Greece and the Eurozone

The Greek Economic Crisis,The Euro zone, and the UN 精选

已有 1883 次阅读 2015-7-9 04:33 |个人分类:生活点滴|系统分类:海外观察    推荐到群组

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The current problem facing Greece and the Eurozone has been dominating the news lately.  The reports people sees in newspaper and broadcasts make the problem overly complex,  difficult to understand and resolve. As a citizen of the US, this is my own simplified view:

1.      In the 50 United States of America, we have rich states, such as California, New York,  and Massachusetts  and poor states such as Kentucky and North Dakota.  The rich states pay far more in federal taxes to the federal government than the poor states.  The government takes the tax money and redistributes it for the good of the whole country.  The poor states receive much more of this revenue back than they contribute.   Most people are not even aware of such re-distribution and certainly would agree that this all  for the greater good even if brought to their attention since we are all part of one country operating under a central government.

2.      The Eurozone can be viewed as an incomplete step toward a “United States of Europe”. The rich state  is Germany and the poor state is Greece. But because of language, history, and customs,  redistribution of benefits are far from automatic. Yes, Greece as part of the Eurozone,certainly deserves of economic help (disguised as loans rather than direct redistribution). At the same time, as part of a union Greece  must obey/conformto certain common rules of economic behavior imposed on every member states.Greece cannot irresponsibly spend Euros and expect other member nation to subsidize her endlessly  and behave as a totally sovereign country. There in lies the problem.  If there were a true United States of Europe and a strong central European government (as in the case of USA), there won’t be a crisis.

3.      As the world globalizes, unification is an irresistible trend. United Nations is an organizational attempt  after WWII. However, it is often accused to be a weak organization that can do little  to resolve  conflicts and wars. However, to some extent we have learned from the failed attempt of the League of Nations after WWI. You can say that the United Nation was deliberately designed to be weak because we realized  that we are not ready for world unification.  On the other hand, we can also say that the economic  unification of the Eurozone was an ill-fated attempt without thinking through all the ramifications of rich-poor countries united under one EURO.

4.      Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. But I certainly will  not live to see it.

 

本文引用地址：http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-904182.html  此文来自科学网何毓琦博客，转载请注明出处。
上一篇：What a week for the US – Democracy at her best
 

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发表评论 评论 (15 个评论)

[15]李胜文  2015-7-10 16:56

#4 is impossible as documented in Bible due to human sinful nature. "#4 - Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. But I certainly will  not live to see it. "

[14]洪建辉  2015-7-10 09:49

The idea of an united global nation is so remote that it resembles the prediction of the death of the universe due to homogenization of everything in the universe.  We are not going to see it in our life time, for sure.

[13]ahmen  2015-7-10 08:47

In a democracy, people vote for their own interest: high pensions, big defense spending, all kinds of welfare. Nobody cares about who pays for these as long as that group of voters get what they want. In the end, even rich states become poor, like the state of Illinois. where the strange industry of making petro out of corn failed to keep the state afloat.

Nobody can resist using someone else's money legally, for free, never think of paying back. But pay back they must, ulnless you got a navy like that of Uncle Sam.

[12]洪建辉  2015-7-10 07:03

North Dakota is no poor state.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota_oil_boom

[11]张能立  2015-7-10 03:41

Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. But I certainly will  not live to see it.
----------- certainly

[10]qzw  2015-7-10 03:29

中国和希腊对全球经济稳定性的贡献如何比较？

[9]Yoly  2015-7-10 01:25

Your explain makes it very easy to understand. I am a nobody in China and yes, I fully understand . Thank you.

博主回复(2015-7-10 04:35)：Glad to be of service.

[8]范杰  2015-7-9 19:16

虽然我相信某一天，one world, one government, and one/three language会到来。但是我也相信中国的古语，“分久必合，合久必分”。在一个强大的帝国之后，一样会分裂出多个小帝国。看看中国的历史就很有意思，虽然这个周期正在被拉长。

[7]杨顺楷  2015-7-9 19:00

博主提到的较穷的两个州，即肯塔基和塔科他州（南和北）度是很有意思的，前者历史上除了数位总统，后者在美国军事方面意义重大，该周内的高速公路上在战时可以直接起降军用飞机；上世纪60-70年代美国普强制药公司开发大豆甾醇（豆甾醇和谷甾醇时）作为甾体激素半合成原料时，将大量的废弃原料堆放在南塔科他州土地上，造成大片土地污染。

[6]朱传卫  2015-7-9 18:38

Your comparison between the 50 states of the US and the Euro Union members is really interesting. The complete unification of the Erope needs time in considerration of their diversiies in tradition, language, historical disputes etc. I have drawn a world without gavernments and nations, and people can travel around the world without any restrictions.

[5]袁学波  2015-7-9 17:39

"Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. "   Why?

[4]徐旭东  2015-7-9 16:42

请看林中祥教授的博文"全球统一是人类的唯一选择",异曲同工.
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=279177&do=blog&id=902724

[3]许培扬  2015-7-9 16:38

百度先生翻译：
当前希腊和欧元区面临的问题一直在控制着这一消息。报纸和广播中的报道使问题过于复杂，难以理解和解决。作为美国公民，这是我自己的观点：



1。在美国的50个美国，我们有富裕的国家，如加利福尼亚，纽约，和马萨诸塞州和贫穷的州，如肯塔基和北的。富裕州政府要支付更多的联邦税，而不是联邦政府。政府以纳税人的钱并重新分配了国家的整体利益。贫穷国家的收入比他们的贡献要大得多。大多数人都不会知道这种重新分布，一定会同意，这一切为了更大的利益即使把他们的注意力，因为我们都是一国中央政府下工作的一部分。



2。欧元区可以被视为一个“欧洲”的不完整的一步。富裕国家是德国，贫穷国家是希腊。但由于语言、历史和风俗习惯，利益再分配是远远没有自动的。是的，希腊作为欧元区的一部分，当然值得经济援助（变相贷款，而不是直接重新分配）。在同一时间，作为希腊工会必须遵守/符合某些共同规则的经济行为强加给希腊的每一个成员国。不能不负责任地花欧元，希望其他成员国补贴她无休止地表现为一个完全主权国家。有问题在于。如果有一个真正的美国，欧洲和欧洲的强大的中央政府（如在美国的情况下），不会有危机。



3。随着世界全球化，一体化是大势所趋。联合国是二战后的组织尝试。然而，它经常被指责是一个组织，可以做一些小的解决冲突和战争。然而，在某种程度上，我们已经学会了从国际联盟的尝试失败后，第一次世界大战。你可以说，联合国是故意设计的，因为我们意识到，我们并没有准备好世界统一。另一方面，我们也可以说，欧元区的经济一体化是一个命运多舛的尝试没有通过贫富国家团结在一欧元的后果的思考。



4。总有一天，我们的世界将出现在一个政府和一个语言。但我一定不会活着看到它。

博主回复(2015-7-10 04:41)：It is obvious that automatic translation leaves much to be desired. This is not a very good translation.w

[2]陆绮  2015-7-9 07:24

Across the United States are immigrants. But across Europe have their own diverse nations and history, there are a lot of historical resentment among the European countries is more difficult to reconcile. Relatively speaking, the euro zone may also need to learn from the past experiences of China, good and bad.
Anyway, god bless the EURO.

博主回复(2015-7-9 10:01)：My point exactly.

[1]邵鹏  2015-7-9 05:32

I am not quite sure if our friends in China an fully understand the crisis. One thing i noticed is the Chinese media is not following on this issue that much as the western media is so closely. I agree, the difficulties Eurozone is facing is really complex due to the loose organization. On the other hand, people are really confused by what the Greek government is thinking about.

博主回复(2015-7-9 06:45)：This article is my attempt to make clear and simple  the basic issue involved from my perspective.