoking at home.
“A ban on smoking in public places does not increase the number of people smoking at home, new research shows.
The study, by the German Cancer Research Centre, appears to dispel fears the 2007 ban in Wales would displace smoking to the home.
And it reveals that, in several countries, people have banned smoking in their own homes following restrictions in public places.
The research, which is published today, comes as the Welsh Government has launched a high-profile campaign to persuade adults not to smoke in their cars.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/02/13/public-smoking-ban-leads-to-no-increase-in-home-smoking-survey-finds-91466-30323098/
If they felt the need to publish a study , one can only assume that they believe the reverse is true.
Bingo Rose my thoughts exactly when I saw it.
In view of the riots in Greece, the incomprehendable nonsense babbled by Schaeuble and Merkel, worse even, and By demanding a budget viceroy for Greece, and now an escrow account to seize Greek revenues at source, the Merkel-Schäuble government has crossed a diplomatic line and brutalised EU politics the anti-smoking zealots have nothing better to do than to publish yet another piece of scientific-integrity-raped “research”.
Let’s get this straight; smoking bans are more important than …I don’t mean to alarm anyone — truly I don’t — but what happens to the United States if we have recessions in both Europe and China this year? ?????
Here my (unqualified) opinion: Step 1: kick the antismoking zealots out EVERYWHERE. Step 2: Merkel, you have helped a great deal to create the current mess, YOU ALONE sort it. (Perhaps using the cash wasted on the various anti-smoking organisations might keep angry tax-payers in Germany from rioting, when they have to pick up the bill.) Step 3: For once LISTEN to what individual (still) members of this EUdSSR are saying.
—————————-
Banning smoking in public places also leads to cuts in the amount people who smoke at home, research suggests.
People are likely to implement their own “home bans” on lighting up once new laws come into force.
“A ban on smoking in public places does not increase the number of people smoking at home, new research shows.
The study, by the German Cancer Research Centre, appears to dispel fears the 2007 ban in Wales would displace smoking to the home.
And it reveals that, in several countries, people have banned smoking in their own homes following restrictions in public places.
What utter, utter nonsense! WHO funded the German Research Center to come up with this idiotic piece? It is high time to put an end to it!
Ya and the nazis say france saw no such drop in at home smoking,I gather they left france out as a means to add some sort of legitimacy to it.
The only question that comes to my mind is this:
“What methods were employed to ensure that the ‘study’ arrived at the right result?”
“What methods were employed”
Note, they do not claim that their results represent ALL of the people interviewed.
Old commercials claimed that 4 out of 5 people prefered some product. They may have had to interview 6 groups of 5 before they found the results they wanted; but, they never mention that interesting fact.
Smokers have 25 times the risk of never-smokers for lung cancer is claimed; but, that is only for the subset of smokers that smoke 3-4 packs per day. That may only be 1/500 smokers. Such points are NEVER mentioned.
“Note, they do not claim that their results represent ALL of the people interviewed.”
That should be: They do not mention that their results may be true about only a small fraction of the people interviewed.
I think that the above is a load of Bull
The real cause was
cheap money + overborrowing = Boom
End of Boom and payback time, but tp prevent pain, collective reduction in % rates.
Retirees etc living on the % from savings saw a massive reduction in their savings income.
35% of the developed world population is over 55, So they stopped spending.
50% of people who had mortgages, [and a brain] said thanks for the low %, but carried on with the same mortgages repayment levels to reduce debt. So they stopped spending.
80% of people in work are worried about their jobs, So they stopped spending.
= a mother of all recessions
Answer simple, Freeze Government spending, serve notice that % rates will rise to historical norms, [RPI + 2%] over next two years.
Retirees will see a better return on their savings and will start spend again.
Morgagees who had a brain will be OK.
Consumption will go up, jobs will be more secure and the 80% of people in work who are concerned about their jobs will start to spend again.
No Pay rises for elected leaders till the Govenments have a balanced books for 3 consequtive years.
Even then, why should something like this abomination induce me or anyone else to even have the self-confidence to spend money on a normal social life or leisure activities again?
NHS – If you smoke, you stink
Bacall smoking 1
She probably told him you smell like a brewery!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVrsoxIHtU&w=420&h=315%5D
Harley, that is cool as hell. Bacall is smokin’ hot sultry.
I imagined Stanton Glantz screening that movie counting, OCD-style, the smoking references while twitching uncontrollably.
You know, I’ve become so subconsciously brain-washed by their drivel that I almost went to look up whether Bogie died of smoking and whether she’d quit and then I thought Naahh! Who cares. Even if he died before 60, he had 120 killjoy dog-years and he had Lauren to wake up to and smoke a cigarette with after…
Even if she eventually quit, she was such an old school class act, I doubt if she ever turned Reformed Smoker from Hell on us.
And ladies, please bring back those clothes and hair and makeup soooo sexy.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVrsoxIHtU&version=3&hl=en_US%5D
Frank for some reason it wont embed,please just remove it all!
Heres one of a bar scene doing bogi and mccall promoting smoking
Heres the link if the above doesnt post properly
Pingback: We’ve Stopped Spending | Frank Davis
visit sunny Greece where smoking bans are routinely ignored
Meanwhile, in Greece: the anti-health zealots are still promoting Chantix/Champix: http://www.tobaccoinduceddiseases.com/content/10/1/1/abstract